frivolouslyethereal

[frivolouslyethereal]

this is!!!!!!! i dont even have the words to describe it honestly 

by naif.flr: Two women who stayed with me for a very long time. If you haven’t seen this movie, please do, it’s called Portrait of a lady on fire.

Happy women’s day to all of you.

#illustration#portraitofaladyonfire#dessin

[frivolouslyethereal]

Loss

ooook so this has been in my notes for way too long. I will seriously run through it tomorrow (and probably delete it lol) so my apologies if it doesn’t properly work and the potential misspellings. i just couldn’t wait any longer :) 

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We too often lose our loved ones out of fear. Because we can’t bring ourselves to be true and because lies are infinitely easier to get out of our mouths rather than the truth. The truth is painful and heavy, it costs us energy and willingness to bring it to the surface and it’s risky.

It will achingly hang in the room and it will cost us dozens of dark looks, if we come out as different than the norm.

I wish someone told my younger self that the only thing we can call normal is love, and that knows neither boundaries nor differences.

Love is comfortable and welcoming, and if doesn’t feel so then it isn’t love.

We crave to put people in boxes, so we can label them and reduce their complexity, and see them as a one-way sort of thing.

We give them one light band to avoid acknowledging that they’re in fact a broad spectrum. We categorically refuse to see that each band is equally important, and that by cutting a single one out we are in fact reducing the person.

But in the end, we mistakenly look for simple people that would bring us simple things. I now know that such thing as the label “simple” cannot be attached to a person.

However in that moment, I was refusing to see that what I had with Celia was the most complex and beautifully truthful relationship i had ever embarked myself on. Right then, in that very specific moment where I urgently needed to acknowledge it,I didn’t see it. I couldn’t see it.

I now sound as an experienced and ponderate old lady, with a lot wisdom and a deep and meaningful insight that comes from age, but I learned it all on my skin. I learned it because my heart was ripped out and left bleeding for years, even if I masqueraded it and I showed myself off as a solemnly powerful woman.

That day was my first encounter with the most profound and deeply-rooted pain I had ever felt, the one that would accompany me for days and nights, even when I gulped down so much alcohol that I felt my all body was as light as a silk dress.

I remember that Celia got in the car and started the engine keeping her eyes locked with mine. My hands were violently shaking and I could feel the colour draining from my face.

And then she left.

No matter how hard I try, i cannot remember what happened next. I know that she was in front of me and then she wasn’t anymore.

I was so knocked down from the excruciating pain I was feeling, that I don’t remember how I managed to walk to the house from the driveway.

The next thing I remember is that I was sitting on the floor surrounded by fragments of the crystal flower vases i must have thrown to the ground.

The flowers were splayed across the carpet and while I felt sorry for what I did to them, I was progressively realising that I had ruined it all with my own ends. I tried to break my hands by clasping the carpet as tightly as I could, until I felt the blood draining from them while my knuckles turned white.  

I was so busy manipulating everyone around us so that I could keep living up to my pretence, that it hadn’t even cross my mind that I was slowly losing the person I loved the most.

I had ended up being false and hypocrite with the only person who knew who I really was.

My will to constantly feed that glorious image of myself that I had patiently, obstinately and meticulously created, had completely blinded me from seeing that I ultimately let that dirt from our world entrance and contaminate what Celia and I had.

Guilt, pain, remorse and fear were washing over me, hitting steadily like huge waves. And for the first time in my life I felt something inside me crack, not knowing whether I was ever going to be okay again afterwards and leaving me struggling to properly breathe.

I now know that for the first time in my life I was experiencing a panic attack.

My vision was blurry. My heart was beating uncontrollably and I couldn’t think straight. I remember squeezing my eyes shut multiple times in the vain hope of being able to focus again.

I was suffering like I had never before, I knew she had left me and it was ultimate.

I couldn’t believe I had lost control over myself. I was crying so hardly that my sobs were violently pushing out of me and my breathing got so laboured that I thought It was pretty obvious that I was going to die of asphyxia.

I had the woman of my dreams, the only person I truly allowed to be with and in me, and yet I had hidden myself right in front of her.

