The Little Book of the Dead - Aistė

 

When the wind blows, icy and cold, hitting and wounding the face, Lithuania declares herself.
No snow, no rain, no grey day speaks as the wind speaks and says, "That’s me. Lithuania." This is the message the wind carries along.
As the wind blows and the trees bend without a word, so people don’t complain; they stay still and apparently do not suffer. Like the trees, they bend and endure, without pride, without rebellion. They keep quiet and watch nowhere.
In Lithuania, people and nature share the same mood. People resist and suffer without a lament, without their countenance betraying their dolor.

Aistė was late as always. It was in her nature to be late. She was born late, one week later than expected. She woke up late; she fell asleep late. She was always late to school ...
Everything she did was following her existential condition, her intimacy: to be on time, she would have to suffer; she avoided any form of suffering. In a country where suffering was the normal state.
When in the morning one looks out through the window and one sees layers of grey and snow or rain covering every hope of happiness, how can one be enticed to leave their bed, their home?
A graceless lady is Lithuania.

In blood, our path is already designed; in our blood, bones and skin, our destiny is obscurely prepared, long before one realizes it.
Laziness was living in Aistė’s vessels, in her heart, pumping blood and nourishing the bones and skin.
She was moving herself in a direction that her body was pushing, but her mind didn’t know, and let her think she was deciding for herself.
In this suspension, epoché (ἐποχή), as philosophers would say, where she could decide what had already been decided, she could answer a great many questions that hang like clouds in the sky. From the sky arrived the answer directly in her tissues, in an abundance of sense in which she recognizes herself and the meaning of her decisions.
Rest in peace, Aistė.