Koen's intimacy

I met Koen at the entrance of the zoo today. At the beginning of the month we had a nice talk after the Amsterdam premiere of Keren's Prize Piece. I felt very good then, grateful, receptive, vulnerable in an open, available way. Koen came up to me after the performance in the bar and we talked about Raimund Hoghe, about the process with Keren, about many things. There were things to talk about. Conversation happened to us. I was happy he came to talk to me then. And we agreed to do an intimate walk on one of his days off.

Koen reminded me of Swiss chansonnier Michael von der Heide today. He had a cold. His voice sounded a bit hoarse. I find him endearing and good-looking. He has this sweet, sad boy look sometimes that I love. We passed some zebras. We didn't talk about intimacy at all. Koen is intimacy embodied. He is very sweet and tender. I hope he will be at the next annual meeting in Oporto. I was determined not to channel or manipulate the conversation in any direction whatsoever. It was an intimate walk merely by the fact that we had agreed to meet and go for an intimate walk. We didn't mention the word intimacy as far as I remember. This is what I found out about Koen: He likes Art Deco. He would like to live in Berlin if it wasn't for his boyfriend who lives in Antwerp. He was impressed by the Japanese architecture in Almere. They performed Keren's piece there and the theater and a lot of houses were built in this Japanese style he liked a lot. He has read two books by this quite popular Japanese author who is on a lot of bestseller lists. At least I think it is him. It's an easy read and quite light hearted. He recommends the film Hairspray with John Travolta. He likes light, uplifting books and films lately. This surprised me because I always saw Koen as someone with a tendency towards the melancholic, dark side. But he can have something frivolous too I guess. He talked to me sometimes with a kind of intimacy I didn't know we had established, a kind of confidential old-friend-you-can-talk-and gossip-about-everything intimacy. We stood in the sun in front of the new public library. He asked me how much the library pass was and I didn't remember. We talked about money more than I was comfortable I think. He talked about the Dutch-Flemish culture gap, about little things that annoy him about the Dutch.
He said that he felt very connected to his family at a recent funeral of his uncle. He isn't really looking forward to spending X-mas with his family. But the funeral bonding he appreciated. He likes to cook and when he is in Antwerp he likes to stay at home a lot. His boyfriend Dan likes to go out though. He ordered a toasti and tomato soup at the Star Bikes cafe. Later he met Annette (she was the dramaturge in his last duet) at the Central Station. They wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum. There was an exhibition about Barcelona art. He invited me to join them. But I really liked the music at the cafe. It was lounge/house music. Quite unusual for the cafe. But it was perfect for my mood which was a bit melancholic. I wasn't completely satisfied with the reading on my intimacy thermometer.
Koen insisted on treating me to my Power Chai. I protested weakly and then let him. I didn't have any cash on me anyway. Koen left and I stayed. Maybe I had hoped to spend more time with him, I think I wanted to share more with him about my personal turbulences of the moment. Instead I had stayed rather placid. Had I at least succeeded in being a facilitator? I wonder if he felt intimately connected. Or if he too felt that our encounter had stayed on a superficial level.
If intimacy is about sharing maybe he was satisfied about his part of the sharing. He had shared quite freely. I think he felt comfortable with me. And I have reason to be happy if that's the case.
So what was the cause of my slight disappointment? I think it's the fact that I tend to stay too much in control: I am so nice, pleasant, accommodating sometimes that in the end I realize that I wasn't really voicing any clear opinion, offering any resistance, counterpoint, friction. Everything had run smoothly. It had been a pleasant, uneventful meeting. And they lived happily ever after.

reflections on the research

I am collecting people on this blog, collecting and archiving experiences with people.
Each person is a tool to help me understand better what I am doing.
I am not an academic researcher like Jan. But I am like Jan trying to accommodate intimacy, trying to create conditions for it to flourish. I am facilitating intimacy.

I am doing this because in my family we never talked much about feelings, sexuality, intimate stuff.
I am doing this because I want to overcome shyness. I want to show more emotions in public. I want to share more about myself, show more of myself.
I also want to be an empty vessel to receive others, to give the space to others to express themselves and talk about intimate, subtle things that move them.

I wonder if I really need to set clear parameters. Do people need to know that they are on an intimate walk with me? How much shall I influence the course of the conversation?
Do I need to bring the conversation back to intimacy when it digresses too much?

Intimacy can be so vast and vague. Still birth is on the contrary very specific.
Do I need to have a stronger backbone, put my foot down and be more manipulative to get what I want out of this research?

For the last two weeks I have been very lazy, burned out, depressed. The rehearsal process with Katy for our duet "enter my bubble" was very difficult. Towards the end we got on each others' nerves. We were moody, judgmental, defensive. We pitied ourselves and didn't want to bear the pressure and responsibility that come with such a big production by its very nature.
So I was hiding out in Roberta's studio, didn't go to class, experienced angst, loneliness and a general sense of guilt and blame.

I watched Billy Elliott on DVD and cried throughout the film. I was super proud. Finally I was able to release my tears. My psychologist says that was because the film reflects the needs and longings I experience in my own family situation. I have a deep, unsatisfied need to be respected, loved and supported by my father - to have a meaningful relationship with my father. Maybe my therapist is right. He says that crying always expresses a need, a strong desire or longing.
In Freudian terms (which he thinks are outdated) crying is the release of too much pent-up emotion. Since last summer I had three major crying events. The first one was with my mother. It was triggered by a sense of helplessness and losing control and frustration. The second one was after Rodrigo's intimate walk while watching his video. The third one was with Billy Elliott. So these were moments when I felt very intimate with myself. I was able to express strong needs/desires and in the process experience change.

The other day I was walking with Aitana in Vondelpark. It was cold and sunny and I told her about my coming-out-of-depression adventure with this boy I ended up going home with after de Truut. I am very glad to have Aitana in my life because she confronts me with my patterns and my weaknesses. And she challenges me to explore more options, to follow my desire and to be more playful. I didn't want to kiss this boy because I was worrying about a funny taste in my mouth. Aitana could relate to that because she also worries about funny tastes in her mouth. She said that kissing for her is one of the most intimate acts in sex. That walk with Aitana was an intimate walk as well even though we didn't frame it as such. I remember I felt a great support and respect from Aitana. I feel she allows and even encourages me to change and become more of myself while totally respecting where I am and who I am.

recent intimacy with Jan on top of loud music

To come out of my winter depression I have started to go out more.

Yesterday I met Jan from Leuven who does research on still births (when a baby is born dead). He studied history before and now is doing his PHD on the phenomenon of still birth. He places ads all over Belgium and then goes to people's homes who volunteer to talk about their experience. He interviews people. He is a good listener. But that evening at the Badhuis party he was talking a lot and I was listening mainly. Looking back I think it's quite special that he told me so much about still birth in this very loud party environment. I was genuinely interested in his research topic. Plus I found him very intelligent and quite attractive. I was feeling pretty good about myself yesterday - outgoing, slightly intoxicated, accommodating.

He has found that the most efficient way of interviewing people is not asking too many questions but just letting them talk. He tells them at the beginning that everything they are willing to share is of interest to him and that they cannot do anything wrong.

I found some similarities between his research on still births and my research on intimacy. Both raise the question of emotions in public. Fifty years ago parents dealt very differently with still births than nowadays. Then it was all about letting go and moving on. A still birth was met with silence. Doctors, midwives and other professionals assisting with the still birth dealt with the situation in a professional, detached way. Today intimacy, the sharing and voicing of emotions are stressed. Fathers are encouraged to hold the dead body close to their own body - a moment of bonding - fathers have yet to become fathers. Skinship. Skin-to-skin intimacy.

I was under the impression and under the influence. Jan had Flemish charm. Later we danced. For an academic he is a very good mover. I liked his structured and well reflected way of communicating with a subtle sense of humor. He has something very grounded and sincere. And I could tell that he loves what he does. He has a passion for it and is reliable and dedicated. Yes, I confess I was checking him out. I allowed myself to sense some underlying sexual tension.

Actually Lea was the reason we met. She likes to play matchmaker and is interested in opening up my vision for potential intimates. Thank you Lea. I enjoyed meeting Jan.
Too bad he is moving back to Leuven in one week where he will finish his research and Phd by September 2009. We left Badhuis together cycling towards Central Station. He lives very central in a small room in the red-light district. We stopped in front of his place for a while talking. I thought about the possibility of physical intimacy with him. I felt we were both too modest and nice. Yes I think he is a genuinely nice person. And I was afraid of involving him in my messed-up and complicated sex life. He gave me his Belgian number and talked about Stuk in Leuven and that I should apply for a residency there. We gave a good-night kiss. I said wel te rusten. And he said slaap wel in Flemish.

reflections on the research

I apologize for neglecting and postponing reports of intimate walks in the near and distant past. Sometimes I don’t find the time to immediately sit down after an intimate walk and report on the intimacy experienced. There are still some walks back in France that haven’t been reported yet. I feel guilty for having put these blog entries off for such a long time. For sure I don’t remember a lot of intimate details about these walks back in September. It’s a shame and a pity! And I find it a lack of respect for the people involved.
I realize that in most blog entries I have given a lot of attention to detail. They almost seem like chronological and psychological descriptions of a specific experience from A to Z. I am aware that I write very much from a subjective point of view. Therefore I always thought that by writing about my experience and my impressions I expose above all my own intimacy – and not so much the intimacy of the other. I think I’m quite ok with that.
But now I have started to question the value of my format. Why do I try to recount so meticulously the succession of events in each walk? Is the sense of duty to give a detailed and accurate report overshadowing the real search for intimacy?
I still believe that this project is about negotiating and finding intimacy. And this is different with each person. With some people I find more of an emotional connection, others stimulate me intellectually, and still others touch me by the shyness they provoke in me or by their own shyness. Yes I think intimacy has a lot to do with shyness for me. Is it ultimately about overcoming shyness? Could be.

