Milan Tresch Stories
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The Five-Faced Wonder
I met someone. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I met the first of her faces, and slowly came to know the others.
We met in the virtual world. It started with a few messages, and then suddenly I found myself talking to her for hours. Exceptionally intelligent. Educated, curious, confident. In many ways, the opposite of me. Perhaps that was exactly why I could not pull myself away.
In those first days, we argued as if we had known each other for twenty years. We swore, got offended, stopped talking, and then started again. We met, had coffee.
Later came a phone call in which we both went too far. Farther than two strangers probably should. Hard words were spoken, followed by long messages. The kind of messages that usually bring a relationship to an end.
Then something strange happened. The messages disappeared. I do not know whether it was a technical error or an act of fate, but by the time we realized what had happened, there was nothing left to reread. No evidence remained of who had hurt the other more. There were just two people and a decision: to forgive. Not to analyze it, not to reopen it, not to keep score, but simply to move on.
Since then, we have had many long conversations. Sometimes we talked for almost an entire day. Films, books, history, ships, witch trials, music, old loves, life, death, everything that somehow becomes important between two curious people.
And somewhere along the way, I slowly understood that a person does not exist in another person's life with only one face. There are people we first get to know through their minds, then we see their anger, their vulnerability, their humor, their silence, and suddenly there is someone standing in front of us whom we can no longer reduce to a single quality.
Today we met again, and I saw her fifth face. Not the woman who argues, not the offended one, not the sad one, not the one always ready with another thought, but a calm woman. At ease, responsible, intelligent, her eyes full of life. She was wearing a summer dress. It was not showy, yet it made her look special. She was beautiful. I know she likes it when I say that. And yes, she was cute too.
We had iced coffee at our usual place, talked, and somewhere in the middle of it I suddenly understood something. Maybe what is special about a person is not how they appear to us at first. Maybe it is how many different ways they can reveal themselves when we have the time and patience to get to know them.
And I understood something else too. This story does not have to force itself into becoming anything right now. If it has a continuation, it will find its own time and its own place. And now I am able to give it time and space. Not because it means less to me, but precisely because it means too much for me to want to possess it.
Because there is a difference between wanting someone beside us and wanting to have them as our own at any cost. I could not have put it that way back then. I only knew that I did not want to acquire her, hold on to her, or make sure she was mine. I was able to let her go without feeling that I was losing her.
And strangely enough, that was exactly why it did not end.
She is alive. She travels, learns, discovers. Sometimes she suffers, sometimes she laughs, and all the while she is living her own real, full, curious life. And beside her, but not through her, I am slowly learning how to live again.
Perhaps that is why it mattered that we met. Not so that I could find answers to all my questions, but so that I could have questions again. And perhaps also because, at the point when I finally stopped wanting everything, there was suddenly room for whatever wanted to happen on its own.
Will You?
Recently, I came across an old song by Gábor Presser.
I don't know who he wrote it for. Perhaps it doesn't even matter. Maybe it was for someone he knew, or perhaps for someone entirely different.
As I read the lyrics, it wasn't the love confession that stayed with me.
It was a single word.
"Will you?"
What a curious little phrase.
We say it so naturally that we hardly notice the weight it carries. Yet sometimes those two simple words mean far more than an entire love confession.
When we ask someone,
"Will you be there?"
we are no longer asking whether they will come.
We are asking whether we can still count on them when life becomes difficult.
Throughout our lives, we ask countless questions.
Do you love me?
Do you have time?
Will you come?
Will you help me?
But there are a few questions that are never really looking for an answer.
They simply hope that trust itself can remain alive.
That is what "Will you?" really means.
Perhaps that is why we say those words less and less as we grow older. As children, they come naturally. As adults, we become careful with them. Because behind every quiet "Will you?" lies our vulnerability. It is the silent admission that someone truly matters to us. That their answer matters, even if it is never spoken aloud.
I think that is what we fear the most.
Not that someone may stop loving us.
But that one day we whisper a quiet,
"Will you?"
...and no answer comes.
Perhaps that is why this song is so beautiful.
It is not about grand promises.
It is not about forever.
It is about life's smallest moments.
Give when I need to ask.
Catch me when I fall.
Laugh with me.
Bring back my smile.
And simply...
be there.
Perhaps love does not live in great declarations after all.
Perhaps it lives in these quiet, almost invisible requests.
Because the moment someone sincerely asks,
"Will you be there?"
they are no longer asking for promises.
They are asking for something far more precious.
They are asking for trust.
And perhaps there is no greater gift than someone answering that question—not with words, but with their presence.
I don't know who this song was originally written for.
Perhaps it doesn't even matter.
A truly beautiful song eventually grows beyond the person it was written for.
And one day, without even realizing it, you discover that it is no longer about them.
It is about someone who quietly came to mind while you were listening.
What Else Is There to Say?
I recently listened to this song again. It is filled with beautiful thoughts. It speaks about self-worth, fear, human dignity, and reminds us that we are worth far more than our jobs, our cars, or the praise we collect on social media. Yet none of these stayed with me. I found myself returning to a single sentence:
"To hell with big words. If you love me every day, it means so much more."
It is curious how, when we are young, we associate love with great moments. A heartfelt confession. A promise. A special evening. An unforgettable gesture. As if life's deepest feeling could only be born on extraordinary occasions.
Then the years pass, and we slowly discover that relationships are not sustained by those rare moments. They are beautiful and memorable, but they do not happen very often. The true test of love is always found in ordinary days.
A phone call for no particular reason. A simple question asking if you arrived safely. A message saying, "I'm home." Or just a few words:
"I'll call you as soon as I finish."
From the outside, these moments seem insignificant. No poems are written about them, no films are made because of them. Yet it is through these almost invisible gestures that the unseen bond we call trust is built between two people.
Perhaps that is why our way of thinking changes as we grow older. We place less faith in grand declarations because we have seen how easily they are spoken and how quickly they fade. Instead, we begin to value those who do not promise miracles or try to be heroes. They simply keep showing up. They do not walk on water or turn water into wine. They call when they said they would. Somehow, that is what makes them irreplaceable.
Perhaps that is why this song is so beautiful. It does not try to proclaim profound truths. It simply reminds us that love rarely proves itself on holidays or in extraordinary moments. More often, it reveals itself on an ordinary Tuesday. In a phone call. In an embrace. In the words, "I'm home." In the quiet certainty that someone will still be there tomorrow.
Perhaps everything important about love has already been written. Our task may simply be to recognize it when the time comes, in our own lives.
Better as We Are
A friend of mine sent me another song.
At first, it's easy to smile at the chorus. But I don't think it's really about what it seems to be at first hearing.
When we're younger, we often love someone while quietly trying to change them. We want them to be more patient, braver, more open, less stubborn. As if love's reward were that one day they would become the person we imagined.
Then the years pass, and we slowly realize that it's a hopeless effort.
We all carry our fears, our old habits, our wounds, and our peculiar little ways. We are who we are, flaws and all.
Perhaps that's why this song feels so liberating. It doesn't say, "Change, and then you'll be loved." Instead, it suggests that love sometimes begins the moment we stop trying to improve the other person.
