The State of the World

Hundreds of photographs, decapitated bodies, children standing amongst ruins, or dead, or starving, and mourning relatives; then the parallels between conflicts, and their absurdity, the reasons and forces behind them. Humour breaking into the representation of power. Patterns of belief, trances and worshipping of dozens different gods. The outbreak of technology progress everywhere, to the points where major issues grow sensible and visible. The State of the World. A sensible pictorial portrait, heart-rending on one side and cold, dizzying on the other,  just out of realizing to be only one in this world. Instants have now this bittersweet quality, bursting sublime into strange beauty, one that could reach the numbest of hearts.

Here am I, standing in this world.

I hardly have time to sit down and write, what no one understands really. In a sense I don't want to look at things any longer. I'm just doing and doing, an overdose of doing. It brings a lot of strength, some sort of constant moderated anger. None from just not seeing others following--this is past behind, I don't wait for people anymore. And I could feel this overwhelming force running through me. Drop the methods and get back to the source--I don't wait either for anybody to heed my warnings, I watch with Cassandra's fatality the things happening and think oh how tragic it is to be always ahead and having one's oracles believed by nobody, even oneself, by lack of self-confidence.
The other side of the coin is the loss of any reference. No one will believe you! Fair enough, I'm not gonna believe anyone in turn. I lost myself a bit on the way, I realise, but now it is getting back, even though I can't deny I also found myself on that way. The Fire!

We were six sitting around the table in that fancy Italian restaurant, halfway through the Paper Summit, I got answers to questions I maybe wouldn't have dared asking--"...and she has been of an incredible help!..." "If you still have the same kind of scholarship, please, let me know!"--so, yes, my work had been more than appreciated, and I was good, very good. What I had been putting down to a non-coincidental occurrence seemed finally a very simple result of personal skills. Things are never that simple, I know. Especially with regard to the horizon opened to me now.
Considering the idea, it might look like a step back--but only from a way which had never been really mine. Drop the principles and get back to the source.
So it seems I'm investing the position of power, even less visible than the one I once destined myself to. A structure drawing its immanent force from strong principles and rules--not so different then.
And a double life. I once wished I could be entirely one, to something or to someone; maybe this way will prevent myself to ever be so. And it wouldn't be without regret. But it feels like it had ever been so.

In the plane, I looked at the clouds and craved for cold and snow. Wrote the beginning of a letter, abandoned since then. It seems things are moving too fast to be fixed on paper. Interviewed with genuine interest the Mieskuoro Huutajat guys after a performance in a squat, the post-apocalyptic place anyone would exactly imagine, and no one would imagine being so much inside the city, hidden behind wooden fences. There were weird people dressed in outfits of all colors, immense metal sculptures of Jesus and insects, and paintings all around; in the middle of this, two dozens men dressed in suits and shouting European community law. The conductor was of a deep intelligence and sparkling mischief--I recall his hands moving in the air while we were talking, the missing tips of his major and index.
Met Jari and the Uumenet guys, slightly high after the previous musical nights. There was so much to regret not to have been there. I had a long conversation with Jari about magic and all that had been ever happening, until the conclusion that Oulu was a mindfucking city. Did Something-contests. Waved to the Moon and cheated on the beers. I would not have seen from the Night of the Arts much more than hundreds of youngsters apparently from the same range of age, gathering outside the fast-food corner.

In the dark, lying alone in the double bed of the hotel room, my back turned to an useless minibar, the hand clenched on the linen, I let the feeling slowly rise in me like a tide. This missed presence I was trying to forget washed softly over me.

Been hanging out most of the next day with a Swiss music journalist, from the incongruous lottery in a room full of eccentric air guitar champions to the upscale buffet in Town Hall. Coffee, tea, champagne, white wine, and then stuck to work with the rushed cameraman of ours. The weather could have been less hostile, but more too. I ran to every corner of the area to find organisers, climbed barriers to make pictures, pushed people to make my way through--this decidedness and fire are things you easily enjoy.
We were a few lifted above on the platform, mostly cameramen and -women. Thinking back at that, it was cool. But it did not have this wonderful marvel of any second, the brilliant edge all things used to once have. We carried all the material through the area, shot the interview of the winner, and Atti left to his hotel to edit the material--to drink beers actually.
I stayed. Maj Karma was already playing. All the songs sounded familiar, for so much I had listened to them. It was really good. And then Sodankylä came, and drew tears to my eyes. "It's a song about lovers living far away from each other." And hardly grasping what Herra Ylppö was telling to the crowd of young girls, thinking with a chill of dread the lyrics could mean something as much as the very opposite, I wondered, as I so much did lately, did I misunderstood? Did I only understqnd what I wanted to? What does it really mean? Se on surullista, tai ei oikeastaan... Maybe is it.

The empty stage and soon empty area looked sad and alone in the night mist. The band vanished straight after the end. I got back to my lonely room, had this article to send as soon as I could. No time for sorrow or catharsis.
Jaakko called in the night and told me a secret, since I was leaving early the next day. Upon finishing the article, the Sun could be already seen rising, by my upper-floor window. The rubbons of rosy light through the dark clouds, this vision overwhelmed me. There in the North summer was not completely gone. In other times I would have stayed up, maybe climbed on the windowsill to watch it. I did not have the courage. Turned away from the dawn, I closed hermetically me eyes until sleep swallowed me.

The morning was terribly melancholical. My hotel was one block from the PSK and I stared at the wall for a few minutes, seeing in it all the pictures taken there. My heart heavy as rarely, when thinking at everything running under those faces and images, the pain and the sorrow, all those things I already felt, since ever.
Said goodbye to the sea, and left the sun-bathed city of all Light.

- O -

The fire in the sky surprised me, and I was eagerly running from window to window to catch the last rays of the Sun, two evenings from now. The bloodred edge of the city, from my window; in a direction I stopped looking to, or locating on my mental map. There was like a sudden influx of blood in atrophied organs, and a forgiveness of everything ever done. I had stopped looking at the sky weeks ago, for it made me immediately burst into tears.

I don't want autumn to come before I forget what this summer could have been, and never will anymore. I already started to forget. These are not things to fix like fixing oneself, this is a brand, and one always forgets everything after some time, which is good when things can't be undone or repaired. 

There are good encounters, there are projects and endeavours; there are friendships tightening and there are depressions, diners in restaurants and final parties, events missed and persons missed. There are sunsets in a sky of fire. There is heart numbness. There is exhilarated joy. Places and times are never definitive, they are interchangeable. There are houses that will never be rent. There are babies that will never be born.

Candlelights will burn again, standing for the ancient fires at the altars of the temples.