I have never associated bohemia with physical misery. In my opinion poverty and lack of comfort don't necessarily have physiological consequences. Bohemia is an act one takes responsibility for as long as it doesn't diminish the dignity of the individual. For many artists (I specify that I have only referred to the artistic bohemia), being free, not having any inferiority complexes, not being dual, being normal equals to being a bohemian. The self-destruction that I mentioned comes together with the period of time in which life is mistaken for a continuous and evil scarecrow, from which you have to defend yourself. I remember most of the people who have been forming the literary bohemia in the past 30 years, I see that they were beautiful people with strong personalities, excellent writers and friends one could trust. Those who are using the term "bohemia" in a defiant way are greatly confused. Many a masterpiece have been written about artists whose destiny was guided by an authentic bohemia! These outcasts of dull societies have written many a great work! The bohemian is a warrior, a resistant. The only thing that can harm him is his own acceptance of his condition as a loser. Although my family has supported me many times while I was "on the edge," my bohemian structure made me charge my self with an apparent indifference towards existence. I would cram dust bins with poems I gave up on easily, I would dwell for ten years in a basement considered by many people to be sordid (Saints' Street No 8), while I considered it to be a paradise of creative freedom, I never knew what I would eat the next day and how I would pay the rent for my little, eight square meters rectangular room, always on the verge of being evacuated by an administration that was inflexible to literature, almost mocked at by normal people who probably tried to protect their offspring from "such specimens." I am glad I remained serene, I am glad I didn't miss anything in order to be happy, I am glad I read immensely, I am glad I didn't applaud lunatic imbeciles on overfilled stadiums, I am glad I remained quiet when I wanted, I am glad I talked when I wanted and I am glad that, especially in that space that I consider normal even today, I cried, I laughed, I hoped, I feared, I looked at myself in a broken mirror with great serenity. I didn't harm anyone and no one harmed me, except maybe by ignoring my quality as a bohemian. Today, at an age when I should wish for a villa, a secretary and a lawn on which I should invite celebrities, I cross my heart and say thank God for all that He gave me in that period of grim bohemia, that I didn't lose my mind and that I kept many amazing friends – some of which are shadows now.
Excerpted from Dilema, July 4-10, 2003
by Iolanda Malamen