For some time now, I've found myself looking less and less for perfect people. Instead, I value those who can remain themselves beside me, and who allow me to remain myself as well.
Maybe love is nothing more than a quiet agreement between two imperfect people.
I don't stay beside you because you're flawless.
I stay because you're you.
It Was Good.
I was given another song today. My friend really loves this band. I’m slowly becoming fond of them too. They write good lyrics. They’re not loud, they don’t insist on proclaiming great truths. Instead, they plant a thought or two in you, something that keeps working inside you even hours later.
This time, too, it wasn’t the chorus that stayed with me, but a single realization. There are things we lose precisely when we try too hard to hold on to them.
I used to ask: What will come of this? Where is it going? How long will it last? What comes next? We want to know what the story of a good thing will be, as if seeing the next chapter in advance would make us feel safe.
Now I ask something else: Was it good to be together?
If it was, then the most important thing is no longer how long it lasts, but whether it was good while it lasted.
That hasn’t always been easy for me. For a long time, I thought that if something mattered to me, I somehow had to secure it too. If being with someone was good, then it should stay good. If we grew closer, then we should become even closer. If there was something we both enjoyed, it seemed natural to want more of it.
But somewhere along the way, we don’t even notice when we start meddling with our own hands in something that had simply been good.
We start asking questions, analyzing, planning, looking for guarantees. What did this mean? What will it mean? What does the other person want? What do I want? And by the time we want an answer to every question, we are no longer living the thing that made it important in the first place.
I think the years also teach us that not every relationship needs to be figured out. Some simply need to be lived.
Sometimes two people have a few hours, a few days, a summer, a shared story, or simply a strange period in their lives. And something happens between them that leaves both of them changed. Not necessarily because anything around them changes, but because they continue on in a different way from how they had been going before.
It’s easy to over-explain these things afterward. To name them, put them into categories, decide what they were. Yet perhaps what is good about them is precisely that, for a while, they don’t need a name at all.
We were simply there.
We talked, laughed, listened to something, watched a film, had coffee, went for a walk, or simply enjoyed being beside each other. And when that day was over, nothing particularly dramatic had to happen. We just went home a little differently.
Maybe that is why, after a while, not every relationship needs its future to be important. Some have a present. Those few hours when it is good to be together, when there is nothing to prove, nothing to decide, only the simple pleasure of knowing that the other person is there.
And strangely enough, that doesn’t make what comes afterward any less. A good moment doesn’t have to become an entire lifetime for it to matter. We don’t have to possess it for a part of it to be ours. An experience still happened even if we don’t know what will come of it tomorrow.
In fact, there are things we can keep for a long time precisely because we didn’t try to hold on to them at all costs.
A song is like that too. It lasts three or four minutes, and then it ends. Yet years later, we may hear it again and, in a single moment, find ourselves somewhere else. In a place, in a summer, in a room, in a conversation, beside someone. The song itself ended long ago, but somehow what we connected to it did not.
Maybe the time we spend together is like that too. What matters is not how much longer we could have made it last, but whether there was something in it that we carried away with us.
And I feel less and less need to hold on to everything. Some things are enough simply to receive. Some things are enough simply to experience. Some things are enough to look back on without wanting to change them.
It was good.
Maybe that is a big enough sentence all by itself.
Not because it changed our lives. Not because it lasted forever. But because, for a little while, it put things back in place.
And when we look back on it later, we won’t have to ask what else it might have become. It will be enough to know that there was a time when it was good to be together. And the good that existed then is still good today.
It Was Good.
Sometimes a song lasts only three minutes. Sometimes it stays with us all day. The best songs do not fall silent when the music ends.
Everything begins in a hospital room.
A man and a woman stand silently beside the bed of their little daughter. She is gone. There are no words left to say. Slowly, the mother removes the necklace from around her neck and places it into her child's hand. A single gesture carrying farewell, love, and a sorrow too deep for words.
Later, we learn that the man is a soldier. The battle scenes follow, gunfire, courage, sacrifice. In the end, he is struck down as well. We think the story is over. In truth, it is only beginning.
In the next moment, he steps beyond his own body and meets his daughter. She gently places the necklace back into his hand. She says nothing. Nothing needs to be said.
Later, as the wounded soldier is carried away on a stretcher, he opens his eyes. He sees his wife and quietly places the necklace into her palm.
In that moment, no explanation is needed. The necklace says everything they cannot.
The story is not really about war. War is only the backdrop. It is about the moments when love reveals its greatest strength, when there is nothing left that we can change.
The battle scenes were not what stayed with me. I have seen countless films like that before. What stayed with me was that the story first showed what this man had lost, and only then revealed what gave him the strength to risk his own life for others.
Perhaps that is why we keep certain objects for an entire lifetime, and why we never forget even something as simple as a bowl of diced watermelon. A necklace, a photograph, a wedding ring, a handwritten letter. By themselves they are almost worthless. They become priceless because, once, someone gave them to us out of love.
Nothing Is Impossible
Some sentences find us only after we have lived long enough not merely to understand them, but to truly feel their meaning. When we are young, the words "Nothing is impossible" sound almost effortless. At that age, we believe the world can be conquered with determination, perseverance, and a little luck.
Later, life teaches us otherwise. There are losses that neither time nor strength can soften. There are people we can never bring back. There are years that can never be lived again. And there are wounds that eventually heal, yet remain forever tender beneath the surface.
That is when the phrase "Nothing is impossible" begins to mean something entirely different.
It no longer means that everything will work out.
It means that we will always find the strength to take one more step.
Life did not teach me how to avoid loss. It taught me that even after loss, it is still possible to live a full and meaningful life.
For a long time, I believed the world was my greatest opponent. Today I know that the hardest battle is always the one we fight within ourselves. Not against our failures, but against our fears. Not against our circumstances, but against that quiet voice that occasionally whispers, "This is as far as you can go."
And yet, there is always something that carries us forward.
Someone who believes in us when we have begun to doubt ourselves. An honest sentence that tells us not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. Sometimes that alone is enough to make us believe again that getting back up is worth it.
Perhaps nothing is truly impossible. Not because life is gentle with us, but because human beings are capable of far more than they can believe about themselves in their darkest moments.
Over the years, I have learned one thing with absolute certainty: the true victor is not the person who never falls, but the one who rises after every fall with the same faith still alive inside.
In the end, perhaps success is not the greatest victory of all. The greatest victory is refusing to lose faith in humanity—and in ourselves—even after everything we have lost.
There Are Words
There are words we cannot fill with meaning through sheer will.
We can say them, long for them, expect them, even demand them. Yet they will never come to life simply because we want them to.
Love is one of them.
You cannot decide that tomorrow you will fall in love. Nor can you expect someone else to fall in love with you. Love is not born of determination. One day it is simply there—or it isn't.
Trust is much the same. It takes years to build and sometimes only a single moment to break. You cannot tell someone, "Trust me," and expect trust to appear. It does not obey commands.
Respect cannot be forced either. Position, rank or authority may command obedience, but never respect. Respect is always given freely by another person.
Friendship is not a contract. It is not created by meeting every day, but by that quiet, almost indescribable feeling that allows us to be completely ourselves in someone else's presence.
