same but different

J was a very ordinary man. 

in his physical attributes he met the standards set by his countrymen in practically every aspect. he was of medium height and build, hair of no particular colour but a flat shade of brown and had eyes that were, depending on the amount of light, either worn-out brown or a little bit grayish. his eyes were located on his plain face perhaps slightly more apart than what was considered pleasant to look at, but not so much so that it would have made his features particularly recognizable. he had the kind of face you forget once you are no longer looking at it; the face of the man in the bus next to you, or the janitor's, or perhaps of the insurance clerk on the other end of the telephone line you called because you try to find out why you were billed too much last month.

in terms of his his mental attributes he also fell into the area of average. he wasn't stupid but there were no hopes of  the career of a nuclear physicist or a brain surgeon; the latter mainly because his devotion and patience were of average level as well and could not therefore be stretched to endure the trials of studying into such a profession.  he wasn't particularly ill-tempered but lacked the gift of an unconstrained, overflowing good nature as well; most of the time his mindset was even as a train on its tracks and small was the number of things that had the capability to upset him. he had a few friends, none of them he would have probably given his life for but close enough to make him feel that he mattered and wasn't left out; and the occasional girlfriends that came and went assured him that he could, if he so wanted, even marry some day.

his days consisted of waking up, doing some light exercise to keep the years from sneaking up on him, going to work to an average office building on an average salary, occasionally lunching with few colleagues he was friendly with but not overly so, getting home from work either straight or stopping by at a bar to have a beer or two with his mates, cooking some dinner and then either watching the telly or reading some light literature -- he was not a friend of deep subjects -- before going to bed. he slept soundly and without dreams, and when the alarm woke him up in the morning he more often than not felt relatively rested. 

on the weekends and holidays he usually slept a little bit longer, ate a big breakfast while browsing the weekend paper and then ran some errands he hadn't had time for during the week. sometimes he took a walk, or went to see his mother who lived in a town two hours away, or went to the cinema if there was something of interest to see. in the evenings he always returned home like a ship that returns to port; and again he would eat, and watch some tv, and go to bed.

his average life flowed forward like this from day to day, calm and uninterrupted and practically as predictable as the rotation of the earth. of course there were the occasional mishaps -- once he got into a small car accident when the driver behind him didn't slow down in time in red lights but instead bumped into him; the incident left him with a sore neck for a week or two and the inconvenience of having to have to take a bus to work while his car was being repaired. once his wallet was stolen, and there was also the time when he got a severe food poisoning from the buffet of a renowned if somewhat outdated restaurant and had to be taken into the hospital for two days. the local newspaper even interviewed him due to this incident - it had been a very quiet news summer -- and as he had sat there in the hospital bed talking with the reporter who had had a bad skin and was barely out of college (summer intern, probably) it had briefly passed his mind that this was probably his 15 minutes of fame.

and in all his averageness he was quite content with his life. there was really nothing that he didn't have that he would have needed -- sure, there were some things he would have wanted that were out of his reach, like a convertible or a bigger flat closer to the center of the city -- but he understood that these were things that probably wouldn't give him any lasting increase in happiness, and therefore he never felt that he was deprived of anything in particular. he knew his current place in the world, more or less, and he knew that there were people smarter, better-looking, more rich, more successful than him; but this had never bothered him. because somewhere deep down inside, somewhere in the back of his head and in the bottom layer of his heart he knew that some day it would be his turn. 

he knew that in all his averageness he was, in fact, something quite extraordinary, something waiting to be discovered and granted with the recognition he duly deserved. he was so average that it was unique; and in a world full of people average but not average enough -- not as average as him, anyway -- surely this was something that separated him from the rest and would thus eventually be paid attention to.

om

i practice ashtanga yoga on regular basis. even though it has become almost as important for me as running, it is rare that i write anything about it. i don't quite know why this is so; why something that has given me a lot and altered my view of things is something i don't have words for? i wanted to try to put some of my thoughts to words, so what follows is a bit lengthy and quite likely a bit uninteresting recap of my yoga history.

