Voyage to the end of…
Voyage to the End of Night
On the road. Driving by night. A voyage beyond the unexpected. These nightscapes have enchanted me and have been a part of me since childhood. By car, train or bus, the window lowered, the rush of air against my cheeks, the warm pigments of color, absorbed by the retinas of my eyes, the passing shadows, the points of far-off light, all that accompanies the tense silence inside the car. An unexpected obstacle can turn the calm into a nightmare, but for the moment the monotony of our breathing agrees with the moisture of the air outside as a continuous mantra. Where does this road take us? Where does this road take us? It doesn’t matter. Trust the driver. Relax. We cross layers of the landscape. We surprise ourselves by counting the points of light to make them stand out, and to enter inside them. We coax the unknown and give it a story that suits what we expect to find when we arrive. But with my adult eyes what do I really know about these fuzzy points that in the past filled my expectations of mystery. What is their substance in real time? What future and what perspectives do they pretend to carry when a small boat approaches by night the coast of Lampedusa today?
Voyage to the End of Oneself
Traveling is not an escape from my daily habits. It lets me enlarge the itinerary of my routine. The astonishment, even the perplexity at the end of the anodyne. I smiled the first time I saw this miniscule building with the name “Church of the Broken Pieces.” Considering the dilapidated state of the neighborhood, one could think that the good pastor had collected everything viable in the area in order to create a place for spiritual and community rest. A search on Google, led me down a path that was much more theatrical. It was a bit as though I had opened a tourist guidebook that would lead me down a winding cultural path. On the way to Rome, a tempest destroyed the ship that transported the Apostle Paul. Some of the passengers saved themselves by holding on to the planks torn to pieces by the violence of the storm. The “broken pieces” served to rescue these beings terrorized like the escapees of the raft Medusa. Hope reaches the floating horizon, this line that symbolizes our inner voyage.
Voyage to the End of Time
Wandering in cities with no plan, no guidebook in my hand, is pure joy. We let ourselves be invited by the colors, the patches of shade and sunshine, the aromas, the words in unknown accents, the balconies decorated with flowers. One comes and goes, one loses oneself. The body adjusts to the ups and downs, to the inclines, the winding nature, to the different heights of the steps in a stairway. And coming around the corner of an alley, the mystery surges and makes us stop. Marseille, rue des Moulins, in the old quarter of the Panier. Since when have the pages of an old magazine been plastered on this wall? Who took the time to amuse us with the illustrated stories of Festival Magazine? Perhaps, it was a local magazine published in the 1960s? A chronical of a time that has passed, an out-of-date love story plastered not in the secret of a private alcove, but on the rough surface of a wall scrawled with childish graffiti. Time to stop. Rewind the film.
