If Shelley swam out of the sea fifteen years later and exclaimed: I was never really dead, folk. I was just partying with someone more interesting than you. But don't let that interrupt you from erecting marble statues to my talent, youth and beauty, now..

I can’t help but to think a little… If my passion at the time didn’t burn so brightly… If I wasn’t so naively impressed, so very much … Would I have still be impressed, just a little, by my ex husband, to this day? Would I remain one of his many buddies? Would I always wait for my turn to get his attention – something I existed for, when we were spouses on paper? Would I still follow his charm on a frail, tiny string, because a long time ago he could be, ah, so very charming?

I look around the people I am friends with now.. How easy their company is. How well meant their brutal honesty. How calm the relationships, how quiet. How friendly the manly hugs, how cute the kisses on the hair. I don’t exist to solve anybody. Nobody is trying to degrade me into a dirty secret. Was he ever majesty? Or was it always me? I am just so damn good at taking beautiful photos. And asking the good kind of questions, inspiring all them good stories.

Would there be room in the life I live now for someone then considered my favorite taster, favorite philosopher, favorite critic, favorite sitter…? Funny thing about legends. If they let you down, you are forced to carry the burden of being your own hero for a while yourself. At least I won’t bent bad by seeing him, or wouldn’t actually mind running into him some day again, in some sunlit capital city. Just a stranger. Just a human. Nothing at all to think about anymore. In the cruel light of day the demonic shitstorm in my headspace turned to pale skin first and last to an incompatible socialite with exhausted priorities. Overworked, shallow, closed in. Someone who hears how his words will sound to an audience before he even knows what he wants to say. The joyful candor and the adorable clumsiness of a shy little Viking that Niko is, riding by on a bent pink bicycle, showing me the veggies he purchased on the market… That was the highlight of the day. The tired man at my table was just … forever a high maintenance, half finished monument to a romantic poet nobody now remembers what era he represented anymore.