Ania Grient

I can’t sleep.  Freezing and melancholic, I can’t stop listening to Lisa Gerrard’s “The Sea Whisperer”. Her voice and music is so beautiful, sad and at the same time comforting. I know that in my current psychological condition I should not be listening to her music.  But.  But my previous attempts of forcing myself to enjoy more cheerful or energetic  musical pieces just fell through. I heard the sounds but at the same time I was deaf to them.

If I could add a visual presentation of this particular piece and my longing of a peace of mind… it would be Arnold Bocklin’s “Villa by the Sea” or “The Island of the Dead”.

Villa by the Sea by Arnold Bocklin

The Island of the Dead by Arnold Bocklin

These places appear in my dreams often…

Gods, I should take some rest. There’s a comfort in sleep which I had not known before. When You fall asleep, your mind switch off. There’s some consolation in that, yes..

I’ve always considered myself to be a simple person. And by “simple” I mean “not complicated”. I’ve never felt a need to explain myself or prove anything to anyone, except to those few people whom my selfish self cherished (and still does) so much, and sometimes desired to own even. I know, terrible. But that’s the truth. I’ll never tell you that I want to “own” you. Of course, I usually end up hurting deeply those I keep close to myself, then again, it’s common with all people, so maybe it should not bother me that much. Yet it does.

This fondness of simplicity, in art, in life, in reason, in everything… I’ll try to explain. It probably has a lot to do with my outlook on life which can be pretty much explained by a few rather common words: simplicity is elegance. If your mind is as open as you‘re probably declaring just now in this very moment as you’re reading these lines, you can apply my reasoning to every aspect of human life. It takes the whole human life – as they say – a full life circle to understand that simplicity is peacefulness and quietness and beauty. I realised it a long time ago, but it does not mean anything at this point. It only means, I recognise the Beauty. What is simplicity? It’s ability to see order in chaos or simple forms in most complex ones. This order of which I am talking about is neither control or rules, it’s not categories either. It’s sense and clarity, simple as that. What is wisdom if not the ability to explain most difficult matters in clear and simple words? I hope I’ll be able to do that one day…

Sometimes I feel like Orlando whom Queen Elizabeth said “do not fade, do not get wither”. And she/he didn’t grow old. But it wasn’t the Virgin Queen who said those words to me. It was someone else… You might think me mad but I won’t grow old until I become old and then, die. Oh no, I won’t live like Orlando three hundreds years and change my sex somewhere in the middle. I am saying that I’ll probably grow old within a few days or months someday and die. Then again, someone said to me once “you really never know”. Haha! (Yes, that was precious….moment of blissful drunkenness when everything is clear. You truly feel as if you understood the universe.) True, I don’t. Maybe my unbreakable Will turns me into one of those strange things of Nature. My dream is not immortality though, far from it. <i>Powidok Aukasól Afterimage Nachbild Parhélie Black Body Lasur Prisma Erdschein Alizarin Rose Madder I am</i>

Pierre-August Vafflard "Young holding his dead daughter in arms" 1804

This painting is one of my art “loves”. You can also see a book example of the Romantic ones – both in form and theme. The theme – tells a real story about the English poet named Edward Young struggling with the body of his dead daughter. She being the protestant was deined the burial in the Catholic cemetary… The form – the cold light of the moon, the night, the unrest sky, the haunted face of Young and finally the marble body of his beloved daughter…

I thought I’d write here in my native tongue, but it’s hard. Why? My English is not perfect, it’s full of flaws, but it’s a perfect mask of safety to me. Yes, I do hide behind this English language – my alter ego, not much different from the real me though.

I’ll keep this place for myself. People will find me in time or I’ll let myself be found. For now though, I’ll bath in this illusionary idea of a complete anonymity within this digital world.

It is said that first words of the prologue as well as the title determine whether reader reads the story or not.  My story is many. It’s like kaleidoscope in a way, as you move it, the patterns and colours change. My story is ever form changing. But no, I don’t want it to be chaotic, no.