MAŠA OGRIZEK: "ZVEČER MI JE KAR ZVONILO V UŠESIH OD UTRUJENOSTI"

INTERVJU Z MAŠO OGRIZEK O NJENEM FIZIČNEM DELU NA KMETIJI

Read the English translation of the interview below.

Maša Ogrizek je filozofinja, pisateljica, novinarka in oseba, ki zna prevetriti zatohlost naših plotov in mimogrede odpihniti trdožive predsodke. Taka je tudi njena uspešnica, knjiga Gospa s klobukom, ki govori o dami, ki se na pozna leta z nalezljivim optimizmom poda na pot v neznano in jo za pogum in za zaupanje življenje nagradi za polnim košem daril: napetih dogodivščin, srečnih naključij, dobre družbe, prijateljstva in smeha. Podobnih maksim pa se Maša drži tudi sama, čeprav ji kot samozaposleni v kulturi in mami dveh mladostnikov, nič ne priplava po »župi«, njeno ustvarjanje pa je en sam tek čez ovire. Prepričana sem, da bo Maša  s svojo filozofijo nekoč še zelo slavna, ne samo doma, ampak tudi v svetu. A do tedaj so pred njo drugačni izzivi.

Maša, kako si se ti spopadala s časom korone?

Po naravi sem optimističen človek. A lani so se mi zares spodmaknila tla pod nogami. Ni šlo za strah pred virusom, bolj za nekakšen eksistencialen zdrs. Kar naenkrat mi je umanjkal smisel. V vse sem dvomila. Tudi v smiselnost kulture, ustvarjanja, tudi lastnega. Obenem me je davila tudi eksistenčna stiska. Sem mama samohranilka. Kot dolgotrajno samozaposlena v kulturi sem sicer že prilagojena na življenje iz rok v usta, a lani sem naenkrat ostala brez vseh virov zaslužka. In zdelo se mi je, da takšno stanje lahko traja v nedogled.

Kateri motivi so bili odločilni, da si se kot pisateljica javila za fizično delo na kmetiji?

Kot rečeno, delno je bil to način spopadanja z eksistencialno tesnobo. Delno je bila nuja zaslužiti denar zase in otroka. Delno je bila tudi terapija, ker sem se razšla s partnerjem, s katerim sva bila skupaj zadnjih pet let, in se nisem želela valjati po lastni žalosti. Za poziv takratne ministrice za kmetijstvo mi je povedal prijatelj. Intuitivno se mi je to v tistem trenutku zdela prava stvar zame. Prijavila sem se in izkazalo se je, da je v Ljubljani na seznamu le ena kmetija. Na mojo srečo je pol ure vožnje s kolesom oddaljena od mojega doma, torej dosegljiva tudi meni, saj nimam izpita za avto.   

Kako so te sprejeli sezonski delavci na kmetiji in kmetje? Kaj te je pri njih najbolj presenetilo?

Na kmetijo sem poklicala sredi aprila, po enem mesecu karantene, ki se mi je zdel neskončen. Oglasil se je mlajši moški glas. Povedala sem, da nimam izkušenj s tovrstnim delom in da sem sicer mladinska pisateljica. Rekel je, naj vseeno pridem, pa bomo videli. Ko sem vprašala kdaj, je rekel, da kar isti dan po kosilu, »ko se ženske usedejo« in trebijo solato in podobno. Mislim, da me je prav ta formulacija dokončno prepričala, da sem zares prišla. Nekaj arhaičnega je v njej. In arhetipskega. Moje sodelavke so bile zares v večini ženske, večinoma nekoliko starejše od mene, Bošnjakinje. Imele so celo paleto karakterjev, a skoraj vse so divje kadile in preklinjale. Veliko je bilo smeha. In tovarištva, solidarnosti. To me je najbolj očaralo. Mnoge od njih se vrsto let vračajo na to kmetijo, zaradi česar so bile – v nasprotju z mano - izkušene in hitre. Kadar sem zaostajala, so mi vedno priskočile na pomoč. Bile so tudi zelo tople. Vse so me klicale 'Mašo moja', kar me je prav pobožalo, saj sem bila kot rečeno čustveno podrta. Veliko je bilo tudi smeha, robate zafrkancije. Včasih tudi kakšna solza. Spomnim se, kako mi je enkrat najlepša in najmlajša med njimi, mlada Senada, rekla: 'Maša, zaslužiš ti bolje. A i ja.' Ko sem sedela v zadnjem delu kombija, vsa umazana, mi je šlo na jok. Mislila sem si: 'Madona, kje sem pristala!' A le za hip. Prevladovalo je čudenje, raziskovanje, uživanje v odkrivanju novega. Malo sem se počutila kot antropologinja, ki opravlja teren z udeležbo.

