Dear Jon,

how nice to read about your road trip and that you are meeting people who mean a lot to you and are also doing you good. At least that’s how I read it out of your letter.
How is it for you to travel in these days? And in your country? You wrote in one sentence that the country where you live has given you a house without necessarily being your home. I was really interested in that! Would you like to elaborate on that a little more …?

I often wonder about „homeland“, „home“ and all these constructs that we humans have created for ourselves to gain security and lose freedom. Just open the drawer, look inside, nod, close it again. But what does home or homeland actually mean? For me, who grew up in Germany as a half-Greek and half-Kurdish person with a Turkish surname (lol@mylife) and thus falls through all the drawers, I consider home to be a feeling. The feeling when a place and the people there are ready to listen without opening their drawers. Home means to be allowed to be as you are. To be free. Yes, for me home is simply freedom. But I have the feeling that there are fewer and fewer places where you can be free. Hopefully that will not remain so …

Last week I was also travelling and made the experience that I feel the freest when I am with myself. A great insight. After many theater-productions this year I took a backpack and travelled to Mykonos. There I spent most of the time staring at the waves as they hit the coast – racing with the wind. And at the same time I finally started to reflect my last year.
So far away from all obligations and having left the „normal timeline“ I realized that especially in the last two years I got away from what I actually want to do and be – namely acting and writing – and instead studied dramaturgy and advised people in some projects (#security or #lifeofadramaturg) in order not to face the truth and freedom which seems to be exhausting. It’s also funny that once you are in a drawer, it’s really hard to get out. But that can’t be it yet: to capitulate in your mid-20s.

From therefore: No, I also do not live in the present. I think I am not really awake. My sleepy self usually mumbles “ from tomorrow on, then“ … Well, what concerns my life.
As far as my political self is concerned, I try to live in the present, because I believe that our generation, profiting from networking and the flood of information, can achieve a great change: a diverse non-binary future.
At the same time, however, I see that resistance to intersectional striving for diversity is becoming more and more urgent, so we have to hold on. With all persistence. And despite the energy it costs. And despite the immense patience it takes.
Whether I will experience this non-heteronormative future, whether in 60 years time we will be ready: who knows?

What does your idea of a good future look like?
In any case, keep me updated – also how your journey went.
And take care.

All the best,
Antigone

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Review

The Beauties & The Beasts #1