i began practicing yoga when i was doing my thesis, in the summer of 2008. it was a very intense time in my life work-wise; i sat in front of my laptop all day every day for about five months. there were actually only two days during those months that i didn't touch it at all, and i have to say that now when i'm looking back at it i honestly haven't got a clue how i managed to stay (relatively) sane. so there was definitely a need for some kind of distraction (even if i didn't necessarily feel like that at the time) and it was maybe partly because of that i decided to take a friend's advice and participated into a weekend course of ashtanga. i have to admit i was slightly hesitant as my mental  image of yoga was a bunch of hippies sitting in a room gently stretching and chanting ommmm; so it was a relief for me when the teacher said in the very beginning of the course the spiritual aspect of yoga should and would not be forced upon. that eventually it would come, through practice; of course i didn't believe this as i am not by any means very spiritual a person, but i was happy with the fact that i wouldn't have to pretend to be one either.

not only was i proved wrong in terms of the spiritual aspect, but the physical one surprised me as well -- ashtanga was much more challenging than i ever could have imagined yoga to be. i was intrigued, and continued practicing several times a week throughout the summer. later that year, after finishing the thesis, i moved to hungary and from there to czech republic; during those years i lived abroad i did yoga every now and then, but the intensity was mostly gone. i practiced mainly because i found it to be a good balance for running (i hate stretching and never do it), but it was never something i felt very passionate about.

this slowly changed when i moved back to finland and went back to the shala. i started practicing regularly and started to notice some changes; it was interesting to witness how my flexibility and strength increased. i felt i was progressing, and around this time i think i went a bit astray; yoga had become something to be accomplished, and i sometimes felt angry or disappointed if i felt the practice hadn't gone well enough.

but slowly, through the small clicks in my thinking linked to the clicks in my physique i started to experience when practicing, i begun to see the whole thing differently. it dawned on me -- and i know this sounds self-evident, but i have the type of personality that easily slips into this kind of thinking -- that i will never be finished, or done, or have perfected any asana. i can practice yoga every day for the rest of my life, and the first asana of the primary series will still give me something new, there still is something unattainable left in it. this is a wonderful thought, at least for me, and it takes away most of the need to accomplish.

another important realization for me was that it doesn't always have to feel great to do yoga.  i recently read an  interesting article where the presence of negative emotions was explained in a way that felt really familiar; and with this in mind it is easier for me to accept these kind of experiences as well. i would have not said this a year ago, but i believe this now; when you practice yoga you can access your feelings and emotions in a new and different way; and as the locks of your body open so do the locks of your mind. this is something i now know to be true even if i lack the language to describe how it feels, and even if it doesn't always make sense to me i have full trust in it. perhaps this is how it would feel to be religious?

all in all it has happened so as my first yoga teacher told me. the spiritual aspect of yoga comes through practice; like many other things in life, it cannot happen until it does.  i still don't consider myself a spiritual person, but i now accept that the physical practice has perhaps opened some things in my mind and taught me to see certain things differently.  this is absolutely fascinating, but i also understand that this is something that cannot be rushed, or willed; not that i would necessarily even want to. i am only in the very beginning of trying to understand the dimension of yoga outside the physical one; but the difference between now and when i started practicing is that now i am actually intrigued, and this is only because of the experiences and thoughts i have had through practice. i had to see to believe; and now i would like to see more.

and still, the truth of the matter is that i will never be a serene yogi who gives up reality and moves to india. there might even be times in the future that i will stray further from regular practice; but i doubt i will never give it up completely, as long as it is up to me. but if yoga has taught me something -- and it certainly has -- it is that the connection between our mind and body is much more complex than i can even begin to imagine, and learning that connection might just be one of the most fascinating things to experience. 

