It is a standard behavior between two pen pals. I’m writing to you as the clock ticks 00:01. It’s officially June now.
And let’s say, if I wanted to make an experimental film, volume 2, after City as Self Portrait, I would have liked to make one about the month of May. So much can happen within the space of one month. Why this month exactly, or what would I call this experimental film? Let me see. I honestly don’t know. Anything goes. This experimental film would have been a sort of travelogue, I suppose, or a mix of memoir, travelogue, meta film…. No, no. I would have filmed myself sitting on that crooked tree in the playground next to my apartment, reading my own letters, especially the one I wrote to myself on my birthday, or perhaps all the letters I wrote to myself in May. Then from there, suddenly we are in Ibiza. Not the Ibiza that people know, but the Ibiza I know, the one I went to on a solo trip for my birthday. And I will show you my version of it. And then from there we melt into the thirty-two movies that I watched throughout this month. Ughh, this is bad. Well, let me begin my letter again.
My dear pen pal,
When we met each other, you had just turned eighteen. You found me on a Greek beach by the fire. It was somewhat post-COVID, and we were all so excited to see human beings again. More people joined and the circle began growing by the sea around the bonfire. You and I talked about Lacan, our first LSD trip, and the mirror stage. And I remember you telling me the story of this small seabird or was it a pigeon that you were holding in your hand on your first trip. I still have that image in my mind: your hand holding a white bird, with a little bit of blood tucked under the feathers. Well, since that night when we met, you returned to Stockholm and I to Vienna, never to see each other again. But as pen-pal tradition goes, I’m sending you a long-ass letter telling you about my fictionalized character of myself. And please don’t tell anyone about this. Even though I might never share this letter with you, the purpose for me is writing it to you. And that way I can see things better. And once again, before the sharpness of my experience fades away like dreams upon awaking, I would like to tell you about a big disillusionment, about the things I want to tell you but don’t want to use words for. And I think I’m going to film myself by reading a letter to you, or maybe this very letter. And maybe I will read all the letters that were wrongly sent to Neustift am Walde and no one received them. As a matter of fact, I have collected one of them. I intended to return it, but the address was wrong. And I think a lot of letters come here, to the edge of the world, where all lines of communication end here, right here. I don’t know what I’m talking about, but have you ever had this feeling that your emotions are pouring out of you, and you are in a profound despair and pain, but you are aware that your emotions are filled with something hefty and substantial … and I don’t know how to say it and you want to talk to someone about them? Probably someone you will never see. And you want to tell them everything without struggling with words to describe or justify it. I’m just trying to say I’m going through some feelings and changes, and I feel so uncomfortable being in my own skin.
Do you ever feel this way, my friend?
How is Stockholm? Do you study psychology?
What would have happened if we had met each other again, or if we had swapped numbers? Oh no—this already reminds me of Before Sunrise. We’ve already exchanged Instagrams. It’s stupid, isn’t it? In the old days, people did their best to put their hearts into an envelope and send them across the oceans to their loved ones or to their friends, telling them things that mattered, even if the communication took months.
And now, aren’t we ever more disconnected in the pace of our connections?