- Your Gypsy is a wish -

Through sounds lost in the past, the song that meant freedom became love tonight.

It was a night in white satin. The lady’s voice was echoing from the white polo car’s windows through the hill of Lycabettus to the tip of Mountain Dionysos to the deep blue waters of the Aegean. Athens was lighted. And so was I. I knew that a Gypsy I was. I knew that a wish I was but remained there listening to his music. I fell in love with that music. So much music. Deep in my skin.

Psichiko, Athens 2002

My Dear P.A.,

It is Sunday, March 20. Year 2011.

It is cold now. I have never imagined writing to you in these hours. But...

...Your Gypsy is here with me tonight. She definitely is a real wish. Some days, she is a wild horse running away from everyone. Other times she is a wolf who wants to eat me alive. And yet, today she confronted the truth and admitted to me that without you, she wouldn’t have become the Gypsy she is today.

As she was opening the envelope that she found this morning in the mail, she looked at me and said: “Can you hear the airplane’s engine?”. “I hear” I replied even though there was no airplane around.But we both heard that engine and felt our freedom approaching.

As the engine’s sound was becoming louder and louder and reality was drifting away from the room, all those images of suffering appeared in front of me. Images from the time that I had no name in America..no identity. An independent survivor with no real name working day and night. Images from the time that I had to eat the same can of tuna for about a month. Images from the time that the falafel place on MacDougal street was the best place in my weekly menu. Images from the time that I had to sleep on an empty room with Elvis; one of the building’s mouses walking through my hair every night.

And the engine stopped.

I opened my eyes and realized that I had managed to survive in New York and make my dreams come true. I had managed to find Garia and Eidothea. You havent met them, although I think you knew them from the start. And now your Gypsy, our Myth and I are free to fly!


I wonder, if your Gypsy comes back home, will you wait for her at the airport to take her to the city of love? Just take her there for few hours. She longs to see the view of Athens again listening the haunting voice of Stevie Nicks with you by her side. I can listen to her singing now:

"So I am back

to the velvet

..............

I am back to the

Gypsy that I was

......

And it all comes

down to you...

You see your Gypsy

........

It is cold now.

Together with this letter, I am sending you two photos. One is from the concert of Fleetwood Mac in Las Vegas two summers ago. Look at the sky now from where you are seating.

Can you see that dot in the sky? It is our airplane flying back to you,tonight.

Love,

G.

- The Empty Room -

Flatiron Building - New York January 2011

My Dear,

It is a Monday.

The past is an empty room now.

No one is here in my room. No one has been for a very long time. At least I think so.

I have covered my ears so as not to hear the sounds from the street. They distract me. They invade to my thoughts and to a specific moment which I want to live again and again.

All I hear is a whisper that says I Love You..I remember looking at you as a different kind of species once you said those words to me. I wasn’t expecting to hear them ever by such an innocent and honest voice. And I cried that night on your bed but those were tears of happiness for what you had said.

Often, I feel the need to bring you in my present. To talk to you, share with you my news, my new sounds, my new fears.

Fears, fears, fears..yes once my moto was “No Fear”.

These days though, I confess that I do have fear. I fear of changing. And the older I get, the more this fear arouses. I can see the change in me and yet I am scared to allow myself to become that change. I believe that many people must suffer from the same disease I have. The disease of being “Afraid of changing”.

It can be as simple as a wallpaper change to a house change, to a career change, to a life change, to a CHANGE of LOVE chain. A good friend told me to write lists of the changes I would like to do.

Today I made my first list. On the top I wrote:

i would like

to be in the empty room again ...

I must have written that because it is easier to return to the old than to be the change and embrace the new.

Together with this letter, I am sending you a photo I took last week. Its the Flatiron building but it looks as if it is a building with an empty room from the PAST.

You see, I cant change easily.

I remain in the past. But at least I am aware of it.

With Differente love,

- Garia August

- The Most Living is the Present

Woodstock 12498, NY

My Dear,

We came here together for the weekend with some friends. How nice this feels right now.I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave New York for a mini escape. But waking up yesterday, I had the desire to jump through the window of my east village apartment and hover for the rest of my life. So, it seemed right to get in the car and follow the wind's cry.

The house is on the top of a hill in Woodstock. Its surrounded by ice, snow and trees. There are no other houses or any construction close by.We are covered by a silence that transcends through nature, through the waterfall, through the mountain reaching my soul in a space where I feel myself again after a long time.

Although there is such a silence everywhere out there, in this house the noise is never ceasing. So many people; who indeed make me happy knowing that they are around but still I long for some moments on my own to read,to write, to take a peak through the window of the mountain's solitude. I want to think of the present as the lady at the Tibetan Temple we visited earlier said. In Buddhism there is no past or future but only the present. That all there is and all we have.

I am now in a wonderful present alone and with E.M who just came upstairs to check on me. But for some reason this isn't enough. I keep going back to the past of the night I met again with the Silent Man.

I am in. now.

