Enjoying, Give Enjoyment. Or Notes on My Second Twenty Years. Part 1

MEXICO – 2015

Fate offered me a dive into the depths as a way to mark my second twenty years. And having said “yes”, I began to get ready for the expedition. The word “dive” here is not just a pretty metaphor but a reality of precisely this historical time – the chance for a person today to see for themselves just how unique our Planet is from the inside. And the delight – of the happiness of feeling yourself a participant in this great manifestation – Life on planet Earth.

My journey was to involve scuba diving through the labyrinths of the underground rivers of the Yucatán peninsula, and perhaps an encounter with sharks on the reefs of the Chinchorro Atoll in the Caribbean. This idea won the “competition” of the craziest versions of celebrating my birthday (my second 20th), which, under the sign of “New Year”, is historically celebrated by the whole country and all of progressive humanity. Crazier than underwater space there may be only literal space, but that is for next time.

Day 1.

It took me quite a long time to fly to Mexico. I was curious how to get there fastest – via Russia, Germany, America, Canada or Turkey? And, as I have noticed more than once, the shortest is always the way that is the most real.

First, cold Istanbul greeted me. In the dusky, overcast sky the moon was straining to give birth to a full moon, and the serpentine of the airport road interchange led me to a huge sparkling fir tree in white baubles and red bows in the lobby of the hotel where I would spend the night before flying to Paris.

The night porter thought I was talking to him – but I was talking to the fir tree. The two of us were discussing signs: “…white cotton wool, red cotton wool – it won’t cure a soldier…”. What awaits my Ukraine this year? The Turkish subject tried to be clear and interesting. And I looked at him and thought: well, what is there for you to talk about with me? Here is the hotel booking and the morning ticket to Paris. Send me, porter, up to some floor, where I will carry on my dialogue with the Moon and the Fir Tree about my country – there’s no need to talk to me – you see, I don’t want to.

And I certainly don’t – I have an alibi, I am not learning English for political reasons. Without the language I am understood only by the people I need, and those are my own people, my very own people, and the authentic tribes of the peoples of the Earth. They, as it happens, understand even faster than my very own do. For one’s own people, knowing a language sometimes gets in the way of feeling, because they attach too much importance to the meaning of words, and that keeps them from hearing the essence that exists apart from the text.

People have unlearned how to hear the essence by feeling each other. I think speech arose when the first problem arose – a person’s MISUNDERSTANDING. And so the symbol-word appeared – which became a bridge to the solution and at the same time a cause of a new problem or task, which is one and the same thing. A word is packaging – the fixing of a whole class of concepts. And packaging is not the essence – even a dog knows that.

In the state of Tamil Nadu in the south of India we once visited a tribe that has no word “NO” in its language. That is, probably, an intermediate stage of losing the feeling for one’s neighbour.

“How is that possible?” – the members of the expedition argued among themselves: – How do they manage without it, how can this be?”

“Just feel it, it’s so simple to understand… imagine that we, for example, are fellow tribesmen of such a people. If I feel you, how can I create a situation in which you would say “no”? For example, how can I offer you coffee if I feel that you want “tea”?

And what a language barrier there can be within a single family! There are so many differences in terminology, in who calls this or that concept by exactly which word, and what they mean by it when they speak, for example, about love, responsibility, understanding, awareness, spirituality and hundreds of other concepts that seemed so clear. So the conclusion I have drawn about this from the experience of my life is that Silence is what leads us to understanding best of all. Yes, Her Highness Silence.

By not knowing the language I protect myself from the mercantile values of social people, and functional and everyday tasks can be shown on the fingers, in pictures, with facial expressions or, in the last resort, with swear words. Swear words – that expressive language – are not always used, for example, to “send someone away”. You can pay a compliment with swear words, too. And be sure – it will be understood, and even the natives will be pleased 🙂 Swearing is multifunctional, so that you can use it not only to curse but also to show the value of the moment. Precisely to show – that is the important word here – to show a person – means to unroll a whole video sequence on the YOUTUBE of their imagination by means of this laconic and capacious language.

I generally prefer to live in a Vipassana regime (a regime of silence and very laconic movement) – not spilling out my personal energy and remaining, to the limit, a soulful, living being. But for God’s sake don’t try to repeat this style of life if it isn’t natural to you, let it be as it is, and don’t suspect me of calling for universal illiteracy, unless it (Vipassana) happens by itself, as a “Path of the Fool” on the other side of erudition and competence, which will one day surely make anyone sick who has had the misfortune of becoming a specialist spoiled by terminology in some applied art. Or, having become a distinguished reader, of climbing into other people’s descriptions of the vision of life, into the thickets of explaining its phenomena, and moving away from active participation in its living, eventful, adventurous side. With all of the above said, I sincerely admire those who had convincing motivation to master languages. And thank God that not everyone prefers to converse with fir trees and heavenly bodies about the fates of the Earth. And so be it!

