Crossing the borders

floating on air and on water

Cities where I float by tall buildings built against the water, yellowing in time, like in Istanbul and in Venice, places I never visited but in the imaginary and in the invisible cities of Italo Calvino. Years of travel by waterfront castles built by very wealthy mad men, beauty upon beauty without measure, as I ride across flowing landscapes of shifting rock.

Gardens viewed from above, geometrical flowers in reddish burgundy. Endless searches for the papers I misplaced or never had, no documents, no identity, no passport to cross over. No forwarding address. No order to stay, no permission to land. My hosts for the night live in a neighborhood, I see flashing bits, a coffee shop at the corner, the plaza, rising on a hill, but I cannot tell you exactly where they live. If you showed me a street map, but even with a city map that they often and obligingly bring to the table, I cannot remember where. Maybe if you showed me a geological topographically detailed map…

The end of the line in buses where I negotiate terms with the driver for a ride back, as I have no money, none. Or when the money counted slides away between my fingers, where the value I have is in foreign coin, colorful foreign paper money, with fading effigies of forgotten queens … foreign ministers of culture and of health.

Incessant rides back, over known territories to land, again, in foreign land. Alternating currents between floating in the air and on water.

The night before last, though, as we approached the border, I had five stubs with me, as proof we were all to board that air transport. All five of us. Many changes of clothing, many showers, packing and unpacking.

Finally, this morning, the clear sense I crossed the border. No destination reached, no promised land, no journey ended, just this uncanny feeling of understanding and of lightness…

May 20 2026

Today, Emanuele Coccia offers a reflection about the great delta of the world, where all cultures converge…

“For the first time in human history, all cultures have come together. Not in a metaphorical or abstract sense: they have done so—and continue to do so—physically, concretely, and irreversibly, every day, in most of the major cities scattered across the planet’s continents, for the most diverse causes and purposes. Whether eating, listening to music, reading, reflecting, playing, or watching sports, every resident of these cities cannot help but enter into a tradition that, centuries ago, would have been inaccessible, and to blend into it. All cultures are accessible to all others, and thus allow themselves to be observed, studied, but also transformed from within. They do not merely converse with one another. They intermingle, share common elements, and become indistinguishable in a thousand aspects of daily life. Thus, no human being and no community can claim immediate and exclusive access to its own cultural tradition. No one can claim it as an esoteric possession, as something whose initiation is obtained through lineage.
It is as if the world had transformed into an immense inverted delta, in which the confluence of waters and cultures into one another no longer forms a final ocean-sea where everything becomes uniform. The waters converge, each bringing its own sediments, its own history; they mix without completely canceling each other out, but continue to multiply as they transform, creating new channels, opening up new directions. In this delta, the rivers often separate after meeting, but not to return to their original course. And yet, they do so knowing that they share waters, shared histories of intermingling. But there is no single estuary.

My column for Libération”