The Jean Genie
author: Angela Maddalena
Since this is my last article before the Christmas’ holidays, i decided to write a different kind of story. This one is about inspiration, the art full of demon, and my relationship with it. (this is not a love letter, no way! But I humbly suggest you a soundtrack: my beloved David Bowie) I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Do you know what a Djinn is?
He (or she) is a per-islamic entity, a sort of fairy who lives in the desert, runs in the wind and plays tricks to those fool humans.
A Djinn can technically be seen, touched, loved and chained.
They have the ability of assuming a human form. But, basically, they are made of wind.
Why am I writing about mythological creatures, you may ask.
Because I like them, of course, but mostly because the Djinn is the representation i gave to the term “inspiration”.
Inspiration may have a human body: sometimes people are our first inspiration to make art.
But, most of the times, inspiration, just like wind, comes out of nowhere, it hits on us and then it goes away.
What happens then? We try to follow it. Us, silly humans, we try to fly. With our minds, hearts, technological devices. Someone, maybe Leonardo, maybe even someone before him, was hitted by the thought that a man, provided with the right tools, would have been able to fly. If we have jets now, is because of someone’s inspiration.
The Djinn, long forgotten, smiles silently when things like this happen.
He (or she, because for me it is a she) knows.
Inspiration, in this form i chose to portrait it, is a thinking creature. She breaths with the Earth and the water. In our blood, a pale reflection of this breath comes up in the most unexpected times and ways.
She hits on us, sometimes very hard, becoming a bad obsession. Sometimes, she’s as gentle as a caress. Every time, it is impossible to just let it go.
This wind, this Djinn, she has always been leading me, she took me where i sit now (in this very moment, while writing, I’m sitting by the window and,trust me, it is freaking cold), she took me all the way down to new possibilities.
The Djinn is smiling, looking over my shoulder, spying what i’m writing down.
She has known it for a very long time, I was up to this: to follow the wind.
She never speaks to me, not with words; but i can feel her when she grabs my hand: time to go, isn’t it?
Now, she’s a bit nervous.
Because I’m writing about her. She doesn’t like to be under the spotlight.
She prefers obscurity (or dire the shadow). In this respect, she is a demon-like creature: she doesn’t want to be understood.
I gave up asking questions a long time ago, seriously: she never answers. I just keep going. Her hands are cold and she has long, sharp claws around my neck and my heart. Claws that is better not to try to resist to: she scratched me so deeply when I tried to fight. She’ll never let me go. We both know. We are learning how to live together. Anyway, This is not a friendship: she’s a bullying, oppressive, jealous master, but she can be sweet. Her painful sweet is the inspiration, it forces your hand to grab the pen, on the scaring white papers, never letting you go until you have turned them black. So, as i said, I’m just following her.
Wherever the wind blows, we are going together.
But now, from the spot where i am standing, i think i finally see it clear what she wanted.
A kind of freedom that has nothing to do with the absence of rules. A kind of freedom that comes from the inside, from the ability to choose (and change) my own rules and to follow them, with all my will.
She wanted me to be brave, but in a different way: no fights, not anymore, no screams, no tears. She wanted me to be as brave as the wind: to run without knowing why, to smile and go on (even in circle) without the scaring feeling of being lost. Because i’m no longer lost, now that i have learn how to run faster. Not physically, of course, I’m as fast as an addicted smoker could be, but with my mind. And with my heart.
Now that I’m free as the wind, i’m not scared: i feel at home, no matter where I am.
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The “Angie’s Blog” is a rubric led by Angela Madalena (Italy)
and is part of the project “Freedom of (Hate) Speech“.
It is funded under European program “Erasmus+”,
KA 1: European Voluntary Service and Training Course for Youth Workers.
National Agenda for Bulgaria: Center for Human Resource Development
