I open life. I open every day.
I open life. I open every day.
CountryRecognising change within yourself is difficult, delicate work, requiring the skills of mindfulness, attention, and courage. And it requires trust in the world. As we all know, change can be a frightening thing. Every personal revelation, even the smallest or most profoundly intimate, like an information virus, becomes integrated into your outlook on the world, changing it, and you, irreversibly. A transformation can cause both pain and joy, can turn friends to enemies, and enemies to friends. In her piece, Olga Nechaeva has given us an opportunity to grasp the inevitability and irreversibility of such transformations.
When a child is very small, the whole world is just for him — it’s a strange colour pattern, an abstract painting, because he doesn’t realise that the great dark spot before him is the wardrobe, and that it’s a separate entity from the white, the wall, and that it stands there, and it opens, makes noise, and is inanimate. It seems to me that there flows before the child a matrix of sorts, composed of sounds, and colours, and smells, and, growing up, one learns through observation to separate animate from inanimate, and then suddenly discovers that the hands and face flying towards him are also his mother, and then that his mother is capable of leaving, and later she is even more than just his mother, that she has an entire life of her own.
If we are open to the world as children are, we re-discover the world for ourselves constantly — we open the doors of the world, as well as the doors to ourselves and, in doing so, we let the world in.
Small children are afraid of change, and so I had to take off the tights and put them on again, so he would understand that they, too, are separate from me.
I remember the moment when my son noticed that I was changing my clothes, and thus managed to differentiate them from me. He pointed at the new dresses I was putting on and giggled. And then he became aware of my stockings and burst into tears, because the familiar parts of his mom’s body were suddenly disappearing, new ones appearing in their place. Small children are afraid of change, and so I had to take off the tights and put them on again, so he would understand that they, too, are separate from me.
I open life. I open every day. I find all of the contradictions and find myself within them. I find all of the sequencing and find myself in it.
Then children discover that time is broken down into sleeping and not sleeping, then into day and night, then into smaller pieces still, and the general notion of «is» gradually divides into pieces, that breakfast is when I eat cereal and toast, and lunch is when the food comes in first, second, and third courses. This goes on, and with every day the world opens up to them with new meaning.
5, 10, 15 years old. Dad’s delighted gaze, and the phrase «Well, Olga’s a fighter.» One can argue about whether being considered a fighter is a positive quality. For me, it absolutely is. The endless nourishment of strength and perseverance. I am a fighter. I am the kind who does not give up. I am the kind who will crawl through the woods on broken legs, crawling until I reach my destination. Things aren’t taken from me. I’m the last man standing. Always and to the end. I am inaugurating the first consciousness of my character.
7 years old, a thin bridge over a stream, only three boards, scary. «Don’t be afraid, be cautious.» Once again my dad opened the door on dealing with fear. Don’t go into a panic, but evaluate the danger, be careful, prudent, attentive, and cross those three wobbly boards.
10 years old, at school, and Dad intoned again: «If you can do better, why do worse?» This didn’t turn into destructive perfectionism, but became the habit of asking myself — «Can’t I do it? » «Can’t I do better?» The answer is always yes. Out of this comes a sense of endless strength and possibility, filling, directing. I can. The door to strength.
26 years old, my boss, Hugh: «You’re smart and talented, a fast learner, and you do everything perfectly. But if you want to get to the top, you need to learn to make mistakes and make enemies.» What is there behind this door? The right to be wrong and to defend yourself.
30 years old, my husband, Sasha, hesitantly and shyly: «Perhaps we’ll get married, my sunshine?» These words keep me afloat, through everything. Because, to him, I am always, even with fangs, fight, perseverance, and thorns, «Sunshine.» It’s incredible, sometimes almost ridiculous. But it’s like a beacon in my militant reality, a distant light, keeping me from getting lost. Somewhere out there, I am «Sunshine,» and there I’m awaited.
32 years old. The enormous, heavy door of motherhood. I open it hesitantly, amidst doubts and precon- ceptions. And, from that, there have been hundreds, thousands of doors. A dozen doors inscribed «happiness,» brand new doors that I had never been through. So great were they, and bearing such infinitude, that I realised just how little my little joy was.
The door to time. An incredible opening. The ability to compress time and live three lives instead of one. The joy that remains in your life yields to greater joys, because, with less time remaining, there is less reason to waste it on triviality.
35 years old, and my daughter is three. She makes a fuss over every little thing, and I explain that all of her fussing is over nonsense. It was a bad, hopeless situation. Until she expressed to me, «Mum, you were supposed to feel sorry for me.» With this phrase, my three year old started me on my journey in empathy and feelings. Like a sobering slap in the face, it reminded me that these are the emotions our loved ones need most. That it’s my care, my warmth, my sympathy that they need, before my wisdom and experience. That I am a heart and soul, with them wherever they are. Again and again, I recall these words, unlock a bit more of my soul, cry in concert with them, and hug them when they are wrong.
I open life. I open every day. I find all of the contradictions and find myself within them. I find all of the sequencing and find myself in it.
I open more and more doors — to business and motherhood, to futil- ity and humility, to wisdom and pain, to despair and to strength.
This process of opening is work, and preparedness. Without opening the world within, it is impossible to open the world without. Nothing new can be found without a will- ingness to yourself become new. Nothing сhanges without accepting change.
I open more and more doors — to business and motherhood, to futil- ity and humility, to wisdom and pain, to despair and to strength. To everyone close to me, and to their pain, despair, wisdom, strength. And these significances merge into a bizarre, transparent structure around me, and I contemplate it all, fascinated, like the small child first realising that the face and two hands is his mum. I’m a big kid, and, entranced, I unlock life. I’m a big kid, and, entranced, I unlock life.
My father is 71 years old. «Olga, I made some discoveries today, if you can believe that.»
I can.