Loyalty is not merely a promise. It is revealed when we choose to stand beside someone, even when no one is watching.
Forgiveness never arrives on command. We may tell ourselves a thousand times to "let it go," yet the soul follows its own path. Sometimes it succeeds. Sometimes it doesn't.
Faith is another curious word. It does not grow from evidence, but from an inner certainty that is difficult to explain to someone who has never felt it.
Hope cannot be prescribed. In the darkest moments it sometimes appears on its own, while at other times it remains absent even when every reason suggests it should be there.
Acceptance is no different. It does not begin the moment we decide it should. Even accepting ourselves often requires a long journey before, one day, we finally find peace with who we are.
Inspiration does not keep a calendar. We may sit down to write every morning, yet some sentences come into being only when they can no longer remain unspoken.
Perhaps happiness belongs to these words as well. The harder we chase it, the more often it slips away. Then, almost unnoticed, we discover it in the quiet of a morning coffee, the warmth of a handshake, a familiar melody, or the peace of an ordinary evening.
Perhaps the most important things in life are all like this. They cannot be possessed, demanded or hurried. We can only leave room for them, so that one day they may quietly come into being on their own.
The Touch
There is a quiet power in those touches that almost never happen.
When two people walk side by side and, for the briefest moment, their arms brush against each other. They neither seek it nor avoid it—it simply happens. Perhaps neither of them mentions it, yet both know it was there.
A brief embrace can be like that, too. Not long, not passionate, not possessive. Just a simple gesture carrying more trust than a thousand spoken words.
There are people we can touch with ease, and others we cannot reach, no matter how much time passes.
Because touch does not begin with the skin. It begins somewhere much deeper.
Perhaps there is another kind of touch as well.
When, miles apart, we reach for our phones at the very same moment. When the same thought crosses our minds within seconds, and we both decide to send a message. When, on a social media page, the other's name suddenly appears beneath a post—a simple "like" or a brief comment. From the outside, these moments seem insignificant. Inside us, they resonate quite differently.
It is not the message itself that touches us.
It is the quiet realization that someone was thinking of us at that very moment.
Perhaps that is why the deepest touch is not the one made by our hands, but the one that happens when two thoughts meet somewhere beyond the visible.
There is a third kind of touch.
One that needs neither closeness nor words.
The sudden scent that brings someone back to us. A melody we have not heard in years that returns with the very same feeling. A forgotten note slipping from the pages of an old book, and for a few seconds someone who may now be far away stands before us once again.
No one touches us then, and yet something deep within begins to move.
Perhaps that is the mystery of the human soul. Years later it can still recall a gesture, a glance, a half-smile, or an embrace that lasted only a few seconds, as if it had happened only yesterday.
In the end, we do not remember how many times someone touched us.
We remember those few moments when someone touched us deeply.
Nothing Special
Not long ago, an ordinary afternoon came back to me.
I don't know why it surfaced at that particular moment. Memories are strange things. They rarely appear when we want them to. They arrive when they choose.
If someone had asked me back then what we had done that day, I probably would have answered with a shrug:
Nothing special.
We talked for a while, then each of us drifted back into our own little world. I never felt we had to entertain each other or keep the conversation alive. It felt perfectly natural to share the same space while each of us remained quietly occupied with our own thoughts.
Later we set the table. It was a simple lunch, nothing festive, yet it tasted better than many elaborate meals I can remember. We ate, talked a little, fell silent from time to time. Afterwards there was some ice cream, followed by an iced coffee. It was the kind of afternoon you experience countless times in life, which is exactly why you never imagine it will become a memory worth keeping.
Later we went for a walk. We had nowhere to be. We stopped now and then, looked around, I took a few photographs, and eventually we made our way home.
As we walked, I found myself wondering why I felt so unusually content.
Nothing remarkable had happened.
There had been no profound conversation, no life-changing moment, no attempt to solve the world's problems.
We had simply spent a few hours together.
And then I understood something.
For a long time I believed that a good relationship meant constantly paying attention to each other. That there always had to be something to say, somewhere to go, something to do.
Today I see it differently.
I think one of the greatest gifts in any relationship is reaching the point where you no longer have to keep each other occupied just to enjoy being together.
There was a moment that afternoon when I simply watched the other person immersed in their own work. It felt good to see a life that was in order, a life built with patience and effort. It never crossed my mind to interrupt.
I was simply happy to witness it.
Perhaps this is one of love's quietest forms.
When you no longer need to fill every minute of someone else's day.
It is enough just to be there.
Enough to know they are well.
There are people with whom you are still together, even when they are not paying attention to you.
When I was younger, I believed love demanded attention.
Today, I think love gives freedom.
If someone asked me now what that afternoon was like, I would answer exactly what I felt back then.
Nothing special.
Traces
Not long ago, I found myself listening to an old song again. Not because I had missed it, but because somehow it found me. As I listened, I realized I was no longer paying attention to the lyrics themselves, but to what lay beneath them.
I used to believe that everything in life could be put into words. If you could explain something clearly enough, then you had already understood it. I believe that less and less these days. The moments that shape our lives are often the ones we struggle to describe.
How do you explain the feeling when someone looks at you in a way that later becomes an essay?
How do you describe a hug that leaves you at peace?
Or those rare moments when simply sitting together in silence feels complete?
The most important things in life rarely happen on the level of words. Words simply try to catch up with what the heart has already understood.
That was when I realized why this song had stayed with me. As I listened, even its title took on a different meaning. I Have Nothing no longer sounded like a statement of loss. It became a reminder that whatever we sincerely give to another person can never truly be taken away.
We spend our lives collecting things—money, possessions, achievements. We believe that this is what makes us richer. Yet sometimes an ordinary afternoon is worth more than the best business deal we have ever made.
You bring someone a slice of watermelon because you know it will make them smile. You share a simple meal. Later, you take a few photographs, hoping they might see themselves a little more kindly through your eyes. On your way home, it suddenly occurs to you that not once during the entire day did you wonder what you would receive in return. Because that was never the point. It simply felt good to give.
That was when I understood something.
Throughout our lives, we work to build more. We study, we work, we save, we build. We believe that this is how wealth is measured. But life follows a different rule. Everything that belongs only to us will one day remain behind—our home, our money, our possessions.
But when we give someone our time, our attention, our encouragement, or simply an afternoon that feels good to share, it no longer belongs only to us. It becomes part of someone else's life.
Years later, they may no longer remember what we said. They may not remember what we ate or where we walked. But they may remember what it felt like to be with us.
In the end, the measure of our lives will not be how much we had.
It will be how many lives became a little richer because we were part of them.
We Don’t Have to Be Closer
For a long time, I thought closeness was the natural consequence of love. If two people matter to each other, they seek each other out, want to spend a lot of time together, and always want to know what is happening in the other person’s life. They try to ease absence by moving closer, and uncertainty through constant presence.
I no longer believe that this is the only way.
Some people feel secure in a relationship when they spend a lot of time together. For others, security comes from both people being able to preserve their own lives, their own time, their own rhythm. Neither is necessarily deeper or more sincere than the other. We are simply different people, with different needs, different life experiences, and different boundaries.
