What Grand Jeté, Camembert Cheese and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have in Common

"It's already loud around here; it's also noisy in here," Raphael* said as he gestured to his temple. He slightly tilted his head towards his right pointer finger, a tuft of his inky black fringes fell, and the sunlight glared on his eyeglasses. "How do you quiet the mind?" he asked. Despite his eyes disappearing behind the glare, the sullen notes in his question told me what I couldn't see in his eyes.

For more than half his life, this lad has had dozens of voices living rent-free in his head, voices that invariably scream or whisper to him. You couldn't tell by his meek posture and the topaz glint of his chestnut eyes that there is a constant barrage of bodiless utterances that only he can hear. He doesn't refer to them as 'demons,' though it feels unsettling to hear them. He claims that they write the music that he plays. However, without his guitar, he found that the voices seem to have gotten louder and louder.

Raphael, or "Ell," as I lazily and later fondly call him, arrived about a week after me. I didn't ask, and I wouldn't, but I suspect at some point, he got lost in the jumble of psychosis during a manic episode, and that's why he is here.

"They say meditation works," came my tentative reply.

In truth, even I cannot find "peace" while attempting to meditate. It took quite a while before I could arrive at a more definitive response.

An Escapology

It started as an escape. I wanted to run away, so I suppose it was apt to pick up running to take my mind off everything.

Run away from where?

Metaphorically, from everything. Literally, from the facility where I lived. It was a substance abuse rehabilitation center or what they confidently call 'therapeutic community.' It is a residential facility where people with different addiction and behavioural problems are treated using a group-based intervention model. Come as you are – that means just you and your clothes.

No mobile phones.

No laptops.

No television.

No internet.

As for Ell, his guitars obviously did not come with him. Even his pen and notebook, where he scribbles down fleeting melodies or lyrics he composes with the voices, were not within his reach. The pen, in particular, does not have a place in the facility. Other than authorized occasions when you have to write, you cannot have a pen with you in your person. You do not want anybody having a funny idea to use the pen for purposes other than writing. Just a couple of months ago, a dozen "mutineers" used forks to start a riotous attempt to escape. A fork? Yes, the humble cutlery. Cutlery. See? That was immediately obvious.

"Same sh!t. Different day."

"SSDD" - that's how the residents, the people under treatment in the facility, would usually describe that place. For 12 to 18 months, you do the same routine every single day – Rise. Do exercise. Eat. Spuddle through your chores until someone calls you out. Bare your soul to the community. Scribble a few notes in your reflection journal. Hygiene. Sleep. There are only a few variations here and there, such as when there's "fresh fish" in the tank, or somebody decides not to do what they're supposed to do. You cannot even pretend to be less bored by mindlessly scrolling social media or endlessly switching from one Netflix show to another. If neither drugs nor crimes killed you, boredom will. Generally, the daily grind blurs your mind to amnesia.

Even the picturesque view overlooking the open-air halls – a glistening lake whose centerpiece is a majestic volcano with its crater crowned by low-lying clouds – has ceased to be an attractive distraction. It was a piece of heaven to behold until I came to stay here. It still is. After all, heaven could only be seen from a distance while you are in purgatory. If this is not fernweh, a German word to describe the pangs you feel when faraway places entice you, I don't know what is.

"I wish that volcano will just do its job," Ell blurted once.

It was an open but silent wish amongst us. When humdrum is numbing, your thoughts wander, giving selfishness a chance to percolate in your mind. That is dangerous. Conceived by idleness and bitterness, terrible desires arise. You start to wish that such beauty disintegrates to ashes, that the molten lava creeps to melt the insipidness and set a fire in you. In the trail of destruction, all of us can then scramble to freedom. However, there is no empathy for anyone who wishes for something horrible, even if that was the only (imaginary) means to liberty.

So, I ran. The first time I was allowed to do something outside the confines of the community, I decided to wake up just before sunrise. While everybody was sleeping except for the security staff, I slipped out gently into the darkness and slowly took my first steps, nervously as I fear that the neighbours will mistake me for an escapee. For the villagers' safety or perhaps for a reward, the people in the neighbouring communities are known to help thwart residents' attempts to leave. But that morning run was indeed an "escape" for me. Each step became a stride that takes me farther and farther from where I'd rather disappear.

In the cold morning fog, freedom is mulled wine seeping into the vessels of my being. It is Mozart's Duettina Sull'aria, soaring across all corners of the Shawshank Penitentiary grounds, rebelliously played by Andy Dufresne from the warden's office. The breeze peddled mountain scents I have never smelled, or more likely I had not noticed, before. Each earthy waft etched a spark of vigor. The shrubs sprinkled me with dewdrops to kiss as my arms brush against them. The fleeting peck of the tiniest dew was tingling. Scents, kisses, and warmth – these began a love affair. Just a couple of miles left me panting yet desiring for more.

