Weird Words Within Me

And probably the wrong ones

I have this vague, persistent memory of a day and of a man repeating these words: yoke, yonder, yoke, yonder-yoke, yoke-yonder. Woke? Wonder?

I was maybe 14 years old and was on a solo adventure: I went alone to UEL, my city’s State University in Londrina, Brazil, to watch a session of a cineclub. I didn’t use to wander around the city by myself. I was a very “protected” teenager. Suffocated? No need to exaggerate.

The screening was of a very famous yet “rare” film - well, remember we are talking of the very, very early 2000s. I was a home movie cinephile and maybe I knew then more names of music video directors than of classic film authors. I remember loving to wander around the video rental corridors and explore session-by-session to find cool covers and weird titles and this was my way to find new films. That one was not available in my small rental store then, so I was excited. “Orange Clockwork” was my first meeting with Kubrick and with such a sensual aesthetic representation of violence. Sublime and disgusting. Almost literally, an eye-opener. I remember loving the soundtrack and was both turned on and disgusted by the main character.

I don’t remember if someone I knew was with me, but I vividly remember he was talking to someone else too, as we left the session. I was a shy teen, living with my head between book pages and very wild thoughts and discoveries. It was a very influential encounter. I now remember - or think I remember, an association of topics, of ideas, reference dropping - but not in a blasé cinephile manner: Carlos was dancing, playing with the quotations, with the ideas as if he juggled with balls in the air, or drew a surrealistic horse with bird paws and a sheriff badge.

We talked as we walked from the screening place, a theatre with too much sunlight. Perhaps yes, there was another person with me, and now I suspect I remember that I write/visualize the scene. Memory is hugely a reconstruction. We passed by this long walking street that crosses UEL. I don’t remember what inspired him to recite some poem. Was it from a Beatnik writer? I was in love with those bums around this age. Had it anything to do with adoration of violence? Was it mystical?

I remember him mentioning something from a junction, trying to explain something as I tried to understand what he was saying. I had this feeling back then (and still do sometimes, but now it’s happily fading) that I should observe and wait before asking stupid questions like “What/who are you talking about?” because people indeed have many more references than me. So I didn’t usually ask much, sadly. And many times my internal anxious guessing game won, and it felt good to figure out what was THAT.

On the vertical side of the staircase, not far ahead on the walking street, Carlos had written a sentence by Brazilian poet Adélia Prado:

A borboleta pousada ou é Deus, ou é nada.

The resting butterfly is either God or nothing. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder: the mystery, the emptiness, the joy, the spark of curiosity that flashes and persists for years. What did he actually say? Yolk Under?

I kept the words to myself, as a treasure and a mission, but I never found out what he was talking about. For me it became Yoke Yonder, and now Yonder Yoke.

According to the Cambridge dictionary, a yoke is either a tool used to hold cattle to a vehicle (tool of torture), a part of clothes that fits around the shoulder or waist (connecting different materials), or “something that connects two things or people, usually in a way that unfairly limits freedom”. Yonder is an old term, an adverb that refers to a place or direction shown. It means “over there”. There where? What is there? Those words almost don’t make sense or go well connected to each other.

Practicing imperfectionism

I can’t do this on a daily basis. I can’t stop and think clearly very often these days. I am still getting back to my mind. It was swollen, shaken inside, and now I come to it with a different scenario.

Under a Linden tree in Pistoia I learned on an audiobook that perfectionism was not a quality or a flaw, it was a system similar to addiction. Perfectionism smells like sweet rotten flowers under the sun. The smell is sweet, yes. Attractive. Dangerous, stingy and have had their better days - when they were desires, intentions, and plans. That linden flowers did not make a good tea, indeed.

Finding out that your brain is being damaged while you are working systematically with this kind of “limitation” is sad. As I am not obsessive, perhaps a bit neurotic but lacking in that idealistic persistence that moves a classic productive perfectionist, I find it hard to make my voice heard. I am more of an observer perfectionist in revolt.

As I am making my way to my new “post-jelly-brain” state, I decided to try imperfectionism systematically. I once wrote a lot, and read so, so much. It was my refuge. I need to post even before I think the text is good to go. Just needs to go. Yonder.

Parco Monteoliveto, Pistoia, 2021.

Out there (here inside)

I claim the Yonder and the Yoke. I am completely dedicated to making space in a new land “over there”, north. It strangely binds me to my original land. The way here, (or the hours of flight, as my analyst would say), gave me other lands of affection, the discovery and claim of another identity, and always, always carrying this big, heavy wooden piece around my neck that connected to Brazil.

Yoke is also connected to the Sanskrit word for yoga - union. Junction. What connects and what we carry around - or carries us around until we don’t know what is what.

The weight of these words is lighter, as they are mine now. I couldn’t ask Carlos nowadays, as he had a tragic end around a year after we met. His poems were never published. I’ve heard they are hidden/secured (buried/archived?) with a friend who holds the rights. We can’t get to know more of him through himself, although some dear friends seem to have a lot to tell us about who he was, how he spread himself around, his feelings, and his electricity.

I activate a meaning to these guessed or remembered words now. This redundant story is just to explain what I am doing here: looking for magic thinking. I’m going to test the mic and write about my recent weird experiences here, in a very irregular and maybe presumptuous fashion. When I can, how I can.

Hang on, and use the buttons below if you feel like it.