The door closed behind me smoothly. It is not even closed firmly but it keeps us safe. Nothing else exists now but us. There is no universe out there anymore in these hours. The universe is here within these walls. He is arriving from the bedroom. He is wearing a white comfortable outfit and a brown cardigan. Soft garments. Soft garments. The dog is looking at me in the eyes. He wants something from me and his look pre-announces that what he wants has not ending.

The man is finally here. In front of me. He glances at me roughly and innocently at the same time. I reach towards him and we hug. He moves on towards the kitchen. And then I lose him from the image.

I will run faster

faster than your shadow

Tears of solitude wet my agony

for where we shall meet again

It is here in this silent

hideaway full of others

that I dreamt for a moment of us again

- Garia August

C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble....

My Dear Silent Man,

The moon is ready to transform into sun where you are.Tuesday, October 26th 10pm

I am at Anyway Cafe celebrating and although there is harmony in the air, your absence is keeping me awake from this dream. Who Am I to think that the dream will remain if you are not here with me?

I wonder, can you hear the music?

You see, I did not forget the song you sang to me

E la mer efface sur le sable

Les pas des amants de Julie

Have I told you that LOVE IS FOREVER?

Yes, Forever, there is a love that is forever and that is my love for the friends of Finding Eidothea and for you my dear.

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle

You are not in this room now. The night is taking with her the last memory of you.

And I need you.

Who is going to appear now to keep me in sanity in these lonely nights far away from the good and evil of the Journey?

Yes, she will appear now.

The Sea Nymph will appear. Her steps are near

- Garia August

A lettre to a lover or a friend?

Upper East Side, New york 2010

Mon cher A.D.,

It is a Tuesday. I am at Anyway cafe with Blue Velvet having a special mango vodka drink. I can feel the drug touching my body slowly. The drug is going down. Every sip is a new burning itch inside me.

It is the same burning itch that our kiss left in my thoughts the other night. But those burning thoughts faded away fast.

Today Garia announced to my mentor that she cant write. That she is not inspired anymore. That she needs a love reaction to support her being at this sensitive period of her creative paths. She is not Inspired. She is NOT.She was mad. Mad from her own self. Mad with her own self.

"You have help arriving tomorrow" my mentor replied, referring to Mother's arrival. "And you have this friend of whom you talk often, Blue Velvet" he added. You have the right support to be inspired. The one you really need.

Maybe he is right.

I am sending you a photo I took of Blue Velvet a la maison cooking. She is a soprano, but I call her a tenor. She has a unique voice and she takes good care of us. Especially of Garia.

Goodbye Never lover ever friend

Lettre a

Avenue Émile Zola. -

DRAFT a)
Ma Chere M.P.M,
It is a Monday. I am at a coffee place in East Village where I can enjoy the sounds of being seated at an outdoors table.

My life passes by fast but yet very slow. I am changing very fast in a very slow way that reflects an eternity of a loss. Writing comes hard these days but I read a lot. Yesterday I read two books one of which was the book of RAINER MARIA RILKE “Letters to A Young Poet” that you suggested and we bought together, together.

“Two solitudes that support, touch and greet each other”
RAINER MARIA RILKE.
Even this line, this summarized description of love that arrived to the history of writings from Rilke seems to be difficult for us the mortals to achieve during these times that we all want to become a Someone that is the illusionary More than the Anyone that we simply are. But my question is, What will happen to our souls when we realize that we have become that Someone by losing the Anyone and all that that the Anyone loves?But obviously love will always be Une Belle Histoire whether I question things or not.

Earlier this evening,I bought two copies of the book “Autobiography of Red” by Anne Carson. One I am sending to you. On page 60, the book opens:“Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling”

So many people are seated at this moment around me.
They are all yelling their past or their future.

And Yet look at me
I am at the beautiful reality of my silent solitude writing to you and I can LISTEN the sound of my pen loving the paper.

I am also enclosing for you a postcard that I printed for my photo exhibit. Please keep it or use it as you wish.

We miss you dear friend,

Foto: Home East Village, 2010

Dear K.M. -

Its Tuesday night 10:00pm. New Month began.
February of year 2010.
My skin is still itchy and I didn't have dinner yet.
Just some chips.
I liked the Tostitos with lime taste that you had home. I think I went to buy the same chips this afternoon because of my desire to taste again the idea that I am still at your home spending some more time together. But I am not there. And you are not here.
So I write to you a letter.

I keep it all personal.
Thank you for the word of advice.

Le livre “Sexual Politics; La politique du Male” e le livre A.D. ont une place speciale a ma biblioteque. Obviously, I don’t have a library in my small East Village studio apartment but your books have a special place now in my heart. Thank you for the rare edition in French.

It seems like I got my job back at the Greek Salad Maker's place as you called it. I will take you there one night for some calamari.

Our conversation got interrupted when I asked you who was the person who broke your heart. We have to get a nice bottle of ouzo as I promised you to talk about that girl.

I will explain you also about my greek heart. Mother once told me that my heart is big like a Kafeneio (coffee place in Greek); it holds the secrets of many loves but also many sorrows.

And all that you said about Simone De Beauvoir...

Did she ever write to you a letter?

Its late now. I will make a smoked salmon sandwich for dinner. And then I will take my pill.

Love,

Garia August