Love a la Instagram

He woke up suddenly...startled. That fact alone shocked him. He was not the kind of guy to respond to fear, nor were there a lot of things in the world that scared him. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room. "His girl" was sleeping soundlessly next to him, her fine blond locks in disarray on the pillow. The bedroom was quiet and calm...except for a very quiet crackling, like a small fire, that he noted on the side of the bed closest to him. He turned his head to find a large, deep red, glowing sphere floating in the air next to the bed. It was the color of the last rays of sunset -  blood red, burnt orange, deep purple...it hovered next to him and changed in size slightly with each movement. It made no noise to speak of but it's surface crackled and popped like pop rocks mixed with soda. Nothing about the orb seemed sinister...it simply was. 

Curiosity peaked, he got up to examine it closer. As he reached for it, the sphere moved away, as if refusing his touch. In order to figure out this strange phenomenon infringing on the peace of his slumber V decided to think logically - what hovered before him could not have been a figment of his imagination. True, his headaches have gotten worse with each new concussion, and sometimes he could not see anything at all unless the team physician thrust his hands into a bucket of ice to shock his system into performing til the game was over, but hallucinations were never a symptom he experienced. This could not be the result of a hangover - he did celebrate the start of the summer with quite a few sleepless, drug-filled nights but has since returned to his meticulously clean lifestyle and daily training in order to ensure that next season he would be a vital force on the team. He took no medications, did not smoke...no, nothing could explain this mini "sun." Wide awake he walked past the sphere to the kitchen. Strangely the sphere did not immediately follow. It slowly floated into the bathroom and came very close to his grooming kit...perhaps looking for something. It circled around the room to the side of the bed with "his girl" and lingered for a few seconds next to her. It flew into the closet and slowly hovered around his suits, examining, searching...perhaps remembering. It finally met him in the kitchen where V, not witnessing the strange trajectory of the orb, was busy making coffee. As he stared past the sphere and mindlessly drank he suddenly understood what this was. That fucking piece of shit Instagram VR love note!!!! Fan-fucking-tastic.

It all started out innocently enough. After acquiring 6G many social media platforms were able to expand their reach to unimaginable distances and advance their technology to create phenomena only described in sci fi novels. Emojis became live and floated from one user to the next; likes and dislikes were hovering around influencers like a swarm of bees; adorable, albeit annoying, puppies and kittens filled the streets as they rushed from sender to receiver to send a paw print or a lick.
Then came the ability to send people notes through the air which opened on contact and disappeared as soon as they were read. True DIRECT messages. Dating was never the same!

All of this was building up to the crown jewel - the ability to not only send someone a love note but to do it in such a way as to actually show them, and the world, exactly HOW much and HOW deeply you love them. IG made it possible to actually SHOW your feelings. The rollout was huge, of course. An initially nervous public embraced the idea of sending these spheres to "safe" targets - parents flooded the world with pastel pink and blue balloons that flew towards their children and upon touch exploded in gold confetti and fizzed in small bubbles making more than one baby giggle in absolute joy. Older parents were able to send somewhat stern looking spheres of love to their college grads and career warriors - these seemed to be smaller and slightly aggressive, in that they pushed themselves into the receiver in order to break apart and disappear. "I love you, but call me." "Don't disappear for a month again, I miss you." Then sports and celebrity fans discovered the power of sending LOVE to their icons. Every big sporting event was inundated with spheres made of team colors, every movie premiere an explosion of rainbow spheres from admirers of movie stars and directors. And V, being slightly famous in his field, received a good share of these...black and gold from fans of the team, a couple blue grey and green from family, a handful of small funny ones from kids who look up to him.

...and, unfortunately, quite a few from girls he conveniently forgot to call after a night or two of his usual fun. You wouldn't call these little planets "love" though...perhaps they were cries of anger or anguish. They were chocolate brown and black, dark purple and burgundy...they sped through his house and often knocked down the vases and moved the furniture from the force of the impact before exploding into little sharp tacks or shiny black hearts or whatever other bullshit these girls thought would make him take notice.

But who could blame them for wanting to try? They met a tall, charming, successful athlete who told them everything they wanted to hear. Who seemed to be able to read their thoughts and asked interesting, thoughtful questions. Who made a joke or two so nonchalantly that their guard inevitably came down...and who slipped out before the sun rose while they still dreamed of what could be.
They were understandably angry. Because none of them every knew about "his girl." None of them knew that he was master liar when he saw the opportunity for a perfect night. Not one could imagine that this handsome, strong, genuinely kind man has spent his whole adult life collecting women like trophies. No...collecting is the wrong word, for he never kept what he acquired. He spent his life using women as a conduit for his pleasure. When the need arose he went on a hunt to find the perfect girl to help him reach ecstasy.

