In Mail

20 July 2007

A friend, E, from whom I didn't hear in a long while wrote this to me:

"the other day, I put on a jacket which I hadn't taken for ages. what I found in the pocket was a theatre ticket from 1994. A moment which made me really feel how fundamentally times have changed in the past 10 to 15 years. But which also brought back something from that time, you know, the Proust kind of thing. It was BAK Truppen at Theater am Turm Frankfurt. A company which probably no longer exists, a theatre which no longer exists. Even the money which the ticket was paid in no longer exists. (but both, this company and the theatre, had fundamentally shaped my vision of theatre/performance.) I know it sounds banal, but there are those moments which make things clear in an unexpected way. sharp. and at the same time such moments bring back an imprint of how one used to be, used to feel and no longer is. makes me think about in which way I no longer exist. I mean, the "I" from that time, from ten years ago, it just no longer exists. again, nothing to be sentimental about. strange enough that all the correspondance from those times still is hidden somewhere in the far back of my computer. hard to believe, taking into account how often one changes the computer, the crashes etc. but, no, it is still there, isn't even dusty, the system still can read it. of course I cannot go through it again, just one glimpse, there it says, "that I can´t know you like this". no. seeing it with different eyes, we used to say. but what really is it that's different? sediments of experiences. can I still write to you like this? for a moment I feel quite close…"