Kar pa se tiče kmetov: predvsem smo bili zares sramotno slabo plačani – 3,5 eura na uro. A vsak dan smo dobili super malice in kosilo, ki so ga večinoma skuhale sezonske delavke in je bilo krasno. Pogosto nam je domača hči celo spekla torto. To se morda sliši banalno, a mene je takrat grabil delno iracionalen strah, da bomo z otrokoma lačni, zato me je to pomirjalo. Pogosto so mi dali domači tudi hrano za domov. A veliko preveč je bilo nadzora in skoraj nič avtonomije pri delu. Včasih tudi podcenjujoč, nespoštljiv odnos, predvsem do Bošnjakinj. To me je zelo motilo.  

Kako pa si jih doživljala sama, mislim predvsem v družbenem smislu?

Kot rečeno so si bile karakterno precej različne. A gledano sociološko so en razred – sezonske fizične delavke, tujke. Natančno se spominjam trenutka, ko sem skočila v kombi skupaj z njimi, ker smo se peljale na bolj oddaljeno njivo. Ker je deževalo, smo bile v dežnih pelerinah in s škornji, umazane od blata. In  v trenutku sem vedela, kako smo videti od zunaj. Kako gledajo na nas. Kako sem tudi sama – čeprav naj ne bi imela predsodkov – gledala na »njih«. Ti predsodki so obojestranski. One pa za nas Slovence mislijo, da samo delamo. Problem je – pri obojih – pomanjkanje realne izkušnje, stika. A to je spet povezano s tem, da živijo, ko so tu, zelo izolirano življenje, saj cele dneve, razen nedelj, delajo. In potem se vrnejo domov. No, nekaj od njih je prišlo za možmi, gre za t.i. spajanje družin. Lansko pomlad je bilo prav ganljivo gledati, kako je naraščalo domotožje. Zaradi zaprtih meja se niso mogle vrniti domov. Z vsakim dnem, ko smo po kosilu pile kavo, so bolj naglas poslušale svojo glasbo na mobitelih. Ko so se maja le odprle meje, je ena od njih snemala črte na asfaltu, ko se je ponoči vozila proti domu. In še meni so stopile solze v oči.

Večinoma so to ženske med 50 in 60 let, nekatere vdove, nekatere že v pokoju ali brezposelne … Ali pa zelo mlade ženske, malo pod ali nad dvajset. Skratka, ženske, ki še nimajo otrok ali pa so ti že odrasli. Ob takem delavniku drugače ne gre. S tem delom si zaslužijo dodaten denar, a večina od njih ima v Bosni urejeno življenje, lastne hiše, ne gre za socialni rob. A tu v Ljubljani je težko. Najemnine so visoke. Večina jih je živela skupaj v eni hiši, kjer je imela vsaka svojo mini sobico.

Kakšna spoznanja ti je prinesla ta izkušnja? Katere so po tvojem mnenju prednosti fizičnega dela na kmetiji?