better half

the change had been so gradual, so slow and discreet that it was difficult to notice it had even taken place. it was equally hard ,if not impossible, to point out the exact time when it had first occurred, even though there surely had been a moment when the fracture had first emerged. it was a puzzling thought, to think that the personality that now was such a fundamental part of his daily life had not once existed; and even more puzzling that he couldn't remember how it had felt before it did. but he knew that such a reality had been his once, a reality where he had been himself and no one else; and he also knew that there was no going back to that reality.


of course he knew he was running out of time. he was very well aware that the other was eating away of what was his original self, and that eventually it would be the only one left. he reckoned that as long as he remembered the division, as long as his mind was aware of the other to exist  it meant that he was still there, still here; and so he reminded himself of the fact every day, made sure he acknowledged it even if it at times was painful for reasons he couldn't name anymore.

what made it problematic was that it was often easier when the other took over. most of the times he asked it to, whenever the world around him became too much to bear -- he stepped aside like an actor would from a stage at the end of the play, and the other took his place, always without hesitation or objection. the other was stronger, more resilient and more reasonable as well; when the other was in charge, any desires or opinions or selfish needs he may have had were muted, swallowed like a bitter medicine.  as a result what he was to the outside became more cooperative, easier to deal with, more likeable, even.

there had been a time when he had thought that what he wanted or needed was what mattered, and those things would make him happy, and the rest of the world would just order itself around this fact. but slowly, through time and experience and aided by all the snide comments and little remarks and passing sentences he had slowly learnt that this wasn't true. it didn't matter what he wanted, or how we was; what was important was how he fit in the overall scheme of things and how the people around him wanted -- expected -- him to be. and he did want it too, wanted to be what was expected of him because it seemed to be something worth striving for, and it was maybe then that the other had slowly started to wake up.

the bottom line was that he had never wanted to change himself; never felt the need for it. but as it had started to dawn on him that it wasn't his needs or hopes or expressing himself that could have made other people happy, he had allowed the other to be born. the other did what he couldn't, was what he wasn't able to be; and that is why he needed the other even if calling out for it sometimes agitated him so that it was hard to breathe. but he had to, more often and often it seemed these days; had to step aside and allow the other to step in.

he didn't know if other people had their others, too; but if theirs were as seamlessly bound to their original selves as in his own case, well, it would have been impossible to tell. he tried to observe the best he could, pay attention to details but failed every time -- there were no trace of others in the people around him. as time passed he thought about the question less and less, and to the outside world it seemed that whatever burden he had been carrying got lighter; and one day, out of the blue and without any apparent reason, it suddenly appeared that he was a changed man.

rain

every now and then, when not presented with the situation too often, i like running in the rain. it has to be a certain kind of rain, though -- one of the most important qualifications being that it is not very windy at the same time. i dislike strong wind in itself and when combined with rain the conditions become something i cannot say i would be a huge fan of. 

but when the rain falls like it did on this sunday morning, following the course set by its own weight, there is something in it that appeals to me. it wraps everything in a calming veil and tones the world down by emptying the streets with its unapologetic, continuous rhythm. when you run in the rain it may initially feel a bit tedious, all those droplets of liquid water in your eyes and ears and the puddles that wet your feet. but once you get past that you notice how fresh the air is and how good the rain smells, and you stop paying attention to the slight discomfort brought about your wet clothes. that's when it starts to feel great, and the experience is only heightened by the fact that most of the time you seem to be alone in the world. the rain falling to the ground is like a cloak, it creates a protective shield around you; and when you start to get wet to the bone there is sometimes this strange feeling of being blended into your surroundings.

forget me not

for some time now G had had an annoying feeling that he had forgotten something. the feeling was very similar to the one you sometimes get when you are on your way to the airport and run through the checklist of absolutely necessary items in your head -- even when you know that if you forgot something when packing the odds are that you forgot it from the checklist as well, and the missing item will only come to you in some random situation when it is in every way imaginable too late to get to it. the feeling also had a hint of uncertainty in it, the type you experience when you go away for a weekend and on the first night start to wonder if you turned the stove off. you think you did, you are almost certain of it -- and yet there is that little gnawing what if. 

