Iluzia permanent temporara

Exista in limba romana si in multimea de cuvinte care se invart frecvent in jurul meu doua expresii a caror utilizare – cu consecintele ei – ma nedumereste un pic.

“chipurile”

Cate chipuri are fiecare dintre noi? De fapt, inteleg ca pentru fiecare impresie pe care vrea sa o creeze, fiecare utilizeaza o combinatie de cel putin doua chipuri – hai sa zicem nuante – pe care le-a dezvoltat si le are in arsenal. Peste fata protejata intai de crema (pentru ca expresia e folosita cu precadere – dar nu numai – de femei) se asaza un val rosu, uzual. Pentru o anumita situatie se mai pune unul albastru si unul in dungi, chipurile starea de fapt ar fi indigo in dungi. Si am convingerea ca straturile, nuantele (ca nu cred ca-s masti complete) pe care le suprapunem in fiecare conversatie sunt mult mai multe. Pentru ce? Sau din ce impuls/ instinct?

“pe bune”

Asta ar fi aproape – dar nu chiar – o anulare a primei expresii. Cand nu mai vorbesti ca si cum ar fi cumva sau altfel, ci chiar cum este. Si, surprinzator sau nu, in redarea fidela – atat cat se poate din partea unor fiinte care opereaza  cu chipuri si iluzii – e ceva bun. Trebuie sa fie ceva benefic in incercarea de intoarcere la realitate fara lentile, filtre, fara aproximari deformatoare.

Si daca distanta dintre iluzia creata si dezvoltata si realitate se masoara in timp si energie si caldura si nu iti ajunge ragazul sa vezi pana inchizi ochii sau se stinge lumina?

*the warmth

For a while now I’ve been looking for a small gap in this race, to be quiet and calm, to forget all the tension and anger. I had forgotten about all the joy and the curiousness of simple days and had become entangled in my own wrinkles and frowns, like a puppet tied in it’s strings. I had forgotten all the sweetness and  got caught in the odours of the street.

I avoided this place, almost ran away from it because it was intimidating and cold. Or so I thought.

I found warmth and pieces of my own joy renewed and routes for a lifetime to climb.

*”experince the warmth/ Before you grow old”…

All Together Now*

Intr-una din zile am mers la training. Nu antrenament, ca nu mi-ar fi fost atat de lehamite. O adunatura de nume pe cartonase.

Mancarea

“puteti sa comandati de la xyz…”. Imparte niste meniuri, mai da detalii, mai trece ceva timp mai vorbim de una, de alta. Ma intreaba o tipa “tu comanzi?”. Io voiam sa ies in ora aia, nu sa vina caserola la mine.  Ea ar fi vrut “dar daca nu se comanda…”. Se termina pauza, intreaba daca se face comanda…Un domn cu camasa prazulie “eu voiam …” si saliveaza o bucatica de meniu…Si atat. “Dar daca sunt singur, nu…”. Trainerita ar fi vrut si ea, dar tot nu era avea la ce grup sa adere si ramasese in aer. Se termina happy, cu miros de cantina.  

Cafea

“Mai aveti timp sa mergeti la cafea, mai dureaza… ”. O masina cu cafea in camera alaturata si o masina cu ciocolata 4 etaje mai jos. “Mergeti, mergeti…”. O tanti manager la retail cred “eu as fi mers, dar daca sunt singura…merg aici, aproape”. Eu plec chitita spre ciocolata, trainerita ma urmareste in jurul mesi ovale si spre iesire o mai intreb odata “am timp, nu?” la care imi raspunde mirata “doamna a renuntat, isi ia de aici, de alaturi”.  Deeeci daca sunt singura care vrea chestia aia ar trebui sa ma conformez. M-am intors cu ciocolata si am intrebat daca incepusera si am ratat ceva. Nici nu terminasera cu comanda.

Cursul

Si da-i click, si da-i ok si da-i si da-i (n-am priceput de ce se tot foloseste “da-i” la intructiuni legate de calculatoare da-n fine).

“Si noi, care am primit mesajul cutare?…” Era un singur nenea care obtinuse un ecran mic si intrebator de la atotputernica aplicatie. Unul singur, dar ar fi vrut sa creada ca sunt mai multi.

Sunt directori, sefi si sefuleti. De unde oaia mea atata nevoie de apartenenta la un grup?

*doar titlul se potriveste, cantecul e de fapt frumos

Be Yourself

Be calm.

For some reason rock, progressive and (probably light )metal have remained in the boxes I don’t open and I’ve filled my playlist with calm, reflective, atmospheric music. Easy. Even though my mind’s no place for peace and conflicting thoughts keep whirling and screaming around my head, the music is obsessively calm. I’m mad.

Be strong

All voices are louder than mine, I cannot hear myself in the middle of all of you, the willpower of others overcomes my own, the advices of others are better than my own judgement. I submit.

Be happy

This is not even a topic. This brings me pain and joy in equal amounts. There’s a machine gun of cold words and then a heatwave to make it go away, and another cold front, and another heatwave…until I can’t tell which one is next and I prepare myself to laugh or cry. In the end there’s a straight line where there used to be a smile, there’s silence and late hours and nothing but me.

I cannot be that for too long, it’s exhausting and suffocating. Tell someone else to be just that and see what happens.

Out Of Me

If I get out of this light, out of the dusty , noisy gym, out of my messy hall, out of this city square and its demented sun, if I run really fast and close the door behind me

will I be able to step quietly like a kitten back into the soft, dark  room where we used to watch movies?

Out Of My Hands

The Long And Winding Road

It’s how things happened.

