Alle Beiträge von Nia Lejander

Hi my name is Nia, and I like to play: with light, colours, sounds, the body, the senses, roles, rules, realities. I spent over a decade researching on the topic of play. Amongst my most powerful teachers were the unquestioned masters of play: children. Over the years, my initially scientifically-oriented interest transformed (back) into an intimate love-relationship with play. The creations birthed from that love are of various shapes: performances, poems, photographs, paintings... I came to understand that my job as an artist, mainly, is to be a vessel. It became a daily practice for me to make my body and all of my being a welcoming place for artistic expression. I take pleasure in cultivating an attitude of proactive-not-knowing towards life that allows mystery to work upon me and leaves space for magic and miracles to happen naturally. My work unfolds at the intersection of immersion, intervention, activism, and research.

Crush

I don’t have a crush on you
I have a crush on life

I am, secretly, madly in love with life
but I am afraid to admit it
I am afraid that I am not good enough
I am afraid that life will reject me
that it will not answer my love
that it will ridicule me
for even considering that it might be mutual
I am afraid that life will laugh at me and my love for it

so I hide my burning desire for life
I smoke it away
I pretend that I don’t care
I distract myself
I sabotage myself
I dim my light
time and time again

I am afraid of my own power
I am afraid of how big I can become
once I fully surrender
once I give it my all, my everything and my forever
once I let myself fully fall in love with life
without fearing the consequences

I don’t have a crush on you
I have a crush on the idea of you
I have a crush on the idea of what we could be together
I have a crush on the person that I made of you in my head
the person that actually I want to be
the person that I already am
somewhere

I have a crush on all the possibilities you made me see
all the things that, allegedly, I see manifested in you
All the things I so desperately crave
All the things I made myself believe I can not have

I have a crush on the joy, the self confidence, the embodiement,
the freedom of expression, the art, the communication,
the sexuality, the connection, the lightness, the ease…

I don’t have a crush on you
I have a crush on life

I have a crush on bathing naked in the ocean
I have a crush on laughing until my belly aches
I have a crush on dancing until I’m dizzy
I have a crush on getting lost in playing
I have a crush on crying my eyes out
I have a crush on how it feels when my heart opens

I have a crush on life

and I hear it calling me
through you
calling me
to be
me

The Laundromat

I think I am about to discover a new character
in this book that I call my life.
I met her in the toilet of the laundromat
that I am waiting in right now.
I saw her in the mirror.
I looked her in the eyes and I started to understand
that I am actually this other person
that looked back at me through the mirror.
This person that anonymously shared a life
and a body with me for the last 35 years.

The one that I despised so much.
The one that I didn’t want to see at all.
The one that I always tried to pretend that she didn’t exist.
Or at least tried to hide her from other people.
The one that I become when I’m down,
feeling insecure and worthless.
The one that has all these uncomfortable feelings.
The one that I thought it was not me but rather something
like a seperate entity that took hostage of me sometimes.
Or some kind of illness that had to be treated.

The one that I tried to fight with all that I had.
For a lifetime.

I am her.
Too.

And I am trying to see what happens
when I grant her an official permission to exist.
And I am trying to understand how I can be both of them.
All of them.
At the same time.

While I am watching the washing machine
go round and round and round…

The windy path

She is waiting for a sign
She is still in there
Waiting for a fucking sign from him

I honour her stamina

She want’s him to say:
„I miss you! I wish you were here.
Right next to me!“

I honour her desire for closeness

She is even imagining a life with him
There on the farm
She’s even imagining having kids with him
He said he want’s kids

I honour her desire for commitment and belonging.

She’s afraid to speak her truth
and make herself vulnerable
She doesn’t want to loose his respect

I honour her ability to protect herself

She thinks that she’s better off
if she hides parts of herself
And only shows the parts that he might want to see

I honour her ability to adapt

She get’s confused
She looses herself in an attempt to become someone else
Someone he might like, want and admire

I honour her hard work and her discipline

She believes that she, herself, is not enough
She thinks she’s better off if she let’s him define her and then spend the rest of her days trying to become that person

I honour her pain

She wants all these things she’s projecting on him so much
And I don’t try to talk her out of it
I don’t try to tell her that it’s not even about him at all

Instead: I listen

I honour her truth

And I watch her
I follow her as she walks this windy path
that will, eventually, lead me to her heart

I trust her

Der Fuchs

Es ist einfach ermüdend, gelinde gesagt,
wenn es dich jeden zweiten Tag in deine Einzelteile zerfetzt
und du dann all deine Energie dafür aufbringen musst
dich wieder zusammenzuflicken.
Unter Zeitdruck.
Ständig bedroht von der Gefahr Teile von dir zu vergessen.
Ich kann die Frage wie es mir geht nicht beantworten.
Weil es die falsche Frage ist.
Um zu bemerken wie es mir geht
müsste ich zunächst einmal wissen
wer ich überhaupt bin. 
Ich müsste ein Bild von mir haben.
Aber genau das habe ich eben nicht.
Oder ich habe es manchmal.
In kurzen Momenten der Klarheit habe ich eine Idee davon.
Eine flüchtige Ahnung.
In kurzen Augenblicken habe ich und bin ich mir selbst eine Zuflucht.
Bis es mich dann wieder zerlegt und die Scherben meiner selbst 
in glitzernden Regenbogenfarben den Boden bedecken.
Den Boden der Tatsachen.
Ich sehe, dass ich schön bin wenn ich mich so am Boden liegen sehe.
Aber was habe ich davon schön zu sein
wenn ich mich selbst nicht einmal besitze. 
Ich gehöre mir nicht. 
Ich habe keinen Bezug zu mir. 
Ich sehe mich nur von außen. 
Ich kenne mich nicht. 
Ich weiß noch nicht einmal meinen Namen. 
Ich bin mir selbst nichts weiter als eine flüchtige Bekanntschaft
oder eine kurze Begegnung. 
Jemand, den man an einem kalten Wintermorgen
am Weg zur Arbeit beinahe übersieht.
Eine Realität gibt es bei mir nicht. 
Tatsachen sind so flüchtig wie die Wolken am Himmel. 
Es gibt keinen Standpunkt von dem ich ausgehen könnte. 
Es gibt kein Zuhause wo ich mich mal eben kurz ausruhen könnte.
Ich bin ständig unterwegs,
auf der Flucht vor Geistern
und mein Rucksack ist schwer.
In der nächsten Stadt werde ich mir neue Schuhe besorgen.
Ein Leben ohne Wurzeln ist möglich.
Aber nicht wünschenswert.
„Zumindest nicht für mich“, höre ich mich sagen und muss lächeln.
Da war es wieder.
Mein ich.
Ein kurzes Aufflackern.
„Hallo Fremde!“, sage ich und dann lade ich mich selbst zum Tee ein.
Ich werde diese kurze Begegnung genießen auch wenn ich weiß, dass ich bald wieder gehen muss.
Vielleicht gelingt es mir eines Tages mich zu zähmen. 
Genau so wie der kleine Prinz den Fuchs gezähmt hat.