I thought about my plan to walk 238.979 steps in a circle. The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling I should walk my circles on Theaterplatz (instead of walking in the Goethe park where I will leave visual traces because I will wear down a circle in the earth). There are a number of reasons for this change of plan. The overall reason is that it will become multi-layered. Encompassing more than just a number and a circle.
Some thoughts:
1. Theaterplatz is where all the tourists walk up and down, repeating what every tourist does in every city, gather around the main square, take photos and say "ah" and "oh" and "look at that". I will do the opposite of what they do.
2. There is something even more obsessive in walking without leaving traces. In fact I do leave traces, I do wear out minuscule bits of the pavement (think about old church steps where people walked up and down for centuries and how the steps get hollowed out, everybody took part in that, everybody did in fact leave a visual trace but this only became visible after thousands and thousands of people did the same thing, made the same movements). And why would I want to leave visual traces? The action is about me walking, about me making 238.979 steps, not about the proof I leave of it (like there is no real proof of many things that happened in history, in a way there is nothing left of the 238.979 people that stayed in Buchenwald)
3. The statues of Schiller and Goethe are in the middle of Theaterplatz. If I walk my 6.300 circles, I will walk around them 6.300 times. It could almost be seen as a sort of pilgrimage: it reminds me of muslims walking around the Kabaa. Although they walk around it "only" seven times, it takes a long time to prepare for the Hadj pilgrimage and when once a year 6 million pilgrims gather to all walk these seven circles, it isn't an easy task. (I'm currently reading Ilja Trojanow's "Pilgrimage to Mekka". The German writer isn't a muslim but prepares for a year for the Hadj and writes about this process in his book.) But it won't be a pilgrimage. Or if it is, it won't be about honouring those two great man. Will it be about encircling their heritage with my interpretation of the current world? (I'll think about this). I will be more like a fly, circling around their heads. Seemingly unimportant.
4. Goethe was quite a walker himself. I don't know about Schiller. Maybe I should look into Goethe's walking. Last week I was in Stützerbach where Goethe liked to walk when he was in Ilmenau.
Questions:
a. Does the number 238.979 still makes sense? I think it does althought sometimes I'm wondering about it.
b. Do I need a preparation like pilgrims do? Is it enough to walk my "exercise walks" (at least once a week I walk the number of days I'm old on that day and take a photo of the place I end up after having walked fourteen thousand and something steps)?
If you want to take a look at all my posts concerning this project (including some maps of my exercise walks), click on the label "walking" (in the column on the right at the bottom)
