We tend to believe that everything has already been said about the fundamental facts of life – we think we know all there is to know: birth, love, life, death. Until the moment we experience them ourselves, until they touch us personally. Then we realize that there are no exact words for the deeply individual, unique experience that we are. Only clichés remain, and they fail to express what we truly go through.
Because what remains are images, sounds, touch, scent – we live through everything with our entire body, not just our consciousness. But how can the body be described or expressed? The feeling is inside; the skin, the flesh do not speak, do not show anything on the surface.
Adrienn Józan went through something. She reached a boundary from which she was still able to turn back – or be turned back. She survived.
She also tried to find words, but ultimately, it was the images that mattered. They are the ones that can convey something of the full bodily and emotional suffering, the chilling experience of being close to death. And when we get that close, it’s almost as if we experience it from the inside – we are inside it. Coming back from there is like being born again. Everything seems a little different afterward – including ourselves. Every experience becomes a new window into who we are, or who we might become.
Adrienn Józan, like a strange butterfly, has transformed and re-emerged. One summer disappeared, but all the others returned.