very similar to these feelings, the one he had been experiencing lately was quite a fragile one, the kind you can somewhat effortlessly silence and even forget about for a while; but yet it surfaces, every now and then, and when it does it does have the capability of making you a bit nervous and uneasy. 

so the feeling was there, it was not constant but it never really left; and as time passed G started to pay more and more attention to it whenever it did pop up. this was particularly so because it seemed that he had not, in fact, forgotten about anything at all -- there were no angry phone calls due to missing a deadline, no hurt feelings caused by anniversary or birthday passed unnoticed, nor were there one single entry in his calendar he would have not attended to as expected; all in all, it seemed that G was on top of his game when it came to time-management and taking care of things. this in turn pushed him into a state of nervous expectation, he was just waiting for the bomb to drop; perhaps he had forgotten something extremely big, something the passing of which would announce itself with a bang -- but nothing of the sort happened, and eventually he got used to the feeling and was able to live with it. 

but still he couldn't escape the fact that he felt something had been overlooked. it bothered him more and more, the feeling made itself aware at an increasing pace; and every time he acknowledged it it was stronger and more troubling. this was especially true as G had always thought of himself as the careful, diligent type of man; he had always taken pride of this, and this new kind of feeling of failing this essential characteristic of his nature stirred him quite a bit.
 as he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was, he started to think that perhaps he was going mad, or had alzheimer's or something of the like; but a thorough discussion followed by a medical examination by his trusted doctor ruled out the likelihood of both physical and mental illnesses. 

so there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and yet everything was.

G did what he could -- went on with his life as usual. took care of his work with the highest level of profession, was attentive and loving towards his spouse. he ate well and slept soundly, did his exercise and had the occasional night out with his friends -- and the feeling grew and grew and grew like it would have fed on his attempt of ignorance. perhaps it was so that this time of torment, struggling with the awareness of forgetting something, was required in order for him to remember; maybe it would have been impossible for G to arrive to the conclusion of his trial any sooner. it could also be that some reason or another he had chosen to close his eyes from the answer that was there in front of him all the time, and only when they were forced open by his unconscious mind that had grown sick of being in the dark that he finally saw it.

either way, when he realized what it was that had escaped his mind he had been plagued by the question for about three and a half years. it came to him on a tuesday morning, the most average and normal of all mornings when the trace of the rain from the night before was still lingering in the air and the upcoming meeting that was waiting for him later on the day was filling most of his thoughts. when he finally remembered what it was that he had forgotten it didn't come with a bang as he might have feared; it wasn't an epiphany even of the smallest kind. but it did make him stop in his tracks, right there in the middle of the pavement. as the case he had been carrying in his right hand fell to the ground and the line of his shoulders dropped, the sense of calm that spread throughout his whole being was almost too much for his skin to contain.

he had forgotten himself.

perfect day

there are days that are the embodiments of a season. the clear, crisp winter mornings when the sun reflecting from the pure white snow makes your eyes water and the coldness of the air paints the borders of your exhales in the air; or the hot, lazy summer afternoons when time drags on and the world feels so gentle, so kind and what ever worries you may have can wait until tomorrow. there are the cautious, almost frail first days of spring when the sun starts to feel warm again and you can smell the ground as the disappearing snow looses the battle of covering it, the days when you know that you have survived yet another winter and that the upcoming summer has every chance of making up for the dark days of winter that are now starting to be behind you.

