Animals, people, body, game, art, desert, fire, rivers, names, love and I
Anna Lesiczka
18th May 2023
I was waiting for the place to live, but it came too early. I went out to the balcony to look at the neighborhood. One more month here is not long enough.
I usually come too early, so I was at the platform one hour before my train came.
And I arrived in Malmö too late, then couldn’t take part in the artist talk that my group was having. I don’t know how it happened that I didn't see them for the whole day. In the evening they were late to see the performance but I came on time. I didn’t like it so I left quickly. I regretted that before I had rushed from the park where I had been photo-shooting birds. I didn’t want to confess that meeting my classmates made me afraid of losing the city.
I was waiting for the train facing the opposite platform and reading. Even though I had a lot of time, the fear of losing it couldn’t leave me. It made me think about a situation from the summer of 2017 when I missed a train sitting just like this. Actually, I missed a couple of trains. We were talking, me and Patrycja whom I met in 2004, sitting at the last subway station in Brooklyn. It had been raining and we couldn’t dry because of the humid air. For much too long we didn’t realize that our transports home were departing one time after another from behind our backs. Later on, when we were already inside, we were happy. I spotted a graveyard from the opposite window so I rushed there to look closer and take a photo. According to her, all the people around turned their heads after me, probably thinking that something interesting happened.
Waiting for my train six years later, I was looking for the photo I took of her at that moment. It could be only in our messenger conversation. I found many other things from that time, but the photo was gone. I remember that she was laughing, the seat was blue, her outfit was black, her hair was dark blond and the towel on her arms was orange. Where the towels came from, I don’t remember. Mine was green. She was covering her face while laughing and the poster above her head was saying “Happy hour is never just an hour”.
My friend Patrycja whom I met in 2004 and with whom I missed many trains in August 2017, is getting married this summer. I am wondering if she is still as happy as she was the day I took that photo. And I believe she is happier because she has always really wanted to have her own family and do things together with them. I am more worried about myself if I just accidentally haven’t still been waiting for that train, looking in the opposite direction.
Before I left, I went to the post office to pick up a package from a friend. Among other things, there was a book inside. The book was written in English. Although I already packed a magazine to read during the trip, I quickly put the book into my backpack. Lately, I’ve been reading only in Polish and writing only in English. But it wasn’t something I decided upon, it was a natural thing and for a long time, I haven’t noticed it.
This photo isn’t lost. It’s somewhere on the hard drive in a box in my big wardrobe in my parents’ house. I believe that I don’t lose important things.
However today I am losing my senses, dealing with a wave of anger since the moment I woke up. It feels like a fire that doesn’t save anything on its way. It slowly started yesterday when I had such big trouble communicating with people, and no skills for explaining what I meant. Sitting for more than four hours on a train next to a boy with glasses who was playing chess, awakened hate. From time to time I was giving him disrespectful glances. I didn’t like the way he smelled. I wanted him to know how much of a problem he is for me. He did nothing wrong, same as people in the supermarket where I went today to do groceries, but I would gladly beat them all up. At home, I realized that it was not possible to leave the house again carrying this amount of hate. Therefore I canceled all my plans for two upcoming days.
My friend sent me a photo of her friend with a boy; they just got engaged. “They look old,” I wrote back. She disagreed, saying that they look like teenagers and her face is cute. “They look 40”, I said, so she responded that I am the one who looks more forty than her because she has a face like a child. I went to the mirror to estimate how forty I look. Indeed I looked very old.
I didn’t have a chance to eat pomelo during this winter season. But I see them whenever I leave the house because they sell them in the fruit market behind the corner. Finally, I bought one today. Now I am sitting next to a half-eaten fruit and the remains that are left after the other half. There is a big sharp knife underneath. Peeling it was a pleasure.
Behind the fruit, there are mints on a silver plate. It’s already dark and they are white. They look neat. They make me angry, so I need to turn off the light.
I find it extremely difficult to accept moments when my body has power over me. Sometimes I would even like to surrender to it but I don’t know how. I was looking for reasons for my anger and hate, but all the way I knew why I felt like this. Although I didn’t know how to accept this explanation.
Maybe it’s an issue I struggle with both in my life and my artistic practice. Sometimes I take away an important meaning, the other time I fight to find it somewhere where it’s not needed. A few days ago, when I was looking at a performance, I tried to understand why I don’t like it. I didn’t think that it was bad but watching it made me feel empty. For me it didn’t have any meaning, it was only loud. I regretted again that I left the park where the fog was the most beautiful, but what meaning did that park have? And what does it mean to me? And what does it mean to mean something?
So I can’t find the proper balance but I am happy anyway. Maybe hopefully I still feel too young to be balanced. After one day, February will be gone but I could easily write like this for the next twenty years because there are many things I have relationships with (Pomelo and I, Mints and I, Boys and I, Trains and I, Graveyards and I, Delusions and I, Blood and I, Books and I, Neighbourhoods and I, etc). Probably none of those texts would be about what the title says it should be, just like all the texts I wrote so far. It seems like they all melt together and I understand that this is how it goes.