I remember last year, on this day, the same day, I day-dreamed on the morning subway, that lots and lots of cranes flying surrounded me, circled me as a warm and strong hug. We were beneath a mountain valley, with translucent moist floating in the air. The sky felt very near to us, as if it is touchable when rising an arm. I was immersed in a rarely-sensed and otherworldly calamity. In that very moment, I was convinced everything would become better or beyond what I wished in the end.

One year later, 1st of March again. As again being surprised by how fast time passes, I ask myself, what have happened in the last twelve months? What has changed and what keeps same. I remember I had lots of doubts in last year, to my self and to the world, to everything in the adulthood. To the way people behave, interact, connect, inter-influene. Yesterday when I watched the French film Le hérisson the second time, I was amazed by how the little girl and the Japanese gentleman reached out to dear Renée. They knocked her heart open through books, through reciting the lines from Anna Karenina. They built up the more-precious-than-any-relationship friendship and mutual affection with bricks of unconditional, unusual kindness, love, trust, and appreciation. I sensed an almost nostalgic feeling watching this part, since I used to be like that. Paying attention to little, tiny traces of mutual interest, and secretly sending out friendship signals through all kinds of ways: hand-written letters, little gifts, lots of smiles. And the only reason I did this when I was ‘little’ was simply ‘I like this person, I would like to know him/her’.

More and more rare does this world give me the chance to do this now. It seems more and more people in my current life are masked, shielded, under sort of self-protection, voluntarily or involuntarily, I wouldn’t be able to know. Or sometimes, they just disappear very fast without leaving a trace.

The little protagonist in Le hérisson has lots of questions, philosophical ones, about the meaning of life and death, the nature of human. She sets herself against the rest of her family, as they ‘know’ too much. They are too certain about things. They never ‘think’. They never doubt. Unlike Renée and the Japanese gentleman who both have scars in their deep hearts, memories of lost love buried in their past, and therefore they continue their lives with a reverence and respect to the unknown. In contrast, the little girl’s parents and elder sister try their best pretending a perfect state, yet this wellness is only on the surface, with inside already in erosion.

I have much less doubts now compared to one year ago. I feel more certain about many things. More confident about many things. I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing. Maybe it is just a temporary stage, after years-long floating I could finally land a bit and have a rest. Maybe only when one gets stronger she starts to miss the past vulnerability.