Where there was no radiance, desperation made me latch onto something, anything as soon as dreamless nights refuse to give me any further refuge. Where waking hours used to be more of a nightmare, mornings turned into something to look forward to seeing. Running made it clear what has always been - that nature is a sanctuary. I had to disconnect to reconnect: maadoittuminen – the Finnish verb that refers to establishing an emotional connection with nature. This 'grounding' or 'earthing' brought me sensory, if not sensual, pleasures that made existence in an otherwise pallid place bearable. Oscar Wilde is right when he said,

"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."

When I run fast enough under a canopy of trees, the dizzying komorebi, the Japanese term for sun rays glissading through the leaves and branches, treat my eyes to a kaleidoscope of psychedelic lights. The fields of flowers delicately enveloped in fog reveal Monet's 'Poppy Field.' On most days, I run the route that resembles the crisp rhythm of the jazz drummer Nate Smith's Gaslight Sessions. Some terrains have the gradual ascent of Handel's anthem "Zadok the Priest," while other trails can take the ascending tension of Christine Daae's singing when the Phantom commanded her to sing for him – higher and higher. Trail running can be brutal, but I forget every laboured breath as I look over the hills at the end of my run. Kerry Muzzey's "Howard sees the Sky" plays as the ombre paint of the sunrise slowly permeates the indigo canvas while the moon bows to the west. Strangely, it feels like my rapid heartbeat gradually pulsates to the rhythm of the early morning avian chorus, and my breath synchronizes to the puff of the wind. It is peaceful, and like being lifted to a grand jeté, I am transported to a tranquil state.

Lizzie*, one of my favourite souls to have (unfortunately) crossed my path, once told me a similar feeling. We were lying in the middle of the meadows of Kastelruth, and after a good half-hour of silence, she said:

"Being soaked in the petrichor of the fields, I feel like I am dissolving. I am becoming part of the Earth that we lay on. At the same time, the sky is merging with the ground. So, I'm also fusing with the sky. Or, the sky and Earth are becoming part of me".

It was ethereally paradoxical that Lizzie's experience of stillness resembled my experience of prolonged, constant motion. Native American tribal leader Ota Kte once said of "grounding":

"The old people came literally to love the soil. They sat on the ground with the feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the Earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with their bare feet on the sacred Earth. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing".

"Mothering," I like that. While immersed in nature, I encounter solace. Shinrin-yoku, as the Japanese refer to 'forest-bathing", is healing my soul. Everything else faded in the background. It was neither hot nor cold. There was neither the trace of pinecone scents nor the buzz of bees. It was neither bright nor dark. A febrile glow inside me swells in a crescendo until a void opens as a conduit to commune with nature.

That was how it dawned on me that I have found a way, my way, to meditate and to hush the mind.

Running is meditation in locomotion. I just focus on breathing as monks would when they meditate. When thoughts cross my mind, I neither hang onto them nor wrestle with them. I cease to perceive them as the uncontrollable monkey chatter. Instead, I begin to see them as I see swallowtail butterflies, which are dancing in a quadrille as I run. They are just there, and I just let them fly. It's like those times when we drive across the long roads of Galicia and herds of cows would cross. We just let them pass.

And that was my first lesson from running – how to let go. I have struggled to understand how exactly to let go of grudges and regrets. But there I was, letting go of something for the first time. Without deliberately doing so, I let go of the wish for the volcano to erupt. I do not know when, but I had stopped wishing for it.

The Red Queen's Race

Sixteen months after the pandemic declaration, Tokyo 2020 Olympics opened with Arisa Tsubata running on a treadmill for minutes on end. The sight of her running alone brought an unexpected ache. It is a picture of each one of us, trying to make do what we can while stuck at home in lockdowns one after the other. It is the image of every one of us, trying to get by in the face of uncertainty.

It is the image of someone trying their very best to move on further in life. But no matter how much effort they exert, they stay in the same place. Remember what the Red Queen said to Alice?

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

It was like that – exhausting yourself to run for hours on end only to find you have not moved an inch further.

I left the facility that sat on the hills long before Ell did. I moved to a different city to be as far as I could in the hopes of growing new roots. I thought I got things better figured out this time. One thing I did not change was running, though I discovered that city-running was a completely different animal. It would be uncommon to chance upon dandelions waltzing in the air to delight you or a field of pansies waving at you to cheer you on; you mostly muster your strength to keep moving. That was okay. Just merely disconnecting for a chunk of time every morning, I still find that running restores my energy and will to live. It's the calm before the chaos. Occasionally, I have the pale waning gibbous moon or a herd of sheepish clouds for company.

