Enjoying — give enjoyment… or how I met my second twentieth birthday.
MEXICO – 2015
Fate suggested that I celebrate my second twenty years with a dive into the depths. And having said “yes”, I began to get ready for an expedition. The word “dive” here is not just a beautiful metaphor but the reality of precisely this historical time – the opportunity for a modern person to see for themselves just how unique our Planet is from the inside. And the delight – of the happiness of experiencing yourself as a participant in this great manifestation – Life on planet Earth.
My journey was to involve scuba diving in the labyrinths of the underground rivers of the Yucatán Peninsula, and possibly a meeting with sharks on the reefs of the Chinchorro Atoll in the Caribbean. This idea won the “competition” of the maddest versions of celebrating my birthday (my second 20th), which, under the sign-board of “New Year”, the whole country and all advanced humanity historically rejoice in. Madder than underwater space there may only be literal space, but that is for next time.
Day 1.
It took me quite a long time to fly to Mexico. I was curious which way would be shortest – through Russia, Germany, America, Canada or Turkey? And, as I have noticed more than once, the shortest, as always, turns out to be the way that is more real.
First, cold Istanbul met me. In the dusky, overcast sky the moon was trying to give birth to a full moon, and the serpentine of the airport interchange led to an enormous sparkling fir tree with white baubles and red bows in the lobby of the hotel where I would spend the night before my flight to Paris.
The night porter thought I was talking to him – but I was talking to the fir tree. We were discussing signs: “…white cotton wool, red cotton wool – won’t cure a soldier…”. What awaits my Ukraine this year? The Turkish subject was trying to be understandable and interesting. And I looked at him and thought: what is there for you to talk to me about? Here is my hotel booking and my morning ticket to Paris. Send me, porter, 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 chat with me – you see, I don’t want to.
I really don’t want to – I have an alibi: I don’t learn English for political reasons. Without knowing the language, I am understood only by the people I need, and those are my own, and my very own, and also the authentic tribes of the peoples of the Earth. They, in fact, understand even faster than the very own. For one’s own, knowing the language sometimes gets in the way of feeling, because they attach too much importance to the meaning of words, and that gets in the way of hearing the essence that exists apart from the text.
People have forgotten how to hear the essence by feeling each other. I think speech arose when the first problem arose – of human 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/task, which is in essence 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 whose language has no word for “NO”. That is probably an intermediate stage in the loss of feeling for one’s neighbour.
“How come?” – the members of the expedition argued among themselves: – How do they manage without it, how can that be?”
“Just feel it, it is 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 is in a single family! So many differences in terminology – who calls this or that concept by which word, and what they mean by it when they speak, for example, of love, of responsibility, of understanding, of awareness, of spirituality and hundreds of other concepts that seemed so clear. So the conclusion I have drawn on this from the experience of my life is – Silence is what best leads us to understanding. Yes, Her Highness Silence.
By not knowing the language I protect myself from the mercenary values of social people, and functional and everyday tasks can be shown on the fingers, with pictures, with facial expressions or, as a last resort, with swear words. Swearing – this expressive language – is not always, for example, used to “send someone away”. With swearing you can also pay a compliment. And be sure – it will be understood, and even the natives will enjoy it 🙂 Swearing is multifunctional, so that you can not only curse with it but also show the value of the moment. Precisely show – that is the important word here – to show a person – means to unfold a whole video sequence on the YOUTUBE of their imagination by means of this laconic and capacious language.
I generally prefer to live in the Vipassana mode (a mode of silence and very laconic movement) – not spilling out my personal energy and remaining, to the utmost, a soulful, living being. But for God’s sake don’t try to repeat this way of life if it is not natural to you; let it be as it is, and do not suspect me of calling for universal illiteracy, unless it (Vipassana) happens by itself, like “the Way of the Fool” on the other side of the erudition and competence that is bound one day to make sick anyone who has been unlucky enough to become a specialist in some applied art, spoiled by terminology. Or, having become a distinguished reader, to climb into other people’s descriptions of the vision of life, into the thicket of explanations of its phenomena, and move away from active participation in its living, eventful, adventurous side. For all that has been said above, I sincerely admire those who had convincing motivations 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” came to find out what was wrong. For some reason he asked for my passport and asked several times about my year of birth, raising his eyebrows amusingly as he saw before him 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 as a “little” woman I love everything big. To make the porter feel needed and at the same time to cut short the not-so-innocent advances, I asked him to turn on the internet. The internet came on and the hot water started to run, and he, the garçon, also went… downstairs – because I remembered that I was very sleepy.
Day 2.
I met the dawn over the Alps. With pleasure, during take-off, I allowed myself to detach from my body and fly away to watch out my last dream. Suddenly and sharply awake, as though some unknown beginning had opened my eyes and so woken me, I looked beneath the wing and saw the place I have been intending to go to for several years. Yes, I was woken by the highest summits of the Alps – they seemed to be a kilometre away, or even less. In the slanting light of the rising sun the mountains offered their eternally snowy flanks to the newborn yellow star, letting the concentrated light of the morning rays dress them in gold. Their contrasting ridges crumbled into sugary shimmers like tahini halva. They beckoned with the pleasure of the memory of climbs in my legs and called me to feel once more the relief of the megaliths, in steps over ground blown by prickly virgin winds. The mountains woke me and called. The summits beneath me raised my bodily memory, and my body, like a flash drive, in a single instant unzipped an uncountable number of contrasting sensations given by the mountains. This memory inside and the mountains outside, as if in collusion, invited me to climb and beckoned me once more to reach for the happiness that people scarcely understand – to experience height with your whole self. And I never understood where the source of the attraction is: in me or in the mountains. Which of us wants it more?
Istanbul airport is big, but Paris is even bigger. I photograph the departure board and go to my next flight. In Paris the coffee is the most delicious in the world and probably the food in general is the most delicious. Even if you are not hungry, it will still be delicious to eat in Paris 🙂
I take off over the Atlantic. I like flights! And I like 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. I vanish for a few hours from the world of people. While I am in the air, nobody can measure me or expect anything from me, because the one who was there before take-off is no more; there is only memory, the mirage of the imprints of someone’s expectations and projections left behind. To be nowhere is to be conditioned by no relationships that can be described, and at the same time to Be. To be in motion – to be the motion itself.
There is motion, it leaves a trail, like a plane in the sky, and only by this trail do 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 would describe my 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
There is no use putting a zero in front of a number, and however you multiply it, it simply does not become 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 next to a number on the right side, it multiplies 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. I can only decide what exactly I want to amplify with myself. And that is the gift – and also the great responsibility for the decisions I make: what and whom I will amplify.
On a long flight in a huge airliner people are allowed to live their own lives, as indeed everywhere on earth. It just doesn’t seem so obvious there. You can get up and make yourself a coffee, choose biscuits, juices, and it is a reason to stretch your legs. And perhaps that is why they hand out alcohol, to brighten up existence. Not everyone likes being nobody, outside events and connections, emotional and physical rewards, and like an idiot enjoying a suspended state – gazing into the clouds for hours so as not to miss anything and to remember every fold and width of the shimmers on the glossy skin of the ocean. Clearly, very different people live and fly on and above the planet.
On landing, chasing the setting sun, we touched the runway and saw the luminary off into the thickets of the MEXICAN selva.
