Thermidor 2007, Part 4

I knew that trip with OrkAA would be fun but I didn't feel any particular need to come along for company at first. But then a day passed, I went for some lake swimming again with the "207 gang" in between and after deciding to join after all I intended to go to town the next morning to pay some bills and borrow some new books. I put on some brake-less roadskates without bothering to find hand protection gear and headed west, completely unaware of what was to follow... I wasn't on skates for more than 10 minutes when a delivery van coming from the opposite direction blocked my way and forced me to do some heavy thinking in about 0.1 seconds.. I could chose between being hit by the traffic, the van itself or trying to stop and land safely - of course I decided for the latter but only the first half of the plan worked. I did stop, but my skin and limbs suffered some casualties - vast areas on my legs looked as if I'd just went through a successful skin removal operation, I had scratches in many places and most importantly - my right hand was hurting badly. It was also rapidly increasing in size. There was no doubt in mind: it was broken. Unlike at the first time when I broke my left hand and avoided visiting the doctor for over a month, I decided to get some professional medical help from my doctor asap. The next few hours consisted of rollerskating there, frowning upon our dumb as hell health care system in all its misery and finally getting the you-have-a-broken-arm diagnosis, after which I went to a hospital and literally got plastered.

That evening I didn't quite see the point in going to the sea with a swollen freshly broken hand the but OrkAA managed to convince me with his arguments, especially one in which he promised to take good care of my hair.
About twelve hours later we were on our way south, listening to the music I put together especially for this occasion - which means a lot of chaabi, Christmas songs, soul and psychedelic rock. This was the seed of my musical renaissance that was coming in the following weeks.
We were preparing ourselves to get strip-searched on the border due to some unpleasant past experience but somehow we managed to get across without raising suspicion. Since my right plastered hand was technically still in pretty bad shape and hurting like hell, I had to have it wrapped in ice all the time (to make sure it received proper cooling).

To use fast forward, we got to the camp in one piece, I met the people we were staying with - OrkAA's lassie and her three girlfriends. In contrast with my starting expectations the next week was a lot of fun with an abundance of things one would expect in a vacation: swimming with my plastered hand a lot, heavily losing at Monopoly, having fun with collective showers and various activities around the camp at night (particularly memorable for my own recollection encoded events were the water pistol fights I didn't take part in, abusing the swing along with "ve ar from ze internetz" agenda and Jesus style night swimming).
Of course, none of these things were actually worth writing about in a dedicated blog post. What really made such an impact on my (un)foreseeable future was something entirely different. You see, all of these girls just finished high school for modeling and photography and most of them were really passionate about art as such, particularly interested in one or another area, worshiping certain painters or graphic designers. Since this was an area of my interest as well, I couldn't help but feel blessed to have met them coincidentally - what I lacked in my diving into art so far was a systematic approach and thanks to their advices I was able get one. I also borrowed an art theory textbook on our way back - it was a real joy to read and learn new things from it, especially because they provided a broad range of knowledge from musical composition to semantics.

The second, a bit less important but nonetheless often a subject of my fantasies was the storm that happened on our last day in the camp...
Storms by the sea are a wonderful sight to observe. I've only had the chance to experience it twice in my life so far, and that summer day was one of them. There is something about the silvery gray sky, strong winds descending from it in powerful raging waves, turning the shore into temporary chaos, enveloping the sea itself into a thick wall of dreadful white tentacles reaching up above - all the way to the swiftly moving texture of clouds. The cold raindrops shooting all around, gripping your skin and clothes like steel bullets onto a magnet - but you don't feel pain or cold, embracing the chaos instead. In this gloriuos temporary victory, nature's fury has roared the fragile voices of humanity down, driving them back into their petty little shelters, the only sanctuary of order they remain in control of. The true altar is now empty, without a living soul to challenge its might.
In these conditions, tightly wrapped in a cape to shield me from the dust and rain, I ventured to the beach, enjoying the strong winds with blows that occasionally challenged gravity. For a brief moment in time the illusion of being the only person in existence became real. The sight was amazing... but I still wanted more. More chaos! Winds strong enough to root out trees, taking them up in the air and then swinging with them at the ground, smashing across the rocks until the Earth crumbles and falls! But in reality, this was a rare truly peaceful moment for me, a time to enjoy silence and distant lightning - what a shame that so few admire the beauty of such moments, so few understand what they really represent.


This was all I wanted to tell about my seaside escapade in July. Of course there were a few other things I'll rather keep silent about for the time being, but to conclude just as linear as I started: the day after the storm we all cleaned up the mess that was either created during the night or accumulated over the week, packed up our things and drove back north, safely returning home in the early evening.