January is about going back to essentials: in reality, you don’t need much more than paper and pencil. Perhaps, none of them were enough to depict all the emotional fullness I have experienced, nor could they show the slight delusion hidden behind this month. It was, however, consistently within me: let it be the flea market of Tbilisi where I end up getting a small statue of Lenin, as well as a collection of other Soviet relics, or checking Twitter in the last days of January – consistently, as if hoping to find relief.
From a trip to Berlin I come home with braided hair, bright red lipstick, a piercing and, for the first time in a long while, feeling present and calm. Even though self-confidence cannot be comprised in a piercing I got in Berlin, it plays a role: I find it my small achievement.
