Being Here for You

Dear Hannah,

In order to become invisible in a crowd, you need a crowd. Usually that would not be a problem here, but now I had to think about where to find one: 

You set off on your invisible mission. For the first ten to fifteen minutes outside, you notice people on the street looking at you. Perhaps because you are paying attention, or possibly because you are somehow foreign to the environment today. One man asks for your phone number from a distance… is this what happens when you try to disappear from sight? You see your reflection in a shop window and think you are wearing the right clothes for anonymity; jeans and a grey t-shirt. Still, it isn’t until you enter the busier area that you slowly become part of the scenery. You don’t encounter anyone I know and no one looks at you in particular. The kids are playing with the kids. The dogs are barking at the dogs. The parents and the owners are looking at each other across the enlarged space between them (that the children and dogs don’t care about) and you just fit into the scene: a woman walking in a park. Nothing odd or remarkable about it, and so you become one of the trees. One more, one less, no one would notice.
You become invisible.

Then you decide to walk barefoot (because of a painful blister) and you have to admit that this isn’t the smartest move. It attracts the attention of almost every person passing you.

Dear Rita,

On the day that you have this thought and this wish, and after many weeks of not seeing the kids (lockdowns..), they arrive totally unexpectedly as if out of nowhere and for the first time ever, at the house. They are calling from outside and it’s clear that they are missing the studio, or the time together, or maybe even missing you? You are taken aback by the intimacy of them appearing like this and also touched by a certain boldness they have to come and find you.