Letter No. II
The Steps.
Suddenly, I thought about how much I'm walking lately. I thought about my steps; how many steps I walked today, how many steps I've done.. How many I'll do until dark. One, two, three, seven, twenty one, forty-two, ninety-eight and back to the Office No 301 to get the dissolution certificate of that company. A company that went bankrupt in 1983 and its founders still have to deal with problems because of that.. even 30 years after. It seemed to me slightly unfair. After that there were the subway's stairs and me walking up and down the dock waiting for the railway train to Piraeus to come. Too many steps for a day. Too many steps to be done by one man himself.
I usually walk to the gym. It's not far from home, about fifteen minutes walking. At least this time my shoes are really comfortable. This time passes without me noticing.. And then I run. I run a distance that seems to be a thousand miles inside my head. I run without knowing how far is "far". I never look on the screen. My only choice is this. Music to be at the highest volume possible till my ear drum hurts. My ipod is looping this song.. ten maybe twenty-five times a mile.
All this inner time running.. Its mine. I choose to lose any contact with the environment. I choose to run on a specific treadmill. The one in front of the left window. It's not because of the view - the sea and the small port looks really beautiful at night.. It's the window-knob. You may find it funny.. But don't. It's not. I concentrate by focusing on the broken window-knob which commands the window never to close completely. And the window obeys. It makes something usual impossible to happen. It helps me. Can you see? And then I keep running. And I run. And run..
The Breath.
Must be correct. One of the great running rules is to learn how to breath. And one of life's great rules too. I'm working on my breath lately.. in running and in smoking. I'm trying to control it while running. To systematize it and become a running breath machine. In smoking I leave my breath totally free. She is free to run, to calm down, to stay steel and rest for a while, to get out impatient or numb. Either way. It depends on how She feels each time and what her needs are.
The Need.
I needed to measure all the distances in my life. In the end, that was it. I found my need to diminish some of them and multiply others with infinity. Although... Although I know that any of these needs of mine is not an option. At least not practically. Maybe virtually. I thought about That Moment. In six steps I found myself next to you, I recall That Moment, once in a while you know. Just six steps and I was standing beside you. And then absolutely Nothing happened. Shocking, wasn't it? One Nothing somewhere between us. It only took me 20 minutes to feel how much I wanted to run. Away. Far Away. Without a destination or a cause. And I felt that Nothing deep inside of me. So I left. I felt like I had to. I'm not sure if that's what I wanted. Probably not.. I didn't run. I left without looking back. Not because I was afraid I couldn't manage to walk away otherwise, only because the thought of you pushing me away from us was shaking me inside.
The Effort.
I made a great effort. Two days now I was trying to count steps, miles, distances and stops. What I realized was that I only wanted to check really one thing.. If all those steps that I've done and keep doing became a straight line, would it led me to you..
Then I thought that we were just 50cm away from each-other and I felt you walking on the ice of Antarctica. But tell me really.. How far from Greece is the Antarctica? It seemed to me that this distance was infinite.