The trouble begins when we try to understand a relationship not according to the needs of the two people living in it, but according to what we generally believe about love.
That if you love each other, you have to be together. If you miss someone, you have to seek them out. If there is an opportunity, you have to meet. And if a strong feeling appears between two people, sooner or later it must be given a name.
But that is not necessarily true.
Sometimes two people love each other very much, yet they do not want the same kind of relationship that others would consider natural. That does not make their feelings any less real.
Perhaps that is what makes it so difficult: there is no accepted script for it.
Love, for example, has a risky side. It pulls you closer, sets you free, stirs you up, and at the same time can lead you into decisions that later cannot be undone without consequences. Desire can be powerful, but it is not necessarily wise. Closeness can be beautiful, but it can also make it easy to cross boundaries.
That is why two people may give something up not because they do not desire each other, but precisely because what they do not want to put at risk means too much to them.
And this is where freedom becomes truly important.
Because freedom in love can sometimes be frightening. There is no foothold in it, no constant certainty. You do not know where the other person is every moment, what they are doing, what they are thinking. You cannot know for certain that they think of you in the same way when you are not together.
You can only trust the other person, and perhaps that is the hardest part.
The person who wants to possess needs certainty. The person who loves has to endure uncertainty.
But that does not mean everyone has to live in the same way.
Constant closeness gives many people a sense of security, while others need time apart. We do not all take the risks of love in the same way. Some people can feel whole while accepting those risks; others choose a relationship in which there is less danger and more security.
There is no universal recipe.
A relationship should not be judged from the outside, but lived from within. What matters is whether the two people in it can exist freely within it. Whether they can remain themselves alongside each other. Whether they can say no without punishing each other. Whether they can be close without taking away each other’s air.
Perhaps every relationship reaches a point when the question is no longer what we can get from each other, but what we can preserve in a way that allows us to preserve each other as well.
Just because two people love each other does not mean they have to want the same life.
It may become a shared life, a deep connection that remains between two separate lives, or a love affair. But it may also remain love precisely because two people consciously choose not to cross the boundary beyond which different rules would begin.
What determines the value of a relationship is not what it looks like from the outside. It is whether the two people living in it can remain themselves while belonging to each other.
Because sometimes we do not destroy love by giving too little of it, but by being unable to stop while there is still love left.
We Don’t Have to Be Closer
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I have a photograph of Edó that I took sometime two or three years before she died. For a long time, it was simply one picture among many. Then, not long ago, I zoomed in on it. Her face and eyes suddenly came so close to me, and I was almost overwhelmed by what I saw in them. She was looking at me, the person standing on the other side of the camera, in a way perhaps no one ever had before. She wasn't simply looking at me. Her eyes were filled with the love she felt for me. There was life in them, and in that moment everything else disappeared from the picture.
Since then, whenever I am in a bad mood, I often look at that photograph. Not because I want to turn back time. But because it reminds me of something a photograph can preserve in a surprisingly powerful way: the way someone looked at me.
And perhaps that is why another photograph came to mind. A smiling face, in which you could tell exactly where that smile was directed. At me. And suddenly I felt something that perhaps cannot really be put into words: how good it feels when someone doesn't simply look at you, but looks at you with genuine joy.
This picture stayed with me not because it brought an old story to mind. Quite the opposite: because in its own way, it showed me something new. A feeling that belonged to the present, and did not need any history behind it to matter.
It was as if the picture had preserved not simply the person I had photographed, but the moment in which something invisible had nevertheless become completely visible: that someone was glad that I was there.
Perhaps it isn't only our eyes that reveal us. A smile can do the same. It can be polite, habitual, a momentary gesture. But there are smiles from which we can tell exactly that someone isn't simply smiling, but smiling at us.
Perhaps that is why I find myself thinking more and more about the way people look at one another.
With our eyes, we say things we often cannot put into words ourselves. We can smile out of politeness, nod out of habit, and carefully choose every word we say. But the eyes are harder to deceive. Sometimes a single look reveals more of what we feel than a long conversation ever could.
Sometimes I see such long-carried pain in someone's eyes that there is no need to ask anything. At other times, what catches my attention is the absence of compassion. Such a person isn't interested in who you are, only in whether you fit the picture they have already created of you.
And there are looks that stay with you long after the moment has passed. Not because they were particularly beautiful. But because it rarely happens that someone looks at us as though they truly see us. And there are smiles that say the same thing without words.
Over the years, I have learned that I no longer remember most of my first impressions. But I do remember what someone's eyes were like. What I felt when they looked at me. And sometimes I remember a smile from which I could feel more clearly than from any words that someone was genuinely happy that I was there.
Perhaps that is why what stays with us is not how many people looked at us throughout our lives. It is the handful of looks and smiles from which we knew exactly what we meant to the person looking at us. There are moments that time cannot truly take away from us.
There are pictures we keep because they are beautiful. And there are pictures we keep because they remind us what it felt like to exist in someone's eyes – or to recognize in an honest, loving smile that we matter to someone.
Sometimes, You Just Have to Live
There comes a point in life when you get tired of trying to understand everything. Of figuring out what people think of you, why someone turned away from you, why things turned out the way they did, and above all, what you should have done differently. After a while, you stop needing an explanation for every decision you have made, and you stop handing other people the authority to measure your life for you. You understand that you cannot convince everyone, you cannot keep everyone, and not every loss comes with an answer that makes it hurt any less.
And perhaps that is exactly when something important happens: you stop explaining your life and finally start living it. Not perfectly, not flawlessly, not according to everyone else’s expectations, but in whatever way you are still capable of. Loving, laughing, sometimes doing stupid things, sometimes fucking things up badly, but living your own life. Because at some point the question is no longer whether we can explain everything. It is whether there is still enough life left in us to want to live it.
To love the people we love, and finally stop explaining why. To be grateful for what we have been given instead of constantly counting what is missing. To preserve within ourselves the things others have spent years trying to reshape, cut down, or make more acceptable. Not because we are right about everything, but because at some point we realize that you cannot live a life constantly editing yourself to please other people. And sometimes, yes, simply to lose your fucking mind a little. To laugh, listen to music, dance, let go, and not give a damn what anyone looking from the outside thinks about it. Because we were not given this life so that we could constantly stand outside ourselves and wonder whether we were doing it right.
Life is too short to spend it living inside other people’s expectations, only to realize at the end that somewhere along the way, we forgot to live our own life.
And perhaps one of the greatest forms of freedom is when we no longer need to prove that we are right. We do not need to convince everyone, and we do not need to win everyone over. We know whom we love, we know who matters to us, and we accept that we cannot live in agreement with everyone.
There will be people who throw us away, people who misunderstand us, and people who simply move on without us. But perhaps all a person really needs is someone who can still see in them something worth loving, even when they themselves have been unable to find it for quite some time.
I think that, in the end, what matters is not how many times we got it wrong, how many bad decisions we made, or how many people turned away from us. None of that can be undone anyway. What matters is what remains of the human being inside us after all of it. That we did not become more bitter, more cruel, less of ourselves. That we did not pass on the hurt that was done to us. Perhaps that is one of the hardest ways to remain a good person.
