KISS & FLY
by Gil Harush (2019)
We experience death and birth every day, happy moments next to endless sadness. We fight for love, for money, for comfort, for someone to hold us. To hang on when we are tired. A memory, a vision, a fantasy. Ignoring countless moments in a single day, because they are short, fast and almost unnoticeable. These exact moments that we miss to appreciate, that we miss to hold onto, are the moments that might be more fulfilling than any romantic night in front of a full moon. But we just go on, we pass them, we kiss, we fly, we never look back. A few month ago, a very dear person gave me a ride to the airport of Geneva. We were chatting about different things, laughing, hesitating together. A moment after, she said: “OK dear, see you next week!”, I asked: “should I get off here?”, “Yes, it's a Kiss & Fly road”, she answered. I stepped out of the car and walked towards the terminal. I found myself confused, feeling that this “goodbye” moment in the car was like a rough cut. The confusion turned into inspiration and suddenly I was aware of the emotional weight I give to different situations. I hesitate what is it that makes a moment more dramatic than another? What is it in a moment that turns it into a lifetime memory? Why some exact moments are meaningful for one and for another simply not?
In 2007, I left Tel Aviv and moved to Rotterdam there I lived for two years. It was the first time I left home. Later, in 2017, was the second time that I have found the strength to take a huge bag, full of love by the closest people to me, and I moved to Madrid. Behind me I left their daily presence, knowing that missing them will be the new feeling taking over their smell and energy. I can not tell which moving had been harder, more challenging and full of sacrifices. One thing is sure, both of them were absolutely NOT - a Kiss & Fly moments, and the neon lights of Tel Aviv airport are still fresh in my eyes.
In this creation, my idea and intention is to connect with one of the greatest ideas of Donald Woods Winnicott , who was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst. Out of his work with children and their mothers he developed his influential concept of the "holding environment". Winnicott considered that the base of our emotional health is being created by the way a mother is loving and caring of her own baby, and the way she is attentive to him. Winnicott considered that the mother's technique of holding, of bathing, of feeding, everything she did for the baby physically becomes an inner sensation of holding and security.
If the most casual actions of daily routine, like eating or taking a shower, were building in us as children the values of holding, confidence and trust, how dare we ignore the importance of casual actions as grown ups?
We carry inside us a bag of security that we received from our mothers and from the environment where we grew up. Hopefully, we have gained that inner feeling that someone is always holding us. Clearly, each one of us got a different bag with a meaningful role of designing our personality, our powers and our weaknesses. It teaches us how to hold ourselves, how can we walk around in rainy days like a strong warm coat, knowing that our hanger is always there, just next to the door of our
house, always agreeing to simply hold us.
That very hanger, is yourself. And our lives, are anything else... but a Kiss & Fly road.
Thank you Iris, for the warm room, your love, your care. And for that ride.