When I was a little kid, now and then I would ponder thoughtlessly (without words) about what it meant to be here.
Where?
Here in the world.
I remember one of these moments clearly. I was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom while brushing my teeth. I stared at the reflection of my face and started getting overwhelmed with the most peculiar feeling to which I still can’t ascribe any name or definition.
It was a combination of deep loneliness and physical confusion. I looked at the face in the mirror and didn’t understand who I was, or, to be more precise, WHAT I was. I couldn’t understand my place and my purpose. When this realization was happening, I was 4 or 5 years old.
My early childhood life was generally untroubled. There were fears and questions, realizations and disappointments, but so there were adventures and games, relaxing days and great joys.
I was raised by my parents and grandparents. We had a roof over our heads and always enough to eat. My parents struggled and I was aware of the constant lack of money, but it was never bad to the point of having to barely survive physically. I knew that we weren’t rich, but I didn’t know we were super poor either because most people surrounding us seemed to live the same way.
I was read fairytales and I watched cartoons. We had walks in the park and went mushroom hunting in nearby forests. We swam in lakes, visited friends, celebrated holidays. We kept pets. I was taking gymnastics, piano, and art classes, and there was no bullying in the early grades of school.
My parents and grandparents did have some relationship flaws, but those things never escalated. Tensions would build up and quickly resolve. My parents and relatives were simply human — the best in the world, but sometimes weak, confused, and in need of help.
All in all, my early childhood was warm and comfortable with occasional “bad days”, some fears, and common emotional burdens. Now that I‘ve seen my share of really bad family situations, I can tell that I wasn’t an “abused child” or a “troubled child”.
My wordless questions about the meaning of life didn’t seem to come from any particular experience, emotional trauma, or something I saw or heard.
Yet there I was, staring at myself at the age of five and having a full-blown existential crisis, unable to name it, describe it, explain it to anyone, or somehow resolve it for myself.
So I finished brushing my teeth and washing my hands and walked into the living room ready to go sleep…
But first, I would silently stare at the rug-covered wall and find the smallest details in the brownish rug depicting two elegant deer drinking water from a stream by the forest lawn.
Then my eyes would close, and I’d make little stories in my head. At that age my stories were exclusively about these tiny stick-looking people of a particular color who lived in kingdoms.
If I am not mistaken, the white tiny creatures would always go to war with the black ones, and I drifted into the dream realm picturing armies of these simplistic figures fighting against each other for… land, power, freedom? Now that I think of it, I remember that one side must have invaded the other, and the “good one” wanted to fight back. The white little creatures were trying to gain back their freedom.
It is worth to mention that at the age of 5 and growing up in Eastern Europe I knew nothing about the troubled history of “race” in some faraway regions of the world.
The place I grew up in was still the “dreaded” USSR, and we (the kids and most adults alike) had no access to most of the media from the West. Just to illustrate my point,“The Godfather” of 1972 made its way into the post-Soviet movie theaters only in 1991 (after the collapse of the old regime).
My fairytale fantasies of little creatures had nothing to do with real humans or ethnicities. They were primitive stick figures, and I simply distinguished them by color as a whole. I think I picked the black and white because the colors were polar opposites.
They existed in some type of a hive mind... no pun intended😄. The closest thing I can compare them to would be ants — different types of ants going against each other.
Later on the stories in my head would have not only black and white, but also green, red, and purple creatures participating in different events.
I didn’t know where these stories came from just like I didn’t know who I was. ** I also didn’t know why the absence of understanding of what it is to be alive bothered me so.** Most of the things I thought, imagined, and questioned never took any coherent form due to my lack of social and cultural knowledge and obviously limited vocabulary.
But the feeling of pondering and the desperate, encompassing sensation of loneliness, not belonging, and profound loss I remember very, very well.
Today I tend to think that these sensations might have lingered in me from somewhere else and from times prior to my actual physical birth in this world.
How crazy is that?
Not crazy at all.
PS. I mentioned earlier that it got rainy and gloomy here. I must say the ocean is beautiful these days. My magnificent Man and I dipped our toes into the grayish waters today, and now I am tempted to start my slow journey into cold water swimming no matter the season.
