Why ARNO SCHMIDT? Now. When I think about what happened there. The wind. There was no wind. But words in the air. Like the story of three refugees and their tender try to settle somewhere in the woods. Far away from homecoming.
But the faraway seems nearby thinking of PARETZ and REBECCA SOLNITs whispering: “We think we tell stories, but often stories tell us, tell us who to love and who to hate, whether to see or be blind. Often, too often, stories bridle us, ride us, whip us forward, drive us to do something we then do unquestioningly. The task of learning freedom requires learning to listen to stories, to interrogate them, to pause and listen to silence, to name something and become a storyteller ourselves.“
Remembering PARETZ I start with a moment before dawn. Walking along the HAVEL, not really seeing, but feeling the channel beside me. My whispering, than stuttering, than shouting – your name. And then just listening the many voices through which nature happens to answer me. Paretz, do you see me from where I see you? In this camplike gathering. In these roundabouts of growing and becoming small.
My team mates and the participants from all over the world. Don’t care about nations and borders. A ship is passing. Suddenly. A huge vessel that is crossing the entire screen of my eyes. Like in a movie. I watch it passing. See the silence. Feel the colours. Hear the smell of the channel. And touch the birds formations over my head.
We are like these vessels, so welded in difference and so secretly connected. We are communicating. But why? And how? What holds us together? We are connected through story. Secretly spelling the threads of story. Holding this place to gather.
Nature awakes. I unlock the doors of the camp. Like every day. I am the keyholder, the temporary house keeper of this place, where so many magic things are allowed to happen. All the time.
„For a while the pointed Hippocratic face of the moon leaned diagonally up there, in stained linen cloths, so that we first wavered, shuddered: strange: such pale light and wind: and to be human at the same time!“
Yes, indeed. I am a blessed. Human. Being. Because of you.
This camp was built inside of us. A vibrant sculpture of belonging.
Who knows what will become of us?
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Quotes:
1) Rebecca Solnit: The Faraway Nearby
2) Arno Schmidt. Brand’s Haide. Krumau oder willst du mich noch einmal sehen
