Yesterday, at Fabbrica del Vapore, I performed a sonic situation involving flour.
I love flour as an element.
Soft.
Fluffy.
Crackling beneath the fingers.
My grandmother used to sing a lot while she cooked.
Especially while kneading bread.
That was her ritual.
In this sonic situation, I tried to remember her and my grandmother was there.
In the air.
In the flour dust.
She was singing with me.
To me.
To the audience.
To the flour.
This morning, around 7, I got into an Uber and headed towards the airport.
I don’t know why, but my intergalactic husband, entered my thoughts during the ride. Some people enter and leave my thoughts whenever they want. Without my will. Without my permission.
Apparently.
I thought I might meet him at the gate. I was flying from Milan to Athens.
Dakis Joannou’s party at DESTE Foundation.
Then Hydra. The sum of all these things produced an association.
I am a realistic person. I believe in miracles.
My intergalactic husband really was at the gate. The boarding line was long. As I approached it, I saw him scrolling on his phone, with his glasses. I remember those glasses from the first Hydra. If anything suits his nose that well, it is those glasses.
Extremely sophisticated. Almost transparent. I walked past him. He looked at me. Immediately afterwards, he lowered his head towards his phone. As if he had not perceived me. As if he had thought I was a fatamorgana.
Yet it was me. Not a fatamorgana. And it was him. Not his alter ego.
I stood in line. In front of me was a woman with a child. They were carrying a large bag full of toys. Everything was calm. Regular. Airport-regular. And then my intergalactic husband turned towards the woman. Looked at her. Looked at me and asked:
Do you know Julija?
The woman turned around. She looked at me strangely and said:
No.
I didn’t know that woman either. I only knew my intergalactic husband and his blink. The one I feel along the air-line between us. The line that exists every time we meet.
A quantum field.
A quantum mind.
A quantum heart.
Then, quite suddenly, he began taking toys out of the woman’s bag.
Woman.
Child.
Bag.
Toys.
They stood between us like some kind of banner. My intergalactic husband, it seems, always needs a banner. Some kind of buffer. Something in between. Never direct contact. Always something, or someone.
And as he pulled the toys out of the bag, the situation became increasingly sweet. We all started smiling. The child most of all.
He had finally received the toy his mother had carefully packed for the journey. He had been waiting impatiently for it to come out. My intergalactic husband took it out for him. Without his mother’s permission. And in doing so, made the child happy.
It was a small incident of happiness. Nothing major. Just a toy from a bag. But the body knows the difference between waiting and surprise.
I felt a change in my own body. Biochemistry. I don’t know what was happening in his.
I cannot know. I can only observe. His behaviour. His position. His hands. The way he turns. The way he moves away again. The cardiovascular system may speed up. It may slow down. Maybe I am simply watching and producing a story. That is also a possibility.
Quantum physics leaves enough room for our bad literary habits.
While waiting for the gate to open, he was standing sideways. I could see half of his body and his hands. His hands were typing and scrolling uncontrollably on his phone.
Suddenly he said:
Fuck, I made a mistake.
What mistake had he made? That remains an unknown equation.
But we usually make mistakes when we are not concentrated, or when we are disoriented. I don’t know the cause of his mistake. But the mere fact that he said he had made one, was enough information for me.
Then my mother called me. We spoke for ten minutes before take-off. He was still standing sideways. Now already calm.
Finally, the gate opened. We slowly started moving towards the plane. But everything was still happening slowly. We looked at each other. From time to time. He put his headphones around his head.
I wondered what he was listening to. Maybe Wagner?
I asked him:
What are you listening to?
Audiobook, he said.
Then we waited some more. The dispatcher announced that people in Group 3 could begin boarding.
I said:
Three is a magic number.
He said:
Don’t believe in numbers.
I said:
I don’t believe in numbers. I believe in magic.
He went ahead of me. I was Group 4. We boarded.
My seat: C22.
His: two rows ahead of me, across the aisle.
Once again, we were positioned towards each other. Only slightly displaced. I, behind him, could see the right side of his body. A strand of hair sticking out above the seat. The untied laces of his white sneakers, which I know very well.
