distance for nearness - memory for forgetfulness

i like jaana, she is half estonian and half armenian. she grew up in estonia, and considers herself estonian. and if that is the case why does she have the initiative to declare herself armenian in front of the turkish people? is it because she still identifies herself as armenian...?

i want to explore the relationship other people have with their own past and how that creates situations that an individual identifies with. i try to distance myself from my own personal haunting memories, and learn from other, and maybe that will give me guidance to deal with my own ghosts.

when i said the poem was going to be about kumi, i meant it somewhat jokingly. the poem will be about my mother, who died when i was a baby. the poem will then be about my relationship with women.

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i didn't find out my mother's name or the cause of her death until i was 18 and had to fill out my college application which asked for my mother's name. what does her absence mean and how does it stay present? how can i confront and accept her? what does her memory mean to me? i am figuring myself thought these unanswered questions. when i was a child, i cried my myself to sleep constantly and woke up with a salty aftertaste. one dream that is still vivid is of her, standing on a pendulum with a blade attached to the bottom swinging back and forth, and i am situated in the middle where the blade is inching towards me moment by moment. she is large, dress in white and i am couched in the infant position, very small.

i know that her memory is still very strong in me. my father hides her from me.

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i read an article a few days ago by Ursula Duba, relating the experience of teaching the holocaust to germans, "the German students at these schools responded with sullen anger" and "several students exclaimed, 'If it wasn't for people like you spreading all this sh--, we wouldn't be mistreated by the rest of the world!'" i can relate to the german students. because even thought i don't remember any lived experience with my mother, i am reminded of her death quite often. everytime i see a mother and child, everytime i... alle tage.

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in "auf der andersen seite", there is a scene with the german mother and the turkish girl in the kitchen, the mother says that when turkey joins the EU everything will be fine for the turkish people. the girl than angrily replies and explains why she is in germany to escape political persecution.

"To this day, Turkey denies that there was an Armenian genocide. Japan still mostly clings to silence in regards to its history of horrific war crimes. The horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia have yet to be prosecuted. And the recent genocide in Rwanda is already experiencing revisionism among many Hutus in that country."
-Ursula Duba

in "snow" by orphan pamuk, there is a but a few lines about how the armenian genocide, and it caused quite a scandal.

in germany there is an significant number of turkish people seeking a future in germany. how does the german treat the turkish people? does the past hinder of present?

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mother, what have you been doing all of these years? i would like to see you again and talk to you. or maybe not since you are dead. where is pooh.