I had given voice to my feelings in the worst possible way and I had masqueraded myself to try win the argument.

I wanted to win so badly that I didn’t care what came out of my mouth.

I wanted to leave her speechless.

I wanted her to fall on her knees and ultimately surrender admitting she could not live without me. But what I really wanted was her apology and her admittance that I was right.

I wanted her to beg me to stop it.

She was the most precious thing I ever laid my hands on, and yet i didn’t think, not even for one second, that what my words did to her was all but cutting deep through her skin.

But things never turn out the way we picture them in our stupid dreamy heads, and Celia was so much better than I thought her to be and did not submit herself to such shameful behaviour.

I absolutely did not expect that, and when it happened I realised that I had inevitably broken it all and she was gone forever. I had pushed her too far and betrayed her too deeply. She had my body until I deliberately decided to share it with someone else, acting out of self-righteousness.

I thought I had to be fully independent, and that I still needed to prove it that I was known as a free woman who had the power of bending people to satisfy her requests. What I thought was maybe an exciting way of proving my emancipation was instead outrageous and deplorable.

I had spent my life proving people I was the one who deserved things because I had literally worked my way up, but I never quite managed to get rid of such sickening way of acting. Even if Celia knew me and I didn’t need to prove her anything,I still went on following that ordinary procedure.

I deserved to be left like that. Alone and in pain and doubting if my life was ever going to make sense again. I ruined it all because of my hunger for more. More money, more recognition, more admiration and more fame.

I knew I only needed Celia to survive, but I let anger take the lead on me and completely closed myself off to her words. I hadn’t even listened to a single word she said because that voice in the back of my head was busy telling me that she wasn’t understanding me, and she wasn’t ever going to understand me.

I profoundly loved making movies to see the extent of my fascination on people and the effect of powerfully using my body, bending it do whatever I needed in order to achieve what I wanted.

But it was nothing compared to what Celia did to me.

I loved that people scrutinised me on and off the screen, trying to grasp about me and my life as much as they could because I knew that I had something hidden and that living on the verge thrilled me. But it was nothing compared to lying down next to a person who knew every single freckle on my skin and loved each and every single scar I had.  

It was nothing compared to drifting into sleep with her in my arms at night, and waking up to her gentle and soft hold in the morning.

It was nothing compared to touching her while being touched by her.

It was nothing compared to the profundity of being listened to like she did to me, with her eyes wide open brightly shining while imagining what I was talking about.

It was nothing because to love and being loved like that is the thing we all desperately look for from the moment we become aware that love exists.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I felt the burning need to see her and tell her I got it all wrong. I would spend the nights knocking at her door begging her to take me back because I needed her like I need air in my lungs and I couldn’t live knowing that she was alive somewhere but wasn’t sharing her life with me anymore.

So I miraculously got up from the floor.

[frivolouslyethereal]

i am about to deliver a very unpopular opinion: i did read the seven husbands of evelyn hugo and thought right away that an incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking story was absolutely trashed because of its bad writing. it did not make me feel not even an ounce of the emotions the characters are supposed to go through, given how much of a rollercoaster their life is. 

i was so heartbroken afterwards but it wasn’t for the end really, it was because i saw so much potential being wasted like that. The idea behind it is just glorious. It is a powerful love story which includes friendships and art, as well as the struggle of being true to our identity and our will to find people who can make us feel seen and loved and understood for who we are. But that hasn’t been tackled deeply enough. It hasn’t been tackled at all, actually. The narrator just lists a number of things she went through and expects us to sympathize with her and even justify some of her actions towards the end. 

The romantic relationship between celia and evelyn isn’t broken down to its core to reader at all, we just get a glimpse of their life together every now and then but nothing about their true and deep connection.

They fight and they make peace again, sometimes we read that they make love even, and we get a list of the emotions they are feeling in those specific moments, but nothing more than that. I don’t think that a book is meant to make you feel like you’re reading the grocery list and that’s why i am so disappointed. It could have gone way more than that. 

We will remember evelyn hugo as a despotic and obstinate and tenacious person but we have only met half of the person she is. We did not get to feel on our skin what she is telling us through her memoir and -sorry for saying it again- that is not only a waste but also sad and disappointing.

