Chess Clock Ticking: Preserving My Chess Youth

Preface from the year 2022

Recently, I have come to the realization that the thing that I am most afraid of might be forgetting. Such fear might explain why I have always been trying to preserve every little detail of my life, both good and bad. I guess that the obsession of remembering led to the issue of having too much going on in my head all the time.

Therefore, translating my 2019 essay from Czech to English could be viewed as purely egotistical and otherwise pointless. I just needed to unburden myself while going through an emotionally turbulent moment. However, it may also be my attempt to share one of the most important parts of my life with an ever-increasing number of friends and aquaintances who are not familiar with it or speak other languages. Last but not least, I hope that a few of you who will actually read it, might enjoy it and perhaps even see something of your own in it even though I am referring to people and events that you know nothing about. After all, this is the story of how meaningful chess can be for someone's life.

Chess clock ticking: Preserving my chess youth

The names and addresses of the others in my little book are fading. The color and quality of the ink combine to make those entries look as if they were written fifty or seventy-five years before the others I’ve jotted in there. (...) I suppose I could preserve them; I could just keep copying them. But I’m also convinced that each would fade in its turn, and that very soon it would become an exercise in futility – like writing ‘I will not throw spit-balls in class five hundred times’. I would be writing names that meant nothing for a reason I didn’t remember. Let it go, let it go. – Stephen King, It

Forgetting

Even as a child, I enjoyed getting lost in the past and dreaming of what had or might have been. Maybe I was doing it in order to run away from shadows of the present and fogginess of the future, which was filling me with dread. I might also have been taught to appreciate remembering by my parents and grandparents who share similar traits with me. Drawers back at home are overflowing with old photos, objects and documents. After the digital revolution had come, computer memory was quickly filled with them as well. Perhaps it was something else entirely what led me to create the photo albums dedicated to the golden period of chess in Vlašim, particularly my deeply personal feelings associated with the game. Undoubtedly, all of the above mentioned reasons must have contributed somehow to my fervour to preserve the recollections of the things that were.

Echoes of the past (SOURCE: Patrik Pýcha)

I consider my interest in collecting pieces of the past and putting them together very important. Time has become so astonishingly fast that we seem unable to realize anymore how much we tend to forget – events, places and people. We fail to recall even those who used to matter a great deal to us just yesterday. Of course we do not forget completely. However, the past grows ever more blurred. Facial features lose their shape, places and dates become a net not to be disentangled. All of it is transported into a countless amount of boxes, stored in depths of our mind. As soon as something ends, we carry it on inside, it may even exert influence on us, yet we are usually not aware of its existence at all. In order for the piece of memory to go back up to consciousness, we need a little push, for instance an old photograph.

A blurred memory (SOURCE: Jiří Mejzlík)

Remembering

“Tell me a story, all right?” – “What kind of story?” – “Something from your day. From today. It could be the most ordinary thing. That would be better, actually. The most ordinary event you can think of.” – Michael Cunningham, the Hours

Although I have actually never been such a great fan of Karel Gott, I have neither listened to his songs on a regular basis nor have I been too interested in him generally, his passing away left me with a feeling as if the whole era came to an end. It was a turning point. The loud crash of colliding Earth templates was replaced temporarily by complete silence.

Then I was suddenly flooded with memories connected to the best week of summer holiday, one of the best weeks of the year - our summer camp in Růžená, chess, the cottages at the edge of the forest and shouting that was supposed to resemble singing. At first, we did it during the night game in order not to be scared. Soon it became a tradition. Forever young became our anthem. We would sing about how the time is running its marathon and shout about the jeans from Tuzex. That is something that we never forgot to add.

https://youtu.be/iy19qNYjOis?si=E9TvoJOiIuzJ53gh

Eventually, something incredible happened. Messages came rushing to my screen from people who I had not seen for months or even years. Vague faces from the glowing windows of the social networks attained sharp contours once again and they were shining as bright as in those times when we had all been standing in front of the cottages by the wobbly railing, straining our vocal cords and laughing like crazy. There was also another memory - the water dam in Seč, four fools jumping in the rain, mouthwash and the warmth of pure happiness after several months of terror.

Such is the strength of associations. A little stimulus can cause a chain reaction. So the title song from Titanic teleports me to the valley under the jumping hills, to the town of Harrachov where several friendships were born in front of the screen where the ship had just crashed into an iceberg. Another time, the memories of the tournament in Janské Lázně emerge from the taste of hazelnut wafers and I can almost smell both the confectionery near the local spa and the dank room in Bukový háj where we used to be staying. Last but not least, whenever I stand on the balcony, my face being whipped by the frozen wind, I travel by train to Kouty nad Desnou and watch the mountain peaks where the pool is hidden on the roof of the world.

