Upside down

My dear Didem!

First of all: forgive me the long silence. Every time, I tried to write in the last days, the whole world literally was upside down again.

And it was not possible for me to think about those changing-processes clearly enough to find a beginning.

Now I'm sitting in Vienna in a flat that's somehow my base, in a chair of my cousin which is thought to be her reading and writing-diary-place. And in a very strange way that feels to be ... right (I don't know either, if this is the word).

As you know, we've had to stop walking the trail because we weren't able to find accommodations anymore and because all borders were closed for undefined time. It's a real miracle caused by a chain of improbable coincidences and flight-cancellations that we were able to leave Serbia with the last possible flight after actually having booked for the day after.

Of course there were phases of despair, impulses to resist, a feeling of deep powerlessness and big doubts. These states have forced me to go back to a country which they claim to be mine. And me to be its citizen. Because of a virus they take as killer argument for the suspension of all civil and human rights people have fought for over at least 2000 years.

I really do hope, they are saving lives from the corner of my heart and I will comply all the measures to do so, but I know that nobody knows anything in this situation. This is not about facts. It's not about reality or reason. It's about the feeling to be safe. About the feeling to have control.

And I think that's the way humans function. We prefer a very tiny safety (also if it's only about toilet paper) to a big undefined unknown.

And it's very hard to acknowledge death as part of our lives.

Taking all this into account, I've decided to keep on walking. I'm going to Istanbul in Vienna until they open the borders again and we can continue on the trail or until I've reached the city of "Gegensätze" according to the number of kilometers.

Yesterday, I began to walk to the city-borders of Vienna, and the Danube, that has accompanied us for 2 thirds of the route until now, reminds me and connects me to the "real places" on the route that now have to be imagined ones - also for me.

In a certain sense this is the absolute densification of all the project's topics. All borders closed. And I will have to leave Vienna for dozens of times in the next weeks. (At least I'll get to know this city like never before probably and I will be able to recommend new favorite places to you when this is over.)

As for me, in the last days it has become a real problem to stay in a self-chosen exceptional situation of motion and run into a very strange outside-perspective, while all the persons I love are caught in this state of emergency, while the world, I've left, changes in an irreversible way, that makes "coming back" impossible.

I've always had a tendency to positions outside but this time I really want to declare myself as part of this community.

I have a feeling of belonging to.

Of solidarity.

(And actually I didn't really understand that until I wrote it down, told you about it.)

This is what I feel, when I walk in the streets of Vienna, with all those other isolated single persons that try to cope with the situation.

In the imaginative streets of Belgrade.

Of Sofia.

Of Istanbul.

Your words about walking together for those 4 hours made me really happy!

I shared all your questions about the addressee of our lines, had the same blockades because of them, but they vanished step by step - literally! And this line somehow made me know, that it's the same on your side.

We'll have some common walks left, I guess.

What's the actual situation in Turkey: are you forbidden to leave the house completely?

There would be footage for several other pages, but I'll quit this letter here with the following: 3 days ago - on the last real walking day -, we came across a vacant shop in a North-Serbian village. A peacock butterfly was locked in the space and fluttered constantly against the window-pane. Of course, I immediately thought of our exchange, but it wasn't clear then, how symbolic this will be.

Didem, I embrace you with all my heart.

Yours,

C