Jean-Louis Bouzou – Text Bubbles

It has been three years since I last set foot in a train station. I, the nomad, have taken root. Naturally curious, I like to observe the characters who haunt certain public places. Now here, nothing has changed; although their faces are different, I find them all again. * Leaning against a wall, sitting on a huge bag, there is the student. He drones on, his eyes glued to a thick blue binder, and despite all the din reigning in this station, nothing at this moment can tear him away from his revision. A little further, I catch sight of a family coming to pick up the grandmother. The father and mother are chatting together, glancing at the clock every five minutes. The children play, weaving between their legs, running around them, tagging each other yelling: “Tag!”, then bursting into laughter; they bring into this hall the fresh and colorful breeze of youth. The father seems impatient, but I read a certain joy on his face; he seems to be holding back a smile. As for the mother, I ca...

Would you truly welcome a world where everyone mirrored one another, where everything drifted toward uniformity, where all was dictated and corrected according to the whims of a select few?… In order to have, would you give up being? No?! What I saw in you when we first met—the very thing that changed me—you have forgotten, tucked away with your childhood in the attic of your life… Cast off your masks and your armor! Set yourself free! Become again who you truly are beneath all those layers of social convention… Let your branches and leaves grow wherever they wish… Rise toward the light—you have no need of a stake to hold you up… Roar, let your claws grow! Rediscover your words and your vivid colors! Be yourself. Love yourself.

In my childhood bedroom, now turned into a catch-all storage room, I gaze at this enormous army backpack—found at a flea market—which will soon become both my inseparable companion and my only refuge… It is high time for me to leave this society behind. Even with my now minimalist needs, I know that despite its imposing size, it won’t be able to hold everything I wish to take with me… No matter. I’m certain that providence will provide for all I need—just as it already does today… This backpack will be my rediscovered freedom, my homeland, my church, and the culmination of a long and beautiful journey I never imagined I’d travel so far. And perhaps, as the days go by, it will become a bag of dreams, a bag of adventures… in which I’ll gather sunrises and sunsets, birdsong, the joy of walking through undergrowth, and along ridgelines, sunrays on my skin, the wind tousling my hair, the sound of rushing streams, the scent of campfires, the taste of pilgrim cakes cooked with herbs from th...

It took me a long time to truly understand this love; it is complete, embracing all forms of love in this world: we can be, for each other, just as much father and daughter, son and mother, brother and sister, friends, as well as lovers… Its intensity echoes the shivers that ran through my body from toe to head when we first met… This love is agape…

Neither past nor future completely free— a feather in the wind of the Universe.

Conversing with words that smile building bridges or ships that set sail from our sunlit islands— merely to discover each other's landscapes.

Falling out of love is a terrible thing… In the whirlwind of discovery and passion, we shape the other in the image of our dreams and desires. Then time forces them to reclaim their true place… The lines blur, distort, shatter… the colors fade… For a while, we try to adapt, convincing ourselves that their flaws are charming, amusing, endearing quirks. But slowly, the ‘us’ fades, and the ‘I’ regains its strength… The mind takes over, eclipsing the heart. The children we once were become adults again… A phase of tolerance begins—we reason with ourselves, telling ourselves that perfect, everlasting love is just a utopian illusion, that we must accept the little things that bother us and focus on what’s beautiful in them… Positivity, the survival instinct of love, the Then comes the moment when habits take hold. Passive acceptance. Resignation. The other becomes a fixture in our lives, like a piece of furniture… until fatigue and reflection creep in. We begin analyzing everything, qu...