So that one day, when we look back, we do not see how desperately we tried to live up to the world, but remember the moments when we were truly alive. When we stopped calculating what was allowed, what was proper, what people would think of us, and simply allowed ourselves to be in the life we were living. We laughed, we loved, we made mistakes, sometimes we made complete fools of ourselves, and still we would never have traded those few genuine moments for a safe, perfectly edited life. Because it is possible to live a life in which almost every decision is sensible, every step carefully considered, and still reach the end with almost nothing left that we can honestly say: I truly lived that.
And perhaps that is what remains the most precious memory of all: that there was someone with whom we did not have to play a role, did not have to pretend to be better, stronger, or smarter than we actually were. Someone with whom we could laugh at the absurdities of the world, sometimes lose our minds a little, and simply be present. Someone with whom, for a while, we were not two separate people, but one soul. And when we truly look back one day, perhaps what matters most will not be how much we achieved, but who we were with during those moments when we were truly alive.
The Three Rabbits
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
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This time, a poem by another very important friend set my thoughts moving in a new direction. He gave me Sándor Reményik’s As Best We Can on one of the hardest days of my life, almost as a kind of guidance for the road ahead.
It came at a moment when I especially needed someone from outside to remind me that there are situations when the question is not whether it is easy to move forward, but how.
One line from the poem has taken on a life of its own around me ever since. It has become a kind of motto for everyone close to me. Something we can reach back to in difficult, sometimes almost hopeless situations. We often end the messages we write to one another with it. Not because we always know what comes next, but because we remind each other that somehow, we have to keep going.
As best we can.
I have often thought about what these two words really mean. At first, they could sound like words of resignation. As if they were saying: there is nothing else you can do, accept what you have been given and somehow get through it. But I don't think that is what they mean at all. They are not about surrendering to whatever life has handed us. They are about trying to do something even when very few options are left.
Because life rarely gives us situations that turn out exactly the way we would like. We don't always have to make decisions when we are ready. We don't always have to take a step when circumstances are on our side. And the road in front of us is not always one we would willingly have chosen.
Sometimes the only road left is the one that happens to be there.
But that is not the same as giving up.
To me, “as best we can” now means that we don't give up on what matters to us simply because we cannot make it happen perfectly. If we cannot take a big step, we take a small one. If we cannot preserve everything, we preserve what matters most. If we cannot say everything we want to say, we say what we still can. If we cannot save everything, we save whatever can still be saved. If we cannot put our whole life back in order, we put right the part that is still within our control.
There is an image in the poem that is particularly powerful to me: a tiny piece of land, almost nothing, and yet someone still cultivates it, protects it, and tries to create life there. At first, that may seem like very little. But perhaps that is exactly the point. It is not always about how much ground we have at our disposal, but what we do with what remains.
Perhaps this is one of life's hardest lessons: learning to tell the difference between what we truly have to give up and what we are only willing to abandon because it did not turn out the way we originally imagined.
We often think as if there were only two possibilities: either everything turns out the way we want, or there is no point in trying. If it cannot be perfect, we don't want it. If it cannot be the way we imagined, then we'd rather have nothing. And if we cannot change the whole situation, it is easy to tell ourselves that there is no point in doing anything at all.
But perhaps our real strength begins precisely when we can no longer solve everything. When there are no longer a hundred possibilities, only one step. When we cannot protect everyone, only the one person who matters right now. When we cannot save everything, only what can still be saved. It may seem like very little at first. But it is still more than nothing. Sometimes that is all it takes not to surrender completely to whatever is working against us.
That is why “as best we can” is not, to me, a sentence of defeat. It is the realization that we do not always decide what kind of situation we find ourselves in, but we can usually decide what we do with it. We may have far fewer options left than we would like. They may be damn few. But as long as there is something still in our hands, we still have something with which to move forward.
There are periods in life when there simply is no solution. We cannot erase what happened, we cannot undo it, and we cannot switch off the pain with a single gesture. What remains is to learn to live with it and decide what we are going to do with what is still left. Because sometimes the task is not to put our lives back in order, but to somehow build something new from what has fallen apart.
And sometimes even that is a lot. There are situations when we don't need some grand explanation, some neatly arranged lesson, and above all, we don't need to lie to ourselves that everything is going to be fine. Some things cannot be repaired. Some losses have no compensation, some wounds leave a mark, and some injustices never receive the redress we hoped for.
Perhaps that is why I love these two words so much. They promise nothing. They simply give us something to hold on to. They don't say that it will be easy. They say that even when it is damn hard, we still have to keep going.
You don't know how? Go the way you can.
You can't see the whole road? That's all right. Take the one step you can still take.
You can't put everything right? Put right whatever you still can.
As best you can.
And perhaps this is where I should thank those who have accompanied me in one way or another along the way. Those who are still beside me today, and those who, at some point, could no longer continue with me. Marika, Márta and Tamás, who in different ways have all done a great deal to give me the strength to keep going, even when I could not really see how. Tamás was the one who gave me this poem on the day when I needed it most. And there are people in my life who are no longer beside me today, yet I still carry within me what they gave me. They cannot simply be erased from a story because life has since taken us in different directions. What they gave me, I carried with me.
And there is someone whose support means a great deal to me today. Someone who is more than a friend to me. Perhaps there is no need to explain more precisely what she means to me. It is enough to say that she is here, and I know I can count on her. Sometimes it means an enormous amount simply to know that there is someone who will not let you completely forget that there is still a way forward.
I often think about how many situations there have been in my life when, in that particular moment, I thought: there is no way forward from here. And yet there was. Not the way I imagined it. Not beautifully, not easily, and often not at all the way I would have wanted. But there was. Somehow, there was always another step. Sometimes only one.
And perhaps later, when we look back, what matters will not be how perfectly we handled the difficult situations. It will be that we did not remain where life had forced us to our knees. That we got up when we could, and when we couldn't yet, at least we tried to get up. That we kept something of who we were, and perhaps managed to pass some of it on to someone else.
A thought, a love, a friendship. A sentence someone gave us precisely when we needed it most.
That is what Reményik's two words mean to me.
Not a promise, not a recipe. Not reassurance, but a hand on your shoulder when you can no longer see the road, knowing only that you cannot remain where you are.
And if there is nothing else, then take one step. If even that is too much, take half a step.
But forward.
As best we can.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
As Best We Can
A friend sent me a poem this time instead of a song. Zoltán Zelk’s The Three Rabbits, a poem many of us may remember from childhood, one that at first seems like nothing more than a sweet, playful story.
Yet reading it as an adult, I see something quite different in it.
Three rabbits are sitting in the forest when a magpie asks them what they are doing. They jokingly reply that they are going to eat fox meat. The magpie passes the story on, but by the time it reaches the fox, the three rabbits have already grown enormous in his imagination, complete with huge teeth and terrifying intentions. The fox runs away and tells the wolf, who sees even greater monsters in front of him. Then comes the bear, and finally even the hunter throws down his gun and runs. Meanwhile, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together on a bed made of blades of grass.
And that is where the story becomes truly interesting.
