Four parts of a day
Morning, Day, Evening, Night
(Reminiscences from Droszków village - Spring 2009)
I was still outside, out of the house, when it got totally dark. Silence and gloom..., behind which everything has hidden, which was so vibrant and alive not so long ago. I sat on the wooden stump, just at the entrance to the woodshed, and I put my ear to this silence, while nearby, the brook, flowing behind the road, made it even more majestic, while making its tame murmur. I closed my eyes. The birds calmed down, all the sounds of a day disappeared somewhere, and one might think that there is nothing in the place where I stayed.
However, one of the cats appeared noiselessly, I felt it rubbing against my legs.
Somebody passed the way near the house, I hardly heard his steps.
This silence around , as well as the chill coming from the coming night slowly surrounded me. They entered my body though the skin pores, where the focused mind accepted everything, what was offered to him. I did not think..., I felt the power of being, the unity with everything around..., with an individual blade of grass, flower field, needle spruce twigs, where the spider silk shines in silver, with the dew drops, with the clouds wiping the mountain ridges, the fogs hanging just above the Earth, the chasm, tree limbs over them, glow and light, which glitter each time of a day with a different color, as well as with all the world of animals. With those hardly visible with the naked eye, crawling in the Earth and those who step upon it, as well as those above it, flying in the skies. How many times I stopped and I held my breath, so that not to annihilate them, nor to startle them, and I looked bewitched, how they exist, move and live.
This world around me, from each side, wherever I would turn my head, is pure and beautiful. It is everywhere, and it does not insist on me, remaining independent in its simplicity, not because of the fact that I exist; though when I touch it with my sight, I feel this thread joining me to this world.
When I listened to this silence, I finally stopped to hear it... It was only when my consciousness was reached by delicate sounds, of bouncing of something against something, I lifted my eyelids, and I noticed that some pale light pierces the small windows of our house, from behind the curtains, and the night butterfly is unsuccessfully trying to get inside. Yes, it was my beloved who lit it, and who is now making preparations to the supper.
I looked around, the cat was no longer there, I got up, I closed the door to the woodshed and I entered the house. I changed my shoes in the hallway and I opened the door of the kitchen. Comfortable heat exploded from the inside, how much valuable in winter, while a biting cold is outside, but also highly desired at this time of a year. The heat from two sources, from a new stove and the beloved, who looked in my side.
- You already back... you stayed deep in thoughts outside, I did not want to disturb you.
- Probably nobody will visit us today anymore - she added with a whisper after a while.
- Yes..., it was just yesterday that we had guests - I replied and I added in my thoughts - our friends, who helped us in organizing this place and life inside it.
He and she, with two girls, were here yesterday, at a celebratory smoking of the tree branches, left after spring orders. The campfire was quite extraordinary. The beam of sparks was shooting upwards, joining the stars above us, and we sat, concentrated around, on wooden stumps, and we roasted sausages and bread on the sticks. Luminance, and darkness behind our backs. Our faces in the light and a dancing fire in front of us, fizzing and clashing, encompassing with its heat. We did not talk a lot, maybe a little on current issues. We tasted wine, which was made of fruit gathered here, in Droszków village.
Our talks were not extended, but rather spare, they did not require detailed descriptions. Single words were said, swelled with their significance, grasped immediately, often separated from each other with longer moments of silence, allowing to reflect upon them. It was also the time to look around, despite darkness, to look up over our heads, to sink our sight in the sea of stars, which shone here more intensely than elsewhere, and to grasp the invisible limits of cosmos, which were so close, as within the reach of hand.
Even the girls sat silently, overwhelmed with the magic of place and the whole situation, in which we found ourselves to participate...
And again I felt that I am in my own house, familiar to me, not alone, with the beloved and with friends, and with all the world around me. The thrill of emotion caused that I grasped my flute, with which I never part, for already 30 years, despite the fact that I play it rarely, and I started to bring out sounds from it, which flew into all the valley. I felt how they flow, go away and go back. Later, much later when there was silence, and the campfire started to extinguish, and it became like the setting Sun, pulsating with its surface, under the influence of the imperceptible air movements, I played also the harmonica, which is also particularly close to my heart. And something strange happened. Its sounds did not fly away, they began to circle around us... as well as single fire flames, which danced, appearing and disappearing, voicelessly. The campfire was slowly extinguishing, sometimes still stirring for a while, here or there... and the darkness touched them more and more...
When a man is not in a hurry, and nothing pursues him nor tries to detract his attention from what he is occupied with at a given moment, then he does what has undertaken, in anointment and with concentration. And thus I pour warm water with a small pot, from a pot on a stove, I add some cold water, and then I wash my face and hands there, after a day of work, before the last, even more modest meal, the supper. It is more a ritual than a need to satisfy hunger. We sit traditionally opposite each other, we drink tee, or a pure water and we see each other. We are not afraid to look at one another, we look into each other’s eyes, we inquire into our insides.
To where there is just only balance. This is a place, in its deepest layers, where the Source, the cause, the life element, meets itself. I return outside and I touch with my eyesight this beautiful flower, which blooms in front of me. The delicate facial lines full of leniency, eyes shining with life energy, small nose, delicate mouth, like the rose's petals, slightly uplifted in the corners, a little bit open, as if they were just waking up and greeted the world, and wanted to say something, and over the eyes the hair untamed, not windblown, uniquely complementing the whole, as a blooming meadow, full of scents and aromas, of the complete image...
