My meetings with courtyard spaces are always silent, but once the space decided to come into contact with me. As I recently walked around the Teplichny microdistrict in Vologda at night. Nothing unusual, all the same yards. And I had only one quarter to go before going home, when the contact happened. This quarter didn’t attract me: I took only two pass-through photos and the space apparently didn’t like it...or it offended that I pay more attention to other spaces. Although no one has complained yet.
At about 10.45 p.m. it happened.
"Excuse me, do you have a smoke??" – the girl of short stature in a dark jacket and a hood asked in a thin voice.
I take a pack from my pocket and hand it to her so that she takes a cigarette from the pack herself.
“Thank you!...Will you have a lighter?”
I take out a lighter, which for some reason is in the inside pocket of my jacket. I light it myself. We keep some awkward distance, a little more than usual. All because of this damned coronavirus. Already we stop trusting people. But she touched my cigarette-lighter hand with her own hands, closing the fire from the wind, and this excited me the most, of course, in a positive way. As if a spark had slipped. It’s similar here: I felt some kind of warm energy. After that, we went our separate ways, and I began to think about her almost immediately. How cleverly the space acts!
I began to reflect on an infinite number of topics, I began to sort through various options for the development of events. But what if I suggested her take a walk with me, and if she agreed, what would we talk about? And if something happened to her and she walks alone in the yard in the evening? And if she just goes for a walk with friends home? And if...
Is there a coincidence or is it all a well-thought-out move of some higher system? The last question sounded most vividly in my head and I decided to check it out. If this is not an accident, then I will meet her again, and if an accident, then I will not meet. But if I don’t even meet, then I still will not be the same and I will know about this fact. It turns out that if I never meet her, then it will still not be an accident!
The next day I went to the same place and walked along the venue at the same time as the first time. But I didn’t meet anyone...The space guided me very cleverly and cunningly! It attracted attention to itself again. But I still did not understand this and continued to think about that stranger girl.
To keep watch in the evenings or walking back and forth in search of that person, I, unfortunately, have no time and opportunity. Yes, and I do not have such a strong desire to find her. I made a greater challenge to fate itself: if I meet again, then it should be so, if not, then not. But thoughts...there are so many. Yes, I walked there more than once and all to no avail, and then I began to realize that courtyard space urgently wanted to be captured.
Everything was simple, but at first it was very difficult to understand. I will never forget this place for sure, and in order to memorialize it, as memories of emotional and semantic experiences, I decided to capture it. That’s the whole point of the contact of space with me. It played on my emotions so that I could study it, accept it and take a picture of it.
In this regard, I had even more questions of a more global nature. I always knew that space has a certain energetic power and even reason. Now I am convinced of this. It turns out that it can come into contact with a person. You just need to recognize this contact.
We may not understand at all what is happening, that in this way a completely different entity addresses us through people or events. The question remains, will the courtyard space reward me for my work with him by meeting with that girl, or is it still not fate?
It remains for me to answer the request of courtyard space and capture it. But not everything is as simple as it turned out...
To be continued...