I feel I need to change the way I write about these walks. Sometimes it is not even during the walk itself that intimacy happens, but in the café after the walk or the day after while watching a video. I think I want to focus more on the essence of what intimacy can be with each person. Otherwise it is mere memory work or I lose myself in the psychological analysis.

intimate walk with Roger

We took the ferry to Amsterdam North. I wanted to show him the cute, little Dutch houses on the Nieuwendijk and the other dijk-villages facing the Ijsselmeer. I was in a very good mood despite the greyness of the day. I found myself bubbly and entertaining. Roger seemed to be feeling pleasant as well. He told me he had gotten drunk the night before at Melkorka’s birthday party and needed to pee a lot. He had peed in a bottle earlier that morning since he didn’t want to go down to Ria’s flat. He lives in her attic. Sometimes he also goes out on the roof and pees there. But that morning he filled up the whole bottle with his pee.
Now thinking back, I wonder if all this entertaining, light-hearted energy was really genuine for both of us, or if it was partly forced. There is also a shyness and fragility between us which I don’t think I’m completely comfortable with. My guess is that my jovial, fun mood was an attempt at covering up this vulnerable state underneath.
Eventually the atmosphere turned more existential. He told me about some complex theories by Kristeva they have to read for Elisabeth’s philosophy class. He was wondering a lot about the meaning of words. In fact he seemed to distrust words. He remembered Aparna and how she often talked about the loss of meaning. What if the ground under our feet was just a concept? And what if we stopped believing in that concept? Would we fall through the floor? I think he misses Aparna a lot. They were very close. I miss her too. I still remember the day when Roger and Aparna both stopped talking for 24 hours. There was a time when I also distrusted words very much and even hated them. But lately I have regained trust in words. They allow me to get to know someone and to reveal myself to someone. I don’t question words so much anymore. I take them at face value. Of course they are confusing and there will always be misunderstandings. But actually that day with Roger I was more into sensory experience. It was very windy. I liked that despite the cold. Roger was wearing two hoods, a red one of his sweater and a blue-grey one of his windbreaker. It made me think of his poem about a hoody he recited in Noha’s second year piece. This poem really touched me because I knew the hoody it was talking about was Rodrigo’s hoody and they were in an intimate relationship.
Roger told me about a time when he was about 17 and lived in a caravan while picking fruit in Great Britain. He planned to go traveling with a friend, but somehow ended up alone and stayed in England for almost half a year picking apples and later working in a factory. He said that part of the time he lived with a Romanian guy he was falling in love with. To Roger intimacy is about sharing. He also talked about a warm feeling. We passed by an old tractor with a whole family of big teddy bears and other toy animals sitting next to and on top of the tractor. I asked Roger if he thought they shared intimacy.
He had picked up a small branch or stick and was talking about the loss of meaning and his sadness that creeps up on him unexpectedly. I called him the melancholic man in the wind. I could imagine the reason of his sadness but was too shy to ask. He also talked about laughing and crying and that he felt they are very connected. I think so too. We had done some laughing meditation sessions together before yoga class. I was very happy that he joined me for laughing. I had proposed to lead laughing meditation at 9am before yoga. Most days I ended up laughing alone. Yurie joined me during the holiday because she is working on emotions and laughing in her third year piece. Roger joined some mornings. Laughing with him felt intimate. It felt as though this laughter was washing away all the tension and shyness and vulnerable, hard feelings that had built up between us. It was cold and windy. Roger didn’t have any gloves. Only two hoodies. Sometimes the wind makes me teary-eyed. It happens a lot on my bike. I like it. We rode our bikes back to the ferry. I wanted to take him to my favorite café, Star Bikes, to drink a hot power chai. The place was empty except for the tall Dutch woman behind the counter. The cat was there too and I wanted to pet him but he didn’t like it. Maybe my hands were too cold. When Roger petted him he liked it. Roger told me about his cat at home in Barcelona. He got very excited talking about his cat and did a whole little performance for me in that café showing me how they play, fight and chase each other around the house. It made me smile and laugh. Roger had a blueberry muffin and I had a brownie. The tall Dutch woman made us two very nice power chais. I should ask her what her name is. I like her a lot. Her husband or brother came to sit in the café too and did some work on his laptop.
At one point Roger asked me out of the blue: What about love? It was tender and careful but also quite determined the way he asked. I was relieved he asked the question. So I told him honestly that I was still in love with Rodrigo - still attached, hoping, longing, wanting to let go but not able to. And he told me about his attachment too – about his conflict between head and heart. He had decided to finish this relationship but was still very much wishing and desiring. Wanting to let go but not able to. Whatever had made us fall in love with the same guy - it felt good to talk about this. I think we both had wanted to talk about it that whole afternoon, but had circled around it as though it was a taboo too delicate to be touched. It was like confessing our love, struggle and jealousy to each other and saying “Yes, I can relate to that! I know how it feels or I can imagine.” I was so absorbed and touched by this intimate talk with Roger I could feel tears coming to my eyes almost – without the cold wind. The tall Dutch woman was reading her book on the couch with her back to us. I realized that this was one of the most intimate talks in public space I had ever had. It felt slightly inappropriate and I was wondering if the tall Dutch woman and her husband were feeling uncomfortable. They could have been our parents on a lazy Sunday afternoon and the Star Bikes café our living room.

intimate walk/dinner with Rodrigo

This was going to be a difficult walk for me. I am in love with him still. Even after three months away. My feelings haven’t changed. And I am afraid when writing this to sound stupid and naïve and pathetic. But I wanted to do this walk with him even though I knew that maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

We were supposed to do yoga together like how we used to. But he had rehearsal with Emma. I did yoga alone in sunny 809. I was nervous because an intimate walk with Rodrigo was full of potential for me. Although I knew I shouldn’t have any expectations, my expectations were high. Doing yoga helped me feel more calm and relaxed. Outside it was windy and cold. It was the first day of winter.

He was waiting for me in front of school on the bench next to the canal. He looked a bit cold like he had been sitting there already for a while. He suggested we go home first to eat something to have energy for the walk. This meant we were going to go to his place, to David Zambrano’s place where he lives. I didn’t even ask if Matt and David were home, which would have been o.k. but not my idea of intimacy exactly. I just trusted him that whatever he proposed was going to be fine. I was more than willing to give up control and responsibility. Because giving up responsibility was necessary, I felt, to be available for whatever kind of intimacy might come my way.

So Rodrigo cooked for me and welcomed me into the house I had wondered so often about. This whole last spring I had lived in the same neighborhood and kept wondering what David’s house looked like, how Rodrigo was feeling there and what he was doing there.
And now suddenly the mystery was revealed to me. The house was like a little miniature museum - full of little statues and paintings, full of color and character and detail.
There were two cats quite eager to receive physical intimacy. Their purring made me feel at ease. I was ready to just be a guest and to receive all of Rodrigo’s carefully crafted attention. Rodrigo offered me a pear juice he had made himself with the same spices that go into chai tea. And it did taste like chai tea, but also very refreshing.
He served lentil soup, a rice dish with green peas and carrots and green garden beans. I was impressed by how he managed in the kitchen and how much he seemed to feel at home. We talked a bit about intimacy. And Rodrigo said that to him intimacy was about knowing somebody or something in detail, it’s about observing and spending time.
I’m not sure I got it all right. In fact, I think I spent more time observing the details of his gesture and expression than what he was actually saying about intimacy.
But it makes perfect sense to me. His idea of intimacy is what makes him such a great video artist. He is very skilled at observing. And spending time with him also sharpens my own observation. Every detail becomes intimately dear to me. Rodrigo always listens to music when he is home. I imagined having this personal DJ next to me who was playing all these songs to make me feel good and create a nice atmosphere.
I almost didn’t feel like going for a walk anymore. But this was the project and so we went. We walked along one of the canals towards Westerpark. We saw an art window with a video installation of a snowy mountain. Rodrigo said it looked like Chile. In Westerpark we walked along the water towards the field where some older Dutch men were playing basketball. We started talking about sports. Rodrigo’s father used to be the manager of a football team in Chile. As a small boy Rodrigo was taken along to the football field every Sunday although he never got into football or any other games involving balls. I always twisted my ankle when playing football and hated it.
We went to sit on the swings at the playground. I had asked him to perform an intimate action for me before the walk. He gave me his i-pod to listen to a song while I was on the swing. It was a song about a house at the sea and three sisters. I couldn’t focus on the lyrics too much. The swinging messed up my sense of balance and before I knew it I felt quite nauseous and had to stop. It’s very much like him to give songs to people. And I’m often quite fond of his taste in music. He has given me songs by Sufjan Stevens before, which has become my way of remembering him. When I listen to certain songs I feel immediately connected to Rodrigo but also nostalgic. We decided to walk back home as it was cold and I was still feeling a bit dizzy from the swinging. We sat down for a while at a bus stop with a big poster of Penelope Cruz. The walking home part felt a bit awkward. I didn’t really know what to say. I had memories of our walk to the beach last New Year’s eve. I felt embarrassed that my desire for physical intimacy was overshadowing this whole experience.