Izkušnja je bila zelo intenzivna, celo radikalna. Povsem izven risa vseh mojih dotedanjih izkušenj - do lani namreč še nikoli nisem fizično delala. In res sem delala! Začenjali smo vsak dan ob šesti uri zjutraj, tudi ob sobotah. Pogosto sem se vračala pozno zvečer, včasih celo ponoči, po enajsti uri. Zvečer mi je kar zvonilo v ušesih od utrujenosti. Tako intenzivno sem delala le en mesec.

Na lastno presenečenje sem spoznala, da mi fizično delo, tudi težko, dobro dene. Predvsem pa delo na prostem! Stran od računalnika in sedenja. Čutila sem, kako mi oživlja telo. Kot bi se olistalo! Presenetilo me je, da precej zdržim. Ojačale so moje mišice, volja, tudi (samo)disciplina. Vse našteto – z izjemo mišic – mi pride zelo prav tudi pri pisanju. Delo se mi je zdelo lepo. Sočasno z mano je prišel – in ostal precej dlje kot jaz – super tridesetletni fant, ki je v času, ko sva delala skupaj na kmetiji, magistriral iz filozofije. Strinjala sva se, da ni naključje, da sva od Slovencev najdlje ostala prav filozofa. Seveda je bil honorar slab. A obema je bilo všeč delo na prostem. In obema se je delo zdelo visoko smiselno. Konec koncev smo proizvajali osnovno dobrino: hrano. In to zdravo! Jaz sem pomislila na Marxov koncept neodtujenega dela, saj sem sama izkusila vse člene v naši proizvodni verigi – od sajenja, pletja njiv, pobiranja zelenjave in njenega čiščenja do prodaje na trgu. Medtem ko sva z ramo ob rami metala sadike v stroj za sajenje, sva se strinjala, da veliko raje počneva to, kot da bi pisala slogane v marketinških agencijah, s čimer sva oba imela nekaj izkušenj. Omenjeni kolega se je letos preselil iz centra Ljubljane na enega od okoliških hribov, kjer ima vrt in kokoši, načrtuje še nakup koz. 

Pomemben aspekt te izkušnje je bil, da je bila tako radikalno drugačna od vsega meni poznanega. Doživljala sem jo kot rušenje obstoječe rutine. To se mi zdi pri umetniškem ustvarjanju nujno – vsaj občasno. Čeprav gre za na videz banalne stvari - da vstajaš ob štirih ali petih zjutraj, se pelješ skozi zaradi karantene opustelo mesto, kjer srečaš lisico, pereš solato v odsluženi kadi ipd. – s tem poka otrdela skorja vsakdana. Spet imaš živo jedro, ostre oči. Da ne govorim o tem, da spoznaš ljudi, ki jih sicer nikoli ne bi. Vse to se nekam skladišči in potem zajemaš pri pisanju ali drugem ustvarjanju. Hermetično življenje se mi zdi za ustvarjalca pogubno.   

Kaj pa slabosti?

Če delaš tako intenzivno, se ti svet zelo skrči. En mesec je obstajala le kmetija, le delo. Enostavno ni bilo časa in energije za ostalo. To se mi zdi zelo nevarno. Videla sem, da določeni ljudje enostavno nimajo časa za kulturo. Si ga ne vzamejo. To so res paralelni svetovi.

A gledano v celoti, bi izkušnjo vendarle ocenila kot pozitivno. Kot rečeno sem ob začetku pandemije dvomila v smiselnost kulture. Natančno se spominjam, kako smo avgusta – ko sem se za nekaj mesecev ponovno vrnila na isto kmetijo – cel dan sadili solato na zares neskončnih njivah. Vztrajali smo celo v noč, ko se ni nič več videlo, in smo sadile v soju traktorskih luči. Jaz sem bila edina bosa, ker mi je bilo krasno čutiti od sonca razgreto zemljo pod nogami. Ostalim se je to zdelo malce čudaško. Naenkrat sem dvignila pogled in zagledala luno in bližajoče se nevihtne oblake. Navdušeno sem jo pokazala kolegicam, a ni nobena niti trznila. Takrat sem se zavedla, da drugače precejamo realnost. In da umetniki to lepoto, ki jo zaznamo v svetu, nato polagamo v svoje knjige, slike, filme, glasbo … V tistem hipu se mi je povrnila vera v smiselnost (lastnega) ustvarjanja.

