Saturday, December 15, 2007

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.