20th-21st June 2016 Long weekend of talks and friendship where one of the ominous discussions (for me) was that about time and identity. Contracting then stretching that shelf of egos as they traverse time and space geographies, emotional ones. A zooming in/out process.  I still like the idea of you as a dot of layered selves when you look at yourself from a far perspective – like a single word describing the whole of you. Then the ability to zoom in on a particular period or moment and find a sub-text of yourself, relevant from that particular period/moment. (or even push the zoom to an extreme and find the suspension in your atoms, how you exist in spite of the void or the quantic uncertainty within you).  My way of tricking time by choosing a certain theme of myself from a past or future moment. And reinvesting that slice of life with absolute representation. THE only word that describes you.  Which is how you transport yourself into that present. You trick time.

On that note. The Moon is full. The briefest night. The doors are open. All. A window. St Raphael and En looking across the edges of the world. Sanzienele .

So I choose this layer of me:

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Saturday 18th Apr 2015 Ok run. Sunny. Terrible news afternoon.
12.5km @ 5’10” though @ 7km I was at 5’15”. Run for life!

Please read my heart only after looking into this:
http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/ciobotaruv &#8211; CHILD BEREAVEMENT Charity I support by running this marathon. Thank you v much for your support!

(this is part of my initial project – that of donating pages of my running journal to each one who’d donate. Hence why I was only leaving a brief teaser, followed by the donation page on FB in the form just above. It didn’t work that way in the end as people were donating without a need of a story. So the journal notes/mood swings, events remained more or less private. So please don’t donate now. It’s just part of the initial text.).

I had been reading all day. (Was supposed to run as well, but…) Save for a short exit to the post office to pick up the new phone. Updating it afterwards. But still mostly centred on reading. Raymond Carver. Tried to call En. twice but no answer. So read on. “The Third Thing That Killed My Father off“.  One of the old ones with lasting impression on me. I’d forgoten about that last hand-wave goodbye in that awful sorrowful way in the novel. One of the last paragraphs there. (Now that I write about it, I seem to have dwelled on the texture of foreboding that whole day of April. One I wasn’t aware of at the time, but which I tried to shake as an overwhelming sensation over the day, irrespective of it meaning anything into my context or not. I was not associating, just brushing it off like dust from my shoulders. Somehow passing through shadow rooms was only temporary. I felt I could easily clean my shirt back to light. So read on and on to get to those shinier moments). Time was getting shorter and the sunny day seemed to ebb through my fingers. George was waiting for us, and for a few minutes thought I skipped my training and ran on Sunday instead.

Texted George and the gang in the morning after a reading spell:

“Subject: Re: Sambata & teatru

Sometime in the afternoon, set on a time an tell me about it. Mind the gap as well. My gap. Time, yes.” Then thought for a while an inversion would have sounded better: “Mind the gap as well. Time gap. Mine, yes.” – probably on a clean shortstory design my mind had been shaping into over the few previous hours.

Checked the watch. 16:30, so time to read yet another one. Last 7 stories of the book. Of which went through 5 in the end. Supposed to be part of a later wiser cycle of Raymond’s. And felt so. But somehow centred on death in a couple (and a terrible third in the end), final/definitive separation in another two (and a third one later on) and the burden of living support in another. Now had just finished Elephant and I was at least enjoying that brash careless irresponsible life-dare. Sun seemed to smile despite the gloom. And that brightened me a bit. Had been watching clouds slide on the bedroom sky a few mornings now. Especially weekend ones. A feeling of angels passing by. Had played with the meaning of alter reality, parallel universes in a very touchable and conceivable form lately (but that’s another story stirred more by post impressions left after seeing “Under The Skin” few days ago. What we are to trees is what one(s) such parallel universe(s) could be to us.). And this rhythm of passing, the multitude of different ones (rhythms) overlapping was the core of the idea. (and extending it into polyphony alternate meanings then).

So about a good time to stop and warm up for a short 10-12km run I said. Now floating a bit better after the end of the last story. Phone rings. En. Finally!

I get to the point right on. What’s going on? .

The sky is an intense solid blue, sun filled orange facades. Stray rays holding onto last fringes of the tree in front. Full white bloom, a bit passé but still abundant with life Snowballs and snowballs of branchy white. My eyes sink in it and I disappear into his words. Can’t lift my eyes. Can’t hold onto any self sense… and I stand like a stone. Like a vanished stone, but still one. Weightless, netherless. “Are you still there? Hello!” he says. “Yes I can hear you.”.  It hit beyond the limit of bad. I can go back to that test from 11th grade about miracle. Would I respond to the same question in the same way now?, probably. But with so much more sorrow and hope… Can’t think of this now, this comes later. I listen to him, ask the essential. Holding on. I cross my left arm over my chest grabbing the joint of my right arm, the one with the phone. Just above the elbow. I realise I am holding it tight. Very tight. And try to find that stone that had just vanished; on which I anchor myself, himself, whatever self I feel about you. This needs to be a period of slow but positive steps. He’s done it before, in some other areas. I see him doing it now. Surprised how he still maintains a certain serenity about it. At least he’s not altogether lost. There’s only one direction. Later on waves of this pass through me. On several layers – mind, heart, emotions, memory, projections etc.

When I think of how worked out S is I imagine what could happen. And find myself thinking of A and their kids. If anything went wrong with him then I would probably take a stronger role… as if taking on The Elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(stories) role, the story comes through my mind even now as I listen to En. And am surprised to have a similar reaction. Same scenario of taking the weight on after. Like a duty… like that ancient tradition of taking charge of your brother’s family and stuff… though …never mind. No need for shakespearian references now… it’s enough as it is already.

Brother. That level.

So I ran. For it?, from it? More like for it. This was the last chance to catch the sunshine. And the last, beyond the last chance to have a run today. I was surely gonna be late. But I wouldn’t give up now, NOT NOW!, not after this. Gotta see it through in spite of all odds and still find time to get to George as well. No patch work. Everything NEEDS to be ACHIEVABLE!

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