Back home he made tea for us. We sat in the living room with the cats. I don’t even remember so much what we talked about. He said his neck was stiff. I offered to give him a neck massage, which is something I think I’m good at. Luckily he accepted my offer. Although we do this all the time at school, feeling the weight of his head release into my hands made me feel lucky and special.
Suddenly I had this longing to lie next to him in bed - a very narrow-minded and conventional concept of intimacy I should say. And surprisingly enough I had the guts to ask if I could stay in his room a little bit. He has this tiny little room, a small shed out in the garden. It’s just big enough for a queen-size bed and a small closet.
We had to turn on the heating as it was very cold in his room. Rodrigo explained that it was rather damp and there were spiders – big black ones he was afraid of.
That’s why he usually doesn’t even turn on the lights. I stretched out on his bed hoping he would do the same. But he stayed standing regulating the heater. I could tell he was feeling uncomfortable. He said he would like to smoke a joint and asked if I wouldn’t mind going with him to buy some in Haarlemmerstraat. I realized I had intruded on his privacy quite a bit. Maybe he needed this joint because my company had become a burden to him. But then again maybe he just wanted to relax a bit more. Anything to save our intimacy was fine with me. He makes these very thin joints with no tobacco, just grass. I love to watch him roll a joint. We went to the garden to smoke. I took two drags and didn’t cough. I was proud. I imagined we were two teenagers smoking our first joint secretly in the backyard.

Back in the living room the conversation ran much more smoothly. Or maybe it was a monologue? I suddenly talked a lot and felt very lively and connected. The joint had increased the level of intimacy considerably. Or was it an illusion? At least for my part I felt more relaxed and I think Rodrigo did too. It was the Jan Ritsema kind of intimacy at play. The overcoming of shyness, the sharing of personal impressions, opinions, feelings without fear. He asked me about PAF and I told him details about performances I had seen there, things we had done. I talked a lot about myself and even performed a little dance to illustrate what I had seen in a dance piece. I felt entertaining and had the impression Rodrigo liked it. I wanted to touch him. I put my head on his shoulder and stayed there. Eventually he moved saying he was going to fall asleep in this position. My clumsy attempts at physical intimacy didn’t go anywhere. It became quite obvious that he didn’t want to go there. I kind of apologized for my behavior. I felt embarrassed and needed to talk about it. He said he was sorry but that he thought it would be too confusing. It was a very valid answer and I felt stupid and guilty for insisting so much, especially knowing that he had just broken up with Roger at the beginning of September. Still I needed to know if the reason he didn’t respond to my advances was because he didn’t feel attracted to me in principle or because he just didn’t want to complicate our already fragile friendship. He didn’t have a clear answer.
He said he really appreciated talking to me and spending time with me. I believed him.
Eventually I forced myself to leave. He gave me the video portrait he had made this summer about a Dutch painter lady, a good friend of David. I watched it the next morning. It was so touching I found myself crying for about fifteen minutes while watching it. The first part of the video was shot in David’s house. Rodrigo made the paintings slide down from the walls and gather in the living room on the couch to watch the portrait of the painter, their creator. She paints colorful portraits of animals, a lot of cows and a sheep and a cat. The humanity of it, the unique editing, very Rodrigo, the songs he had selected to go with some of the footage – it all made me realize how much I appreciate this guy for who he is and how he sees the world. Of course I will never know him as much as I would love to. But in that moment while tears were rolling down my cheeks I was immensely grateful for all the intimate moments we have shared already, for how much he has moved me and keeps moving me. And crying that morning with the colorful animals on the screen of my laptop was surely one of the most intimate moments of my life so far.

intimate walk with Catalina

Catalina, a guest student from Uruguay, asked me to be in her video project. I was impressed by her way of working. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted, had a very clear story board and was very simple and precise in giving directions.
In return I asked her to participate in my intimacy project. We first went for a coffee after a shooting. I had a chai, she had a cappuccino. I explained her my project. She seemed interested and told me about a meditation teacher in Uruguay from the Sufi tradition who once said something to her about intimacy: "You shouldn't worry about losing your intimacy because your intimacy stays always with you."
Maybe I didn't understand exactly what this Sufi guy meant. Why would I be afraid of losing my intimacy? Although yes I can relate to a feeling of losing my balance and groundedness if I make too many appointments with too many people and feel exhausted and empty at the end of the day. So the fear of losing one's intimacy is a fear of spreading oneself too thin.
I don't know if it was the chai or Catalina. But I suddenly found myself talking a lot. So many words and sentences and concepts coming out of me. I hardly recognized myself. I was bubbly and energetic like a volcano. And this just a few days after returning from my Vipassana meditation where I had learned noble silence. I apologized at the end saying that this was not really my usual character and that it must have been the spicy chai tea which made me so excited and talkative. Or maybe it's just that I felt very connected to Catalina. She is a great listener. I think I tend to feel connected to people from Uruguay. I have two Uruguayan friends who are like Catalina very receptive and calm in their energy. They make me feel super at ease and welcome to share my ideas and thoughts freely. According to Jan Ritsema this is what intimacy is all about. So let's say I felt intimately connected to Catalina right from the start.
Today we went for our walk. It was a sunny, beautiful autumn evening. Again I found myself talking more than usual. Catalina told me she was a gymnastics teacher. And I told her about my brother who is now studying to become a sports teacher in Switzerland and is teaching gymnastics to children. In fact both my brother and my sister teach gymnastics and do gymnastics. And I also did it when I was younger. There was a connection already.
First we talked about our day, about our plans for the holiday, about things maybe not so related to intimacy. Yet there was definitely a strong connection and a strong appetite for sharing.
I realized at one point during my walk with Catalina that intimacy to me is about connecting - with people, with the environment around me or with myself. I thought about a book by a British author I once read or started reading. I think it's called Howard's End and it's very much about this concept of connecting. "Just connect" is a key sentence from that book.
Then I remembered that I would like to read more books by British authors like Jane Austen or Oscar Wilde or Virgina Woolf. I like their sophisticated way of writing and the high teas and mannerisms of their characters. I wondered if intimacy was more difficult to find within this stylized, formalized way of behavior. But then I thought that each society has their own codes of behavior and maybe intimacy is about dismantling these codes and connecting through them or in spite of them.
To Catalina intimacy is mostly a feeling or concept related to herself. She says she believes there is much more to Catalina than what she knows about herself or how she sees herself. And this unknown territory of herself is what she calls her intimacy. She also confessed that sometimes she puts distance between herself and other people to protect her intimacy. But now she is trying to change. She realized that this distance is actually unnecessary because her intimacy will always stay with her no matter what, like the Sufi meditation teacher said.
Maybe I am simplifying her concept of intimacy. I am sorry if that's the case. What I am sure of is that Catalina's way of thinking about things is very sharp and subtle at the same time.
She asked me a lot of questions challenging my view on intimacy. I found out that actually I don't have a single, clear view. Although I feel I have a lot to say on the subject my idea of intimacy is still very much in-the-making and undefined. While passing under a bridge I said that my wish to be more intimate with people is actually a wish to show my emotions more freely in public. It's a desire not to stay in control of the situation, but to let myself be affected by what's happening to me. That's it! Catalina found this very valid. And it made sense to both of us.
On a small bridge we found a big heap of small, brown pellets. To me it looked like food for horses and for some strange reason I had to jump into it and take a handful of it as though it were a pile of fresh snow. Catalina told me to be careful. To her it looked like rat poison. And I promised to wash my hands. My childlike attraction to these strange pellets was a perfect example of how I would like to become more intimate! It's about appropriating something (a feeling, an object, a person) without first analyzing it. It's about diving into something without knowing what it is.
After a long, sunny walk across the canal from Artis zoo(Catalina saw her first live zebra) we walked back towards the central station and went for a power chai and cappuccino at the Star Bikes cafe. It was my idea to take Catalina there and I was very happy she liked the atmosphere and the music. I love Star Bikes cafe! It is a bike shop and cafe all in one. So it has this working atmosphere. But it's also very cozy and intimate. Catalina and I sat on theater chairs and pretended we were watching an improvisation performance. We noticed a lot of details and the performers were so amazingly natural!
I had a lot of fun with Catalina. I also felt intellectually challenged and alert. Usually I am not so much into conceptualizing and intellectualizing. I get easily tired of intellectual talk. But with Catalina it somehow happened. Maybe we share the same intellectual wavelength. Maybe we share intellectual intimacy as well.

intimate walk with Helena

Helena and I realized that we had a lot of things in common. She just got back from a wedding party of Javi's brother in Spain. We spent some time talking in the living room while she was checking her email on the couch and I was trying to skype with bad connection at the table. Helena made a piece about virtual intimacy and got to perform it in Avignon this last summer. We found out that we both spent time in PAF thinking about and researching intimacy. But in different moments. Helena had done a lot of intimate chatting and skyping and smsing until both her computer and her mobile phone broke down. Helena was about to travel to Belgium for her first Vipassana meditation retreat, while I had just gotten back from my first Vipassana retreat in Barcelona the week before. We decided we had to go for an intimate walk together.

