Eulogy of Slowness

If we cannot hold onto time, we can steal fragments of it. Embrace it. Curl up in it. Unfurl within it. Try to inhabit it as fully as possible.
Choose contemplation, wandering and gentleness.
Choose light and sensuality.
Affirm slowness.

Do not fear stripping away.
Shed your petals and shed the world.
Lay yourself bare. Lay it bare.
Delicacy is essential. Once the petals have fallen, you may gently blow on the pistil.
Feel how fluffy, silky, almost warm it is. Brush it, taste it. Kiss me.
Little by little, discard the superfluous.
Escape in order to shine brighter.
Prune so the sap flows more freely.
Inhale. Exhale.

Demand the best, even more, everywhere, all the time.
Demand poetry. Nothing less than the intensity of poetry.
Never live half‑heartedly, and to do that, to be whole, you must slow down and make room for emptiness.
Expand the void. Inhabit the interstices. Let the silences grow.

And naked,
watch
touch
move
because that is how, in return, we are touched and moved.
It is there, in the heart, that life beats, don’t you think?

I run my fingers through your hair.
My lips travel down your neck, from the lobe of your ear to your collarbone, feeling the back of your neck shiver slightly, seeing goose‑bumps appear before my eyes.
With my tongue I touch each of your vertebrae, brush each of your moles, taste the hollow of your navel.
My finger runs over the bridge of your nose, curls into the hair on your chest, caresses your stomach, follows the curve of your buttocks and the texture of your skin.
I take your penis in my hand. It is warm. I press my cheek to it, kiss its length, play with the head. And like a vine, I climb back up to your lips, to your eyes.
For long minutes we look at each other like this, immersing ourselves in one another.
Cultivate the art of contemplation, of human beings, of things.
Does the inanimate exist? For me, everything is inhabited.
The tree outside my window is my strongest pillar; each day it is there, unchanging and yet different, never the same.
Favor the small over the large.
What is within my reach and what is not.
So many precious things already forgotten, that just need to be found, rediscovered, re‑explored.
In fact, everything is already there.
There is nothing crazy to go looking for, it is the secret: everything is already there.
This book I am picking up again, forgotten.
That memory resurfaces and makes me smile despite myself.
That appointment I have tonight, on the far side of Berlin, because I am in Berlin now, and since it is snowing I will walk there slowly, carefully, under the flakes.
I celebrate every moment, especially the journey.
The journey itself matters; it is not a means to an end, there is no “between,” it is wholly, completely, in itself.
Savour.
Everything.

Resolutely with my head in the clouds.
The sky above us. Watch the clouds drift slowly, moving, changing shape, looking like a huge question mark.
It is a cliché, yet what could be truer, more beautiful than clouds?
Everything is already there.
In what lies beneath the clichés and in those clouds pushed by the wind that glide above us without hurrying, without ever stopping.
Write read walk make love eat talk laugh write.
Relish life while it lasts.
Life? What is it, really, if not a pause, a parenthesis? A flame in the void?
What has been lived has been.
What remains for me: the unknown ahead of me.
The horizon.
The splendor.
Three ellipsis points.

I travel through Berlin. Temperatures are below zero. In Paris this is rare, and Berlin under snow is really something.
I am amazed.
Why does snow automatically bring this magical, enchanted aura?
With a huge smile on my face I clumsily make my way across the icy surface.
My breath comes out in clouds, my fingers are frozen despite thick gloves.
The snow makes the world cottony, muffled. Even the sounds are muted.
I regularly slip on patches of ice and then catch myself.
Another allegory, I tell myself, another allegory.
Under my coat the fabric of my dress. Under my dress, bare skin, high up, between the ends of my stockings and the silk of my panties.
I am dressed in white, but my heart burns, bleeds, and beats, and my lingerie is carmine red. My skin is warm and in that spot of flesh, still bare beneath the fabric, I feel no cold.
Naked, I never feel cold.
As I cross Alexanderplatz, the wind could lift me off my feet. I could dance above the buildings, reach the top of the Fernsehturm and rest a little farther away in Mitte, where our rendez‑vous awaits.
I strike the heavy revolving door. Heat washes over me like a wave.
I turn for a second. Outside it is still snowing, still cold, yet suddenly it feels so hot. Tiny beads of sweat appear at my hairline while my cheeks remain frozen.
In the lift I swap my fur‑lined boots for high heels. The mirror reflects my face, bright eyes, rosy cheeks. No need for makeup, no need, no need at all.
The carpet is plush as I walk down the long corridor to your room.
I knock, three quick taps, and hear the sound of your body moving to open the door. And then you appear.
In an instant you see me, your face lights up with joy, like a child receiving an unexpected gift.
“Oh yes!!!” you exclaim, arms raised in triumph. “You’re so beautiful!“ “So beautiful, so beautiful! Yes!!!” you repeat, in an excited, relieved exclamation, and without a second thought I burst into laughter too, leaping against your chest; we kiss fully, joyfully, so happy that we bounce on the spot like kids.
You shut the bedroom door with the tip of your shoe and we leave winter outside.
We’ve known each other for what, two minutes?
We have what, three hours?
“Let’s take our time,” I say, “let’s take our time.”

And as you undo the buttons of my dress one by one, how many, a thousand, a hundred,
caressing my hips, brushing my breasts through the silk, slipping your fingers under my dress, pulling aside the elastic of my panties,
gusts fill the hotel room,
tossing our hair, tearing our clothes,
and in the wind we fly, amid the snowflakes that continue to fall outside…

If we cannot hold onto time, we can steal fragments of it. Embrace it. Curl up in it. Unfurl within it. Try to inhabit it as fully as possible.
Choose contemplation, wandering and gentleness.
Choose light and sensuality.
Affirm slowness.