Because the three rabbits have not actually grown any bigger. No enormous teeth have appeared in their mouths, they have not turned into bloodthirsty predators, and they have not set out to devour anyone. It is the image others have created of them that keeps growing.
Perhaps this is one of the most human things about us: we keep enlarging whatever frightens us until it eventually bears very little resemblance to what is actually standing in front of us.
Until we face something, it has no real size. Our imagination fills in the uncertainty. And when we are afraid, imagination rarely works with moderation. A problem can easily become a danger, the danger becomes a threat, and the threat becomes something we feel we have to run from.
And that becomes especially dangerous when other people start adding their own versions.
A half-sentence, an assumption, an old bad experience, a little resentment, a little malice. By the time the information has passed through several people, no one knows exactly what happened anymore. Everyone has added something. In the end, a story is born that has taken on a life of its own.
And everyone believes it.
The fox believes the magpie. The wolf believes the fox. The bear believes the wolf. And the hunter believes the bear. Everyone is terrified of something that none of them has actually seen.
That may not be so far removed from our everyday lives.
How often are we afraid of a conversation before it has even happened? How often do we create an entire conflict in our heads and then walk into it as though we already know what is going to happen? How often do we imagine what the other person will say, how they will react, what they will do, when in reality we have not exchanged a single word with them?
And meanwhile, the whole thing has already happened in our heads.
We have already taken offense. We have already defended ourselves. We have already become angry. Sometimes we even have an argument in our minds with someone who has actually done nothing to us.
It has simply already happened in our heads.
Perhaps that is why the ending of the poem matters so much. While the fox, the wolf, the bear, and finally the hunter are all fleeing in terror from the three terrible monsters, the three rabbits are peacefully asleep in their little rabbit house, curled up together. They have no idea that outside, an enormous story, an enormous danger, and an enormous fear have been built around them.
The three rabbits are not chasing anyone. Others are chasing their own idea of the three rabbits.
And perhaps this is no longer only about fear. It is also about how easily we can turn another person into someone we no longer even need to meet. The image we have created of them is enough.
Someone tells us something about them. We believe it. We add our own experience. Someone else tells us their version. By the time the story is complete, the person at its center might not even recognize themselves in it.
And neither do we recognize them.
Many times we no longer see the person standing in front of us. We see the person we have assembled from our own fears, experiences, and other people’s words.
That is why sometimes it is worth stopping before we start running through our own forest. We should ask ourselves: do I actually know this, or have I only heard it? Did I see it, or did I imagine it? Did it really happen, or have I already played it out in my head?
Because it is one thing to face what actually happened, and quite another to struggle with something we have built inside our own minds. And perhaps that is the most dangerous part of it: after a while, we no longer see what the other person actually did. We see the person our own fears have turned them into.
Not every danger is real. Not every threat is as large as it appears. And not every monster is a monster.
Sometimes there are simply three rabbits sitting somewhere in the forest, peacefully curled up together, with no idea that the whole forest is already terrified of them.
Our Own Rhythm
Many years ago, there was an evening that did not seem particularly special at the time. Today, I remember it differently.
I brought her dinner. Fried turkey liver, red onion, bread. I also bought some ice cream. I knew she would be happy about it. By then, I knew her well enough to know what she liked, and how she liked certain things. We ate, we talked, and we finished the ice cream. It was good to be together.
Then I got up and left.
Not because I was in a hurry. Not because I was tired of being there. I would have been happy to stay longer. Perhaps that is exactly why I remember it.
Back then, I did not yet understand that sometimes the question is not how much you want to be with someone, but how well you can accept that they have a life of their own, a life in which you are not part of every moment.
When I was younger, I would have found that harder to understand. If someone was important to me, it seemed natural to want to be closer to them. I wanted more time, more things to do together, more conversations. Somehow, I saw closeness as proof. If we were there beside each other, then everything was all right.
Later, I understood that it does not always work that way.
Some relationships become deep precisely because neither person wants to occupy the other person's entire life.
Not every silence needs to be broken. We do not have to share every day. We do not need to know what the other person is thinking, what they are doing, or how they spend their evening without us. We all need hours and days that belong only to us.
And accepting that is much harder than saying it.
Because freedom in love can sometimes be frightening. There is no handrail, no constant certainty. You cannot know every moment where the other person is, what they are doing, or what they are thinking. You cannot make sure that they are thinking of you in exactly the same way when you are not together.
All you can do is trust.
Perhaps that is exactly what separates love from possession. Possession wants certainty. Love can live with not knowing everything.
I could not have put it into words that way back then. I only knew that it had been good to be with her that evening, and when there was no longer any reason for me to stay, I got up and went home.
Today I know there was more in that simple gesture than I realized at the time.
Not every leaving means moving away.
Sometimes you leave because you know the other person needs to continue living their own life. You do not want your presence to fill the spaces that belong to them. And you do not step back because they mean less to you, but because you no longer want to prove your love by simply being there.
For a long time, I thought that if I loved someone, I had to be closer to them. Today I know that there is a kind of closeness in which we sometimes remain close precisely by allowing the other person to live.
That evening I went home, and she continued with her own evening. At the time, I took it for granted. It was only years later that I understood that perhaps this was the important part: I did not have to stay in order to know that I had left her in a good place.
Shared Time, Through a Screen
There is a strange kind of snobbery around television series. When someone says they spend their evenings watching a series, people are quick to ask why they do not read a book instead. As if time spent in front of a television is only acceptable when we are learning something serious. I no longer believe that.
Not because every series is good. There is plenty of rubbish being made, and there are stories that, after a few episodes, you would gladly forget. But that does not mean the medium itself is worthless. In fact, sometimes a series can give two people more than a very serious book can. Not because it is better than the book, but because it is something they share.
There is a mother and her daughter who live far apart from each other. Both are highly intelligent, educated, thoughtful people. And they have their own little ritual. They watch two series, not the same one, but two different stories, one after the other. Then they talk about them.
It is not one of those quick conversations where you simply ask, “So, was it good?” They analyze everything. Why did a character do what they did? Which character does each of them like? Who seems more sympathetic? Who is lying? Who is going to be disappointed? What might happen in the next episode? And, of course, they often disagree. One sees something completely differently from the other.
And perhaps that is the best part.
They do not have to see the same thing. They only have to watch the same story. Then they talk.
And this is where it becomes really interesting to me. You can say that it is just two television series, two made-up stories, a few actors, a few twists, a little evening entertainment. But when two people who cannot simply sit down beside each other watch something at roughly the same time, then call each other and spend an hour talking about what they have seen, I do not think it is really about the series anymore.
It is about each other.
The series simply creates the occasion.
And this is what those who look down on television series often fail to understand. We do not always need something important or profound in order to connect with another person. Sometimes all we need is a story we can share.
Because it would be difficult to call someone out of nowhere and say, “So, shall we talk for an hour?” But it is much easier to ask, “What do you think? Why did she do that?” And that is enough. The conversation has already begun.
From there, they can argue, make predictions, laugh, get annoyed, tell each other, “Come on, you can’t seriously think that.” And without even noticing, they may end up talking about much more. About how each of them sees people, what they consider betrayal, what they can forgive, whom they are rooting for, whom they cannot stand, and what decision they would have made in the other person’s place.