I came right from psychotherapy for my intimate walk appointment with Helena. I was still a bit lost in analytical thought about relationship patterns etc. We met in front of the school. She was full of life-embracing energy. She changed into her boots and we deposited our bags in the locker down in the lobby of the school. This would help us feel more light and free on our walk.
Helena found a small white feather and gave it to me as a present. Then she told me a story about a man who collected feathers his whole life with the deep desire and belief that once he would have gathered enough feathers he would be able to fly. He carried a heavy bag behind him full of feathers. He grew more and more tired and weak because the bag became heavier each day as he kept on collecting feathers. One day he tried to lift the bag over his shoulder with a huge effort. The tremendous weight of the bag made him collapse. As the bag crashed down on him he died. And in that moment he flew! Helena laughed and apologetically remarked that it's a bit of a Christian/catholic story. But I think one can interpret it in different ways. I liked the story and I think it's worthwhile reflecting 0n it.

We continued walking. I think it was mostly Helena who spoke. We smelled roses from a rosebush that grew in front of one of the small Dutch houses. Helena told me that she went for a walk one cold morning in November when she was in PAF. There was a layer of frost on the vegetation. She came by a rose bush with white roses that were still blooming. White frozen roses still in bloom! "Is there a thing more fragile and beautiful than a frozen rose blossom?" She said it with such happiness and love for life that I felt touched. And I stopped analyzing my relationship patterns. She can be so enthusiastic and life-embracing - similar to Javi's enthusiasm when he gets excited about something, but different. She even said it right there: "I am in love with life." I said to her that I am afraid of life. "Me too, very much!" she replied immediately. She painted this image of a man riding his fears like a wild horse. I was intrigued. Maybe that is what makes her so enthusiastic about life: this wild ride and her holding the reins.
We ended up at Nieuwe Markt. We walked several times around de Waag, which is an old castle-like building where they used to burn witches in the Middle Ages. Helena likes it because she likes to picture herself burning at a stake in the Middle Ages.
She is convinced that they would have burned her had she lived in the Middle Ages. And they would have burned me too. "Yes of course they would have burned you, Chris - doing laughing meditation and looking for intimacy with people, you would have been a great danger to society!" I felt excited and proud of this image of me and Helena burning at a stake as a wizard and witch in front of de Waag. This image made me feel intimately connected to Helena.
We then got to talking about therapy, about psychotherapy. We got to thinking that maybe it's fashionable nowadays to talk about your therapy sessions and about your therapist with your friends over a coffee. Therapists are not allowed to talk about their clients with anybody. But are clients allowed to talk about their therapists? Helena made me realize that I have a fucking privileged and luxurious life: I had started my day with a laughing meditation, followed by a yoga class, followed by a session with my psychotherapist. Then I went for an intimate walk and at 15:00 I was going to meet Matthew for an authentic movement session. What a perfect day! And this is my work, my study, my research, my therapy, the way I fucking choose to spend my time and make a living. It's ridiculous and at the same time very important for me.
I don't feel guilty. I feel privileged and happy and I know that I can give something to my fellow human beings. I believe it's time well spent and a life worth living. We decided right there to lay down on the ground and do a laughing meditation. In the middle of Nieuwe Markt between horse piss and pigeon poop. It was Helena's initiative. She told me that sometimes she likes to touch the hard surface of the street, of stone and asphalt and cement. She likes to kneel down and caress the floor like a sensitive skin. Even in dirty places like the metro or the central station. So we laughed and almost peed our pants. It felt great! People were looking at us strange and curious. We were looking up at the sky, laughing with our legs up in the air, sometimes looking at each other and sometimes laughing straight at the passersby, laughing with the passersby who were passing by with a smile or with a frown, with amusement or concern. Then we did fifteen minutes of silent meditation. With all the life going on around us I felt like a statue spreading peace and tranquility. The thought came to me that I would like to do laughing meditation in the public space more often. I would like to do it in the shopping mall in Kalverstraat, at the Bijenkorf, at the Central Station and in the post office. I agreed with Helena that we would try to meet once a week and do laughing meditation in a public space. It would be fun to do it with a group of people. It would be great to do it in a place where people are usually bored or stressed or serious. It's the laughing revolution!

intimate walk with Tashi

I feel bad because I haven't been keeping up my blog entries. There are two intimae walks in the forest around PAF that haven't been documented yet and some intimate incidents in Reims and on the way back from Reims.
Today I went for an intimate walk with Tashi in Amsterdam. He is leaving to Finland tomorrow to make a piece with Anna. I'm glad we found time to go for this walk before his departure.
We started with a laughing meditation in studio 809 of our school. Then we walked through the small streets behind the school towards the waterfront. It is autumn now in Amsterdam. The colors of the leaves are starting to change. Tashi found a leaf red as blood. He kept it.
Tashi told me that the most intimate walk he ever walked with someone was with a Dutch woman four years ago in Arnhem. He was in love with her. She knew it but didn't feel the same. They walked for about two hours through the city almost without talking. When they arrived at a pond Tashi danced a bit and they talked a bit. On the way home they didn't talk much either. Tashi said talking felt too cheap.
We went up to the sunny terrrace of Nemo where we sat down in orange chairs. Tashi had a water bottle. When he drinks he doesn't touch the bottle with his lips. It's easier if you want to share the bottle with someone. In Japan people are much more particular about saliva or physical contact. Friends don't hug and don't take bites from the same apple. I drank from Tashi's water bottle respecting his tradition. But Japanese people make less of a fuss about blood compared to Westerners. We came across the subject of scatology (I think that is when people get sexual pleasure out of playing around with shit and pee). I said I wouldn't mind having somebody pee on me because pee is disinfectant. If someone I am very fond of was to pee on me, I think I could experience this as an act of intimate bonding. Why not?
Later we got to talking about death as well. Tashi's mother has breast cancer and he doesn't know how long she will live and whether he will see her before she passes away. He is in a tricky and shitty legal situation concerning his residence permit. Tashi feels that more and more people in Japan are getting cancer. It's probably true for Europe as well. I'm not sure though. We think that cancer comes mainly from poor diet. All those conservatives and chemicals in the food we eat. That's why I would prefer to only eat organic food and why I am so obsessed sometimes about healthy nutrition. Death has been quite present in my life lately. I told Tashi that I got two emails last week from two close friends informing me about two deaths. My best friend's dog Shiva passed away last week. When my dog was still alive these two dogs were best friends. Me and my best friend used to go for long walks and for horseback riding with our two dogs. This summer I went hiking in the Swiss Alps with my best friend and Shiva. And now Shiva is in dog heaven too. I hope they found each other again in dog heaven.
I'm not sure I believe in heaven. But I think I want to believe in dog heaven.
So talking about death created some kind of intimate link between me and Tashi. People often say that talking about death is quite intimate and that you have to really trust somebody or feel comfortable with somebody to be able to talk about such a heavy subject. And why is it such a heavy subject? Because we usually don't talk about it. Becasue it makes people sad and because we don't like sadness. But in Madagascar for example and I'm sure in other countries as well they have very festive and lively funerals where people get drunk and have lots of fun. I think death is less of taboo in some other countries.
We walked back to school holding hands. Tim suggested to hold hands on our intimate walk in France. We ended up not finding the time to go for a walk in the forest and instead did it in the city of Reims on the last day of our residency. Only about a minute of walking hand in hand. Tim felt quite uncomfortable. So we let go. I think it was more the fear of what the French locals in Reims would think of two men holding hands in their city that made Tim uncomfortable. I was o.k. in Reims. In the small village of St. Erme it might have been more provocative. In Amsterdam it felt totally fine. Of course it's an unusual way of walking with Tashi. Our hands got a bit sweaty. Tashi said he would feel funny if we met somebody from SNDO or DasArts now. And then Laurens from mime walked up behind us. We walked with him almost all the way to the school still holding hands. He didn't say anything about our holding hands. We talked about theater, about life after graduation, about Dutch society.
We walked all the way to the post office to post a letter. Tashi had to get the letter out of his bag and so we let go of each others' hand.