To pomlad si se vrnila na kmetijo, kajne?

Letošnjo zimo sem – tudi zaradi vnovične karantene – v veliki meri preživela za računalnikom. In februarja, ko se je začela prebujati pomlad, sem začutila, da si želim ponovno 'pisarno brez strehe'. Eden od motivov je bil tudi tokrat honorar, ki je letos k sreči občutno višji, saj delam na drugi kmetiji oz. vrtnariji. V ta namen sem si odprla tudi popoldanski s.p., za katerega samozaposlenim v kulturi ni potrebno plačevati prispevkov.

Meni takšna kombinacija ustreza. Težko je početi oboje vzporedno, saj sem pogosto preutrujena, da bi pisala in težko je preklapljati možgane. A če oboje počneš izmenjaje, je to krasna kombinacija. Vsaj zame. Med fizičnim delom velikokrat dobim super ideje. Pobiranje motovilca, medtem ko v bližini cveti magnolija, in njivo prečka maček, vse naokoli pa se oglašajo ptiči, je denimo zame meditativna izkušnja. Obenem me razpira in osredišča, kar sta zame nujna pogoja za ustvarjanje.

Maša pa je svojo izkušnjo pretočila v esej ZEN IN POBIRANJE REDKVIC, ki so ga 23. junija 2020 objavili v reviji Literatura in ga lahko preberete tu:

 Zen in pobiranje redkvic • www.ludliteratura.si

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MAŠA OF THE SNACK: "IN THE EVENING, IT JUST RANG IN MY EARS FROM FATIGUE"

INTERVIEW WITH WRITTER & PHILOSOPH MASA KOZJEK ABOUT HER PHYSICAL WORK ON THE FARM

Alenka Sottler

Masa Ogrizek is a philosopher, writer, journalist, and person who can air the stuffiness inside our fences and casually blow away persistent prejudices. So is her bestseller The Lady with a Hat, a book about an elderly lady who embarks on a summer journey with infectious optimism. Life rewards her courage and trustful plunge into the unknown with a full basket of gifts: intense adventures, happy coincidences, good company, friendship, and laughter. Maša herself sticks to maxims like that, even though, as a self-employed in culture and mother of two adolescents, nothing comes from nothing to her, and her creative achievements are a continuous running over obstacles. I am sure that Maša, due to her philosophy, will eventually achieve great fame, not only at home, but also in the world. But until then, she must cope with quite different challenges.

Maša, how did you deal with the time of the corona?

I am an optimist by nature. But last year, the ground really slipped under my feet. It was not about the fear of the virus, it was more an existential slip. Suddenly, everything became meaningless. I doubted everything. Even the meaningfulness of culture, creative efforts, even my own. At the same time, I was strangled by existential distress. I am a single mom. As a long-term self-employed person in culture, I was naturally already adjusted to hand-to-mouth life, but last year I suddenly lost all my sources of earnings. And I thought this situation could last forever.

What were the motives that made you, a writer, to search physical work on a farm?

In part, as I already said, it was a way of coping with existential anxiety. It was partly a necessity, the need to earn money for myself and the children. It was also a kind of self-therapy after breaking up with my partner of the last five years; I did not want to lose myself in grief. A friend told me about the public call for helping hands on farms by the then Agriculture Minister. Intuitively, I thought it to be the right thing for me at that moment. I applied and it turned out that there was only one farm on the list in Ljubljana. I was able to apply for the job, as this farm was only half an hour’s bike-ride away from my home, which was especially important as I do not drive a car.

How did seasonal farm workers and farmers accept you? What surprised you the most?