A good story does not only show us what is happening inside the story. It also reveals something about the person watching it.
Perhaps that is why the same character can seem sympathetic to one person and unbearable to another. The character has not changed. We are simply looking from a different place. And in the process, we get to know each other.
That is why I no longer think we need to take everything quite so seriously when we talk about culture. Not everything of value has to belong in a museum. Not every meaningful conversation has to begin with a philosophy book.
A series can also be a bridge between two people.
In fact, sometimes it works precisely because there is nothing solemn about it. You do not have to prepare for it, you do not have to be clever, and you do not have to tell the other person that you are about to have an important conversation. You simply watch something. Then you call each other, and you talk.
Perhaps that is why these small shared rituals matter so much in life. We tend to think that relationships are held together by the big moments, birthdays, trips together, important conversations, important decisions. But perhaps they are held together much more by the things that seem insignificant: the series you watch only with that person, the song you send only to them, the photograph you know they will understand, or the little remark that nobody else would laugh at, but they would. This is what togetherness is made of.
And sometimes you do not even have to be in the same room to be together. It is enough that you are watching the same story, at roughly the same time, and then the phone rings, and you already know what you are going to talk about. Someone might say, “It is only television.” I would say no, it is two people’s shared time. The screen is simply there between them, just as the distance is, but the evening still belongs to them.
And perhaps, in the end, it does not really matter what series they watched, how good the story was, or who turned out to be right about what would happen in the next episode. What matters is that there were two people watching the same thing, then calling each other, with something to talk about. Because sometimes that is enough to make two people who live far apart feel, for a little while, a little closer to each other.
Not Everything Has to Be Had
For a long time, I thought that when something really mattered to you, you naturally wanted a little more of it. If you loved someone, you wanted to be closer to them. If being with them felt good, you wanted to stay a little longer. If someone gave you something beautiful, it was easy to start wondering whether there could be more of it. Why not? If something is already good, why would we stop?
Maybe that is exactly where we sometimes fuck things up. Because not everything good comes into our lives so that we can take it as far as it will go. Some things can only be preserved by refusing to push them further. And that is fucking hard to accept, because when something matters deeply to us, it is easy to believe that if it does not become more, then somehow it has become less.
But maybe the problem is not that we are getting less. Maybe we have simply reached a point where we know that if we go any further, we are putting something at risk that we really do not want to lose.
There is a kind of closeness where the question is not whether we can get even closer, but whether we should. There are relationships that could become something else, perhaps even something more, without necessarily becoming something better. And there are moments when two people know exactly what they want and still say: not this time.
Not because we do not want it. But because we have enough sense to not fuck up something that already means a hell of a lot to us.
That is fucking hard.
Because when something very strong happens between two people, it is easy to believe that the feeling itself gives us the right to do anything with it. If we love each other, then why not? If we miss each other, why not move closer? If there is a door standing open in front of us, why not walk through it?
Maybe because not every door life opens for us is meant to be walked through.
Some things are shown to us so that we can find out whether we are capable of stopping before them.
For a long time, I thought self-discipline meant giving up something we wanted. Today I think it can mean something quite different. Sometimes self-discipline is simply refusing to ruin something that is already good. Not wanting more just because more is possible. Not putting something important at risk for the sake of a moment of desire or curiosity.
Because there are things we do not need to have completely in order for them to mean a great deal to us.
An embrace can be complete without anything having to follow it. A day spent together can be whole without having to make it last longer. A relationship can be deep even if we do not insist on naming it, defining it, and playing out the script that other people consider natural.
And perhaps that is the difficult part. There is no ready-made rule.
There is no point where someone standing outside the relationship can tell us: this far is fine, but from here on, no. Two people have to feel for themselves what is still building something and what might already threaten what they do not want to lose.
That is not cowardice. Quite the opposite.
Sometimes it is much easier to give in to what we feel than to stop and say: we are not doing this now. Not because we do not want to. But precisely because we want it too much, and we know that we could risk more than we would gain.
We tend to believe that every great feeling has to be fulfilled. As if the story ends when everything two people could possibly do with each other has happened. But maybe that is not where the story ends. Maybe that is where something else begins: the realization that what we are capable of giving each other does not necessarily have to be possessed.
There are relationships that are not valuable because we got everything we could out of them, but because we knew how to take care of what was given to us.
And sometimes that asks more of us than simply following our desires.
Because wanting is easy. Moving closer is easy. Saying, “Let’s see what happens,” is easy.
Stopping is much harder.
Saying: this is good. Let’s not ruin it.
That is one of the hardest things two people can learn beside each other: that not everything needs to become more. Not every feeling has to be intensified. Not every kind of closeness has to be taken one step further.
Sometimes the very thing that allows us to preserve something is that we do not try to possess it.
And perhaps one day we will look back on this, and what matters will not be what we did not yet do with each other. What will matter is that there was a point where we were able to stop. We knew that beyond that point, it would no longer be more, but something different. And we also knew that whatever makes us so important to each other was not something we wanted to fuck up with one wrong move.
Not everything has to be had. Sometimes what matters is that two people arrive at the same point and are able to say together: we are not going any further from here. Not because we want less from each other, but because we know that what we have already experienced matters more than whatever we might gain by putting it at risk. And perhaps that is exactly where some of its strange strength comes from. We did not miss out on something. We preserved something.
And maybe later it will not matter what might have happened next. What will matter is that there was something the two of us considered more important than pushing it any further. It did not require some grand statement, only the simple recognition that we both felt the same thing: let’s leave it like this for now. This is good for us.
When Someone Gets Further Than We Do
I have a friend who is away from me at the moment, but she left something behind. A film experience we shared at least ten times, and a line from one of the songs that she sang in the elevator the last time, with such pleasure that it made you want to sing along with her. Lovers in the night.
The film still comes back to me from time to time, but these days it is not really because of the story itself. It is because there is a question in it that I think sooner or later many of us come across. What happens when we help someone get started, believe in them, support them, see things in them that they cannot yet see in themselves, and then suddenly realize that they have gone further than we have?
In theory, we should be happy about it. And of course we are. It is just that people do not always see things that simply.
As long as the other person needs us, it is easy to be generous. It feels good to help, to feel important, to hear that what we said, what we gave, what we did actually mattered. Then one day they stop asking. They go their own way. And they may even start moving faster than we do.
That is when things get interesting.
Because that is when we find out whether we really wanted what was best for them, or whether we simply enjoyed being needed.
I think this happens in many more places than we like to admit. Between a parent and a child, a teacher and a student, a boss and a younger colleague, in friendships, and sometimes even between two people who have simply been walking the same road for a long time. One helped the other, and then the other started moving upward.
At that point, we are supposed to say how proud we are. But there is often a small, uncomfortable feeling inside us that we would rather not admit. Why them? Why not me? Or maybe just: Jesus, when did they get this good?
That alone does not make us bad people. We have feelings like that. The question is what we do with them. We start minimizing the other person's success, explaining that they were lucky, that they happened to be in the right place at the right time, that they had too much help, or we simply act as if it is not such a big deal.
