My Story of Inspiration
It is a splendid May morning. I am walking down the street while a warm, pleasant air is kissing my cheeks. But despite the beauty of the day, the trees, the grass, and the little girl in pink, I am not feeling anything. Yes, the sky is pretty, but in the evening it will be dark and depressing. Sometimes, I feel that I have to stop people in the street, if they look compassionate, just to say to them “I am so sad. I am so young; but at the same time I feel so unspeakably aged and tired. I have been bearing about me for days like an arrow sticking in my heart this grief, this anguish.” The streets are crowded with people walking, laughing, but I can`t find a single kind face. All I see is vanity, ambition, greed and selfishness. There is nobody I can talk to. I don`t want to observe these hostile faces any more. I just want to go back home, curl up on the bed and withdraw - such is my darkness. I am like a bird sheltering under the thin hollow of a leaf, a bird who blinks at the sun when the leaf moves; starts at crack of a dry twig. Slightly waved by tears, I feel exposed: surrounded by the enormous trees, vast clouds of indifferent world.
I am in the park now, sitting on a bench and I see a miserable old man sitting on the grass. He is dressed in rags and he is wearing a straw, worn–out hat. His singing is quiet and soft and his face is kind. From his words I could deduce that he didn`t pay much attention to grammar. However, I sense something solemn in his desultory sentences. His song is one long hymn of praise to life. He is singing: “Life is wonderful. Life has no weapons. It does not bruise, nor does it draw blood. Life strokes us and kisses us. “And it seems to me that through all ages- through the age of dinosaurs, through the age of silent sunrise – the battered man stood singing of life – life which has lasted a million years, he sang, life which prevails. And I imagine how once in some primeval May, he had sat there, singing and his voice had been bubbling up without direction, beginning or end. And I am somehow sure that this man would still be in this park in ten million years, glorifying life. The passage of ages will not blur the clarity of the sun, the moon, the stars and the divine solitary flight of birds. Gaily, very gaily the invisible thread of sound is climbing up in the air like smoke, winding up trees and houses. This old man singing in the street makes me suddenly quite sure that everything is going to be right. It was a silly, silly dream, being unhappy. And there is a special calmness, divinity before the church bell rings. Since I have been unhappy for days recently, I am beginning to give meaning to things that happened. And suddenly I start to admire a pale blue sky with vast white clouds. And I think that it holds something of my own in it. It will be a dusky, serious sky as the day goes by. But a new day will come. Tomorrow morning, I`ll be in this park again, surrounded by flowers and breathing in the earthy-garden sweet smell.
And I see how nice the day is. Like a pulse of a perfect heart, life is striking straight through the town, without hesitation. And I see several friendly faces. Such fools we are, I am thinking, while crossing the street. For God only knows why we love it so. How we feel it so. Making it up, destroying it, dreaming about it and creating every moment again. But the most weird tramps and drunkards sitting on concrete (drinking their fall) do the same; they can` t fight against it and they can`t be dealt with by bombings, wars, floods or earthquakes for that very reason: they love life. In people`s eyes, in shuffle, walk and run; in the silence and noise; the cars, laughing children and singing of birds is what I love: life, people, this moment of May. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, giving its sorrows to some ocean, which cries for all burdens, and renews, makes a fresh start, forgives and forgets. And the waves collect and there are high tides and ebb tides; and everybody seems to be saying: “Life is good.” “What is this ecstasy? What does fill me with extraordinary excitement?” I am thinking to myself. It is life. For there it is. Right in front of me!