I think that the author wanted to draw a picture as wide as she could, to make it inclusive and real and truthful, given the setting, but instead she ultimately ended up with putting in too much. Reading the book felt like i was constantly trying to keep up with her too-quick pace. I had to run through the pages of evelyn’s life like if i was being chased, whereas i would have loved to just sit and let my heart sunk and let myself enjoy my own goosebumps while hearing what was going on in their minds and hearts. 

[frivolouslyethereal]

i still think that this is the most beautiful scene ever shot in the entire history of cinema. it truly is unparalleled. the beauty, the intimacy, the closeness and the love... céline is a genius and she does know that.

p. 28

[frivolouslyethereal]

“Regardez-moi”

okay so this has been on my mind for way too long and i just feel the strong need to put it out otherwise i will never know peace... It is not going to be a dissertation about the movie because A LOT of people have already done that in the most brilliant ways. If you do not care about what this movie means to me you’re more than welcome to stop reading right here :)

When we were in lockdown (i think it was april ? ) one night, after having casually seen a scene that looked intriguing,  i watched Portrait of a Lady on fire all by myself not knowing a single thing about Cèline, Adèle or Noémie.  Just like many of us, i was struggling a lot to find some peace of mind and i was also desperately trying to keep floating while being submerged by those hateful events we all know too well.  

I went for it, and little did i know how deeply it was going to affect me. 

I am not the kind of person who usually writes about movies, i like to keep the sensations to myself, worrying that if i do expose them then nobody would ever understand why it touched to that extent, making my efforts vain and letting it all be just a huge disappointment.  But with this one i simply cannot keep everything closed together and hidden inside myself because even if a lot of months have passed (and a few re-watch) i am still here struggling to comprehend and articulate my feelings about it. 

Never have i been so profoundly and intimately and intensely shaken by a movie before. By a sequence of images that just fit perfectly into myself and can speak so truthfully and so genuinely about my intimacy. 

I remember saying to myself: “how does this woman know how i feel and how i want to be portrayed?” 

“I have no idea of who she is, and neither does she of who i am and YET she has the audacity to paint my inner-self like that, fully exposing it to the world”.

It turns out that of course she did know everything about it. Because she does know everything about women and love and intimacy. And how to put them on screen in the exact same way as we women think we should be shown. And therefore she knows everything about what i look for in a person, this horizontal exchange of looks and this sharing of ideas with the purpose of enriching and lovingly challenging one another. She knows how sacred and joyfully painful it is to remember what we had when it is no longer part of our daily language and conversation. And at the same time how precious and rare it is to give our heart to somebody who does not put us in a box but rather feels immense pleasure in watching us being eager and curious about the world. She knows everything about letting a person go without resentment after years of being together, because cherishing the exchange and growth and everything in between we had together is infinitely soothing. In fact if it was true love we wouldn't be holding a grudge, what we mostly care of is our former lover’s happiness.

Céline Sciamma looks at us with fondness and affection and admiration and warmth and love -obviously- and does not take a single thing from us that we do not want her to have. She has this pure and magical touch - i would say a superpower- that brings us an intimate relief and makes us feel part of something delicate and gentle and welcoming. 

The sorority that exudes from is so liberating and reconciling because we are never ever shown like that, simply basking in each other’s presence and being truthfully nice and caring towards one another. Instead we’re often show in dark and twisty or hostile situations when placed among other women. Which clearly isn’t the truth or at least not always. And with each elegant and rhythmic brush stroke it’s almost like she is saying “i came here to save you, but i do that on my own terms”. And that involves -of course- art, beauty, tenderness and pure love.

In all honesty I think that discovering Céline Sciamma was the most overwhelming shok I had this past year, because from that first solitary watch on that dark night of April everything that came later was then affected by it. I discovered what feminism and being around women really are, and how to carefully choose what truthfully reflects who I am and what is a pale and hollow imitation instead. 

Actually, the list of things i learned from Portrait and everything Portrait-related that came afterwards is infinitely long but after all i am a private person so I will stop right here.