And at the same time, the other person's success can show us, rather uncomfortably, where we are. What we did not do, what we missed, what we were afraid of, where we stopped. That is not always easy to look at. It is easier to say that they were luckier than to face the possibility that perhaps we could have gone further too.
But if we really helped someone because we wanted them to become better, then at some point we have to be able to live with the fact that they are no longer behind us. They may be beside us, they may be ahead of us. And after a while, they may not need us to show them the way at all.
That does not make us smaller. It simply means they have become bigger.
In the film, this problem goes all the way to the extreme. It is no longer simply about one person becoming more successful than another. Love, dependence, talent, self-worth and self-destruction become so tangled together that the story ends in tragedy. Fortunately, real life does not have to go that far for the same question to arise.
Sometimes all that happens is that someone we once supported starts earning more than we do. They achieve more, become better known, more confident. They move among people we no longer have access to. And that is when we may find out whether we are genuinely happy for them.
From there, the story becomes about something else too. Sometimes we cause pain to someone we love precisely because we want to decide for them what would be best. We convince ourselves that we know what they need, what they can handle, what they would have to lose to make things easier for us. But the other person may choose something completely different. Maybe we are not trying to save them at all. Maybe we simply do not dare leave the decision in their hands.
Love also means not making the decision for the other person. We stay as long as we can, accept ourselves as we are, and let them say for themselves what they want to do with us.
That is why A Star Is Born no longer feels to me like simply a great love story. It is also a story about how difficult it can be to live with another person's light when our own seems to be fading.
And all of us may find ourselves at some point in a situation where someone we helped, supported and were proud of suddenly gets further than we do.
We can react badly. It hurts that they succeeded. We can become jealous. For a moment, we may even find ourselves wishing they were not quite so successful. We are not saints, and we do not have to pretend to be. Somehow, though, we have to get to the point where we swallow that and can be happy for them.
And eventually we reach the point where we stop looking at where they stand compared with us, and instead look at what they have done, where they have got to, and think: Jesus, they really did it.
We do not always have to be the better one, the more important one or the more experienced one. If we really did something to help them get there, then we have some part in it too. We do not have to tell everyone about it, and we certainly do not have to prove that they could never have done it without us. It is enough to know that once, when they needed us, we were there.
Maybe one of the biggest things we can do for someone is simply not to hold them back. Let them go, even if it hurts a little that we are no longer travelling the same road. And when they eventually get ahead of us, we do not have to explain why we are behind them. We can just look at them and think: Jesus, they really have gone further. And somewhere in that, we have a small part too.
We do not always have to be the ones out in front. Sometimes it is a pretty big thing simply to be able to be happy that someone we once helped set on their way eventually got further than we did.
Before I get completely serious about all of this, I have to return to the film and that particular song. There are many great songs in the film, but for me those few words have stayed with me most of all, the way someone very close to me sang them in the elevator the last time: Lovers in the night. It was not really the line itself that was special, but the melody, her voice, and the simple pleasure with which she sang it. Maybe that is why it stayed with me. A film, a song, half a minute caught in an elevator, and her voice. Sometimes that is enough to make a moment stay with us for a long time.
What You Can No Longer Unsee
There are things we know not because we became smarter, but because at some point we saw them from too close.
I learned many things not from books. I learned them on the street, at night, in bars, among people, in situations where there wasn’t always time to first think through what was happening in theory. I learned, as someone who was actually out there, in the field, that there are things you’re better off paying attention to.
For a long time, I thought caution was simply a personality trait. Some people are careful, some aren’t. Some look to see who is behind them in the stairwell, and some open the door and simply walk in. Some look around when they enter a hotel room, while others drop their bag on the bed and that’s it.
I know now that it isn’t that simple.
There are things that make you look at the world differently.
If you’ve seen a girl drugged with GHB, or GINA, in a bar, you don’t necessarily look at a girl who appears drunk the way everyone else does. You know she might not be drunk. You know there are people waiting for someone to lose focus for just a moment. And you also know that violence often begins long before everyone else recognizes it as violence.
After a while, you learn to notice certain things.
A stairwell, for example, isn’t always just a stairwell to me. I know how someone can be followed home. I’m not talking about some movie-style chase. It’s much simpler than that. They wait until someone reaches the entrance, let them open the door, and then follow them in. The person either looks back or doesn’t. The follower simply walks in behind them. From there, a very different story can begin.
This isn’t paranoia. It happens.
And when you’re worried about someone for whom this world is unfamiliar, it can be fucking hard to pretend you don’t know what you know.
Someone goes home at night, opens the stairwell door and walks in. Meanwhile, I’m looking to see whether there’s someone behind them.
They may already be thinking about what they’re going to do when they get home. I’m thinking about who was walking behind them on the street.
Not because I think there’s danger waiting on every corner. But because I know that sometimes there really is.
And that’s a fucking different thing.
She doesn’t know the world in which you notice certain things before you even consciously think about them. Not because she knows less about life. She knows entirely different things about it. Things I often find myself struggling to keep up with.
It’s just that my life included places and people she has, thankfully, never had to encounter.
And sometimes I wish I never had either.
Because there’s a strange price to seeing too much. You can’t look at certain situations in quite the same way anymore.
A hotel room, for example, isn’t always just a hotel room to me. When I walk in, sometimes the first thing I do is check the bathroom. The bathtub too. To make sure it isn’t filled with ice.
I know that from the outside this might seem sick or ridiculous. It doesn’t to me. There are simply things you can’t erase from yourself once you’ve learned them.
And perhaps that is one of the strangest things about life: some experiences don’t make you wiser. They make you more alert. They don’t make you better people. They simply teach you that there are things you can’t afford not to notice.
And meanwhile, there is someone I love, and sometimes I fucking worry about her.
Not because I think she is weak. Not at all. Sometimes I simply feel that she doesn’t notice what I see as danger because she has never had a reason to learn how.
That’s when the worst instinct in us kicks in: we want to protect the other person from everything.
We want to warn them. Tell them what to do. Look behind you. Lock the door. Don’t go there. Don’t trust him. Wait for me.
But the other person can’t live their life with us noticing every danger for them.
And perhaps that is the harder part of my own story. I have to learn to separate what I actually know from what my fears are telling me. Just because I know what certain people are capable of doesn’t mean I have to look for the worst in everyone.
But when someone matters to you, that’s fucking hard.
Because when you love someone, it’s easy to slip into wanting to stay alert for them too. To spot the danger before they do, to look behind them, to deal with every piece of shit before it ever reaches them. And at the same time, we have to know that we can’t always be there.
So it isn’t my job to teach her to be afraid.
It’s to make sure that if she ever does get frightened, she knows who she can call.
Because in the end, the point isn’t for us to see the world in exactly the same way. We couldn’t. Sometimes I notice things I would rather not notice at all. And sometimes she moves through that same world without looking for something behind every corner.
Because I can no longer not see what I once learned to see. I know what to watch for, and there are situations where I still automatically look back. And yet she lives in this same world and somehow still manages to see it as something wonderful. Not because she doesn’t know there are fucking dark things in it. She simply refuses to let those things define everything she sees.
And sometimes I look back for her.
I don’t know how useful that is. But I do know that since I’ve known her, I look ahead a little differently.
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