second intimate walk with Min

I did a second walk with Min on our day off before going to the swimming pool. We had slept in and most people had gone to Reims in the morning to inspect the theaters there. It was Thursday but felt like a Sunday. We talked about the possibility of Min visiting me in Switzerland during the X-mas break. But since I will be working on our new piece "enter my bubble" in a residency in Bern, we thought maybe it would be too stressful and not the right time for a visit. I'm really happy that I have so many great working opportunities this coming year. But on the other hand it frightens me a bit thinking that the schedule will be so packed and there's not even space to spend some days with a visiting friend. This is exactly the conflict I know so well: Do I place ambition before friendship, discipline before emotional needs, professional responsibility before relationships? This conflict also plays a role in this intimacy research. To what extent do I follow my desire? To what degree can I stay professionally detached in my approach to searching for intimacy? Do I want to stay detached, in control, objective?
No for sure not. What I write here is very much filtered through my own subjective experience. I cannot and do not want to document my intimate activities from the neutral and cold perspective of a scientist. But I am aware that writing about and thus exposing the intimate encounters with real people is stepping on delicate ground. In a talk I had with Lucie she was wondering how much I give back to the guinea pigs who volunteer to participate in my research. Am I using them for my own selfish purposes? Is it ethically correct to extract intimate confessions from my victims/volunteers on our walks or in bed and then expose them the next day on the blog? Is it o.k. to create this setting of trust and intimate complicity without a longterm commitment to protect and take care of what has been built during the encounter? Most people who have participated so far in my research have told me they trust me. They feel that my motivation for this research stems from a genuine interest and desire to connect with people and learn more about myself in the process. So what precautionary measures must I take not to betray this trust? Is there something wrong with using people for my own purposes, as long as these purposes have an aim bigger than myself? I am thinking of an idiom or expression by some philosopher now who said something quite important and universal on this subject. But I don't remember the exact words nor who said it.
Antonio told me I should be a professional hustler. But who is actually the prostitute here? Is it me or the people I sleep and walk with? What do these people get out of sleeping and walking with me?
This is the last week of our residency at PAF and the general atmosphere is one of stress and last minute rehearsals and preparations to get ready for the presentations in Reims. I have been less enthusiastic to propose my intimate activities to people these last days because there doesn't seem to be the time and space for it. I'm not exactly stressed about presentations in Reims but the general atmosphere has an effect on me nonetheless. I get tired and frustrated by lengthy, drawn-out discussions about the organization and future of this group. As a result I feel less available an willing to be intimate with people. Because what I am quite sure of for now is that intimacy requires a certain openness and availability for the other. When I don't feel I can provide this I am very reluctant to go on my search for intimacy. In fact it feels wrong and preposterous to go for an intimate encounter when I am not available for it.
I have gone off on an intellectual tangent. Let's get back to the tangible, simple encounter: Min and I walked on the paved road towards the horizon. The sky was black. We felt tired and lazy but happy to be outside in the open. It was going to rain. We took a field path and arrived to a picturesque picnic spot surrounded by some trees and bushes. In front of us there was a hilly meadow for horses. We decided to sit down. We took off our shoes. It started to drizzle. We took off our shirts. Min asked me if I had ever taken a shower in the rain, a natural shower. I remembered a heavy, warm rainfall during a youth camp when we all danced and jumped around in puddles in a pine forest in southern Switzerland. Min and I stripped to our underwear and sat for a moment in meditation pose. The light rain opened up our pores and I imagined my skin in osmosis with the world around me. Pretty soon I developed goose bumps.
We got up and ran barefoot into the meadow through the long grass like horses. It felt like in a movie, a National Geographic documentary on wild horses. It felt great. We galloped uphill and started breathing hard, our lungs expanding. We arrived on top of the hill. The horizon opened up in front of us. This world belonged to us. We were on top of the world, in the middle of the universe. The grass tickled our legs as we ran back to the picnic spot. I felt alive and powerful. Embodying a horse is an empowering experience. When I think about it now this horse episode feels so surreal like in a dream. In the moment it was all we needed to know. Where we were is what we needed.

intimate interview with Jan Ritsema

Sleeping Beauty: How do you define intimacy for yourself?
Jan Ritsema: Of course I thought a little bit about it. Intimacy in principle means not to be timid or “timide”(in French)
SB: Ah it has something to do with timid.
JR: I don’t know. But of course In is non. Inconscience, Incontinent. So the meaning of in is non. So its non-timide. And that’s what is intimate. The interesting thing is that we change intimacy to a very small space, a very safe space where you can be intimate, we think. But what we mean with intimate is not "timide", is open to everything, is borderless, is every protection away, in principle. And it’s not just a small space where you can….
And then of course in history it’s got a very sexual connotation. For me ideal for society would be if we did not use the word intimacy. A society that is not timid. Timid is not a quality. When someone says someone is shy “Oh he or she is soo shy”- you have fear, that’s why you are shy. Intimacy is not a quality. Intimacy is a quality but it shouldn’t be called intimacy. It’s just that you are open. In this fearful society where everyone is putting daggers in each others’ back, usurping each other - the neo-capitalist society is like this - in this society intimacy is reduced to the bed, or to the most private space where you dare to be without protection.
So intimacy is the space where you are without the fear that forces you to protect yourself.
SB: Is this intimacy something you try to achieve in your life?
JR: Yes, I try to be as intimate as possible. I don’t think timidity is a quality.
SB: Quality meaning something good?
JR: Yes. But on the personal level, I always said about myself that I have an intimacy addiction. My mother died when I was three. So the little boy is still looking for protection. That’s the other meaning of intimacy, that is to be in a fully protected surrounding, in mommy’s arms, and feel safe. That’s not how I think we should read and use intimacy. Intimacy should be the normal state of us, namely without fear of each other. There is no need to be fearful.
SB: So it’s also a lot about complete trust?
JR: The word trust is not in my vocabulary. That’s another story. You cannot trust anybody.
Religion and power need people to be fearful, to ask for protection. They play the protectors. Their alibi for power is offering protection. It’s just a Mafia principle. We burn your shop or we protect you. And you pay us for the protection.
It’s the same “chantage” of religion and of every power position of somebody else over us. You have to trust that we don’t put fire on your shop if you pay us every month 1000 Euros, if you come to our Church. Then we don’t put fire on your shop – that’s hell. It’s Mafia – church.
So trust is an invention of people that want to have power over you. Trust does not exist. It cannot exist. We are unable to trust each other.

SB: What about trusting yourself?
JR: And I mean really trusting each other. You can never be sure if you can trust somebody. Never. You cannot know it. So don’t use it.
SB: What about being intimate with yourself or trusting yourself?
JR: How can you not be intimate with yourself? If you are not intimate with yourself you are ripe for personal problems. I must admit that many people are ripe for that.
SB: Yes I think for a lot of people it’s difficult to be intimate in general, and to be intimate with themselves.
JR: I don’t understand this. That’s the interesting thing: You cannot be intimate with yourself!
SB: You cannot?
JR: No.
SB: Cause it’s always about a relationship with someone else?
JR: No, intimate with yourself is a relation with yourself. Whatever tricks you use, whatever mutations and lies you make up about yourself, in principle they are all clear to you. Yourself is an open field to you. You cannot protect yourself from yourself. You can protect yourself from the others, but not from yourself. You are the victim and the perpetrator. You cannot harass yourself. You cannot rape yourself
SB: Hmm….Ok. I’m really trying to take in all this information. But it’s quite a lot. - Do you think intimacy is something we can create for ourselves in a relationship with others? Or is it something that just happens by chance when we don’t look for it? Can we create conditions for it?
JR: Yes, of course. It’s by eliminating the boundaries of protection. Every boundary you take away makes you less “timide”. So the less you act as a fortress, the less timid you are. But a fortress can have many forms. A fortress can act as if it’s very open. So the defense system can be “I’m so open, so open, so open! Let’s say everything. I am here. Ah you are so nice!” But you never allow a merging state. So intimacy is the moment where you merge, dissolve with the world around it. We are all very intimate with oxygen. We love it. We are intimate with a lot of food. So it’s where the filters, the membranes that filter whatever information comes to you, filter as little as possible.

SB: Mmmh - thanks. So when you see a performance – do you sometimes use the word intimacy or intimate to describe what you see in the theater? Or how do you relate that term to the theater. Cause I think it’s used a lot in my experience when there is an intimate setting, when there is very little audience, or when it’s a very closed space. what is for you an intimate performance?
JR: That for sure not. Because this reading of intimacy (going to a very private, protected situation) is not what I call intimacy. Intimacy has to go the other way around. You have to take away your borders and should not withdraw to a small corner. So I cannot imagine any performance that is intimate.
SB: According to your concept of intimacy it would be a performance where the performers cross a lot of boundaries and open up a lot of possibilities. So really liberating …that would be intimate?

JR: Yeah …(thinks) But it’s a very complicated thing. I know a performance- when I was professor at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam – we invited every now and then performances. There was a group of visual artists/performers who asked us to sit around a big table. We were thirty people around the table. And they were on the table and under the table shitting and masturbating and pissing, putting it on themselves and mixing it, and using some masks and costumes and whatever but …. So that sounds as if this was borderless. It’s transgressive performance. People of course walked out of it because they had to vomit. But I don’t know – I wouldn’t use the word intimate. The action of being borderless is not intimate. It’s an aggressive action. So it’s like trust. It is a word that shouldn’t exist. It should be the normal state.
SB: Yes, but that is talking ideally. It is not reality.
JR: Intimacy is not something you make. It is an ontological state. It’s something you are.
SB: What is ontological?
JR: To be. It is like this. That’s ontological. It’s not a process. It’s a fact. It’s a state of being.

SB: Is intimacy something you are interested in seeing in the theater? Or in your own work?
JR: Not to see as a subject. But yes I’m interested in theater that does not protect itself so much. I’m not interested in all the masking that’s connected to theater.
SB: So you mean also theater that takes risks? If it doesn’t protect itself.it’s more risk-taking, no?
JR: I don’t know. What is theater that takes risks?
SB: For me it’s going into the unknown and not putting clear boundaries of how far this can go…
JR: I cannot make theater out of going to the unknown. Theater is a space that is occupied with certain actions during a certain time. Can this be more intimate or less? – I’m interested in soft. I am not interested in hard. I’m not interested in virtuosity. That is creating borders. I’m interested in soft.
SB: Subtle?
JR: Yes, for sure. Sensitive. But not in an esoteric way. Your brains can be very smart. And that I would call sensitive. Very smart and precise. I always talk about being specific. Try to be as clear as you can be. And that’s soft It’s all about being as little protected as possible. There is a state between the stage and the audience where it is easy to dissolve. Not to dissolve in being drawn by spectacularity. It’s necessary for me that people stay independent, that people stay independent but that they also want to dissolve.

