The drawing pushes the hand out of the image

Rain dries the clouds. Mountains rise toward the sea.

Beneath our nails, our actions gather.

We borrow ladders, loose lost keys back again 

Sometimes I’m asked what I’m looking for 'here'.

Painting a wall white is no art.

Histories remain hidden until time demands their visibility.

We chalk a line as a signature.

In winter, it is indistinguishable from the snow.

Anook Cléonne

This past summer, I traveled to France, deep in the French Burgundy, to attend a philosophy workshop led by the writer and philosopher Joke Hermsen. In the company of extraordinary women, we grappled with the question: where is home? A theme, not coincidentally, at the heart of Joke's latest book; Onder een andere hemel (Under a Different Sky), which explores homesickness and the longing for distance. In Dutch Joke uses the wunderfull words heimwee and vertepijn

"Our lives unfold between nostalgia for the familiar and a yearning for the unknown. We seek comfort and security, yet dream of being somewhere else. We search for a place that shelters and holds us together, while being driven by a desire for the distant," writes Joke…

Can't we all relate? That contradictory desire for adventure and encounters with the world, yet,  at the same time that wish to retreat from that very world, into silence.

When I can’t find clarity in my thoughts, I turn to poetry. There's nothing quite as comforting as finding encouragement in the words of Pessoa, for instance. Our 'self' consists of many selves, he suggests. So, why not be both the adventurer, curious, tinkering, straying off the beaten path, and the dreamer who discovers the world from the corners of their small room?

Or take Rilke, who writes that if we dare to live fully and unconditionally, perhaps one day we will live into the answers.

A summer of exploring aloud, reflecting, reading, writing, and rewriting. To then share the results with each other in the garden each evening.Sharpening our thoughts like this led to many beautiful and moving discussions. There’s something incredibly powerful about listening to each other's words together. Everyone felt seen and heard.

And yes, at times it was uncomfortable. It’s always a challenge to truly understand one another. Yet, through the ears and words of my fellow students, through Joke, Rosa Luxemburg, Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Salomé, I took a new step in my work.

Capturing so much attention and intention in precisely the right words is no small feat. We often write functionally.

How do you describe the ineffable?

How do you create space, and how do you open that space for yourself?

Rain dries the clouds, mountains rise toward the sea. Beneath our nails, our actions gather... The sentences I ended that week with often echo in my mind:

The final assignment I translated into a series of collages on the spot. After all, that’s the medium where I can truly play freely. What I take with me is the understanding that expanding our consciousness flows so much more easily when we continue to strive to articulate our thoughts and truly share them.

Writing, in that sense, is a beautiful first step toward having a meaningful conversation with yourself.