Shotokan

Shotokan

Za Katjo

Za zdaj si še vsa tu. Z mamo, očetom, sestro,
poročeno na kmete, najboljšo prijateljico.
Gledaš publiko, sodnike, trenerja, “ki ti določa
mero”, del popolnosti, ki ti pripada. Prikloniš
se, zavzameš osnovni položaj. Izvedla boš
kato Enpi. Zahtevna je, morda prezahtevna
za tvoja leta. Vsekakor ti je najlepša in kar ti
je lepo, ti je tudi dobro in se ti prilega kot po
meri skrojeno krilo. Verjameš v skladnost
lepote in vrednosti. Preideš v prvi položaj.
Imaš trinajst let in ujela te je negotovost
pubertete, prva vprašanja o smislu obstoja,
prve skrbi o tvojem videzu: “Sem res lepa
ali me je samo zafrkaval?” Vendar ne tu, ne
zdaj – lastovka v letu, rojena leta 1683 nekje
na Japonskem, morda celo v eni izmed 36-tih
kitajskih družin. Dihaš. Čutiš, kako te dihanje
osredinja nase: publika izginja vrsto po vrsto
in se ob prvem kriku razblini kot duh
umorjenega iz Rašomona. Položaji sledijo
z morilsko natančnostjo: udarec, ob katerem
izgine tvoj oče, obramba, ob kateri izpuhtita
mama in sestra. Prišla si zmagat, toda ob
skoku in obratu v zraku izgine tudi želja
po zmagi. Vse izgine. Si samo še ti, z vsem
svojim bistvom prisotna v svojih gibih,
vdihih, izdihih, občasnih krikih, samo še ti
tukaj in zdaj, v tej točki. Ni te več. Ušla si nam
onkraj pojmljivega – resnična lastovka, ki
je izginila za črto obzorja, ne vemo, ali se boš
še kdaj vrnila v svoje staro gnezdo. V svoja
spraševanja, tavajoče iskanje resnice o
sebi. In potem glasen pok, trenutek, ko
se spet rodimo v tvojem pogledu, v školjki
tvojega ušesa. Zardela kot po ljubljenju
stojiš pred nami – močno in krhko dekle
hkrati, lastovka, ki se je vrnila in nam pusti,
da se za hip dotaknemo njenega perja,
rosnega od nepredstavljivih daljav.

 

Ljubljana, 1. marec 2014

Shotokan

For Katja

For now you are still all here. With your mother, father, sister
married and living on a farm, your best friend.
You watch the audience, judges, your trainer “who gauges
your measure”, partial perfection, that is your due. You bow,
take up the basic position. You will enact
the kata Enpi. It's demanding, perhaps too much
for your age. Certainly you find it most beautiful and what
you find beautiful you also find good and it suits you
like a tailored skirt. You believe in the harmony
of beauty and substance. You assume first position.
You're thirteen, caught in puberty's insecuries,
and first questions about the meaning of life,
misgivings about your looks: »Am I really beautiful
or was he just pulling my leg?« But not here, not
now – a swallow in flight, born in 1683 somewhere
in Japan, perhaps even in one of the 36 Chinese
families. You breathe. You feel how the breath
centres you: how the audience disappears line by line
and with the first scream vanishes like the spirit
of the murdered samurai from Rashomon. Positions follow
with deadly precision: the blow at which your father
disappears, the defence at which your mother
and sister vanish. You came to win, but with
the jump and the turn in mid-air the desire to win
disappears too. Everything disappears. There's only you
with all your essence in every move,  intake of breath,
exhalation, occasional shriek, only you here and now
in this very spot. You're gone. Slipped away from us 
beyond the comprehensible – a true swallow
faded into the horizon, we don't know, will you
ever return to your old nest. Old ruminations, feeling
the way to your own truthfulness. And then crash,
again we're born inside your gaze, in the shell
of your ear. Flushed as after lovemaking
you are standing before us – a strong, fragile girl
a swallow returned, and who for a moment
has allowed us to touch her feathers
covered in dew from unimaginable distances.

 

Ljubljana, 1st March 2014

Translated by Ana Jelnikar and Barbara Siegel Carlson

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