SB: Do you think intimacy is possible on the web? Virtual intimacy? Or can it only happen in real time face to face?
JR: If intimacy is being as borderless as possible, then within the context of the border on the web that is communicating by screens, I would say no there is no intimacy. The screen is in between.
SB: Because I think there aren’t as many ways of negotiating or measuring intimacy on the web. I’m still stuck with this idea of trust. How far can you go? On the web you can say much more and then just delete it again.
JR: Maybe when I think about it now – even when you do skype-fucking you always stay alone. There is a certain way of dissolving a little bit, but it’s very task-oriented. No the web is certainly not made for intimacy.
SB: And still I think a lot of people are looking for intimacy on the web and spend much more time looking for it on the web than in real life.
JR: Yes of course, because it’s in the context of the protection of the screen, this huge membrane that filters everything. So you can never really be touched. Intimacy presupposes a sharing, I would say. When I was talking about dissolving, merging before – I mean on the web there is the idea of merging too. But it’s not happening. It’s very much an as if situation. That’s why we call it virtual.
SB: Do you think intimacy is disappearing? Do you think it is an endangered species?
JB: The more you live in a society of screens, you will communicate by screens. I always say why I like theater is because it’s the only place since the church is empty where we are all together alive. This live togetherness with strangers is something very specific to the performing arts.
We communicate so much by screens, whether it’s a computer, or a television or a telephone or whatever, they all have interfaces. And everyone who was born knows what it is to be taken in the arms of the mother, to have physical contact, to appropriate the world around you, whether it is oxygen or a piece of meat. You are all the time merging. You are appropriating the world and you are contaminating the world with your things. Our words, communication, are a way of infecting each other. I contaminate your mind with my words and you have to try and live with it – which is very difficult of course after what I’ve said. (chuckles)
SB: Have you had a chance to visit my blog? I would be interested to get some feedback from you. I want to go on with this research but also think about ways to put it in a performative frame. I wonder if it should be a lecture demonstration in Reims next week.
JR: What I see on the blog is a little bit this sweet and tender ..... social, nice atmosphere, esoteric thing. But basically the "demarche" about intimacy I like. It’s in all my work. My work is about this.
SB: About finding intimacy?
JR: About trying to be borderless. If you would do some more brain effort ..... ( ).... I think Derrida said a lot about this. You should watch this interview with Derrida. I show him because he is very intimate. This Eva Verdes is also very intimate. It’s naïve, but it’s one to one. And Derrida when he talks about his childhood and his fear about writing, it’s very intimate. I support this. But not in an esoteric way. I’m not interested in doing intimate in a fine, nice world.
SB: Why do you say esoteric?
JR: Because then it becomes a culture. Then it’s like in the screen as if we do intimate. You can create here a subculture of intimacy, of nice people who love each other very much and fuck around. A sixties commune that does “intimate”. And I don’t want to have a retreat behind the walls of PAF because then you go to the private situation of the idea of intimacy when you are in a bed with somebody. You have to look for ways of being intimate at the table. And you have a tendency to be – also the way you speak is quite soft. So intimacy is about being intimate in public, which doesn’t mean that you have to fuck on top of cars in the center of Paris. That is being transgressive. That’s also ok to be sometimes transgressive.
So for me a blog about this ? ( )…. – but a brain work please! I gave some notions in this talk - there is a lot to think about - I twist intimacy completely from private to public. The way Derrida talks in his interview has for me the dignity of intimacy. And I like to combine these two words. It’s nobility. And that is the ability to merge, to dissolve – and not to grasp. We are in a grasping, in a colonizing culture, in an appropriating culture. And not in a sharing exchange culture, which is a much richer culture.

intimate walk with Jenny

This was my first intimate walk in German. I don't think this played much of a role in the degree of intimacy experienced though. I mean of course the fact that we both speak German already puts us in a sort of intimate bubble where non-German speakers cannot enter.
But after my interview with Jan Ritsema I question the notion of intimacy needing a protected space to exist. According to Jan intimacy (which is the overcoming of shyness) should be possible in public space, should be possible anywhere, anytime. It shouldn't be dependent on the protection of four walls or a blanket to hide under. see "intimate interview with Jan Ritsema".
So speaking German with Jenny created a kind of complicity. But the intimacy experienced was more related to a genuine interest in the other person, an attraction and sympathy that made us click and provided fuel for conversation.
Jenny and I talked about the sleeping project. Jenny told me about her difficulties falling asleep. She tries many different tasks and exercises to fall asleep like counting sheep or tracing her room with her eyes in the dark. She is particular about hygiene when sleeping in a bed with someone she doesn't know so well. She slept with a girl once whose linen were grimy with sand and other dirt particles. This made her feel uncomfortable. I think I can relate to this need for hygiene. I usually worry a lot about my own hygiene when I sleep with someone. I worry about farting in the middle of the night or having bad breath when sleeping face to face with someone.
I learned a lot of new things about Jenny. She is a DJ and used to play the cello. She doesn't smoke but likes to smoke a joint every now and then. She can adapt quite easily and isn't very demanding in relationships. People often think she is too nice and "adapted". I'm not sure that is the right word. In German it is "angepasst", which means you adapt easily to each situation and become a bit of a social chameleon. That was my first impression too when I first met her last summer in Vienna. But I think very differently now. She has a lot of very odd and peculiar sides about her. And what I love about Jenny is that she laughs and giggles and talks a lot about herself, but also listens very well. Jenny and I walked in the forest and got a bit lost. We arrived in a small village and had to ask some local people for directions back to the monastery. We also saw a dead deer by the side of the road. We stole pears in an orchard and talked about our profession and about future plans. All of this together made our walk into a fulfilling experience - even if it stayed on a light and superficial level. I find Jenny a very stimulating partner to talk to and be with. There isn't the same kind of depth and fine-tuned emotional connection I share with Min however. But does that mean I feel less intimately connected to Jenny? Is intimacy really about depth? Or is it about feeling free to be who you are and say what you need? Isn't it sometimes more difficult to express yourself freely in a mature and deep relationship? As opposed to a relationship that is still full of potential, an uncharted territory yet to be discovered?

sleeping with Gui

Gui has a very extensive ritual before going to bed (usually in the early morning hours):
first he applies an anti-balding product to his balding spots and rubs it in for several minutes, then he washes his feet and hands, treats his feet with a natural anti-perspiration product, brushes his teeth, and rolls himself a last cigarette which he smokes lying in bed listening to his favorite lullabies, checking out blogs and websites or writing and publishing late night poems on his own blog (www.anotherfuck.blogspot.com).
I felt honored to witness Gui's bedtime ritual and to spend these intimate hours with him in the early morning. Gui is great at putting people at ease. He is a natural at making conversation. I admire him because of the physical affection he shares with everyone around him. He spreads warmth and benevolence wherever he goes.
I was once again more in a listening mood. Not because I was feeling awkward or shy, but due to a profound sense of tiredness. Gui is in a long-distance relationship and wants to really make this one good and working. He asked himself serious questions about loyalty and commitment and finding himself.
He played me a song Pieter has given him: I see this darkness by Bonnie "Prince" Billy. It's a very sad and beautiful song. I thought about the friendship of Pieter and Gui, their artistic and maybe intellectual intimacy.
Gui sat at his desk and rolled yet another cigarette sharing his thoughts freely. There was something romantic about the atmosphere in this existential shithole of a room. I lay in bed and for a moment felt like the lover or muse of some poet. I just lay there listening and receiving. Is that my natural state? Being this recipient of life's vicissitudes - my own or somebody else's? I wonder if my presence had a calming effect on Gui. I know he has been feeling confused and slightly depressed lately. I would have liked to find the right words to reflect his many questions and meandering thoughts, to give him some simple advice, something to put his restless mind at ease. But maybe listening was enough, maybe just being there with this heavy body and tired mind of mine served a purpose already. Somebody once told me I listen like a lake. I like this image a lot. It is something I aspire to be.
Gui joined me in bed and read his latest poem to me. It was about words, about all the things words can do. I think you can find it on his blog. I must have fallen asleep while he was still reading or writing on his laptop next to me. I slept like a placid lake and woke up with my batteries recharged the next morning at eight to do my yoga and start my day with a good laugh.

intimate email from Antonio

I was moved by your question... and all these questions and issues came to my mind:

is there such a thing as virtual intimacy? is there room in "virtuality" to let go our fears, our passions, cry, love and be fully one self? is intimacy a word compatible with screen and keyboard? do images and texts disposed on the virtual space reveal intimacy? in which way and to what extent?
i'm very doubtfull about this...utopically, i believe intimacy is a space of freedom between people. a space where you can let go all your shit, use sincerity against shame and be able to love someone fully with no feet on the ground. real beautiful intimacy doesn't need protections of the heart, fake smiles, lies and constraints. If that is ever possible to happen don't we need to be face to face, body to body? don't we need to share one's breath and one's stare? don't we need to hear each other's voice and each other's silence? then again, do we need to know each other's full history to be truly intimate?
Ultimately, intimacy and personality is a definitely a place of challenge, of beauty, of risk...don't know, but for sure, worth the try to feel the joy, the frustraition, the sadness and the happiness that goes around the love of sharing?
i'm really keen on this matter as i'm very interestedin people in socio-psychological-behaviour way.

INTIMATE___________PERSONAL___________________PUBLIC

How big is the distance from what you are in you intimacy from what you show of yourself publicly?

