My steps are slower today, yet hurried at the same time, as my to-do list never seems to be empty these days. I chose a different route than usual—through the floodplain spaces, past the bluish river, and along the forested northern slopes. The wind draws the bare skeletal branches closer together, as if trying to embrace them, but they hold on to their verticality, refusing to leave their roots. Our shared language is the vibration of my footsteps and their inner structure. They line my path. Long stretches forward, then right, after a while left, then straight again. Before I see what I am looking for, the force of the trees’ upward movement vanishes in an instant, and my compass becomes the decision to explore.
I descend, moving down the grassy plain, approaching the shell-white building nestled within the branching forest.
Glass doors stand before me. They open. My body is wrapped in warmth, and my gaze meets the modest, slightly melancholic smile of a woman in a beige sweater. I step through the tall, heavy doors, and in the blink of an eye, my eyes meet a towering sculpture of striking contrasts. Its base is solid like the upper layers of earth, its torso reminiscent of boulders after a long drought, its shoulders have found existential stability, yet its head seems to belong to another world. A world that is free, truthful, humble, and proud. It is as light as a feather and as firm as a rock. The walls open around it, granting it space, allowing it, at times, to rise through the translucent skylight.
A place for intimacy.
I remember playing with clay and wooden planks in the shelter on the field. My grandfather built that shelter—two rectangles covered in straw and reeds. Beside it stood a tree. A walnut tree. Ten meters away, east of our field, there was another shelter, built to shield from the rain. It was slightly lower, closer to the pond, making it clearly visible. But ours had the walnut tree. I recall long moments of watching tiny beetles, poking at the light brown planks, drawing lines in the soft, powdery earth. I remember the fields around, the dance of leaves against the backdrop of an endless azure sky. I want to touch the surface of this existence. I want to trace the lines of the majestic being before me.
More doors open ahead. My steps are slow, steady, and calm. The space is clearly defined, yet the movement is free, undulating, open. The surrounding world seeps through the long windows, and I feel as though I could touch the grass within them—if I reached just a little farther, even the branches above it. Infinite steps in all directions, then one clear step upward, another, and another, spiraling clockwise until I find myself—alongside the torso and head—where intimacy meets freedom. I see it through the rounded objects freely placed in the space. The trees are even closer. The plain and the river before me.
The windows are sometimes dirty, sometimes speckled with raindrops, or adorned with icy blossoms, and sometimes they are perfectly clear. I always see the world through a “layer” of something. And we long to uncover and conceal it, all at once. Through wood, stone, or metal. Through truths. Through ideas and hopes.
A place for discovery.
13.10.2024