Being young (SOURCE: Petra Tobišková)

Returning

The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life left it. The long night seemed to have set in; the trifling airs, nibbling, the clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had rusted and the mat decayed. – Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

In May of 2019, chess led me to Janské Lázně after a four-year gap. As soon as my feet touched the mountain ground, a familiar picture materialised before my eyes. There was a group of chess players hanging around in front of the guesthouse. Some of them were holding a glass of beer and pouring the golden fluid into their throat, while others were playing with a cigarette between their fingers, every now and then lifting it up to their mouth and then blowing out little puffs of smoke. Some people were able to do both at the same time. Furthermore, if you looked a little bit to the side, you would notice an old house on the hill. It was still standing there, an indestructible building, with its bars in the cellar windows, dusty carpets, falling plaster and guests, which also included ants besides people. Anywhere else, we would have certainly complained about the quality of the place. However, that was not the case here since Bukový háj seemed to be enchanted with a dense atmosphere of nostalgia.

Soon, the comforting feeling of serenity is disrupted by the awakening in the present time. Something is different. The pond has disappeared. There are trees missing on the slope. The scary palace, where we would take group photos every year, has been torn down. But the most disquieting realization is that, out of the group of six childhood friends who almost destroyed the house on the hill during our stupid games eight years ago, I am the only one remaining here. Others do not participate anymore. In hindsight, one must be puzzled by our naivety. Back then the present moment engulfed us completely. We were convinced that the tournament in Janské Lázně would withstand the onslaught of time, that everything would stay exactly the same and that we would be returning there to fool around till the end of our days. We thought that, during that one week at the start of May, we would remain children forever, in spite of time rushing relentlessly forward everywhere around us. But time is ruthless and it plunged quickly towards adulthood. I am so sorry that I do not know you anymore. I know only the children that we used to be.

An old house (SOURCE: Patrik Pýcha)

Ticking

There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. – Michael Cunningham, the Hours

Until recently, I thought that time was moving more slowly in the chess world than in the real world. The motif of distinct temporalities, which is very popular in literary fiction or in movies, does not appear, in a certain sense, to be so far-fetched in the reality either. However, I had to adjust my view after returning from Janské Lázně as too many things had changed too rapidly. Time perception seems very relative and variable. That is also valid for chess. In any case, there was a period in my life when the chess clock was really ticking at a much calmer pace.

When I transferred to the grammar school seven years ago, my life accelerated extremely, it became unpredictable and started resembling the roller coaster ride. The chess world then became an anchor, defiantly sitting at the bottom of the sea, and a lifebuoy, resisting increasing waves. It was the place of stability and immutability, from which my strongest friendships arose to help me get through the process of coming out. I am saying without exaggeration that chess saved my life.

A memory of happiness (SOURCE: Jaroslav Pýcha)

Living

“Do you remember the lake?” she said, in an abrupt voice, under the pressure of an emotion which caught her heart, made the muscles of her throat stiff, and contracted her lips in a spasm as she said 'lake.' For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents, and at the same time a grown woman coming to her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them grew larger and larger in her arms until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, “This is what I have made of it! This!” - Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“Why do you always do this?” someone asks me annoyed time to time while I am running around and taking photos with my camera. The question conjures up the memory of a little and anxious child, standing in the doorway, which leads to one of the classrooms in his primary school. The boy is uttering the following memorable words: “Mr. Mejzlík, I will be going to the club, but I will never take part in any tournament!”

https://youtu.be/9eWewdTkghM?si=9i7i4jgGSA-DAMpR

The time machine is set in motion.

I am chasing my sister Nela up one of the streets in Vlašim. I need to overtake her if I want to sit in the comfortable armchair during our chess training with Maťa. The loser will have to settle for an ordinary and hard chair.

The hands on the clock are moving back and forth.

Rain is pouring down from the sky. Martin and I are riding the bikes. Our bodies are shivering with cold but it is an exhilarating feeling of lightness and freedom. We are racing forward, faster and faster.

Tick-tock.

The windows are wide open and the room is filling with the cold air. Jirka is fed up with our provocations and he is refusing to close them again. Vojta and I just shrug and decide to go to sleep, dressed in winter jackets.

The clock is striking another hour.

As soon as I take my clothes off, get into the tub, which is not equipped with any curtain, and turn on the water, the door into the bathroom flies open. This is one of the Robin’s favourite jokes. “Close the door, you moron!” I am shouting at him but laughing is the only answer that I get.

Time is flowing.

The nerve-wracking match against the team of Frýdek-Místek ends in a draw. We are the champions of the Czech Republic. I do not recall when I was so happy last time.

Time is rushing.

I am sitting next to Kačka on the grass and we are watching the sunset together. There are children laughing in the background.

Time is spiraling.

It is autumn. The forest is full of colours. The perimeter walls of the castle ruin rise from piles of fallen leaves. The group of children is looking at Petr, who is triumphantly lifting his first box found during geocaching above his head.

Time is breaking apart.

It is my first weekend tournament. We are on a trip to the rocks of Český ráj. I am calling home. “It is so dangerous here!” I am scaring my mum on the phone.

Boom! The stream of memories is interrupted.

The spiral of time (SOURCE: Karel Jukl)

“What did chess give you?” someone asks me time to time. “My life.”

Patrik Pýcha