What diferentiates intimate from personal?

How much do I really know you and how much do you really know me?

What can 2, 3 or more people can do to get fully intimate with each other?

Is sex, kissing, hugging, touching, sleeping together acts of intimacy? ... ARE THEY REALLY?

How do you choose who you want to get intimate with? Really what are the criteria?

Are there types of intimate relationships? How are they different in intention, in energy and in degree?

Deep inside each one there are answers to those questions, and definitely more questions from these questions. It will never be clear, it will never be full...

There are moments in my life where i forget all these barriers, all the difference between things, all the taboos and all my ghosts. Everything comes out like a spasm, a vomit, a cry. I can be intimate in explosion with an audience, and disappear in silence with no ground below. when i feel there's room to share intimacy i can feel lighter, happier, freer, even younger. Intimacy with one another or with a lot of people is a precious gift and a much desired treasure...I am obsessed with Beckett. When i read his plays and novels, i keep asking myself -why do people insist in living close to one another? they are all so lonely, they exist so much in soliloque and they monologue ther brains off. In urban spaces(jungles) it's probably not so different, there is a lot of distance between people, a wide gap from heart to heart, desires have difficulty to meet, paranoia meets neurosis and bridges of lonely despair are built they after day. And we cry, and we weep. and we find ourselves empty and unsatiable, always needing more more more....more of what? more of substitituions and ideas to hold on to to calm down our urgent lack of closeness, of dialogue, of little affection, of pairs, of identification...call intimacy call it attention call it breath call it LOVE!

I'm always happy to notice that our work can enrich our spirit, bring up these questions and deal with them in the face or who knows, even overcome them!

all this and i got happier again. relieved. wanting to go back to my project of artistic education, even if it will not go in ontime and they don't take me because of virtual matters.

don't know what to say. it came out like this. don't know if i shall be sorry or happy. i guess your question made me go FIRE :) maybe PAF can be a place to work out these issues if you are interested...now i remember, it's been something you must have been working on, right? ANyway you brought it up, i reacted...( these lines...)

let me know what is under this.

see you soon mr swiss

kiss,

antonio pedro lopes

ps: when i'm able to be intimate with someone is when i ultimately forget of fuckin everything and go through the marvelous exercise of learning again. it can be magic or shocking, i guess you never know what you're gonna get until it happens! what i feel i do, for better or worst is i place myself too much in PARADOX. In the middle of it...opening up the possibility of still being everything. I guess that can also be interpreted as expereince of growth, search of the self and belief in our humanity...

sleeping with Perrine

The first night I was supposed to sleep with Perrine was the night of Jean-Marc's birthday party.
Everyone was drunk on champagne and at some point of the evening Perrine asked me to postpone our night because she wanted to sleep with someone she was really in love with.
For that night she chose real desire over experiment. How could I have possibly objected to such a strong and vital choice? Marko taught me a lesson I hope I won't forget for the rest of my life: It is crucial to ask for what we need and desire. As long as we know what we want.
That night of the party I suddenly felt strangely disconnected from the group. At the beginning I felt euphoric and in party mood (we had seen two amazing performances by Tiago and Tommy). I'm not sure what it was that made me suddenly withdraw to my own little world of worries and doubts. I guess I realized that the wild dancing and oversexed, exhibitionist party behavior wasn't what I was looking for. It wasn't exactly my idea of intimacy, although I am sure some people may have felt intimately connected in the midst of all this crazy hullabaloo. So I was actually relieved to withdraw to Perrine's room and spend a restful night with my intimate self in Perrine's single bed.
The following night Perrine did join me in her small bed after all. Now this was really about negotiating intimate space. We were literally on top of each other. I thought about proposing my favorite ritual of falling asleep: the one of mutually telling each other our detailed experiences of the day from wake-up to bedtime. I have found this very helpful in the past to facilitate the act of falling asleep. It is a great exercise for the memory and makes you feel you are on the same page with the other person. But Perrine was terribly tired and said good-night a few moments after I had crawled under the blanket with her. This premature good-night made me slightly anxious. I really need some kind of ritual of talking in order to have an understanding of what sort of energy and thought processes are inhabiting this bed with me.
Eventually Perrine did tell me a bit about her day and her love story. But the conversation faded out soon enough for me to realize that I was actually also quite exhausted and ready to go sleepy sleep.
Although I hardly knew Perrine I was surprised that feeling her warmth and body so close was perfectly all right. It felt like a brother and sister kind of intimacy. We could have been twins.
I didn't sleep immediately though. I was conscious of a choreography of shifting and readjusting which seemed to last the whole night. I was quite aware of her presence and didn't want to disturb her sleep, so I considered each shift with the strategy and care of a chess player. I must have gotten some sleep though. In the morning my alarm woke me out of a dream in which I was desperately trying to find an airport and asking people for directions.
It was 7:30 and I had to get up and drive Marko to the train station in Laon. He had to travel back to Croatia for a project. In Marianne's car we drove through a deserted, early Sunday morning countryside of fields and forests. We didn't speak much. We listened to classical music. I felt proud of driving Marko to Laon. I was profoundly happy and sad at the same time. It was like in a film. There was no need to talk. Someone once said that real intimacy is about feeling completely at ease in the presence of someone without having to speak.

intimate walk with Sayaka

My intimate walk with Sayaka started with a shoulder massage. She had pain in her left shoulder and I proposed to give her a Feldenkrais-inspired treatment my friend Julius had once performed on me. I remember it was an immensely relaxing sensation which created a lot of space in my shoulder joint. Performing this massage on Sayaka made me feel at home and safe. We got to talking about family somehow. Sayaka reported that in her family there wasn't much touchy-feely kind of intimacy. But there certainly was a strong sense of trust and belonging. Sayaka is the only person allowed to give a shoulder massage to her mother.
Sayaka already slept in my room in Amsterdam (not in the same bed) and she baked a wonderful apple pie for me and my roommates.
After the shoulder massage I felt so comfortably at ease that it was very hard to get up and go for a walk. We decided to just go for a short stroll through the orchard up to a little look-0ut spot protected by trees with a nice view over the orchard and garden. We sat in two plastic chairs and talked about spirituality. Talking about something so abstract and intangible still had an intimate bonding effect on us. I realized that I hadn't talked about God and the world with someone in a very long time. "Talking about God and the world" is a German expression and means that you're having a profound conversation with somebody about existential issues.
I remember when I was younger I always wanted to talk about God and the world with everyone. These are very big but also basic questions! Lately I have neglected these issues and instead become obsessed with the intimate and the personal. With Sayaka we went easy on the existential issues. We touched them slightly - and more in a vague, floating kind of way. I became aware that I'm actually quite lost spiritually. I don't really know what I believe in anymore. Sayaka 's belief that her ancestors are watching over her is a beautiful image. This respect for the elderly is rooted in her culture. It made me think of my grandmother and that I find it more and more difficult to connect with her as I get more and more entangled in my self-obsessed artistic quests and ambitions. I confessed to Sayaka that I felt guilty for not having spent more than a few miserly hours with my grandmother during the six weeks I spent at home in my village this summer. "Why don't you write a letter to her and explain your situation?" I truly believe that Sayaka's simple advice could make a big difference.

intimate walk with Marko / sleeping with Marko and Antonio

Marko makes me question my project. He seems concerned about what I really want out of it. And I am disappointed in myself that I cannot give him an answer. I see him as someone very sensitive and receptive. To him intimacy can be observing ants together. Or hugging a tree and complaining to that tree all of life's sorrows. We got lost in the forest for a short while. This felt quite intimate. We also talked a lot. About relationships and the usual intimate stuff. We laughed together and I found him beautiful. Sometimes there is a quality quite hard an determined about him. And then again he can be completely innocent and childlike. I know that I don't show my emotions easily. I know I have a complex about wanting to be more intimate with people and more emotional. I started this project to provide me with a safe frame in which I can push my boundaries. Marko asks very direct and simple questions:
"Why don't you just tell people you want to be intimate with them instead of using the excuse of a project? What is it you really want?" I am very impressed, maybe even overwhelmed by his persistence in asking these questions. I think he is genuinely concerned about my sanity and well-being. But also about the way I treat people involved in my project.
Last night I slept with Antonio and Marko in one big double bed. At first I did two intimate performances for them which were quite silly an naive. I will definitely have to rethink how to objectively test intimacy in performance. After some relevant dialog about the ethical and very basic human implications of my project, we got physically intimate in a very tender and careful way. I was surprised that it felt so natural and comfortable. There were moments though when I did think about my responsibility in proposing this project to them, about how far I am willing to let this go and about the degree of intimacy experienced in the moment. So I was the rat and the scientist simultaneously (that is Antonio's metaphor).
In the morning at eight I left to do my yoga and laughing meditation alone. I was conscious it was a way of escaping. After opening a lot towards others in an intimate way I tend to run back to discipline. I think it is my way of dealing with ambiguous feelings of guilt and confusion. I engaged myself vigorously in yoga and laughing to get a handle on my loss of perspective and control. Marko expects me to be clear with my intentions. Like Jean-Baptiste he distrusts ambiguity. In our talks he keeps coming back to the human basics of what I set out to do. He doesn't like calling it a project. What would be his function in this project? Is he just a tool for my research? I really appreciate his questions and concern. I feel both flattered and anxious about it.

