the bottom line

after H had left on that cold winter evening, together with the sound of the door slamming shut S had expected a surge of relief. he had anticipated an intoxicating rush of freedom to wash over him, his lungs to have room to breathe again as the heavy burden of expectations was lifted from him -- that he no longer had to feel that he was being held accountable for his actions for reasons he couldn't agree with.

to his genuine surprise, he felt no such thing.

this was because - and it would have been obvious to any outside observer - such a pressure had never been placed on him by H; the quiet and calm man had never expected anything nor made claims of any kind. the part S had thought he had been forced to play had not been presented to him by H, nor their relationship, but by his own folly; it was S who had put the stress and the endless list of expectations on himself. this was partly due to the fact that he more or less assumed that that was how relationships worked and partly because he didn't have a clue as to how they actually did.

so when H hadn't come back after that evening, and the reality - that he wouldn't - started to dawn on him, S felt, to both his surprise and shock, not relief but a strong sense of loss, and also - which was probably much more difficult for him to process and accept - a feeling of dread, of finality; that a chance had been given and he had indeed fucked it up. as intelligent as he may had been, this was something he couldn't quite comprehend - how was it that when something that had put such a strain on him was now apparently over, he wasn't able to rejoice? how was it even possible that when that strange, foreign object in his space, a one he had not known how to deal with - the intimate, emotional relationship with H - that had suffocated him so and driven him almost mad was gone, he still felt he couldn't breathe?

it was upsetting not only because the distress was not gone but because it was possibly even stronger. it also had a different, undefined tone in it; his anxiety now held a twinge of guilt, and above all, remorse; a feeling he really wasn't accustomed to at all. therefore, S concluded to his great annoyance and disbelief, his deduction as to the reason for his restless state during the recent past had, no doubt, been wrong.

and that was disturbing.

seventh day

usually the things that end up in this blog are due to running. today, however, i didn't run -- i've been told that it is good to take a day off every now and then, and that's what i did today. 


i have to say that it is extremely difficult for me. of course i understand that rest is important too, and i have suffered my share of stress injuries to know that this is not merely a hypothesis; and still i often find myself extending the periods between the days off, or tricking myself with thinking that i'll just do a short run or go to spinning instead -- that is a day off from running, after all. 


on the other hand, why should i take days off if i don't feel tired? this is the question i admit i sometimes have difficulties in answering to. especially as not running always casts a shadow on the rest of the day; on the days i don't run it basically feels i never wake up at all and my general view on things is affected by this as well. 


oh well, good thing there's tomorrow. and ashtanga yoga in the evening.


the picture below was taken yesterday as i was doing the second long run of the week. it is from seurasaari, a place i recently re-discovered and went nuts about. it is a fantastic place to run in, highly recommended even if during the weekends the amount of (japanese) tourists can sometimes be overwhelming.

sounds familiar

"The Hour of the Wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born."

Ingmar Bergman, Hour of the Wolf, 1968

show must go on

it was not so that the dreams would have been better or even more interesting than the reality. on the contrary, most of the time the images his brain painted were what you could only categorize as dull. sometimes his dreams were frightening and on a few occasions -- though these types of dreams had been recently increasing in number -- they caused anxiety that more often than not remained with him throughout the day. it was therefore obvious that it wasn't an escape to some magical wonderland that he yearned for; not a release from the grip of reality for the sake of bliss or a cheap rush provided by the unfathomable chemical processes in the organic matter that was the source of his being.


instead, the reason for the gradually growing number of hours he spent asleep was that when he slept, whenever he dreamed -- it was also when his life was his, his feelings were his own and everything that followed thus more genuine than anything he experienced in his so -called real life. even his control or the lack of it felt real, not fabricated. he didn't have to worry about things irrelevant to him, and he wasn't forced to take interest in things just because he should, or was expected to. so what did it matter if the events themselves weren't that interesting or if they even were unpleasant at times; what was important was that it was him experiencing them.


in his dreams everything that happened happened to him, not to the someone he had been made out to be. his fears and joys and uncertainties were his own and not of the man in the life of whom he existed when in the world of the awake. when he slept his hands still found the curve of K's back and their marriage hadn't been reduced to list of things he did in an unsatisfying way; when he dreamed the essence of what had once been the most important relationship of his life hadn't been shrank down to the annoyed but patient explanation of how the way he did the dishes was wrong.


he had realized the difference between the two worlds quite a while ago now. at first the notion had been passing and he hadn't paid much attention to it, managing to dismiss it with a shrug of his shoulders. but with time, as how he had ended up being slowly drifted further and further from what was really him, his acknowledgement of the situation started to bother him with a voice so loud it was impossible to mute down. that was about the time when he had started to add to his hours of sleep -- had it been out of fear of losing himself completely or because the man he was when awake was so foreign to him that it exhausted him, he couldn't tell.


he slept because in his dreams he was still him; the world in which only he existed was the only one where he still did.

sunday bloody sunday

to keep things real i have to confess that running is not always that great. take sunday for example -- i don't remember the last time running would have sucked so bad. granted, it was mostly due to weather; about ten degrees, wind and rain and yours truly seriously under equipped in a t-shirt and a very thin jacket, combined with low energy levels and a groggy head due to sleeping too much resulted in a miserable run that i couldn't wait to end. as i ran i tried to be zen about it and focus on the movement instead of the lousy conditions and the general annoyance i felt  towards the world; this helped maybe a little bit but if i said that by the end of that run i felt good i would be lying.

luckily today was the exact opposite. clear skies, bright sunlight, ease of movement and generally just a good feeling about it all results in a much happier me; a good place to start the week.