Some time ago – about one year – the idea came to my mind that I needed proper training, not chaotic climbing, which was what I would do 3-4 hours a day, 3 days a week in the gym…a lot of my time. I went to a course on training and after literally squeezing in, I went through a useful though bitter experience. Afterwards I was left with the conviction that my training needed structuring and with an external opinion that I was “strong”. That was puzzling. I had always thought of myself as needing extra strenght and needing to work to achieve it, and that man was telling me I had achieved it. That kind of strength and the way to get were simple and that I knew how to do. As for the rest…still chaotic climbing.

Some time this spring I think I started working on the fingerboard. Working is a bit too much to call it. First I would do two series, later just one series of 10 minutes. My hands got used to it pretty quickly so it became ONLY a 10 minute warm-up, but I was warned. “You shouldn’t do strength training, you should climb a lot and not try so many times until you can do one move, you shouldn’t …” this and that and the other… It was overiflated. This actually made me cry. The only structured thing I had brought to my training was seen as unnecessary, even bad for me! “In this way you will only gain strength and not learn how to climb…When on a steep wall or slab you will be helpless”.

Some time at the beginning of the summer I think I went to Herculane. In my last day there I took a friendly advice ” let these power routes for the boys, let them strain on these. Try more delicate, balancy routes. … you choose your routes badly”. He told me about Chocolat and I had wanted to see it because of the name . So I went and tried…to get to the 4th bolt! I felt like those cartoon characters who are hanging drom an edge and their fingers slip one by one. It was slapping me back down everytime I tried to move up. It felt so far!

Then came the first route I liked so much I actually did. Tough job! A slab. Balancy and technical 1-0 for me.

At some other point during the summer I was called “the biceps girl”.  Probably on another badly chosen route but who knows? Another comment on my so called “power” and the way I apparently ignore all things technical…And more uncertainty and frustration.

Then the holiday, with humid air, mosquitos and broken apples. They were falling from the apple tree right in front of our house, every day in a bigger number,  with a startling sound, then laid broken in the grass or in the alley in different stages of decomposition. The apple tree was running out of apples and I was runnig out of time.

Meeting Chocolat again was somewhat encouraging. The first part, the one that was slapping me on our first meeting was now desciphered and accesible. I went up a couple of times to find a solution for the last bolt. After finding it, I tried the whole thing: shaking all the way to that last bolt…I was way too nervous. The following morning it all came so naturally.  Still shaking at the end and afterwards…it feels like such a rush!

It’s a slab. 2-0 for me. Bonus: my first 7a is probably one of the most delicious routes existing. There’s another one called Wild Honey, maybe I’ll get a chance to compare

Love Hate Relationship

M-am gandit sa incerc altceva, sa merg departe ca sa uit de el. Nu pentru ca nu tin la el, dar pentru ca am impresia ca nu merge nimic. Mi-l doresc foarte mult, dar ma gandeam sa fug de el pentru ca m-a cam pus cu botul pe labe. Si de fapt nu vreau sa fug, e un test prea important ca sa nu ma prezint si o mare dovada de lasitate sa nu incerc pana la epuizare sa-l inteleg…Daca nu-i dragoste cu nabadai, atunci nu stiu ce e…L-am laudat, am vorbit despre el, i-am dat palme (si picioare, cred) si m-am declarat satula…

El este un traseu. Deci e grav! Trebuie sa fac relatia sa mearga, altfel schimb papucii de catarat cu papucii de praf (da, exista, mi i-a luat Reni sa sterg praful in timp ce merg in casa) si topo-urile cu una bucata manual gros de gatit.

Blue climbing

That’s what I did almost all week-end. No route, no nuthin’…I did try a route and I did somehow manage to skip a bolt – ME OF ALL PEOPLE!…Judging by the results though, it seems eating blackberries was the main thing. Blue fingers and fingernails and a blue tongue…so now I speak in my blue tongue. And write with blue fingers.

outside your sleep

Everybody hates their alarm clocks. Everybody hates THAT sound  – most dreaded and annoying, at THAT  hour – the hour of the sweetest form of rest, made by THAT evil organism – cell phone or alarm clock or…me. You go to sleep not thinking what will come over you the next morning, you are completely ignorant of what’s around you, including that ugly noise-maker, you never hear the garbage trucks, the cats, the ambulances …you’re happy in your sleep.

I wake up at approximately the same hour every morning , no alarm clock or dog that needs walking. And it’s not a bad approximation. And I wake you up. So you must hate me the way everybody hates their alarm clocks.

Travelling Words

“

I am part of the load
Not rightly balanced
I drop off in the grass,
like the old Cave-sleepers, to browse
wherever I fall.

For hundreds of thousands of years I have been dust-grains
floating and flying in the will of the air,
often forgetting ever being
in that state, but in sleep
I migrate back. I spring loose
from the four-branched, time -and-space cross,
this waiting room.

I walk into a huge pasture
I nurse the milk of millennia

Everyone does this in different ways.
Knowing that conscious decisions
and personal memory
are much too small a place to live,
every human being streams at night
into the loving nowhere, or during the day,
in some absorbing work.”

Rumi – “We Are Three”, (Mathnawi, VI 216-227)

On a climber’s blog a came across Sufi poetry. I  took a small bite, then  began eating little by little. Every now and then I swallow a piece that leaves a lasting taste in my mouth.

“Listen for the stream
that tells you one thing.

Die on this bank.
Begin in me
the way of rivers with the sea.”

      Rumi – Coleman Barks – from “Say I Am You”