and then there are days like this, the perfect autumn days when the air is fresh and the wind is strong, but the sun still has some strength left to warm your face when you run towards it; when the ground is wet from the rain that poured on it the night before and the tattered clouds are chased across the dazzling blue sky by an invisible force. on days like this you know that the winter is coming, that it is already lurking in the evenings that grow dark earlier and earlier, you can sense it hiding in the sharpness of the wind; but you also know that without the approaching winter you could not experience these magnificent autumn days. and because of that -- even if just for a moment -- as you run through the nature that is already preparing to hibernate and get to experience its last beautiful breaths, you are grateful for the winter as well.

what has become of me

i don't remember much of that time. it is all vague, covered by the merciful fog provided by time, and the things that took place then appear to me now as they would have happened to someone else. yet i cannot escape or deny the fact that these events have had their share in molding me, the result of which you can see in what i am today; but still, when questioned about this specific time period, i struggle with bringing any details of it into mind.

the fact that my memory fails me can be, of course, explained at least to some extent with the blunt truth -- i was mad. this is also something i find completely detached from myself now, so much so that it fascinates me and makes me want to poke at the past like a child would poke a roadkill -- curious, slightly afraid, aware of the knowledge that behind the dead animal is a force  bigger than himself. this is because being mad, or rather, let's be honest about it, shithouse rat crazy as i was, is something i no longer remember experiencing. maybe it is because i never truly felt it, that my insanity was as normal for me as my sanity is now, and that only afterwards i was shown how my actions could be considered somewhat unorthodox. but the state of things -- that i don't remember that time all that well -- proves me that i was indeed somewhere else, that i was not what they say is normal; that the sea of my mental disorder rested so heavy upon me that it managed to create a reality and time that no longer exist.

but it must be said that the weight of the ocean on me was comforting. it might have immobilized me close to a paralyzing level, but it was always there, a friend and a lover and the meaning of life. like a thick coat that warms you on a cold winter night the mass of my madness protected me from the outside world, lulling me into a state of oblivion and, dare i say it, bliss. it was only when i started to surface that i realized how difficult the way up was and how deep i had been, and the air that now streamed into me, as sweet and fresh as it was, also hurt my lungs that had been unused for so long. and i have to admit -- when i choked up blood and the bright light of the real world burnt my eyes there were times when i missed the quietness and calmness of the underworld. 

i would not be the person i am today had i not been mad; and i would have not gone insane if i hadn't been the person i was before i did. but what remains is the question whether or not it was me in the bottom of the sea -- i don't recall it any more than i can grasp the tail of a dream that vanished before i woke. i can't tell, really; but i do like the smell of salt in the air.

the weight of you

it had been 17 years and he still thought of her. 

the memory of her came to him occasionally, it wasn't constant -- sometimes there were days, even weeks or months when no recollection of her existence interfered with his own. but eventually it always surfaced, usually triggered by something completely irrelevant that had nothing to do with her. it could happen in the queue of a supermarket or in the midst of bench presses, and sometimes it came to him when he was thinking about some work-related matter or staring at the telly. 

the memory was always the same. her face, pleasant but not exceptionally beautiful; her hazel eyes slightly glazed by the decent amount of alcohol she had consumed. her loud laughter and her raspy voice, even if he had forgot most of what she had said due to the equally decent amount of substances in his own circulation. her hands that appeared to be in constant movement and, oddly enough, her neck that had seemed to be the most vulnerable part of her. but above all her presence, the way he had known where she was in the room even when she had been out of his sight, and the undeniable and unquestionable feeling of something being shared whenever she wasn't.

the memory consisted of these unorganized flickers of her, these small specks of her being, and condensed into the one sentence he did remember, spoken by her as their loud, merry group had parted ways that night. it had been agreed between them then, with that sentence, without any regret or frustration that they had met in a wrong life and in wrong time. in this one she was married and he was gay, and that was that and it was good, and there was absolutely nothing either one of them would have wanted to change in that.

