I haven’t posted texts in a while. I mean texts with my actual thoughts.
Frankly speaking, I haven’t written much lately – if we disregard my little scribbles in my tiny pink notebook and the song ideas I leave in the notes app on my phone. I haven’t written any music either. My fingers feel wooden and incapacitated whenever I sit at the piano.
Luckily, I’ve learned something about myself as a creator over the 23 years I’ve been artistically active: these things come and go. And when I can’t make music, I can still draw a picture or sit down and write something. So I’m not panicking. I’m simply accepting that I haven’t yet caught the new wind that will whisper melodies into my head again. Meanwhile, I’ll take my time finishing the mixing of the new album and rearranging my thoughts, which are in a certain state of disarray these days.
That’s why I’m writing this – to help myself find a little clarity in the chaos, and perhaps also to begin shaping a new artistic manifesto. I want to see what’s still truly important to me, and what no longer is.
A huge part of my silence and this writing block is, indeed, the world we live in – and all the messed-up ways in which it affects me. But if I’m honest, it’s not only the state of the world. It’s also moral exhaustion. It’s the fatigue that comes from watching cruelty being normalised, from witnessing suffering being debated as if it were an abstract concept. It’s disillusionment with parts of the art world that suddenly prefer comfort over courage, neutrality over clarity, career over conscience.
I am a hypersensitive person with addictive tendencies and a long history of chronic depression and traumatic events – from being choked by Russian policemen at 17 to almost being deported from Germany in 2018 and separated from my then-husband. So believe me, my reactions to negative events can be – how to put it – acute.
Of course, that’s something to discuss with my therapist, and I’ll leave it at that. But it’s also important to acknowledge that my mind is wired to consume enormous amounts of information, and I have visceral reactions to what I take in. When the world burns, I don’t know how to watch it quietly.
I’m not writing this to gather sympathy or to complain about my circumstances. No. In fact, I consider myself generally happy and optimistic. But I wouldn’t be who I am – or where I am – without those events and the scars they left. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I want you to think about the people who remain outside public view and have to go through similar things – or worse. And if someone reads this and feels a little less alone in their turmoil, that would be the greatest reward for me.
But some things need to be said.
I’m tired of public figures and artists who suddenly start telling fairy tales about how art shouldn’t interfere with politics. I call bullshit. They become “apolitical” the moment the conversation turns to genocide in Gaza. They say, “Let’s not make this Manichean,” but aren’t some things, in fact, black and white? Genocide is wrong. There is no alternative interpretation of that.
Maybe part of my paralysis at the piano comes from this tension – from asking myself what it even means to write melodies in a time like this. What is art for, if not to witness? What is a voice for, if not to speak?
And here is what I know: even if I cannot write music right now, I cannot stay silent. If the melodies don’t come, then words will have to do. If the piano refuses me, then I will use whatever instrument is left – my voice, my hands, this page.
Because silence is not neutrality. Silence is a decision.
So this is my small commitment to myself: to feel, even when it hurts. To remain alert. To resist the temptation of comfortable numbness. To create from a place of conscience, not convenience.
And if you are reading this, I ask you for one thing: don’t forget to feel. Don’t let the endless stream of information turn other people’s pain into background noise. Stay alert to the suffering of others. Empathy is not weakness. It is the key to our survival.
Maybe the new wind will come again. But until then, I refuse to be still.
GSB / Berlin, 21.02.2026