A Middle Voice

"We only understand the absence or the death of a friend in the moment in which we expect a response from him and feel [éprouver] that there will no longer be one. At first we avoid asking the question in order not to have to perceive this silence and we turn away from regions of our life where we could encounter this nothingness, but this is to say that we discern them." - Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception I often wish I could call someone who has died. To ask them to stop being dead. We miss you, come back.  I know there is no one answering the phone, and another person telling me on that phone that the person I wanted to reach is not there anymore would hurt me even more. So I abstain from calling. Seeing their grave still seems somewhat absurd. To some I have got used to already. I know the person is not around anymore, but nothing has really changed, the person could still be there.  But their faces fade away. I try to keep them in my memories, but I slowly lose

We drove with the ashes along the sea shore Storks were sitting on the rocks. There was the whole ready at the graveyard, So deep my knees got dirty, When I put the box down there. Three handfuls of earth on top of it. Bye. Then we shoveled the rest of it.  I love you. We drove without the ashes along the sea shore Storks were sitting on the rocks.

For no one and interesting for no one. Still, the voice inside of me starting a dialogue over and over again. What happened the last summer. It was only a couple of weeks, but still those weeks come back haunting me, and I cannot get rid of the shadows of the sun of the little town in Italy. I feel ashamed, and I feel sorry. But sorry for whom and for what? Did I do something? Everytime I engage in a deeper dialogue with the voice inside of me, we cannot find anything I actually should be sorry for. For hoping to find a friend in a person who was so nice to me (but then the voice in me says that he might have been nice, because, as he said about another dude who was nice to me, I was "a pretty girl")? The only thing I can be sorry for - and this feels bad, because I hate myself for this - is that I agreed to kiss him when we were drunk of the marvelous local sparkling wine the last week. It's like my mom who married the wrong person just because she felt so lonely. An

A good question. I've been thinking a lot about it. After some time of pondering, the reason seems obvious. I had to find a way to handle all what happened within a small time frame in a small town in Italy last summer. When you look at it, on the surface, there was nothing much. Some lectures from the keynotes, some seminar sessions, breakfasts, dinners, lunch brakes and napping in our rooms in between. However, between the lectures and seminar discussions there were many moments where you could get to know the other participants and find out that you are an outsider. For getting rid of the feeling of being excluded there were even more moments for doing things that would help. And that is what happened. It was nothing much. Loneliness, anxiety, trying to forget, happiness for small things and irritation for all the meaninglessness regarding many factors in the event (I am still irritated about the whole concept: having a U.S. collegium in Italy just because Italy and Europe