Clara Abi Nader

It all began when I came to Paris. Lonesome and unknown to the world, I gradually treaded the city, night and day But something more was happening at night. Those empty spaces and lights, the lit windows sometimes covered, sometimes naked; they all gave an impression of suspended time, of yearning, perhaps for a story. As I looked through my lens for that story, I found myself instead, naked. A voyeur of a body that became slender, almost elastic, I was out of my cocoon and exhibited myself like that, audacious and indifferent. This is how I saw Paris, how I saw me in Paris. When I returned to my country, we went to the mountains. It was in December. I remember those mountains from childhood. They saw me growing up, I saw them getting older. The snow and the cold often made me nostalgic. I felt I was going through a crisis. I didn’t want to leave. Where was I going anyway? I wanted to hide this slim body in the whiteness and splendor of the cold but it belongs to another definition of me. A definition that I continue to seek.