Just know that after a few days of complete emotional devastation, when i put the pieces back together what came out was an utterly different puzzle. And for once I was happy about it. 

[frivolouslyethereal]

Closeness

as i cast my eyes away from the window and i lay them back on her, i see that she has already dozed off. she has this ability to completely and deadly pass out just after having taken a deep breath and having stretched all of her muscles, even after a night of pure and untamed pleasure. i do envy her, i must admit it. while she comfortably sleeps all cuddled up to me looking like a pure sweet baby my mind keeps on being invested with a continuous flow of thoughts. 

There is something about the soft and light touch of our warm bodies that is able to propagate a delicious and heavy relaxation even towards my nervous and impatient and restless person and that miraculously seems to be able to slowly turn my heavy thoughts into something light and way less painful to carry.

I have always wondered what closeness is. Whether it is the ability to talk freely or to confidentially show up in ways nobody else would ever see us. Or maybe just a feeling of comfort and easiness that brings down all of our stupid and blocking fears at once. Maybe it’s all of those sensations together. 

I used to wish for some weird superpower that would give me the ability to stop thinking and put my mind at ease or just turn the flow of thoughts into something neither painful nor weighty, just like when you switch to a song that makes you feel light and smiley, even if all you wanted to do was cry and scream. 

But then i learned on my skin that being listened to together with being understood is the most intimately profound connection we can build with somebody. We give this person full access to our brain, well sort of ya know, and then let them examine our thoughts in order to make a natural selection putting aside what is allowed to stay while discussing what instead is painfully pressing on us. 

it’s also the most therapeutic thing to do, this slow and careful examination of the flow of thoughts, that i wish i had the power and strength and clarity of mind to do it by myself but i either put my feelings aside for so long to the point that they become sort of monsters that bite back at me or i let them run me over while i sit somewhere absolutely incapable of doing anything but being in that groggy state. 

I look at her again and yes, she is still there, lying peacefully and heavily breathing against my shoulder. If i could only put into words the strong feeling of comfort and protection and delicious warmth that having her in my bed gives me, i would probably spend my time doing so. 

But i cannot because is a mixture of sensations, the most beautiful and heartwarming, that silently and warmly wash over me like waves while i wish that i could trap them, and carry them with me when i go through the darkest hallways. So that i could remember what light is and how bright and incredibly overwhelming it is. 

[frivolouslyethereal]

Her

She chose to wear those old and ripped jeans I’ve seen a thousand times before, because in the end she doesn’t really care if they look too old and consumed, she just wants to feel that kind of comfort and self-assurance only things you’ve been seen with for endless times can give.

She chucks her earphones in and starts walking while trying to shuffle through the songs, although she couldn’t tell which one she’s looking for. She almost stumbles several times, and only manages to avoid crashing into several people because she remembers to raise her eyes up at the very last minute.

It’s not an ugly raining day but it isn’t bright and sunny either. The sky is grey. The air is crispy and her nose gets red and cold in a matter of minutes.

Everything still looks a little blurry and very often she needs to scratch her face and rub at her eyes because she still feels sleepy, and as soon as her gaze lays on something still she finds herself spiraling shifting into a sleepy and drowsy state.

The streets are slowly getting filled up with cars and rapidly everything around her seems to accelerate, as if they got their daily dose of fuel.

And she as well starts to slightly, almost imperceptibly so, accelerate her pace and walk a little faster. Probably she’s got a song in her ears that has given her more energy and rhythm to her walk. Or maybe she feels the need to adjust her pace, fearing that in that morning rush she could be left behind.

Sleep has left her entirely when she gets to the stairs, she gets down in a fews seconds and it looked like she might have fallen any second but no, it was just an illusion that her quick and skinny legs did to the sight.

Miraculously, the train has just arrived and she has the time to jump on without worrying that the doors might close right into her. As she lifts her feet from the platform into the train, while the door closes behind her with a soft woosh, I realise how close I’ve been all this time. To the point that I could have gripped her. Instead, she was a tiny bit quicker. I lost her.

[frivolouslyethereal]

So long, 2020

If I let somebody break my heart in 2020 (and in fact I did) it will most definitely NOT happen again in 2021, unless I turn out to be so stupid.

