Mind Cancer

Mother - her name is Mine - has been fighting with cancer. One of her breasts was removed and she had her first chemo session about a month ago. The first session caused a collapse in her immune system imprisoning her in the hospital for four days. Her doctor had said he would wait until the next session to allow her body to gain strength a bit; next one will be tomorrow.

When I paid a surprise visit to her last Sunday at my parents' house, they were spending a lazy Sunday in their bleak apartment. Father greeted me over his computer screen where he was playing online chess. Mother was lying in the living room conducting one of her self consuming, long, dull TV sessions.

Be it in her academical, professional or private lives, she was always known to be an extremely intelligent person. That's why it is more heart breaking for me to witness her consuming herself on meaningless things - a retirement habit of her - than seeing her fighting with cancer.

I went into the room, gave her a kiss, asked how she was doing. She was all sleepy and thoughtful. Then in boredom, I started my usual little walk in the apartment as if it was a museum of our family history. Artifacts such as a broken, old toy of my brother or an old book of mine in some shelf.

Sometimes visiting the house you grew in or houses you spent time in long time ago can turn out to be the best museum experiences. To witness that what an object means to you can change vastly as you get older keeps the experience ever fresh and personal.

I came across the picture above in a far corner of the apartment. The picture was taken some 20 years ago in a sunflower field where she was holding my apparently bored brother. Even though I knew the picture very well, I couldn't help to become amazed about the way she looked in it. The way hope, intelligence, beauty and optimism was radiated through her eyes.

Avoid the cancer. Especially the mind cancer.

Coming Back To Life

After weeks spent in a partially paralyzed state, at last I'm coming back to life.

First indicators; an appetite to work efficiently, an itch for organizing things, return to systematic approach shown in response to challenges and much more importantly a healthy sense of intellectual curiosity.

The first thing I did was to pull out the fork that was sticking in the antenna slot of my TV. It has been serving me great deal to cheat myself by bypassing my longstanding "no TV" policy. Did you know that you can receive quite a number of aerial TV channels with just a fork? That is of course if you are not in a country as freaky as Finland where no aerial propagation is available anymore.

Luckily, I have had quite a number of good movies in my DVD rack waiting for me to explore. It's time to wipe off the dust now.

This weekend, I have seen three of them. I will not take a long time to describe what I have thought about each of these movies. Instead, I will just put a couple of lines about and/or from each of the movie to give you the general idea. 


Paris, Texas By Wim Wenders










Really cool movie with a healthy level of poetics in the way it explain things .


"I didn't want to use him to fill my emptiness."


Russian Ark By Alexander Sokurov










Technically very challenging movie that was shot in a single plan. The 96 minutes long shot takes you through the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and in a very elegant way the Russian history. The movie discusses Russia's and Europe's point of views towards each other.

N= Narrator - seemingly symbolizes contemporary Russia's intellectual inner voice.
E= European guy - symbolizing European point of view.

"N: Lost you. I'm sad. Let's go.
E: Where?
N: Forward.
E: Forward? What will we do there?
N: I don't know.
E: I'm staying here.
N: Farewell Europe. 


"Before Night Falls By Julian Schnabel








"I'm that repulsive child that improvised a bed out of an old cardboard box and waits, certain that you will accompany me."

Saliva

Today, on my return flight from London, my seat was nearby the place where the cabin crew puts their usual before flight play on stage. You know; the usual "this is the way you fasten your seat belt and when the doom day arrives, oxygen masks will fall" tirade.

It's during this tirade I find it particularly interesting to observe the crew as well as the passengers. Passengers always seem to be extra cool about the whole situation as if they showed the slightest bit of interest, they would be pinned as first timers and made fun of. On any plane, most of the people seem to be spending their whole lives on airplanes.

On that particular flight, a 3 year old boy caught my attention sitting with his parents in a nearby seat. He was clearly amazed by the stewardess' moves. With an awe and a great curiosity he was watching every move of hers sucking at each of his fingers one by one. His saliva was flowing slowly down his chin and his eyes were big looking at the way the oxygen masks and colorful life jackets were shown and worn.

In London, people travelling in the subway system, with all their cool face expressions seem to assume that the city was created with a subway system. But the fact is it's wondrous.

My point is; with every feature we learn, we seem to die little bit. Sounding as paradoxical as it gets, it feels to me that knowing is dying. With every single day left behind, our curiosity depreciates a little taking some piece of our appreciation for life with it.

Not that I don't see a kind of wisdom in the routine. Perhaps little bit earlier than I was supposed to do so, I had taught myself to like and appreciate the meditative peace in the daily routine. I have experienced that and remember it all to be good times.

My last 5 years however could at best be described as an attempt to escape the routine. For now, I want to be uncool. To be able to look at things with awe. To be surprised. To be shocked. To be tortured by the itch of not knowing. I want saliva dripping down my chin.