and yet, when two weeks later he learnt the news about her death he couldn't help but grieving her, much more than the level of the impact she had had on his life would have given reason for. he had been shattered, had felt that something very primal, very intimate had been robbed of him in the most violent way; and when his friends asked why he was so devastated over the loss of someone he had met only once, he didn't have the words to give them an answer.

perhaps the memory of her was so precious to him because it was all he had and ever could have; reality or time would never touch it. and even if he never dreamt of her, never pictured scenarios that could have been but never would but always stuck to the things that had actually happened, still the validity of her would never alter or colour those experiences. she was the only person who would stay with him as she had been on that night, and with that he could stay like he had been as well -- could still feel the connection, the certainty, and the acceptance; the mutual agreement the level of which he hadn't experienced since.

perhaps it was so that the absoluteness of her memory was what had kept her with him for all these years. perhaps, had she lived, the awareness of her existence and life somewhere else would have slowly erased her from his memory. or perhaps it is so that the impact of another on a life is not measured through the tools provided by time; perhaps the meaning is created by something else entirely.

he didn't know which it was; all he knew that the memory of her rested on him like no other.

little mother

i'm flying out to prague for a few days today. this makes me insanely happy because for me it is one the best cities there is -- of course it might be that i am slightly biased given that i have lived there for about two and a half years and that the time i spent there changed me in many ways, mostly to a better direction.

but as much as i love the place, i don't know if i would move there again. besides amazing, beautiful, magical and inspiring,  prague can be infuriating, exhausting and troublesome as well, so there certainly are some downsides to living in there-- i would have not, after all,  left had there not been valid reasons to do so (no, home sickness was most definitely not one of them). there are also so many other places on this planet i would like to try out as well, so at the moment it would seem that i won't be having a permanent address in prague anymore. but this doesn't mean that i don't miss it, and the people i had the good fortune of becoming friends with while living in there; it is the classical case of your heart ruling over your head. 

so every now and then i have to treat my aching heart by visiting. of course it's not the same, and i don't actually even need it to be so; my life is good at the moment and i don't long for something that is not here anymore. but prague really is so as franz kafka described it: "prague never lets you go... this dear little mother has sharp claws."

funeral

the first sign is the darkness of the mornings. it is different than before, more persistent and heavier; it seems that the daylight has to fight harder to break through it. and at the same time, now when its power would be more needed than ever, the dawn is growing weaker by the day. it withers and the rays of the pale sun wear thin, and even if they still have enough strength to banish the thick darkness of the night you can already see that the battle is the losing kind.

the second sign is the smell of the air. it is the only time of the year when you can smell the coldness, still hiding behind the remains of the summer. the last warm days are like a veil in front of the approaching autumn and the winter that follows, and the fabric of it starts to break down  already ; but for now it still holds together, and if you so choose it is still thick enough to cover your eyes from the truth.

the third sign is the rain. when it starts it is savage and brutal, overpowering and unconditional as its relentless drumming washes away whatever memory there was of the summer. after a while it will become more and more difficult to remember how it felt when the nights were light and the breeze was warm, because soon the nights are darker than you ever thought possible and the wind cuts through your skin and freezes your bones into icicles. the sad, dead shell of the summer flows on the streets together with the cold, gray rain, down to the sewers and all the way to the sea where it dissolves and disappears just like its predecessors have done as well.

the fourth sign is the most difficult one to spot but it might also be the most important. it is the feeling of undefined sadness that creeps up on you without a warning; it is the invisible weight on yours shoulders that pushes them down ever so slightly. you know that the end of summer is inevitable, and that fighting it is useless; if something  was ever truly beyond your control, it must be this predetermined death struggle you are forced to witness year after year. 

and it doesn't get easier, even if you have seen it so many times before. the signs will prepare you for it, but they don't change the outcome -- they only tell you, bluntly and without discretion, that the last day of summer has indeed gone. what is left to do is to let go of the deceased and make your peace with the situation, move on; a closure that is required so that the heaviness of your heart won't weigh you down anymore.