December 2011 Archives

when i stepped into the snow, it was warmer than i had expected. it melted under my bare feet, but it was not cold. it was the warm snow. and i was in the middle of the park, in the middle of a gigantic meadow inside of a park. it was surprising at first, but then i looked behind me and there we no tracks.
no tracks of me arriving here?
no sign of me entering this wild meadow covered with the fresh white powder?
i was clearly dreaming.
we arrive in our dreams as if there were no before and no after.
and so i walked towards the trees i saw on the other side of the meadow.
it did not matter why i was here.
i was here.
this was the perfect day.
a very short perfect day.
winter.
warm snow.
a meadow.
a soft snow rabbit walked up to me.
it was completely white. and it was not scared.
the rabbit spoke. and that was not surprising either.
and yet it said things that i did not really understand.
but i understood the rabbit. i guess it is possible to understand a rabbit. a speaking one and a non speaking one. it just happens in slightly different ways.
we walked towards the trees.
now i had a guide. a little soft furred guide had chosen me somehow.
a soft and friendly guide.
i guess i was incredibly lucky?
the rabbit was leaving no tracks at all.
at least the snow seemed to be melting under my feet.
the shapes i was leaving behind were slightly unusual actually.
wait a second. now i was leaving melted tracks?
some of the tracks of my feet looked as if they had been created by objects.
others appeared to have been left behind by a variety of animals.
there was a melted shape of a chair. then a rooster foot. here a large house?
so odd. so inexplicable.
yet perfectly logical. i was in a dream, wasn't I.

the rabbit had been speaking with me the entire walk so far. and i understood the ideas, but i did not understand the words.
suddenly the words became very clear.
"by the time we will reach the forest, you will know exactly why i say the things i say. but you will have lost the ability to understand the person you were when you left those oddly shaped tracks.
what are they anyway?"

the shapes of the tracks were truly odd. and some of them had now turned into little patches of vegetation. it was a bit as if the seasons had moved on in those seemingly random shapes of melted snow. some flowers grew in the chair. some branches of succulent plants extended into the sky from a perfectly round shape.
some of the tracks had turned in to little puddles of water?
two, in the far distance, appeared to be star shaped tar pits. sad.
"i do not understand you", said the rabbit. and then continued in a language i really was not able to decipher.

we continued for a little while.

the forest that seemed so close appeared to be moving away from us, just gently.
i knew that if we just continued for a little longer, we could reach the trees and then that miracle of some magical comprehension could actually happen.
but the rabbit was very restless.
i could see it from the way it was hopping around in the snow.

i turned around and just stood there.
it must have looked as if i were admiring the tracks i had somehow left behind.
some were now turning into little fires. others were sounding with birds. others yet appeared to be just blurry and undefined.

and this is when i woke up for a very brief moment.
just brief enough to lose my understanding of the logic of the meadow and the rabbit and the tracks.

the sun in the seemingly real world had not yet decided to rise.

i tried to return to the meadow.
but it would probably take another few days and nights for me to be able to actually get there.
i hoped very much to find myself in the same place, of course.
and would the rabbit even still be there?
who knows, i could suddenly have to deal with some wild boar trying to kill me.

but dreams never work in any predictable way.
the only way i can somehow make sure that the next visit to the meadow will not be a complete disaster, is to imagine the best things that happened there, on that brief walk that appeared out of nowhere, and just disappeared in a completely unexpected way.
oh yes. the warm snow. the odd tracks.
the rabbit. the soft and wise rabbit.
the slowly moving forest.
let's see. this should be a place that could probably welcome me again.
and i hope it will be snowing?
i do not know. i do not know.

