Joya: AiR / Letitia Despina / ROM
photo Simon Beckmann
Joya: AiR / Letitia Despina / ROM
For the first two days at JOYA I kept thinking que ho hecho yo para merecer eso? I woke up in the middle of the night and went to look out the window, the small, low-placed window, and got scared by how bright the stars were, I had not seen them this way in a million years. Star-tled, for real.
I woke up every morning to beautiful nothing, birds, but quiet, hilltops and mountaintops and olivetreetops. I wondered if I stayed there for a year would I be at risk of forgetting everything around? Would I ever come to miss anything or anyone? I wondered how long it would take me to learn the animals and the plants and the seasons, how long till i grasped how many hours walking some distant, but visible valley was?
It wasn't just the surroundings, it was also the people and those brief but powerful connections. I realised all over again why it is so important and beautiful (this word rarely makes sense, but it does here) to find oneself in one’s own creativity, without aesthetic constraints, without artificial boundaries.
I’m still breathing sometimes in that rhythm: freedom as a constant move, not a plateau, not a fixed stage, not a place you get to and get comfy, but going and going, getting scared, getting uncomfortable, the rhythm in flow, out of breath, but full of life.
When I left I was in that soft spot where there was only a thin layer between the world and my tears, not sad, just full of feeling. I had a good cry, because it was such a pivotal experience and what didn’t come out through typing it all down in words, or through the soles of my feet walking on rocks and sandy soil, or through the tips of my fingers touching and holding rocks and trees and treasures, needed to get out through the salt water exit.
I’m saying thanks forever, but this tear is baroque.
Letitia also has a book shop in Copenhagen