22.11 Absence

Outside the barracks by the corner light
I'll always stand and wait for you at night
We will create a world for two
I'll wait for you the whole night through
For you, Lilli Marlene
For you, Lilli Marlene

Bugler tonight, don't play the Call To Arms
I want another evening with her charms
Then we will say goodbye and part
I'll always keep you in my heart
With me, Lilli Marlene
With me, Lilli Marlene

Give me a rose to show how much you care
Tied to the stem, a lock of golden hair
Surely tomorrow you'll feel blue
But then will come a love that's new
For you, Lilli Marlene
For you, Lilli Marlene

When we are marching in the mud and cold
And when my pack seems more than I can hold
My love for you renews my might
I'm warm again, my pack is light
It's you, Lilli Marlene
It's you, Lilli Marlene

My love for you renews my might
I'm warm again, my pack is light
It's you, Lilli Marlene
It's you, Lilli Marlene

Absence...of color, of air, of will, of presence, of love, of characters, of smoke

It seems that the only mistress I must be afraid of is Europe . People I would appreciate to have near me are in Europe's capitals right now, while I am in this capital full of heat and, paradoxically, also thunder and rain.

Distance is frustrating. I can't do anything about it. I've read and read a few weeks ago about how time and space are perceived differently now and these barriers are almost erased (Thompson, Harvey, McLuhan etc etc read them) , how one is transforming into the other and/or compressing.
That is full of shit, pardon my French. Maybe at some artificial level that's true. Sure, it doesn't take 3 months to sign a contract with your partner in China but it's the same thing if you missed your child while he was at war, either in the First World War or in Iraq. The mother is equally frightened.
To be less dramatic, I miss my love in the same way now as I would have 100 years ago. So I talk to him on the phone, that's what Harvey would give as example for the space axis compressing, we don't feel the space between us because we communicate in this minute and not in 3 weeks (what would the letter take to be delivered by "horse powered" carriage).

But in my heart the space is as present and as huge as it really is. It's not the same as him being here. In our minds these axis of time and space never compress if you really understand them, if you are aware of them. I am thinking now that these authors must be referring to the fact that people forget them and give them less importance and not that they truly compress with the help of technology. Technology is only a pill to make us forget the space and time between us.