4th June
Dear Diary,
One month later, I am writing to you, and encompassingly, to all my soul family roaming around the world.
The information asymmetry within me and the way I live this world had me realising things. You, my dear people, how do I let you into my universe? As I do not excavate it and flesh it into words, audio messages nor shareable snaphosts. Therefore, in essence, this presents a way to keep in touch and stay in touch.
Copenhagen has proved to be a good mirror, a place that feels so still that only within yourself you are tectonically moved. As usual, in my classic style, I am still running around, discovering, peeling the layers of the city. Enter music, gigs, and other musings here. The various concert venues and the sounds that come out of these places.
For the usual hour-and-a-half (or sometimes more, if the artist is willing), the place turns into a space filled with some kind of emotion, anger, pride, or power [ please help me not to feel so dead here ]. Enter Ana Tijoux, at Alice, designating herself with el poder del micrófono. I stand by, Mothers and daughters, at the front, proudly vesting themselves in their national flags. Myself, with el poder de la periodista and my fracturado castellano, start the inquiry into the audience. A satellite into what kind of venue, what kind of artist, and what kind of evening I can expect (or not).
The Mothers, we talk, and as if everything was soft but urgent. They smile, they speak up about what brings them here, tonight to see Ana.
¿Dónde está Julia Chuñil, who disappeared without a trace couple of months ago?
ANA walks on the stage. The intensity and strength, coming from her soul, her heart, her background. You know she knows, and she knows you might not know, but that is okay. All of it, all of us, the space is now charged, politically. I feel her yielding her poetry with intention, with words that cut through the bleak Copenhagen weather. Reaches my conscience, things and thoughts I buried deep down to survive in the current climate of society and the world. Nota bene, I have recently drastically cut down on my junkie-like news consumption. Information is not knowledge. Her words sting, „Silence is full of noise. Full of violence. If we are not capable of standing up against genocide as humanity, it’s very hard to connect to each other, just as human beings, verdad?“
ANA, her message, is not one of silence.
Consciously or unconsciously, do we all think that everything revolves around us, our unique experience of being human? Her mention of Victor Jara, who sang and fought against the violence in the Vietnam War with his song of „El Derecho de vivir en paz„, makes my head spin. I, who have been struggling for a serious chunk of last year with my deliberate second uprooting paradoxically looking for the (Czech? Vietnamese? new?) roots, why am I at this moment at this hour at this time standing here? I fought with the city, the struggle of accommodating myself in a new environment, the existential dread, then gave up, then tried to open up. But I do stand by my decisions.
Funny how we all somehow come together. We make brief interactions, the heat of our bodies turns the venue into another sauna in the city, we let ourselves be carried on the power the artist shares with us. We carry each other, with a sense of urgency on our tiptoes. I need a dip in the cold air, unable to do the swarming sauna anymore, and head back.
Sacar la Voz
Respirar para sacar la voz
Despegar tan lejos como un águila veloz
Respirar un futuro esplendor
Cobra más sentido si lo creamos los dos
Liberarse de todo el pudor
Tomar de las riendas
No rendirse al opresor
Caminar erguido, sin temor
Respirar y sacar la voz
–
Text: Dear Diary is a new section from our guest reporter Binh, writing from Copenhagen, Denmark / Photo: Inti Gajardo
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