I called the farm in mid-April, after a month of quarantine, which I thought was endless. A younger male voice received the call. I said that I have no experience in this kind of work and that I am otherwise a writer of literature for the young. He said come anyway, and we will see. When I asked when, he said that on the same day after lunch, "when women sit down" and they eat salad and stuff. I think it was this formulation that finally convinced me to really go there. There was something archaic in it. And archetypal. My co-workers were in fact mostly women, most of them slightly older than me, of Bosnian descent. They were a whole range of characters, but almost all of them smoked and cursed wildly. There was a lot of laughter. And camaraderie, solidarity. That is what fascinated me the most. Many of them have been returning to this farm for many years, which has made them – unlike me – experienced and fast. When I fell behind in work, they always came to my rescue. They were also very warm. They all called me ‘Maša, my dear,’ which really petted me, being, as already said, emotionally depressed. There was also a lot of laughter, a lot of teasing, sometimes quite rough jokes. Occasionally there was a tear or two. I remember how the prettiest and youngest of them, the girl Senada, once said to me: “Maša, you deserve better. Oh, yes.” When I was sitting in the back of the van, all dirty, I felt like crying. I thought, ‘Oh my God, where did I land!’ But just for a second. The prevailing feeling was one of enjoying discovering new aspects of life. I felt a little bit like an anthropologist doing the field work by participating.

As for the farm owner: above all, we were truly shamefully poorly paid – EUR 3.5 an hour. But every day we got great snacks and lunch, mostly cooked by seasonal workers, and it was great. Often, the farmer’s daughter even baked us a cake. That may sound trivial, but I was then experiencing a partially irrational fear that my children and I were going to be hungry, so it soothed me. They often gave me food to take home. But there was far too much control and almost no autonomy at work. Sometimes even an under-inspiring, disrespectful attitude, especially to the Bosnian women and girls. That really bothered me.

How did you experience these women yourself; I mean in a social sense?

As I said, they were vastly different persons. But sociologically, they all represented one class – seasonal physical workers, foreign workers. I remember exactly the moment I jumped into the van with them on the occasion we were to be driven to another, a more remote field. As it was raining, we were all wearing rain cloaks and mud-stained boots. And in an instant, I knew what we looked like from the outside. The way the farm people looked at us. How I too – even though I was not supposed to have prejudices – looked at "them". These prejudices are mutual. And as regards us, the Slovenians, “they” think that we do not think of anything but work. The problem is – on both sides – the lack of real experience, of contact. But it cannot be seen properly without considering that while here, they lead a very isolated life, because they work all days except Sundays. And then, after the seasonal work, they go home. Well, some of them had come following the men, in the so-called family coupling. Last spring, it was quite touching to watch their homesickness grow. They could not go home because of the closed borders. When we drank coffee after lunch, they listened to their music on their cell phones each day more loudly than the previous day. When the borders finally opened in May, one of them showed us the lines on the asphalt she had filmed as she drove home at night. And even I could not stop tears coming to my eyes.

Most women were aged between 50 and 60 years, some were widows, some already retired or unemployed ... Or they were young, just girls under or over twenty. In short, women who do not have children yet or who have grown-up children. No other women would be able to work on such a day-to-day and week-to-week schedule. Their goal was to earn some extra money, most of them having a settled life in Bosnia, their own houses, they were not from the social edge. But here, in Ljubljana where rents are high life is hard for them. Most of them lived together in one house, each of them having her own tiny room.

What insights has this experience brought you? What do you think are the advantages of physical farm work?

The experience was very intense, even radical. Completely without any connection with anything I had experienced till then – I had never done manual work until last year. And it really was working! We started every day at 6:00 a.m., even on Saturdays. I used to come back late at in the evening, sometimes even at night, after 11 p.m. On such occasions I experienced ringing in the ears due to tiredness. Fortunately, I had to work so hard only for a month.