If I thought that friends were the most precious thing I had, it turned out that in fact they are, but sometimes I really have to count on myself otherwise they’ll let me sink deep down. So I leave out the question: what are friends really here for?

I found out that what brings people together is in fact how much grief and pain we go through. If you haven’t been experiencing the same amount of I pain as me, there’s no way you can feel what I am talking about, although that doesn’t really leave me angry, it’s just a plain fact.

I often saw that people really like to pretend they believe in things like “we’re all in this together” only to be so aggressive and violent literally one second afterwards. So the question is still here: what’s that all for ? I do wish everyone the best they can get, do you as well ? Because if you don’t then get the hell out of here and I suggest you get a good therapist for your anger management problems. If you don’t believe in what you say, then take your time to figure out what that is. I can assure you will feel so much better afterwards.

I experienced that the most soothing feeling is when we read or hear people bring out experiences that are just the same as what we’ve been through, and the most beautiful thing you can do when you feel that is to reach out and say: hey you’ve just written/told my story. It feels so much better, and especially if you do that with a stranger,like the world is actually making sense and you are not left alone in the storm because somebody somewhere is bringing/has brought to the surface what you can’t really describe or give voice to, so hold on to that feeling of being understood because it’s precious. It does help you come to terms with undiscovered parts of you, and that is a beautiful thing you can do to yourself.

I now know that representation matters, so if you don’t see anyone looking like you from whom you can learn KEEP LOOKING, because they’re out there somewhere. I can promise you that because after years of searching, I can finally say I did find people I look up to because I truly and deeply admire them with all of my heart, and it’s been the deepest relief of the year.

There will be days in which you feel like you’re part of something and you have a place and a purpose and you feel loved. But there will also be days in which you will hate yourself to the point that you really think that if you disappear absolutely nothing will happen. I do NOT have the solution to that, but I can tell you that’s just looking at things with a different perspective, and that bad feelings eventually will go away. You will be left a little empty and in pain afterwards maybe, but try holding on to what brings you comfort, whatever that is.

I discovered the power of cinema. There are in fact movies that can entirely change how you see the world and that’s because they are made by people who were OUTCASTS just like you probably, so I suggest you keep them close to your heart and watch them as many times as you want. There’s absolutely no problem in doing so and out there there might be people doing the same thing with the exact same movie, so you will not be alone after all.

I saw people fall in love in the most mysterious and unbelievable way so if thought that there was only one way to fall in love, and of course that I did miss it, I was just so wrong. I want you to know and fully believe that there is not ONE type of love, and that you can be in love with whoever/whatever you want, and please do NOT let other people ever touch that cause you will regret it.

After many years I opened up to people about my writing, and sometimes I did regret it because they made me question whether what I wrote was sufficiently good or not. I was constantly worrying whether my analysis were deep enough and well articulated. I was also worrying about sounding too ordinary and also too touched by the themes I chose, because in fact I did often admit that such choices were driven by my personal experience. I was constantly wondering if I was maybe giving away too much of myself, and therefore exposing feelings I had never given anybody access to before that, and I couldn’t justify such shift in any rational way except with the fact that it simply felt good to bring those words out.

Well whoever did that to me can honestly go fuck himself/herself cause they ain’t Virginia Woolf and now I absolutely do not care if they think that I’m not good enough. Writing is one of the most beautiful things I can ever put my mind to do so I will not stop because of their lack of will to uplift people. Please ignore whoever say things that make you feel bad because you’re much better than that.

Every time you say something personal and real about you, bear in mind that it can resonate to many many many other people so don’t ever underestimate the power of your voice. Even if you feel so little and lonely and it leads you to think you’re just a brick in the wall, I can assure you that if you take that ONE brick out, the wall will inevitably fall down miserably.

2020 is about to be wrapped up with mixed feelings. Or at least for me. But what a gift it is to be alive and to be able to slowly make our way out there and figure ourselves out.

I definitely hope that 2021 will bring much more light but at the same time i do hope that I will be able to carry much more light within myself.

Let’s try to love and feel loved a little more than this past year.