intimate walk with Min

With Min I did the sleeping project last January in Amsterdam. So I already felt quite intimately connected to her. We held hands on our walk. It was a slow, languid walk. We talked about feeling connected to the universe, to nature, to the landscape around us. This is a kind of intimacy too. On our walk I felt a bit nostalgic and lazy. I told Min that to me it feels very natural and comforting to be with her. I felt a bit foggy with my thoughts. No big, pressing issues arose out of our conversation. It felt more like the universe was smiling at us and saying that it's o.k. to feel like that: a bit lazy and heavy and nostalgic. It was a rather uneventful walk. I should have written about it right after it happened. Two days have passed since my walk with Min. And I remember more a general feeling of feeling safe and protected. With Min I felt I could just be who I was in that moment. I felt a big acceptance and no need to prove or test or create anything. I didn't even feel the need to be especially alert and aware to notice intimacy in case it would manifest itself. I think it was simply there all along. And it felt very normal and good.

intimate walk with Jean-Baptiste

On my intimate walk with Jean-Baptiste we imagined that intimacy was all around us like the wind and it was a question of being ready for it and allowing it to settle on us. We were talking a lot theoretically which created a lot of windy thoughts. I was mainly listening and feeling bashful. During the whole walk I felt intimacy was in the air. From the very beginning at PAF I had developed a crush on Jean-Baptiste and when I like someone I usually wish to find the perfect moment to confess my feelings. Yet I was hesitant. I wasn’t completely sure I was ready to bear the consequences of such a confession. It became quite clear that Jean-Baptiste likes clarity in relationships. He isn’t much into ambiguity and playing games. Although if he decides to he can be a great flirt. He said it himself. When I feel attracted to somebody and at the same think that person is very intelligent and wise I tend to become quite shy and quiet. I told Jean-Baptiste I was more in a listening mood. And he was in a sharing mood. I thought to myself that I could learn a lot from him. He seems to be quite grounded and know where to set his boundaries. I respect him a lot for that. He has gotten hurt in the past playing these ambiguous games. It made me question once more my real intentions of doing this intimacy project. Do I want to stay very objective and scientific in my approach? Is it more about circling around intimacy, playing with the notion of it without really going there? Or am I willing and available enough to let go of control, to lose myself in the project and get really intimate? Can I be really intimate while staying an observer of my research? I realized that I was already quite confused. We hiked up a muddy path in the forest. Eventually there was a kind of hill with a nice view over a field. We decided to sit down. Jean-Baptiste told me about the relationship he has been in for two years, about the psychoanalysis his parents forced him to do and the new somatic therapy he started recently. I wasn't sure if hearing him talk about his boyfriend made me feel disappointed or relieved. We sat there on this little hill overlooking the field and I felt quite comfortable and also a bit melancholic all of a sudden. I still hadn't really said very much during our walk. I felt bashful and confused but also strangely happy to just be there with him. We shared some nice moments of silence and then I would smile because of an intimate thought popping up. He wanted to know why I was smiling. I couldn't put it into words. Somehow I expected of myself to share more with him, to be more honest with him. But I also enjoyed to keep this silent ambiguity, to feel a kind of intimate tension in the air without having to put words on it. At the end of our walk we both agreed that the time we spent sitting on that hill was the most intimate moment of the walk. Maybe by sitting we allowed intimacy to settle down after all.

intimate walk with Pieter

With Pieter I went for a walk one warm afternoon thru the woods to the maison bleue.
Pieter told me about his becoming more intimate with his parents. Driving in a car with his father he felt a strong connection and intimacy which made real conversation possible.
This was the first time Pieter felt he could really talk to his father.
He also told me about an experience with a girl he had been hanging out with at the Mediamarkt. He wanted to buy a toaster and she went along with him. In the end they spent three hours at Mediamarkt without buying anything. Pieter felt very intimately connected to her. Spending time with her felt completely natural and comfortable. So intimacy is possible even in the supermarket!
I realized that when alone in a car with my father I often feel very uncomfortable because we don't have much to say to each other or it seems there would be a lot of unresolved things to talk about but we don't do it. Pieter asked me if I would like to talk about these unresolved things on stage. I said why not. I already talk about it with my psychologist. And I think I would like to talk about them on stage as well. Or take a workshop about father son relationships with Martin Nachbar. I feel that the stage or a workshop or the psychologist give me a frame that make me more safe to talk about very intimate and difficult things.
Finally Pieter and I arrived in a small village. We went to the church and took some intimate pictures. I think it was inside the church that I felt most intimate with Pieter. Even though I don't believe in Jesus I still experience a feeling of awe and respect inside a church. I got excited and felt funny about taking these silly pictures with Pieter inside the church. It felt slightly inappropriate, if I was a believer it could even be blasphemous. So this feeling of doing something forbidden, of crossing a boundary and getting a kick out of it made me feel intimately connected to Pieter.

sleeping with Tiago

Last night I spent my first intimate night here at PAF with Tiago, a Portuguese performing arts critic. It's the first time in the sleeping project that I went to somebody else's bed rather than inviting the person into my own bed. It's because I thought Tiago had a bigger bed. But then I found out it's actually the same size as mine. He lives on the renovated corridor next door to Jan Ritsema and has his own private bathroom with a big bathtub.
Tiago showed interest in my project and then told me about a similar project a Portuguese friend did in Portugal. This friend went to meet strangers in their homes and in the city and sold these meetings as performances. I said that my project wasn't a performance but a research project.
Tiago talked a lot at first. I think we were both a bit shy. I tend to be quiet and say very little when I get shy. And I had a feeling that talking a lot was Tiago's way to hide or deal with his own shyness. He sat on his bed and I listened in lotus position on a little armchair next to the desk. He asked me what I was actually researching in my project. I said that I'm interested in how we negotiate intimate space - for example the fact that I was sitting on this low armchair and he was up on his bed lecturing down to me. It was like he was performing for me. Then he invited me to come sit on his bed.
We discussed about which side of the bed we prefer to sleep on. I ended up sleeping on the side next to the door so I could escape if I needed to. Tiago slept against the wall. Tiago usually sleeps naked. But he didn't want to make me feel uncomfortable and kept his boxers on. I usually sleep with the window open, but Tiago was too uncomfortable with the cold wind so we kept it closed. We did the spooning position and Tiago told me some really genuine things about how happy he was to be here spending his holiday with the Sweet and Tender people. I was really touched when he told me about his favorite moment here at PAF. It was when he fell off the bike and did a somersault into a field. It made him feel alive.
I was still talking about some short affairs and love stories I had had in my life when I noticed Tiago was already sleeping. I think it took me a while to fall asleep. Tiago was spooning me and his hand rested just below my rib cage on my side. I realized that I am really not used to feeling a warm hand in this place. But I left it there.

searching for intimacy at PAF

During one month I am in a residency here at PAF (Performing Arts Forum) in France together with the Sweet and Tender Collaboration people. I thought this would be great place to resume the sleeping project and to find new strategies to search for intimacy.
In the first week at PAF I went for an intimate walk with Thelma and Hajime in the beautiful forests and meadows surrounding the monastery. This walk in itself was an intimate experience. We talked about intimacy and what it means to us. For Thelma intimacy has a lot to do with body temperature and smell. She told us about her relationship with her husband who has brain cancer. Since he became ill their intimacy has undergone a lot of change. His body temperature sank and their skinship* feels very different. For me intimacy is about feeling safe and trusting the other person. Together we came up with a number of strategies to track down intimacy. :
-intimate walks: going for an intimate walk with somebody in search of intimacy
-sleeping project: sleeping with somebody for one night in one bed
-intimate skype conversation: what about virtual intimacy? After spending the night with somebody I want to have a skype conversation with that person to evaluate the intimacy shared during the night and to see if a similar kind of intimacy is possible on the web.
-intimate actions: I want to post a portrait series of one-minute intimate actions recorded on video. I ask people what to them is an intimate action they normally wouldn't share with other people.
-intimate dinner: Thelma and Valentina want to organize an intimate dinner during which the awareness and temporality of intimacy is explored through a score.
-intimacy in performance: we are going to perform three different improvised, intimate dances: 1) spectator watches from a window of the monastery with a monocular. performers dance in a distant meadow. 2) one-on-one performance in private room with eye contact 3) one-one-one performance in private room without eye contact.
After each performance the spectator will fill in a survey evaluating the degree of intimacy experienced.

*skinship is a term for physical/emotional intimacy through the skin between a mother and her child used a lot in Korea and Japan

searching for intimacy / sleeping project

This is my intimacy blog. I have started a project to search for intimacy. I am afraid of intimacy. And at the same time attracted to it.
I have never had a relationship for example. Last winter I started the sleeping project in Amsterdam. In the sleeping project the idea is to sleep with different people in a bed for one night. In Amsterdam I did this with some friends. Later I would like to try it with strangers as well.
While growing up I never invited friends to sleep over at my place like other kids. It's difficult for me to fall asleep in the presence of other people. My motivation to do the sleeping project is to challenge myself and to overcome my fear of intimacy. How does this foreign body next to me - its smell, its temperature, its energy, its comfort or discomfort - affect me? How do we negotiate this intimate space together? What kind of rituals do we perform for each other in order to feel more safe and comfortable to fall asleep?
My basic question is:
Is intimacy something that can be willfully induced? Or is it an ephemeral phenomenon that suddenly happens when we don't look for it? What are the parameters we can set up to allow for intimacy to flourish?

Is intimacy an endangered species? Is it a fragile plant?