I would very much like to present my life here and now, on these pages and to these people. In order to do that a condition of memory and remembering is obviously quite necessary.
I do not have those.
Sometimes it scares me how little memory I have of my own lived experience.
My feeling of being me now is as if I am a human being without past, my life did not happen to me, I do not remember it, I do not feel it. My life for me is a movie that I have watched, a movie that I am rewatching whenever I want to recall a memory combined with a stories about me that have been told to me by people with whom I have apparently shared my life with.
I do not remember children from my kindergarten. I do not remember my class mates from primary school. I do not even remember all of my professors from dance academy which was not so long ago.
Maybe to others this could seem silly and unfamiliar but I can assure you it is a truly scary feeling to have no past, to have no memory. And I am not talking about details and It is not about chronologically remembering events that summed up would represent a life. Everybody forgets bits and pieces or some details of their own life. I am talking about how scary is forgetting the feeling of being oneself in any moment except this present one. The feeling that I only exist now, I never WAS and I never will BE, I just AM.
Thinking about my life, my past, I have this strong sensation of depersonalization. When I try to access my past, I actually go to some imaginary recorder placed somewhere inside of me on which I press play with power of my will. I press play and I watch a movie about the girl.
The girl was given a name Kasija from a story that her mother was reading at the time of her birth, a name very unusual, name she has never encountered in her life, a name that is her first given identity, the one that had determined so much before Kasija even had a chance to choose who to become.
Pressing “Play” …
Movie begins…
Kasija is standing in the middle of the room in her kindergarten… she is holding a wet hair band with whom she has just squeezed a bit of water on a head of a boy from her group… she is around four years old… teacher yells at her: “There are more nice ways to show you like somebody!” … “like somebody”? … “What does that even mean?” Kasija wonders… She was just playing with him… everybody is staring at her… everybody is laughing at her… She feels shame for the first time in her life!
“Pause” …
After that up until very recently her life is one blurry image of unpleasant experience of being alive, being ashamed.
Except…
“Play” …
Kasija is staring at the eyes of her dog. She loves that dog more than any human. It is this special connection that just cannot be described in language. For duration of fourteen years that dog is hers most true connection to this world.
Few years back the dog dies!
She is holding him while he makes his last four breathes… she buries him by herself…she says her las goodbye… she cries a lot… she breaks completely.
Ever since than Kasija and me never had that love and connection again. Depersonalizing even more and feeling even les.
Process of losing that memory begins.
In a desperate attempt to keep the most precious memory we make a tattoo, inscribing the initials into our skin.
With the last drop of ink memory vanishes… That one most precious and real memory vanishes…
Feeling becomes unbearable… We are getting too close to despairing …
RUN!
Please Kasija just run!
…
I push the door…
I exit and I enter…
I exit one space, closed space, up until now familiar space… lonely, memoryless space…
With one movement, with one simple push I throw my body into a new space, outside space…
I enter another space…
I get blinded by natural light, daylight…
Whiteness…
White floor, white chairs, white tables, white umbrellas…
Too white…
There is a girl. She has black hair. It calms my eyes a bit.
And now I can feel again.
I feel it is sunny and warm…
Too warm…
Too white and too warm space…
Discomfort…
Fear…
My body and mind need a bit of time to adjust…
No time…
The habit to move is faster than the adjusting process…
My eyes move scanning the rest of that new space…
Green…
Greenness…
A huge green wavy sheet of grass with a bit of trees and bushes, supported by singing of the birds comes to my perception…
It calms me down, a bit, again…
Noise…
Calmness breaks, again…
Noise of cars passing by my new white and green space…
Noise of water, artificial water, coming from the huge metal balls on sticks…
I adjust, a bit, again…
As soon as I do, greenness breaks….
White benches, strange looking, seemingly uncomfortable benches spread around my white and green space…
After second or two…
After adjusting…
After assimilating…
After the small shock of change…
I see beauty…
Beauty in combining modern architecture and nature surrounding it…
I turn left…
I walk along this modern architecture that indescribably resembles something already familiar…
“it looks like one of the white benches would be enhanced!” I say to me.
I continue to walk…
I face the fence….
End of space…
Stop…
Sit…
With panoramic movement I scan what is visually accessible from my white and green space…
I notice another space…
Down and in front, city space displayed for me to perceive …
Close to me – suburb houses…
In a distance – buildings, skyscrapers, bridges, houses, construction sites…
City…
Linz…
Space somewhere over there…
I do not feel as being a part of it…
I am up in my white and green space, fenced space…
Right and left of me as well as in front beyond the city there are hills spreading as if they would form a circle around the city, surrounding the city, closing the city, closing the space.
Me in a fence closed space…
City in a hill closed space…
Borders, limits, definitions of space and being…
Always in some kind and form of space, no escape…
Visual experience – stillness…
Sitting on a weird looking, and yes truly uncomfortable bench, the city down below gives the impression of a frozen picture.
Even the trees around me are still.
Only moving, only alive fragment breaking the stillness are moving cars and trams on a distant barely visible bridge going left-right, left-right, left-right, left-right, left-right, ……………………………. producing a constant murmur, almost unhearable and calming white noise.
Cars and trams there in that city space,
Birds singing here in my white and green,
And all in between random child screams.
Cars and trams breaking the stillness; cars, trams, birds and screams breaking the silence; buildings breaking the nature…
Break, break, break
And the city is made!
All left to do is follow your own hand!
Follow, follow, follow
There comes the man!
His name – David Lynch. If I would meet him today, I could surrender myself to death tomorrow in complete peace and with no regrets.
I get confused and scared of these feelings towards the seventy-three years old man, distant in time and space with almost no chance to ever cross each other’s paths. Nevertheless, al least one-way connection to this transcendental meditation practicing movie director and musician gives me a huge inspirational push every time I let myself be taken by his artistry.
“It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It’s better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it’s a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else.” (David Lynch)
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