It can be known that everything which surrounds us, fills us with energy, necessary for life, and it is not only the eaten foods. And equally the same somebody might say how many dangers await man at each step, different forms of enslavement, but when man looks inside himself, then he will understand that nothing awaits with which must fight, that it is enough to get free of the mind, from the dictatorship of the mind, where all this is being born.
We were sitting now, facing each other, at the table, in freedom and distinctiveness, like he and her. It was not a compulsion, a habit, but befitting, communion. But even still not this. It was something even more beautiful, what touches the essence of all things, the Source, and which is the Source itself.
- Shall we go for a walk?... I know, love, that you are tired and there is still a bath awaiting us, after whole week. - She asked and she knew in advance what will be my answer.
- Ah, of course. - I replied and I saw a smile of gratitude in her eyes, because we shall walk, we shall be together, because we shall walk and keep each other's hands.
And so it happened. We have just found ourselves on the road, and Teddy Bear and our cats beside us. How these animals know that they should be close to people at a right moment, not to miss this exact moment, and how does it happen that they want to go with us at all. With time, one starts to understand even this. This evening walk, in the dark, is a detraction of our attention from everyday activities. Straining our eyes and ears, we go straight and despite the darkness we recognize the shapes around, we omit the obstacles, sounds and scents of the night reach us. All which does not cause doubts during the day, now is full of mysteries. Trees, bushes, road stones, paths going sideways, in this night show, emerge in the foreground, only when we approach them almost at the distance of hand. And we have no fear inside us, because our minds build no images.
The next step is a new picture. So close to the heart of nature, there is only lenience and love. We step silently, the country road is soft, we hear each other’s voices. Fresh crispy air and this overwhelming silence cause that we go without the single effort, besides there was enough of it during the day. Incredible time. Stars accompany us, as if they were escorting us, and in the meadow in front of us the delicate fog starts to float around with a silk thread. If anybody from outside saw these two people, he would lose sight of them at a certain moment, as if they melted away, crossed the border of the known and merged into a different reality...
At the edge of Kozia Górka Mountain there appeared a moon, wild flowers have closed their cups. It is time to get back. Our weaved hands are a bond of our feelings, thoughts, emotions. Warmth, currents, energies walk through them in one and another direction, in the rhythm of our steps. The lights of the house are already visible, and there warmed up stove and hot water.
We stop at the entry, the eyes meet themselves, the mouths getting close, the hands embrace each other. So nestled, hugged by one another, we still stand for a while and nothing can disturb this act...
There came a time for the last unveiling of this evening. A bath after a whole week, a unique event, other than everyday toilet, solemn and celebratory. We make the last preparations. The stove speaks its own language, pot covers make a ring noise, as they are drifted by the excess of water vapor; the water simmers. A small bathtub stands on the floor, just nearby. And all this takes place here, in the kitchen, where there is a center of our life in this house. It is large and spacious, and this is its great advantage. Whoever who built this house must have known how important is this function. Together we make use of it.
Now I fill the washtub alternately with hot and cold water. Nearby there are prepared the remaining necessary accessories, like simple soap, the most casual in the world, the sponge, towels, a small pot and water for rinsing in a basin. We are naked. There is no shame in us, besides this notion is absurd, but this is also not the right moment for erotic excitement. A moment for it shall come at different time.
- So who's first? - I ask with a smile, though I know how much obvious it is.
- What do you mean, who? - she smiles too.
She knees in front of the small bathtub, on the floor and bends her head above it. I watch it for a split of a second and just one thought illuminates my mind - she is beautiful, no matter what pose she would take, she is beautiful and committed. I wash her hair. First I pour water from a small pot, I soap it and rinse.
- Now close your eyes - I say to her and wash her face.
After this preliminary ceremony, she jumps into water which has an incredible feature. It is like a balm for the skin, and there is no need of much of it. Now there came a moment for the whole body. I moisten carefully, spread the soap, to rinse it with a sponge filled with water. This is the time when I see and touch each intimate segment of her body. These sensations are incredible, as if one touched oneself, divided into two, but quite different though, than in love ecstasy. This is just a standard sanctity of everyday life. What is left to be done is drying of the body, which she does herself, while I change water in a bathtub.
And again everything looks similarly, only the roles are reversed. Now I experience sensations of the water flowing down with trickles of water on the skin, and there is no need for a lot of it, the dance of fingers along the torso, to make the skin pores get rid of all excess, and again clear water, which rinses, douches, and I feel gratitude.
When this every day, as I say, does not become "everyday" and when one is concentrated, even when smiling, one's eyes open to new experiences and sensations. There is quite a lot of them...
Now, as newly born, we finish our ritual with making order, which is not much to do, as the floor around is just vaguely wet. We replenish the water in pots and we hide them into the oven. It will be warm in the morning, when we get up. The final look around and we go to sleep.
We are lying cuddled up. The huge extent of sensations, experiences and works, these from the whole day, deprives us of power for anything new, the eyes close themselves, and so the last gesture is born, a delicate kiss.
- Sleep love..., good night -
- Good night, love - she replied...
October, 2011
Author: Leszek Wieliczko
Translated by: Agnieszka Zell