we are here. and in the larger context of things we are invisible.
yes, we might have language and pictures and lives. but in the larger context of things we are invisible. the brother is invisible. and so are the parents. the children will be invisible too.
the only thing that will maybe survive is the idea of our existence. the idea that something like us existed at some point. one in 7 billion. more than ever.
i think 80 percent of the people who have ever lived on earth are alive today.
and we are some of them. tiny creatures that eat and sleep and drink and think.
now we are better connected then ever before.
but it does not rally matter.
in the larger context of thing all we can do is try to be good to each other.
because soon we will be simply gone.
in the larger context of things, of course.
in the tiny context of things, it is very important to pay attention to every little detail.
i like your new nails. but did you make your hair wavy? not sure this is the best. i like the larger curls much more.
oh, the universe. the universe is a tiny sphere.
we are here. we are here in some sort of context of things.

the shadows on the wall just appeared and then disappeared again. the wall is now more about the cracks and the uneven spots. it is not a screen for thin stripes of shadow and light.

i would like to write something about the architecture of the chinese house. but all that comes to mind are my limitations in understanding. it might also take a bit more time for me to really understand things. it is dangerous to write without understanding?
but perhaps language itself is so imprecise that even the most understanding writer can easily be misunderstood. or misinterpreted.
language is alive. and language is ever evolving. words that sound harmless today, could be potentially deadly tomorrow. words that look friendly today, could potentially be dirty little animals tomorrow... and words that seem harmless to me, could appear without intelligence to those looking for my weaknesses.
and we should probably not fool ourselves that solid objects do not change with us and our intentions and understanding. even objects and houses and cities and countries are in some way connected to the way we want to see them. and the way we see things changes. it should change, i hope, it should probably change all the time?
some of the changes are very subtle. and sometimes the changes are massive.

it will take a really long time for me to understand the chinese house. it will take a long time to understand not the theory of it, but the reality, the true emotional meaning of it. and by the time i will understand it, it will probably be late in my life. i will finally know what it means, but that meaning will probably be a story i will watch disappear?
i do not know, i do not know.

the first time i arrived in china was for just two or three days. and i only saw and smelled the things i knew. everything was drenched in preconceptions. i had expected things i did not really like. and all i found were things i did not really like very much.
and most of the things felt somehow familiar. it was as if i had stepped through a magical door and had arrived at a place that was supposed to be foreign. but it was assembled out of things that i had felt before. and the more i opened myself to them, the more the familiar and the known, replaced the prejudice and the rational barriers.

slowly, visit after visit i was able to unfold my personal understanding of the place. and the wonderful thing was that i knew that it was incredibly important for me to do so. and the more i was able to unfold a china in myself, the more interesting things became.
i now might be at a point where i do not understand anything again. but i know that i need to give it all some time. i need to wait and patiently, wait for the next gate to open. and it will open. and i will probably forget what it was like before it opened itself.

almost like a child that can not stop recognizing words, once it has managed to learn the symbols that are letters. it is almost impossible to remember the world that was filled with unrecognizable objects. suddenly everything speaks. and it speaks not with an external voice. it speaks form the inside.
i guess as a child one does not understand that this is a path of no return (unless some tragedy strikes, of course.) but as an adult, i understand that the more i learn, the more i will forget how little i knew just a few days before. i will discover new layers of ignorance. i will discover new layers of non-knowledge. there will be new gaps. new missing pieces.
and the journey progresses.

i now barely remember what it was like to see the chinese house for the first time. i now barely remember what it was like to see the idea of the hutong. but i obviously know that i have not seen anything yet. i think the only time i have been to a proper court house was on my most recent visit to beijing.
we drank tea. and it was in a house of a perfect size.
it felt perfect to me.
but there are so many reasons why something can feel perfect.

the shadows on the wall are not coming back until tomorrow. near the corner of the room two little dots of light are the indication that the sun is out and moving across the sky.
i know so little. and i know that i know so little. and that's one of the biggest joys of life, i guess? i know that i am just barely beginning to see a surface.
it is a surface that has been scratched and it has been bruised by others.
so much to learn. so much to learn.
what is the name of shadows that are actually bright projections of light?