I have always written to become invisible.
To refuse believing that all we need are things, documents attesting our
existence, degrees scaling positions that are not existent at all but a
delusion on the part of this or that one. It equals looking at reality without
pretending its unity as a condition to its beauty; looking at the other —
whomever it is — without wry smiles or smarmy self-importance; and being
sure that we do not have to pulse in synchrony, as though we share the same
beliefs or have the same interests.
Becoming invisible by the very act of
writing means also refusing all the technical resources for the armed struggle,
the machines dictating rules, the dominant corporate market, the terms of
deprivation, the imposed one-sided look (of mistrust) at those improvident
brothers and sisters, the celebrities into spotlight, the “red carpet”, and all
that life’s forward motion that makes us feel so drowning by brands.
In any event, I write to die away myself.
The deeper I go along my characters, their secrets and personal failures, the
more distance I keep from a “desirable” visibility those — who are in the position to
write our histories, control our present, and forecast our future — insist to
recreate and indoctrinate us in, as if reality cut across the image and
likeness of their own preponderant logic, that means we just have to keep up
with all the “necessary” delusions — created to forge our own responses to
reality — or with pseudo-needs being imposed to reinforce the image of a way of
life considered to be tuned to our own affairs…
I have always written to disappear. To
look at and have empathy for those deserted men and women with nothing to
show but their frightening, waving existences; those homeless people, the
garbage men, the construction workers, the chauffeurs-driven limousine, the
freelancers, the cleaning guys, the laundresses, the waiters, the black and
white and yellow and blue ones with their exhausting journeys…
If there is something that cuts across all
our realities it is love, the bridge between all our differences. So becoming
invisible by the act of writing means this is the one-and-only way I figured
out all over the years to refuse tearing down that wondrous bridge. To look at
the other and realize there is much more that meets my eyes. To walk on a
crowded street made of concrete pavement trying to go beyond the asphalt
itself, and looking around and over that aggregation of men and women restless
in their movements, with their gestures of impatience, endurance, from pusillanimity
to resolution, upright or misled into their everyday connections…
This is what I especially believe we are
so up to capture from our own transitory lives and immediately convert into
language, even though things
are not all so tangible and sayable as people usually have us believe.
One of the most precious things I have learnt
by reading literature, by having literature and arts in general so close to me
all over these years, and making an effort to understand that strange power
coming from the words of fiction, is one of that I have just learnt from Rilke, the
poet, that talented and sensitive alchemist of the words: indeed, “most experiences are
unsayable, and they happen in a space that no word has ever entered.” But every
word we express for not refusing black lies and one-sided answers, every
single word that makes us recognize that our mysterious existences endure
beside our own small, ephemeral life is a word of generosity to the others. A
word, in short, being so about to make us share with, feel with, and contact
with humans being humans ourselves…
My invisibility does not even echo the
opposite sense of showing off itself. However, this is a way to wake up in the
early morning, breathe, leap forward, look around, get out of the bed, and not
go nuts when we face so much turmoil, so many excruciating events, so many
arbitrary decisions in the world we just live in right now. This is especially
a way to convert all this into love. Although it seems such an invisible love
springing from an invisible person who writes to disappear, it is a feeling that guides me throughout…as I try to transform any of my zigzagging words into the intention
to carry myself and other persons — whatever! — on to realities down the
lines, in-between, and on to a broader endeavor to perceive of, grapple with, and quest our multi-faceted
reality.
When I write to become invisible, to
continuously have that splendid impression that I am finding myself
transformed into an invisible woman (with no external traces, no fingerprint,
no profile(s), no degrees, no remarkable positions, and whatsoever!), I just intend
to reach persons or personas, from this or that realm, those who do not feel like they are
in the position to make their interests prevail over all the other ones’; who
act as if they can be brothers’ keepers; those who have a hope for humanity that we thrive and strive to provide everything necessary to everyone…
And so for it, I write this one to a very
enlightened, special woman who I do not even know in person (yet)… I am sure she
feels invisible in this sense I also do. Weird the fact that we have only corresponded with
each other virtually? No, definitely not! Every single sweet word she writes me is
so ready to be considered to enhance my own shot against the world’s greed,
corruption and selfishness… and rich and enriching as to show me that we are visible in this life not by
design, but by Love.
MARGO, Margaret Kargbo —
this is her name, soft and beautiful as I see her, notwithstanding from a
far-away place. I also feel passion in your words, dear Margo! I also look
forward to our paths crossing one day. And I especially grow more invisible in
words and in my deep-down feeling of tenderness, love, and affection for the others
when I see you here and there, supporting Persons. Artists, creative ones, lost ones, unbacked...invisibles. Almost everyone turns into invisible souls ourselves, as if we do not have voice, choice, hands, throat, fingers, sweat, eyes; not even some active role in running their general affairs. But then, kaboom: we just do; you show us that we just do. You believe in humanity this way, and that's more than magical, rare, ineffable...
Margo, the enchanter! Margo, the sweetest!
Margo, the one who will never spoil our amazement...even in front of a brutal world. And
Margo, who always makes me feel like I am coming home!
I bow to your superior sensibility,
dearest. And I hope you like my zigzag words of love to you.
With all my admiration,
Carol.