I finally got to start my first job after a year of unemployment. Barely a week has passed, the world economy caved in at the mercy of the pandemic. The only company to have taken a gamble to hire me, a small-sized organization, was tanking. It lost more than 80% of its clients and consequently had to lay off employees. Every company shut their doors to new recruits.

I could hardly believe it. I was absolutely gutted. I was just starting life anew, and it is crumbling before I could even finish.

I was still mending

my fragile world

when the skies began falling,

its oceans were receding,

and the Earth was collapsing.

I think I didn't make my wish correctly back then. So, when the universe finally relented and gave me the eruption I had been desiring, it turned the joke on me and destroyed my world.

I was devastated, and my heart, my already broken heart, got smashed into smithereens.

All the decisions in my former life, the wrong and the ones not made, came rushing in. The regret, the guilt, the shortcomings - these "unerasable sins" are back to haunt me. Each mistake has a twin in the form of insults, humiliation, or rejection by other people. I've made many wrong decisions, and I have paid the price and still paying the price for that.

But when you try so hard

So hard,

really hard

to change,

to become a better person,

to move on from the past,

but the past is just not over you yet,

How can you avoid thinking that

Not everyone seems to deserve a second chance?

It certainly felt like the universe was conspiring against me. I just could not catch a break.

I sobbed uncontrollably, my face buried in my hands, my elbows and knees on the kitchen floor. I was wailing inside, the kind of silenced anguish. For how many hours, I could not remember.

Then, it struck me. I was precisely in the same position a year ago or so – on all fours after my very first marathon. The only difference was I was not sobbing at that time, but I was utterly spent. I sought refuge by crawling to the footpath. My jelly legs could no longer keep me up after a grueling distance of 42.195 kilometers (26.2 miles) – roughly the distance between the River Thames and Buckingham Palace. Then, I vomited on the side of the road. They say it was from overexertion; I was unprepared for this race after all. However, I had a different assumption.

Marathons are strenuously long, long enough to exhaust you physically and challenge you mentally and emotionally. Little did I know that it can even be an existential struggle. Halfway through the marathon, I began questioning my motivation to run. By the last quarter of the race, I was not only expired, but also I was questioning my life choices.

I reached the arching bridge that separated the remaining runners and finishers. Then, searing cramps shot from my calves and were inching towards my upper thighs. I tried to take another step, but the immense pain locked my legs. The dense humidity was denying me relief from my sweat-soaked singlet. The sun seemed unusually hot that day. Crowds of runners ran past me while the race sweepers lurked around the corner. I could just wait for the sweepers to pull me out of the race into the sag wagon.

They say that you know what a person is made of at the moment of a split-second decision. I came to the conclusion:

This is all you've got. This is just what you are made of, Imi.

The Sartrean existential disgust struck me. I cannot articulate it but I understood why Roquentin's epiphany came about upon tasting Camembert cheese in the novel "La Nausée". Confronted by my limitations, I asserted against this reductionist conclusion. Huffing and puffing, I was getting consumed by the internal struggle. I was feeling stretched to my limits.

Ironically, a thought visited to remind me, "Let go".

The thought exited my mind and with it, the others took flight, too. The energy that I used fighting them was the fuel I needed to push myself one last time. At the foot of the arching bridge, I flung myself into a mad sprint. With a growl, I finished the race in one piece.

It dawned on me how much energy I had been wasting clashing with my own thoughts. They are mine, but they are not me.

Back on the kitchen floor, I stood shakily – no plans, no job, indeed no career. But I also had a tad less self-doubt. I did not know how I would survive the pandemic, but I knew that I must, and I will. Like any long-distance runs, you just have to move one stride at a time.

A Long, Slow Walk to the Finish Line

In the wake of the lockdown, I felt a sense of strange familiarity in this new "normal." The time I spent in the facility, locked out from the rest of the world, eerily felt like the pandemic lockdown.

Hitting rock bottom

The uncertainty

The lack of sense of control

The social disconnection.

The same routine day in and out

Being unable to tell apart the days

It was unpleasant but familiar. I take comfort in the unpleasant familiarity, like drinking your grandmother's bitter flu remedy that you're used to taking from your childhood. Nobody could still see how the pandemic ends or what the new world order will be. But I wouldn't see the finish line either if I don't move towards it. 'þetta reddast,' the Icelanders would say. Things are going to turn out well in the end.

So, I put on my singlet and shorts, and I laced up my shoes.

"I think I got this. Kind of," I thought.

And off I go for another run to start the day.

***

To Ell, who I would like to believe has found his peace at the finish line.

If there's another world, he lives in bliss;

If there is none, he made the best of this.

- Robert Burns

*Footnote: Names and photos of people and places have been changed to protect privacy.