So, what can I learn from you? How to sacrifice for others the way you sacrifice for your family. How to belong to a group, which always means facing the hard times when inevitably things go wrong but one must pull through. And how to forgive others and oneself the mistakes we all make so we can live together, so one needs not to be on the run forever. In one word: how to *belong* without feeling locked in. How to live a meaningful life, surrounded by people we love without being frustrated that these are the very people who both lock us in and give us wings to fly.

Szabad vagyok már
m i n d e n e k t ő l
barátaimtól
ellenségeimtől
akik ha vesztem
is akarják
a beborult égre
nevem írják
s eljövök onnan
esőnek hónak
vígasztalanokat
vígasztalónak
az ég szürke lapján
ott fönn – tűnődöm
mennyei betűkön

It was there, with her. At my apartment, at hers. It was on the cold streets of Berlin. It was on the bike. Seeing her fall and being very afraid. Going to bars together. Playing catch-me-if-you-can in the museum. Climbing chimneys, walking alongside broken rail tracks. Waking up next to her. Oh god, waking up next to her. Having breakfast. Meeting her after work. Strolling the streets of Berlin. Taking a train ride with her. All those days of beauty. I miss them, every. single. day. It was a different life. A different era. I will never be that happy again.

None of the 40 runners who attempted to finish the 100-mile Barkley Marathons in the mountains of eastern Tennessee completed the race, the first time since 2007 that the endurance test had no finishers.

“The mountains won,” said Gary Cantrell, who created the event in 1986. “I was pleased with the outcome. It’s a competition between the humans and the mountains.”

In 30 years, 14 out of about 1,100 runners have completed the race, made up of five loops around a mountainous 20-mile course.  The 60-hour time limit passed Monday with no one having completed the race. A search began for the final runner on the course — Jamil Coury of Phoenix. He showed up before dark.

“I got a little confused where I was,” Coury said upon returning to camp, explaining that he took an eight-hour nap on a mountaintop after getting lost. “Thanks for waiting.”

Passed Out

Matt Bixley traveled from Dunedin, New Zealand, to compete. He said his goal was to see what he could find out about himself. Instead, he found himself passed out on the ground after completing more than 48 miles in about 28 hours of running and climbing through the mountains of 24,000-acre Frozen Head State Park.

“I passed out or collapsed,” said Bixley, 42, a quantitative geneticist with New Zealand’s AgResearch. “Something happened. It wasn’t sleepiness. I don’t know. I spent some time thinking about what that might mean and where I was going. It was a boundary I wasn’t prepared to cross, and I quit.”

‘It’s Eerie’

No woman has finished the race. This year a record nine attempted it, including Nicki Rehn, a 40-year-old Australian who is an assistant professor of education at Ambrose University in Calgary. Rehn completed 1.5 laps this year before succumbing.

“You don’t come here to be victorious, you come here to be humiliated,” she said. “It’s lonely out there. It’s eerie. You have to be comfortable being inside your own head. Everyone comes back pretty broken. That’s the goal. To break people […]”

I remember this time, on the couch, talking with her. I remember her telling me she had a dietary problem once. I remember waking up next to her and telling her I love her and she telling me she loved me too. I remember us going to exhibitions, theatres, ballets, exploring, painting, making love next to derelict rails. I remember her love and affection, her never-ending quest for the deeper questions. Her playfulness. Her kindness. Her fight with herself to love me. Her soft way of approaching things. I miss her so much.

Are we just pretending? Are we here to be good? She wrote and it’s dry, cool. In a way I wish she hadn’t written. Last time I saw her write like that I was alone here, and wished for a better future. I don’t know if that future came. I’m afraid I have lost the only person who really made me happy. I’m afraid I lost the person who I look up to the most. I miss her terribly. I want to live a life with her, but that is a lost dream now. I picture her in her new home, going about happily, buying fruits and vegetables and I think maybe, just maybe, she remembers me once in a while and it brings meaning to her. I miss you, A.

With long stretches of emptiness,
over the time and over the space,
I think back to where we were,
I long for your touch,
your kindness and playfulness,
your small feet and your tender kisses,
just putting my hand on your legs,
waiting for you at the airport,
eating a dinner with you,
being in the same space as you.

All these times have went by,
and I took you for granted,
let you think that I don’t care,
missed the times to thank you,
missed the moments to love you,
I was too holed up in myself,
I was afraid and sad,
that you’ll leave me,
that you won’t love me back.

I let you go now,
but I wish I hadn’t,
I wished for the dream,
that we created,
never to end.

A hundred days have passed since I landed in that foreign land to see you. It was a hard day. I was alone on that plane, alone and I didn’t know what will await me. You waited for me with a flower, you were there and you wanted to kiss me and I didn’t know how to react, but I kissed you. We waited for what seemed like forever in that taxi line and I felt dizzy. We then went for a walk, I took and sent pictures of paintings I shouldn’t have sent. And then you told me I’m just an extra, on top of your friends. I don’t know why I stayed with you after that. I really don’t. There was something about you. I think I realised how beautiful you are. After you hurt me, I realised how I still cared for you. I remember eating at the Mexican place. I remember looking at other women. And I remember asking you not to go running in the morning, because I wanted to be with you all night. I wanted the comfort to know that you are there for me, the full night. But you went. It sounds weird to say, but the moment I saw you leave the door to run, that was when something broke in me. Nothing should have broken there. I should have known that you love me. But something broke and I felt it. It made me incredibly sad, seeing you leave. I think I got detached then. I’m sorry. I should have been stronger. I should have known that you love me. But I was weak and tired and I was careless. I see that now. I wasted all those two weeks. I wasted them on my own sorrow. I planted it, I nurtured it, and I reaped its fruits. I miss you terribly. I miss you going out that door to run, to do what you like to do, being free and unrestricted by me, or by anyone. I miss being that extra in your life that made all the difference. I miss being with you.

Here I am, feeling great about winning some competition and I have nobody to share it with. As I see other people I remember how amazing it can be to have someone who understands us, who we can come back home to, who will put their hands around us and tells us it’ll all be good. With whom we can be together without being judged, without navigating the boundaries, without shame. I miss you A, I miss you and I love you.

And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat …”
[..]
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near–
“Ah,” said the fox, “I shall cry.”
“It is your own fault,” said the little prince. “I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . .”
“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.
“But now you are going to cry!” said the little prince.
“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.
“Then it has done you no good at all!”
“It has done me good,” said the fox, “because of the color of the wheat fields.”

I will always remember you through things that happen in the everyday: playfulness, kindness, and long intellectual conversations through articles and blogs. Although they happen every day, they will never happen again like they happened with you. They will forever stay a reminder of what we had, our times of joy and love. Thank you for giving them to me…