Hello,
words come and words go. Feelings stay. They can be fed with love and affection, they can be kicked and left hungry for years, but they will always be true.
When I was with you, I could feel, because you were true to yourself. You were so true, I hadn’t have to pretend. I could just be as I was without it needing to fit a certain form(at). It was the most beautiful experience I had ever encountered in my life. It’s simplicity and implicitness made waves of emotions possible that allowed my ocean of imprisoned tears to start flowing. The strength you gave me, I could even start to feel was actually within myself all along. Without a need for sarcasm, shame or judgement I could accept my own way of being and yours. You are beautiful. You are beautiful. You are so incredibly beautiful! And I know more and more that it doesn’t matter if I tell it to myself or to you. In fact I am talking to both of us right now, and so are you when you’re reading this text.
I want our world to be a place where everyone can have the opportunity to experience a surrounding as supportive as the one you have created. And I want to work towards such a world where we help one another and our selves. I want to be at home like I was at home at Sister’s Academy. I want to be at home like that wherever I am. And by being so, I want to try to make the place I am in a home for the people around me as well. I know this deepest wish within myself.
And I am getting to know the ocean of tears between the shore I’m standing on and those depths that the other Islands that I am sensing are rooted in. I could sense back in Malmö more than ever how I can dive into those oceans and simply by doing so, show my love for our shared depths, my love for each one of you and by doing so for myself. I could feel it so clearly. And I never had to hide it.
Then, I got so scared again when I had to leave… The world swallowed me and I was scared I would lose my memories of you. How would I be able to live up to what we had built? But I had touched the ocean, breathed it’s air and kissed its surface. And the hope of returning remained with me and never let go of me. So every passing day a part of me sensed your loving gaze upon myself, right behind the next corner, or even in my dreams. Often times I would dream of you, see different places that I would refer to as Sister’s Academy, sometimes entire worlds with forests, rocky shorelines and sandy beaches, sometimes halls in which hundreds of students gathered to listen to classes by teachers. I would meet you again in different faces, sometimes even in the ones I had met in Sister’s Academy. Once Peanuts hugged me in a dream and when I woke up I felt so loved that I still have to cry thinking about it and how scared I was of her way of being so direct and bold at the Academy. I dreamed of classes in which I learned to fly and of classes in which all the teachers were getting their teeth brushed with floss by small schoolkids while they were hidden under moving boxes. And while moving through my life, moving from one place to another, indeed, I was polished by the people in my life, and I still am being polished.
Some days I fall, I feel so desperate and powerless and start seeing myself from so many eyes, I start judging myself. And I don’t know how to handle those judgments so I think of it as outside, far away. Yet that makes me hurt even more and I feel ashamed for doing it. Because I know the beauty that the people are who I am judging, and I know the beauty that lies within myself that I am criticising. But sometimes I still can’t help it. In those times I feel lost and afraid and like my suffering will never end. I think of all kinds of mean things that I tell myself and make myself so sad that I don’t dare look at myself or the world. I get so scared that I don’t dare living and hide my face and pain behind walls of thoughts, no matter how mean they are and behind real, stone walls. I know how silly it is, but still it tends to comfort me a little that now I am in a place where I can face myself. And then I can try to. I usually write, or draw, as I also did when I was with you, my loved ones. And sometimes it takes me down to the ocean, or maybe just lets me smell the soft breeze. Even a glimpse of the ocean means so much to me that I can face a thousand years more of any kind of misery that my mind could come up with, any attempt of separation, any disrespect towards myself that I have internalized so much that I sometimes forget that all it wants is also just to be loved and I doubt it and treat it like an ugly child.
Thank you, (W)hole, for sharing this with me. It meant so much to me that my mind started projecting noble qualities on you. Thank you for understanding and for caring, and for doing all you could to support my growth. For avoiding these projections without judging me for making them.
And thank you, Untamed, for making me feel like a human being when I felt like a monster of sorts, and for allowing me to shine even through the darkest moments, for calming me, soothing my pain and not turning away, for coming back for me even when I had run away myself. I will never forget that and will always be thankful for your love. I know you know. I promise that the love and time you gave me will flourish. I give this promise to myself as well, but I also feel that I ”owe” it to you because in a time when I couldn’t love myself, you were there to do it for me.
And I am gaining the courage to love others as I am and as they are, to accept their ”flaws” and my own to realize that there was never a flaw to start with. And each time I can give this love I am reminded of those beautiful moments I spent at the Academy and I am determined more and more to be brave and share this love with all of my senses and with the people I meet.
The future still holds some secrets to be unvailed, and ”the creature” in me is still a little scary sometimes, but I have started to send my love to it.
I also thank A Mode for being a strange, beautiful alien that combined two so incredibly different sides. I loved the calmness and appreciation you showed to every article in the archive and everyone who visited you, no matter where they came from.
You remind me of the fact that whatever I say about the Sisters’ Academy, whatever thank you goes out individually actually belongs to each one of us, including all teachers and students.
Still I want to send out a little bit more individually…
I thank the Chainhand Pianist for opening my senses towards the variety of experiences, the common ground we come from and those pearls of sin that we hide away so often although they are so clearly what unites us. Thank you also SO much for the confidence you had in me and in surrealism.
Thank you, Shape-Shifter and Air for stepping up to me and smiling at my fear even when I couldn’t.
Thank you, Mr Rice and Peanuts for being so freaking cool and smart and for helping me find ways to get myself back on the ground again when it seemed like I would never land or be able to accept my way of standing on this planet.
Thank you, Wonderer for giving me an idea of how wonder-full the world could be and how easy it could be for me to see it.
Thank you Soundseeker, Nurse and Mechanic for being open, loving and helpful even when I couldn’t open up to you as I would have liked to.
Thank you Lucia Farul for being beautiful, soft, a little edgy and avant-garde like crazy.
Thank you, Students, for taking your space and exploring us and allowing me to take mine.
And of course, thank you, Sister, for bringing these amazing and beautiful people together, believing in the vision of a sensuous society and making this powerful contribution to who we are.
Thank you everyone.
I hope that we will meet again soon.
Love to all of you.
Yakub (the poet, the creature, the insane, the dreamer, the shy one, the mentor and the art critic)
