Snuffkin was a calm person who knew an immense lot of things but never talked about them unnecessarily. Only now and again he told a little about his travels, and that made one feel rather proud, as if Snuffkin had made one a member of a secret society. Moomintroll started his winter sleep with the others when the first snow fell. But Snuffkin always wandered off to the south and returned to Moominvalley in the springtime.This spring he hadn't come back.-Tove Jansson.![]()
Central American migrants ride on top of freight trains through Mexico to reach the northern border, where they will attempt to cross into the United States.Photo by David RochkindSpring came and I didn't return. I remained in hibernation. I swam the days away in my blood, clotted and away with the hummingbirds. Winter is the most vital season to the human condition, for its the only time that shelter is so necessary, when guts must rest, heal, preserve. And direction doesn't come sometimes. Thus we go anywhere, anywhere at all. It hits us on the head and we follow its hand, dizzily, foolishly, instinctively and we're on our way. In Lyon one afternoon, Ven was eating a fallafel on the steps beside the park where old men, and young people at night, gather to play petanque - the traditional game of throwing balls towards a smaller ball (the bouchon), with the aim being to get them as close as possible, and if needbe, to knock other players balls out of the way. The day was hot and sucked all energy dry. This land so far from the balkans and winter, but I couldn't shake them loose, heavy in my loins. I begin to thirst for knowledge and miss my release of words deeply. A man approaches us. I look the other way to avoid his eyes. These last days, I'd crawled away from almost all social contact. A deep grind of meaningless interactions, and with these hardened eyes, I lose all excitement and enthusiasm that made each day full and of song. The man had approached us a couple of nights previous on these very same steps asking for a phone to borrow for a text message. He introduced himself and told us that he was from Iran and his father a sufi. So long had I been yearning for persia and here it was brought to me.'You're here again', he says, 'you're so easy to find'. 'Sometimes it's easier for others to find you than find yourself, I guess'.We talk for a while in french - a tongue that has left me once more. Wretched in these days in france, as if losing my eyes or a painting of my life torn and in ruins. The curse of my birth place, wretched and otiose in my abilities for languages. He speaks clear and with sparks emitting from certain words and expressions. His father reminds me of my own. He pulls out a notepad in which he scrawls poetry. 'I'm a writer', he says, 'it has been a part of me since I was a child. Sometimes I feel that I need nothing else apart from my writing - without food, shelter, company...words are enough for me if there is none of this. Listen...there are songs in the leaves...can you hear them? Can you become them? You see, with words, you notice the smallest of details...secret ones, hidden to everyone else galloping around with their important lives and only seeing large objects and feelings. I will spend my entire life writing, I know it, just as I have until now. Since sixteen I've never taken a job. The french government, when I came accepted that everytime I would come to a benefits interview that I am a writer and it is what I must do. I don't live on much..enough just to eat, but it's enough for I have this, I have words, I have meetings with people like you'.Slowly, with spring, the caccoon breaks apart, bit by bit.