In the room of the ***** hotel there turned out to be no hot water and a polite “garçon” arrived to find out what was wrong. For some reason he asked for my passport and kept asking again about my year of birth, funnily raising his eyebrows at the sight of a blonde in a little T-shirt, trying to find the catch – I laughed like a girl, which completely threw him off. He asked about my children, my family and my man – I showed him on my fingers that I have Everything, that I am keen on big mountains, I mean mountaineering: Elbrus, Ararat, Kilimanjaro – my love. That I, as a “little” woman, love everything big. So that the porter would feel needed and at the same time to cut short advances that weren’t innocent, I asked him to switch on the internet. The internet came on and the hot water started, and he, the garçon, also went… down – because I remembered that I very much wanted to sleep.

Day 2.

I met the dawn above the Alps. With pleasure, during take-off, I allowed myself to separate from my body and fly off to finish watching my last dream. Suddenly and sharply waking, as if some unknown beginning had opened my eyes and so woken me, I looked under the wing and saw the place I have been meaning to go to for several years. Yes, I was woken by the highest peaks of the Alps – it was as if they were a kilometre away, or even less. In the slanting light of the rising sun the mountains offered their ever-snowy sides to the newborn yellow star, letting the concentrated light of the morning rays dress them in gold. Their contrasting ridges crumbled like tahini halva into sugary shimmers. They beckoned with the pleasure of the memory of climbs in my legs and called me to feel again the relief of the megaliths, with steps over ground swept by prickly virgin winds. The mountains woke me and called. The peaks beneath me raised the body’s memory, and my body, like a flash drive, in a single instant unzipped the countless contrasting sensations given by the mountains. This memory inside and the mountains outside, as if in collusion, invited me to a climb and beckoned me once more to reach for a happiness little understood by people – to live through height with your whole self. And I never did understand where the source of the attraction was: in me or in the mountains. Which of us wants it more?

Istanbul airport is big, but Paris is even bigger. I photograph the departures board and go to my next flight. In Paris there is the tastiest coffee in the world and probably, in general, the tastiest food. Even if you are not hungry, it will still be delicious to eat in Paris 🙂

I take off over the Atlantic. I love flights! And I love the feeling of the road and this incomparable feeling of “I am nobody and not yet anywhere”. I am not where I was, and not yet where I will be. For a few hours I vanish from the world of people. While I am in the air, nobody can measure me or expect anything of me, because the one who stood there before take-off is gone, there is only the memory, a mirage of the imprints of someone’s expectations and projections left behind. To be nowhere is not to condition yourself with any relationships that can be described, and yet at the same time to Be. To be in motion – to be motion itself.

There is motion, it leaves a trail, like a plane in the sky, and it is only by this trail that others judge what a person is. But I do not become any bigger from what these others want to see in me. Zero – and I like the pulsing feeling of Zero inside. It is the closest to how I describe my own nature when I am alone with myself.

«Кому-то ты Бог,
И кому-то ты лох
Ну, а сам то ты кто
Если рядом никто?»

Светлана Шупер,полковник МЧС, альпинистка и просто моя подруга

It is useless to put a zero in front of a number, and however you multiply it, it simply does not get bigger, and it even clears the whole sum down to itself – this is mathematics that I respect and love (greetings to Andrey Mironov, a great mathematician and mountaineer, who “by chance” saved me on Elbrus in 2010 and “by chance” met me on Lake Baikal in 2014).

But if zero stands beside the number on the right side, it strengthens the number tenfold. Zero is a Transparent Lens – that is also one of my names. But even with this ability of mine, I will never become any more than I am. I can only decide what exactly I want to strengthen with myself. And that is the gift – and the great responsibility, for the decisions I make: what and whom I will strengthen.

On a long flight in a huge airliner people are allowed to live their own lives, as indeed everywhere on earth. It is just that up there it seems less obvious. You can get up and make yourself coffee, choose biscuits and juices, and that is a reason to stretch your legs. And that is probably why they hand out alcohol, to brighten up existence. Not everyone likes to be nobody, outside events and connections, emotional and physical rewards, and, like an idiot, to enjoy the suspended state – to gaze at the clouds for hours, so as not to miss anything and to remember every fold and the breadth of the shimmers of the ocean’s shining skin. It is obvious that very different people live and fly on and over the planet.

On landing, chasing the setting sun and touching the runway, we saw the luminary off into the thickets of the MEXICAN selva.
To be continued…