I have long wanted to develop a business card for my soul.
The kind Real Women have. Their soul business card is a post on Facebook or Instagram (depending on age).
It consists of two parts – a photo and a text. From the photo, the Real Woman beams at us through several filters with a smoky-eyed, warm gaze. From it flows forgiveness towards all the spiteful women who, in her opinion, envy her, and towards all the men who, again in her opinion, desire her but cannot have her. She has also lifted the curtain on her rich inner world with a bit of Paulo Coelho-style wisdom, as a comment under her own photo. Something along the lines of (I'm improvising from memory):
– Tell me about Her_.._
– A difficult person_.._ A strong and complex personality_._
And no, don't be fooled. She is not like other women.
When she decides to achieve her noble goal
She will pursue it to the end and make it come true,
She gives the best of herself
No matter how great the need she has fallen into…
And for her Beloved she would kill a man
Even with dirty hands, she keeps a clean heart.
A woman like that cannot be controlled.
But even when she herself cannot control herself
Even when her body starts to press its pretensions
She always carries the sign of victory – in her hands, in her eyes.
And she always carries a trump card in her handbag – her beauty and strength!
If you're not careful – she'll leave for ever.
It's up to you! Oh, happy are you if she chooses you!
Something like that.
Clearly, the Woman who created this post has decided to do a little self-promotion.
What isn't clear to me, though – or rather, what wasn't clear to me – is the purely lexical meaning of twisted expressions like “her body will simply start to press its pretensions???”……
But soon I experienced a catharsis. I take my words back. I now empathise with the pain and despair hidden behind that very lexical construction.
I changed my world view during one 5kmrun. At one point, while running, I felt two runners latch on behind me, clearly wanting to use me as a pacer. I took it as a compliment – me, a 41-year-old woman, who until 2–3 years ago was at the back of the 5kmrun, now being used as a pacer.
(*a pacer is a person who can easily hold the desired running pace for a given distance and helps another runner run at their desired pace, by running together with them while the pacer “pulls” them along)
Well done, body, I thought – it's behaving like the body of a much younger person! Encouraged by my praise, my body apparently decided that the more youthful its behaviour, the more joy and merriment it would bring me. To delight me completely, it began to behave even more youthfully than youthful – namely, like the body of a newborn baby.
Meaning – I wished I'd put on a nappy.
At the first painful urge from my bowels, the revelation of the Lyrical Real Woman from Facebook/Instagram rang out solemnly in my mind …. “at some point her body will simply start to press its pretensions”!…. Only now did I understand what she'd meant – that her body wants what it wants. And my body was pressing its pretensions right now!
I was barely halfway along the 5-kilometre course. I had the company of over 250 people and precisely zero toilets. I clenched the muscles of my backside hard. As a result, I temporarily swapped running for a waddling speed-walk with a heavy heel strike. True, I slowed down by 10–15 seconds for that kilometre, but I temporarily quelled the bodily pretensions.
Any normal person would have worked out that there was no way to run another 2.5 km in this state, so extremely tense for both spirit and body. A normal person would have left the course and rushed off to seek relief in the fields, far from prying eyes.
Not me. I am an amateur runner. This was my first run after a 3-week break because of an injury, and I wanted to check how much my performance had dropped if I ran 5 km flat out. Afterwards I would compare this result with my all-time best and from there analyse the damage the break had done to my running form. Not to mention that I had taken on the moral responsibility of pacing the two strangers all the way to the finish, since (or so I imagined) they had placed their trust in me. Whether they wanted to or not, whether they knew it or not – they had already ended up under my friendly pacer's wing.
By clenching my cheeks, clad in nude-coloured leggings, I managed to neutralise to some extent the pretensions of my body, which was washing over me in painful ebbs and flows. I brought my two charges, who followed me faithfully, all the way to the middle of the 5th km.
500 m from the finish I came face to face with the 5kmrun photographer, who unexpectedly leapt out from behind a pine tree and snapped right in my face. The snap startled me. The startle led to a second's loss of concentration. A fatal second!
********************************
Photography is a great art. Taken at the right moment, a photo captures the unadulterated emotion of the model at the critical instant.
The good thing was that the photographer shot me from the front, not from behind. He immortalised the façade, but not the back yard. Where, after its initial irrepressible dash for freedom, the part of my body's pretensions in question had already settled down quietly in my pale leggings.
“My boys”, however, seemed to still be running right behind me. One of them drew level with me. He was keen to Share-Some-Delicate-Information with his pacer. Hardly anything I didn't already know..
“Excuse me for addressing you without knowing you. It must be very unpleasant for you to……..” Pretty irritated, I braced myself for the most humiliating conversation of my life – did we really have to discuss the obvious? The man went on ……… “listen to me snorting like this. I just can't control my breathing when I run. Once again – I'm terribly sorry.”
That's when I realised that each of us is frying in our own private hell, which often blinds us to the point that we don't notice other people's infernos. The good man hadn't noticed that I, too, had a thing or two to apologise to him for. I waved my hand magnanimously (also to stir the air a little). My gesture was full of a patronising: “You're excused, what can I do with you. Beginners – can't even control their breathing.” I put on the slightly disapproving face of an upstanding citizen with spotless leggings and let the two boys overtake me. Let them enjoy it.
It occurred to me that I could take off my jacket and tie it round my waist. Which I did, on the move, on the home straight. After the finish I vanished into oblivion for a while to make myself presentable to society. I did a round of the 5 km start/finish area, shooting guilty glances at people. Contrary to my feeling that the truth was written on my forehead in scarlet letters, nobody was paying me much attention.
Emil asks me where I've been. I tell him the run has unlocked problems with my bodily functions. He nods understandingly, recalling my previous running experiences: “Come here for a cuddle, Little Piddler!”
“Little Piddler was ages ago,” I look at him haughtily. “You underestimate me!”
Emil slaps his forehead with his hand. Even though he knows me and expects all sorts from me, he could never have guessed that I'd raised the “bar” this high. He makes me promise that I won't tell anyone this story. Especially, he stresses, I'm forbidden to tell it to men.
I find it sweet how he looks after my image among men. I won't tell, Emo, come on. (Writing a blog doesn't count as telling, right?)
Showing this photo doesn't count as telling either, does it:
This is the photo in question, which I intend to keep for the rest of my life. Every time I feel sad I look at it and tell myself – Way to go, Niyka! Never mind that at that moment you were sh*§@*@ing yourself, what matters is that in front of the cameras you raised the victory sign. With both hands!
So – if anyone asks me what my soul's business card is, Nia, with which post would you do a little self-promotion?
Here's my post:
It's made of two parts – the photo above and the text below:
– Tell me about Nia_.._
– A difficult person_.._ A strong and complex personality_._
And no, don't be fooled. She is not like other women.
Once she decides to pace someone
She'll pace them to the end, even if they don't know it
She gives the best of herself
No matter how great the need she has fallen into.
She won't stop on the course
Even with dirty clothes, she keeps a clean heart.
A woman like that cannot be controlled.
But even when she herself cannot control herself
Even when her body starts to press its pretensions
She always carries the sign of victory – in her hands, in her eyes.
And now she always carries a new trump card in her handbag – Imodium.
If you're not careful – she'll leave for ever.
It's up to you! Oh, happy are you if she chooses you!
What did the Woman who created this post mean, you ask?
She meant, my friends, that it's good not to act all high and mighty.
Inside, we're all full of pretensions.
You never know when they'll decide to start coming out of us.
