Performance

Performance //carry out, accomplish or fulfil (an action, task or function)//, Definitions from Oxford Languages 

We invented languages so that our brains can communicate thoughts. We invented the arts to fix deeper ideas in time. Our stories are atomic and hearts nuclei. Tiny and many but the energy of their interaction is powerful.

I met Aleksandra Janiak (Ola) a few years ago. She had just moved to Chamonix in search of somewhere to belong and a mutual friend introduced us to each other. We exchanged pleasantries and went skiing and climbing once or twice but quickly realised that our paths and goals differed. Ola, was looking for subjects for her photography and film reportages. Her vision was to empower women in becoming strong mountain athletes.  I on the other hand was aiming to become a mountain guide. I was also into extreme adventures and if, for example, I felt like soloing the Matterhorn’s loose Hornli Ridge, I did.  Therefore, I was of the opinion that strength per definition requires self-sufficiency and that portraying privileged, albeit brave, people as examples of success is self-indulgence. Probably each of us felt that she was the one down to earth.

We bumped into each other again at the time, but did not make an effort to go further with the acquaintance. It was not until several years later that we reconnected. By then, I had failed to become a mountain guide. This was after I had received an impactful phone call from my mum one day. Crying, she told me that my brother had lost his only kidney to cancer. The same day, I decided that I won’t apply for the guide scheme and that from then on I will restrain from risky escapades. I wanted to donate one of my kidneys to my brother, it only made sense to lower the statistics of anything happening to me in the mountains. What mattered now was different. I no longer could live only for myself.

Ola, in the meanwhile, had made it from what I heard. She produced films about inspiring women in Chamonix. The films were sponsored and presented at festivals. As a result, she was constantly busy and difficult to get hold of. Now more than before, I thought she would not be interested in meeting me, but I was looking for someone to climb with that day. Above all, I was looking to connect with people again. I had been hiding from the World for several months.

The cold December day was clear and I knew the sun would be heating the rock in places of the Arve Valley. I wanted to feel that warmth and wanted to share it with someone.  I asked Ola if she might be interested. To my surprise, she was.

As promised, Ola came to pick me up. She arrived in her colourful second-hand car and met me with a smile that seemed to ignore all the frost that covered the ground around us. We drove down from Chamonix towards the Arve Valley where thick clouds had descended to isolate us from the sun. Ola’s enthusiasm seemed now dampened by doubts, still, she drove on bravely despite it, trusting my judgement of the conditions. In this mist, she started an open conversation about her recent success “You know, people approach me and think I can give them a job” she confided. In reality, she was not making enough on her assignments to keep her sustained through the year. Although her filmmaking had taken her to amazing locations and she was being recognised, she still had to pick up small jobs. As a consequence she was considering finding regular work, which meant she would have to give up creative independent art for a while.

Alexandra’s work as a photographer and filmmaker has taken her to some amazing locations:

I was meeting her struggles at the other end of the spectrum.
A geophysicist by profession and working with the booming renewables industry, I was not struggling to make a living but rather to justify to the world my discovered interest in philosophy and the need to write and create artistic content instead. In truth, even after I learned to put a name to it, I felt like a dropout in comparison to the hard-core alpinist that my friends and I had come to associate ourselves with.

We drove higher up the road and out of the clouds. Here the sunlight was outlining sharply everything around us. Any patches of icy ground were shining now. Our conversation started sparkling too. What if we could create something together? We reached the car park, where we left the car, and started walking in the direction of the cliffs which were approachable from above. After a little wander off in a thick forest, we reached the edge of the cliffs and found the descent path. The exposure here was heart-stopping.

Yet, inevitable scepticism soon followed. One that must have troubled humans since the beginning of civilisations. Is there a place for this fancy to express in the urgent times of now, where the future of the human race feels at stake due to environmental and humanitarian crises?  All the more on a scene like Chamonix, where sports and parties provide a ready escape from higher existential questions.  Any further reasoning felt overwhelming.

This is when my friend Ben and his huge, blue-eyed, dog Rocco joined us. Ben had just escaped duties and was eager to send some routes. In fact he too once wanted to become a guide but fell while topping out the North Face of the Eiger and shattered his foot. Although, he fully recovered, the healing process gave him plenty of time to return to his favorite passion which was music. He still sends 8a boulder problems on good days, but what sparks his own blue eyes is creating and performing rock songs. The three of us climbed more routes and exchanged views on films and music. Ben was brave with his visions. I liked spending time around him.  Even so, it seemed like the feeling of unrealistic dreams remained in the air between me and Ola. We set off home as the fading warmth of the distant sun reminded us that it was still winter.

A few days after, I had to leave for a month to work at sea. My job mainly focused on mapping the seafloor and the subsea geological layers that a team of engineer reached and registered using sound waves. After 12-hour shifts I would find a quiet corner and as the rolling swell gently swayed the boat I was free to explore even more remote lands. Ones that could be reached through a different type of energy. Ola and I exchanged long emails about art that would progressively gain practical ground as much as fresh originality. Meanwhile Ben would send me samples of his and other people’s mixes and compositions. Music I’d never heard before that crossed a wide range of genres and multi-instrumental layers of sounds. I listened and absorbed. I wondered if the musicians that created hard-core punk ever thought there will be an alpinist floating in a boat assimilating with their music!

In one of Ola’s emails, she sent me contribution guidelines for a climbing magazine. I read “Describe what happened. If nothing happened then there is no story.” I started scanning the last few months. Sure a lot had happened, we skied and climbed, but I hesitate to find one that is charged with enough meaning. Then just before my work stint at sea finished, I received another important call from my mum. She was crying again but those were tears of joy. She told me that my brother was admitted to the hospital that morning and had a donated kidney transplanted. He had surprised us all. Not wanting to impact my life, and without telling anyone, he had enlisted on a deceased donors waiting list. Shortly after, someone passed away and their kidney was found to be a match for my brother. For all our happiness there was a rain of tears somewhere else from a different family. The line of life is this thin.

On returning home to Chamonix, I met again with Ola and Ben. This time for a climbing session at the Meddonet Boulders up the southern side of Arve Valley. The forest here was awaking from its winter sleep to play with the sunlight. The trees filtered it, the florescence moss absorbed it and the leaves rusted from its particles.  Ola had brought her camera as usual. While I struggled to climb the steep rough granite arrets, and Ben danced his way up them, she captured this search for the equilibrium between force and grace. The calm around us amplified our laughs and Rocco joined in with his woofs. We caught up with each other’s lives and Ben invited us to his next gig. He now played with his band “Man in the Shack” at several venues and had a modest but growing group of fans that was starting to reach beyond the circle of closest friends.  Meanwhile Ola most recently got enthusiastic about DJing! Maybe for now, maybe for longer.  “I am actually not sure what I want to do next” she explained but her eyes look soft and relaxed. In my heart, I know she will be just fine.

As for me, I was now truly free. I understood that I only used the goal of becoming a mountain guide to justify my love for climbing. In truth, all I wanted was to be in tune with my aliveness. I needed no more excuses to express it but now in a more harmonious way, without harsh sacrifices. Finally, I found myself, in safer climbing, writing and even picked up drawing. More than that, I reconnected with my community.

I smiled as I realised that this is our gentle story the story of extra ordinary people.

Fulfilment is like a butterfly you cannot catch it alive by violently clasping your hands.

BEN PLAYING WITH HIS BAND -MAN IN THE SHACK