You told me once that I was a strong woman. The truth is that I’m not always strong. Sometimes I let my hand yield. Sometimes I feel as lost as a tiny speck in the grip of a wild surge or in the grasp of some vast creature as predatory as fate and I feel unable to do anything of my own will or choice, incapable of holding on to truth and reality. You once asked me about my dreams. In truth, most of the time I live in my dreams for I can choose and change them, whereas it is reality which changes me without my choosing. I no longer see reality as real unless it is rooted in my dreams. I admit to you that my unconscious is stronger than my conscious mind and most of the time I obey it.

I saw you in one of my dreams. You were sitting with me somewhere far from the world, a place enclosing us alone, something that has never happened in reality. I was sitting beside you. Deep inside me there was a violent movement, stillness and quiet on the surface. I had a feeling of some sort of sad and mysterious happiness, a silent pulse in the body, an intense elation and a desire so strong it went beyond desire. I don’t know what it was exactly that I wanted. That your eyes should remain on mine for ever? That you should raise your arms and encircle me and hide me inside yourself for ever? I awoke from sleep but you remained where you were beside me. I closed my eyes to rid myself of you, but you stayed, near to me, almost but not quite touching me, almost but not quite leaving me. Why? Why didn’t you leave me? Is there something obligatory between us? Does anyone obligate you? Does anyone obligate me? I know there is no one, no one at all. And yet, I cannot say that I go to you from choice or will or that our relationship is not as vital to me as the air that enters and leaves my chest or the blood that flows in my veins.