Turned 24 a week ago. The usual pre-birthday nostalgia became a sort of pre-birthday nerve and irritation, rendering me now in a post-holiday gloom Monday state of reflection. The same old rituals again: looking at old pictures, of my parents when they were young and on holiday, my grandparents. Checking my sun sign again, the exact hour of my birth. Definitely a Sagittarius. Which makes sense, Iâve been wearing this ring with my motherâs sign for almost ten years. I started doubting whether it was Capricorn in the end, but it is definitely not. Questioning Capricorns forever - looked up my boyfriendâs ascendant, a Leo - all makes sense. Contemplation. No fixed job yet, the desire to acquire a place of my own, finally get a driving license. Close connections and the stability of freedom. Trying to tie all those loose ends together of projects I have taken up, telling myself to learn how to say no in the future yet realizing it is what keeps me busy, what engages me. Listening to Placebo again, a classic, coming to terms with the fact that they will always carry this intensity that I myself, will be characterized with until the end. A link: reaching the ten years - a decade. 2009-2019. Of stumbling onto online fora, the rest is history. Of all those scraps that make me who I am today, as a cultural being, as someone who didnât even know what university was until ten years ago, let alone pursuing an academic career. At the wedding of one of my friends, another friend told me your ascendant becomes more important, which in my case means becoming more and more like my mother. This fire underneath my skin that I sometimes think should dim a little, yet I donât want to. I finished Chris Krausâ Social Practices (2018) finally on this beach holiday, the author I wrote a thesis on and who as a figure, will always be someone I hold close to my heart. (Although being introduced to her in June did nothing for me, to be honest) On page 137 I see the name of my short-lived yet all consuming Berlin infatuation appearing. A page on his artistic practice. On negative value. Far behind me, fully aware of the connection between both yet surprised, this fills with me a sort of energy. My lover is laying next to me, in the golden sand, yet I like those scraps, it doesnât overlap with the love that I feel towards him. Or maybe it does, but not in that way. An inherent nostalgia that I like to carry with me, forget about from that to time but eventually want to polish up from time to time. The attraction of Walter Benjaminâs figure of the rag picker for me. Or maybe my misinterpretation of it. The historical leftover of my own emotional disorientation. The need for sharing these moments, yet realizing that I should leave the lid on this, not opening up. Like these scraps, that make no sense, and I want to leave unedited.Â
blakekathryn
origamiaround
