Ieselsbrécken, Eddisoen, an ee Stéck vum Gléck.

“How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the night of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and aloneness without regret? Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.
[…]
Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering? And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn? And what shall I give unto him who has left his plough in midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress? Shall my heart become a tree heavy-laden with fruit that I may gather and give unto them? And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill their cups? Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me? A seeker of silence am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?”
[…]
“You give much and know not that you give at all.”
(K. Gibran)

“Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you should
It was good
As good goes
Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you did
(…)
Making plans to change the world
While the world is changing us” (DMB)

I am not Almustafa. I don’t have any advice, poetic or pragmatic, to give to those I leave behind. I did not stay 12 years. My absence will be a lot less noticeable. I did, however, learn to love this place. I lost a bit of my heart here. I learnt the purity of its forms by heart. I had to do hard decisions. I still draw the shapes of its inhabitants, the lines on the ground, the crevasses in the buildings. I still carry the wind in my ears, I hear the steps of the horses, and I feel the sun set, and the rain shake the leaves. Four seasons have come and gone, in the middle of the fifth I am going away. I can theoretically envisage it, but do not comprehend it as yet. In the hope not to forget, I take with me a thousand mnemonic devices. Fieldwork as a multitude of moments that I refuse to synthesise and analyse yet. How can a time like this possibly fit into 5 neat chapters? It don’t and it won’t. Happiness, sadness, aches of various kinds, fury, elation, irony, exhaustion, desperation, peace, quietness, euphoria, and others were close friends in this year. Of course, along with the people I met, learnt to respect, to care for, and to love, and whose friendship I will hopefully honour. I am very grateful to them in the first place.
Thanks also to you, dear reader, for having been part of the journey.
This weblog ends here, the (PhD and other) journeys go on. There may be other weblogs in the future. Information forthcoming here...
Happy New Year!
Your seeker of the silences