Crossed legs.
Small things.
Sometimes a person consists of the small things someone else has remembered.
We took off.
And while we were flying, I thought:
What if the plane crashes? Will we all survive? Or will we die together? That would be very poetic. And very tragic. A tragedy of ancient value.
The flight lasted almost two hours. We had never spent so much time together in one place in our lives.
At the same time. In the same plane. Sharing the same air.
I took out a book by Božidar Mandić. At one point I saw his head fall sideways over the seat. He had fallen asleep. From exhaustion or from old age, or from a combination of the two.
qnd just as I was taking the photograph, two little girls sitting opposite each other touched their fingertips.
It was such a tender, touching moment.
Then the flight attendants came through.
Food.
Drinks.
Small airport rituals.
Later, he walked past me on his way to the toilet. Like passing a Turkish cemetery.
We have that intergalactic connection. Intergalactic marriage.
And we do not use words.
No phone.
No messages.
No:
Where are you?
Where are the keys?
Why did dinner burn?
Only essence.
A blink.
A change in pulse.
A change in dynamics.
A change in narrative.
A change in the biochemical processes of the body.
Isn’t that poetic? Isn’t it rare?
Metaphysical gardening.
We arrived.
By the grace of God, and probably thanks to a good plane and the pilot. Some people never make it back to the ground. We did.
I was happy that we had all arrived safely. As always, everyone could not wait to unfasten their seatbelts. To get out of the plane.
Each towards their person.
Their sister.
Their brother.
Their mother.
Their uber driver.
Somewhere, someone is always waiting for someone. An Uber was waiting for me. I don’t know whom my intergalactic husband was waiting for, probably Dakis Joannou’s private driver.
In the crowd, we lost each other. Our eyes met once again in the shuttle bus that took us from the plane to the airport. Where people normally fly around like headless flies. I, however, kept my head on my shoulders. I got into my Uber.
I arrived at the hotel. A trannslucent, clean room was waiting for me, and a view of the sea.
I love Athens.
I love Greece.
My roots are here.
My grandfather.
Callas.
Sirtaki.
Tzatziki.
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Aristophanes
Menander
Aristotle
Plato
Socrates
Hesiod
Sappho
Pindar
I took a shower. Did my TM meditation. Soon afterwards, I received a message from my friend Branka Katić, whose husband also has Italian roots, film producer Julian Farino. Only they are married in this earthly dimension, not an intergalactic one.
She had landed in Athens from London. I could not wait to see her. I hadn’t seen her for several months.
When she arrived, she first delighted me with her presence, and with the sun in her smile, and then with the news that she had bought us tickets for David Byrne the following day.
Dopamine flooded my body. I adore David Byrne. He is real and special.
Then we got ready. Took an Uber and went to Dakis’s DESTE Foundation.
There was an exhibition called Generation X.
There was a party on the rooftop. Dakis always throws the best parties. He brings together a diverse layer of people. There I met many familiar and unfamiliar faces.
Beautiful legs.
Dresses.
Bodies.
Voices.
And then I saw my intergalactic husband again, randomly.
We looked at each other, again, we communicated on a biochemical level. That is the value of our marriage. We are very economical.
No words.
No touch.
Only essence.
Metaphysics.
Until metaphysics turns into physics, that happened at the same world’s table. We both reached for the same dish – roasted potatoes, almost at exactly the same moment, our hands came close. I looked at him and said:
Excuse me, did we meet at the airport today, or was that a fatamorgana?
He said:
It was a dream.
He made me laugh. It was a very poetic answer on his part, which is rare. He is generally restrained. Elegant in his coldness, like Parian marble.
But this time: a dream.
Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was the flight. Maybe it was just one plane that, quite by accident, brought us from Milan to Athens.
And then I met Maja Đorđević. Amanda Palmer. Javas Lehn. Dakis. Josh. Jake. Joe Kennedy. Dimitris. Noah Becker etc.
And finally my dear friend Victoria Gelfand-Magalhaes, with whom I stayed dancing until the end of the evening.
And the night continued to expand. As if nothing unusual had happened. Which is perhaps the most unusual part of all.