To my own surprise, I realized that manual labour, even when you work so hard, makes you feel good. Working outdoors being especially beneficial! Being away from the computer and not having to sit in a chair all the time. I could feel new life coming to my body. It felt like my body were bursting into leaves! I was surprised how much I was able to work. My muscles became stronger, and so did my will, even my ability of (self)discipline. All the above – except for muscles – now helps me a lot with writing. I felt this manual labour to be a fine job. fine young man of thirty, a post-graduate student of philosophy, came to the farm at the same time– and stayed much longer than I did During the time we worked together on this farm, he received his master’s degree. We agreed that it was no coincidence that of all the Slovenes who had come to work on the farm we, the two philosophers remained longest., The fee was bad, of course. But we both loved working outdoors. And for both of us, the work made a lot of sense. After all, we produced a basic commodity: food. And good food at that! I thought about Marx's concept of un-alienated labour, while personally experiencing all the stages in our production chain – from planting, weeding, picking vegetables and cleaning them, up to selling them at the market. While we worked shoulder to shoulder throwing seedlings into the planting machine, we agreed that we'd much rather do this than write slogans in marketing agencies, which we both had some experience with. This colleague has left the centre of Ljubljana this year and moved to one of the surrounding hills. He now has a garden there and hens, he also plans to buy goats.

An important aspect of this experience was that it was so radically different from everything I knew. I experienced it as a demolition of an existing routine. In the case of artistic creation this seems to me to be necessary– at least occasionally. Although it's a seemingly banal thing – getting up at four or five in the morning, driving through a quarantine-ravaged, deserted city, meeting a fox on the road, washing salad in a tub which had served its time, etc. – it cracks the hardened crust of everyday life. You get a newly live core, you become sharp-eyed again. Not to mention meeting people you would never meet otherwise. All this gets stored somewhere, and then retained during writing or another creative process. I find hermetical life disastrous for the creator.

What about the weaknesses?

If you work so intensely, your world shrinks a lot. For a month, there was only the farm, just work, nothing else existed. There was simply no time and energy for the rest. I think this kind of existence to be extremely dangerous. I have seen why certain people just don't have time for culture. They do not take their time. Their world and the world of culture are parallel worlds.

But overall, I would judge the experience as positive. As I said, at the beginning of the pandemic, I questioned the viability of culture. I remember exactly how in August – when I returned to the same farm for a few months – we planted salad day after day, in truly endless fields. All day, even after sunset, in the darkness of the night when we planted salad by the light of tractor headlamps. I was the only one working barefoot. For me, it was great to feel the sun-warmed earth under my feet. The others thought it was a little weird. Once I suddenly raised my gaze and saw the moon and the approaching storm clouds. I pointed up enthusiastically to my colleagues, but none of them even winced. That was the moment when I realized that our minds differently filter reality. I realized that artists perceive this beauty of the world around us and then put it in their books, pictures, movies, music ... At that moment I regained my faith that (my own) creative work has sense and is meaningful.

You went back to the farm this spring, didn't you?

This winter, also due to re-quarantine, I spent much of my time at the computer. And in February, when spring began to wake up, I felt a strong desire for an "office without a roof." Again, one of the motives was the need for an income. I now work on another farm, at a gardening facility to be precise, and thankfully I am paid significantly better than I was at the last year’s farm. To this end, I also registered as a part-time sole trader. For the self-employed in culture this registration does not result in financial obligations to the authorities.

This combination suits me well. Although it is difficult to harmonize the routine of manual labour with creative work as two parallels of my life because I am often too tired to write, and it is hard to switch between the mental processes. But if done in succession and not parallelly, it is a great combination. At least for me. I often get great ideas during manual labour. Picking up lamb’s lettuce while a magnolia was in bloom nearby, and a cat crossed the field, and the birds were singing all around, for example, was a meditative experience. Such an experience makes me opened out and focussed simultaneously, for me two necessary preconditions to be creative.

Maša has streamed her experience into the essay ZEN AND PICKING THE RADISHES, which were published in the journal Literature on 23 June 2020

Zen in pobiranje redkvic • www.ludliteratura.si