Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle [Video] Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CDQy1rWGOw&t=24s

Sophie Calle [Video] Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VW6HoO5y4

Sophie Calle [Video] Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxybJCMFs30&list=PLC4E873F91C7E4554

 

Take care of yourself (Transcript of the letter)

 

Sophie.

I’ve been wanting to write and reply to your last email for a while. At the same time, it seemed better to speak to you in person and say what I have to say aloud. At the very least, this will now remain written.

As you already know, lately I’ve been feeling unwell, as if I were no longer myself within my own existence. A kind of terrible anguish against which there is little I can do, except try to carry on as I always have.

When we met, you set one condition: not to become the “fourth.” I have kept that commitment: it has been months since I stopped seeing the “others,” as there was no way to keep meeting them without turning you into one of them.

I believed that would be enough; I believed that my loving you and your loving me would be enough for the anguish that always drives me to look elsewhere and forever prevents me from being at peace, simply happy and “generous,” to quiet down in your presence and with the certainty that the love you gave me was the most beneficial thing for me. The most beneficial I have ever known.

I thought that writing would help, would ease my “restlessness,” and allow me to come to you. But no. I feel even worse. I can’t even tell you the state I am in.

And so, this week, I began calling the “others” again. I know what that means for me and what cycle it will drag me into. I have never lied to you, and I am not willing to do so today.

At the beginning of our relationship, you set another rule: that the day we stopped being lovers, you would not consider seeing me again. You know to what extent I find this condition unfair and disastrous (since you still see B and R) and understandable (of course…), meaning I could never become a friend of yours.

But today, the very fact that I accept bowing to your wishes, even though I will terribly miss seeing you, speaking with you, grasping your view of things and of people, and your gentleness toward me, speaks to the weight of the decision I am making.

Whatever happens, keep in mind that I will never stop loving you in that way that is particular to me, just as I have from the moment I met you—a way that will remain alive in me and, I am sure, will not die.

But today, it would be the worst kind of farce to try to prolong a situation that, as you know as well as I do, has no remedy—out of respect for the love I have for you and the love you have for me, which compels me to be honest with you, as a final tribute to what we shared and which will forever be something unique.

I wish things had been different.

Take care of yourself.

 

 Duane Michals

Duane Michals [Photography] Recovered from: https://www.fundacionmapfre.org/en/exhibitions/historical/2017/photography-duane-michals/

Artist’s content is used solely for the purpose of photography teaching and personal development.