And "his girl" knew...of course she knew. But she understood that ignoring his indiscretions was the price for becoming THE WIFE. She was willing to pay, of course, but she refused to have her face be thrust into it. Thus the spheres became a problem. She yelled, she cried, she chased them around the house wanting to strangle them and make them disappear...but they kept coming. The app was popular and the users rabid which flooded their home with incessant colorful balls that seemed to arrive at every inopportune moment. But, like all good and bad things, eventually they stopped.
Until this morning...
The sphere in question was more intense, both in color and size. And its behavior thus far was suspect, to say the least. For it seemed to have a purpose for being there. And he wasn't sure how this sphere was supposed to show him love.

He knew it would follow him so he quickly showered and slipped out of the house before "his girl" woke up. The orb followed him to the lake where he always went to clear his mind and escape what bothered him. It watched him load the boat into the water, assemble his lines, check his bates..and took off after the him as soon as the motor started. It never interfered with his actions or hindered his path through the water. In fact, it almost knew what he was going to do next, as if it has been on the lake before. This was definitely not a classic love note.

For hours he fished and tried not to think. The sphere's presence eventually stopped being a nuisance and he even began to think of it as a companion...like the family's dog that could sit next to him and stare at the water as he searched for specific fish he wanted to capture that day. He caught and released them, marvelling in his ability to outsmart nature and capture that, which did not want to be captured. Like the girls in his life the fish were only a temporary pleasure...the thrill of the hunt more important than the result. So he released each one into the water, never to think about them again.
As the sun began to set the water around him gained intensity. The blues and greens deepened and darkened and he marveled at the simple perfection of the lake before him. When he turned to put away his rods he gasped, for the sphere was now the color of the lake. A deep, fervent blue that glistened like mercury. Slowly it began to lighten to a piercing blue, the color of the sky.

And suddenly he KNEW. He knew who made the sphere. For it was now the color of her eyes. The color he tried to burn out of memory almost as soon as he left her that morning. The sphere grew larger and finally approached him. It slowly touched his body and when it did it began to rapidly disappear, fizzing and hissing as it turned a deep pitch black. He tried to hold on to it...to make it stop evolving but it was too late. He felt a small ache where the sphere touched his left nipple and when he looked down he saw a little white scar on his chest...the pace where her head used to rest.

Whenever she disappeared into the abyss of her monstrously giant bed he would call out into the darkness in a hoarse whisper - "come into my arms"...and out of the dark came her tiny hands that wrapped around his neck. Her lithe, muscular body would follow to press itself along his, as her always cold toes snuggled on his perpetually overheated body. A wild cat seeking comfort from the storm...she wrapped herself around him and rested her head on his chest and her lips always tickled his left nipple... a feeling he hated at the time but now missed. This was her sphere. It was the last message she wanted to send. Not to remind him of the intense love they shared for a brief time when both seemed free...not to appeal for a return. No. This was a simple declaration that her love for him was no more. The last time she could show him how deeply and passionately she loved him and missed him when he left her with a false hope and a suitcase full of pain.

This love was beautiful and it was now dead.

And even the little scar he thought the sphere left faded by the time he turned the key and entered his home where "his girl" was busy making dinner.

He opened his phone and started to write her...but stopped when he realized that there was absolutely nothing he could offer her. So he quietly showered and poured himself a glass of her favorite whiskey.
"To Instagram" he thought to himself as the liquid burned his throat.

Brick Pollitt

Whenever my heart gets broken I seek comfort in the usual suspects- music that reminds me of him, reliving memories that made me happy, scrutinizing shared words and gestures...watching Cat on a Hot Tim Roof on loop.

I loved it long before it was my coping tool. The performances, the colors, the actors..the entire aesthetic is absolute perfection to me. But I watch it now because through Maggie that Cat I get to talk to my Brick. The Brick that, unsurprisingly, injured me this time. ( sadly there have been a few now)

You know the type... they start out brilliantly from the beginning of life. The strong, charming, care free boys. Excelling in most things, especially anything physical, they draw admirers instantly and bask in the love of girls of all shapes and sizes. They never try to fit in or follow trends because they set them. Their chiseled bodies make any outfit look perfect even if it’d seen better days. They wake up, brush their teeth, fuss with their hair for 30 seconds and run out the door chasing another thing that they desire that day.

Professional athletes or surgeons or rock stars... always the ones to set the mood in the room, always the ones that leave and are not the ones left behind. They glide through life with such ease... they can usually fix cars and boats and doors and anything else that’s broken without ever having been taught how to do those things. They thrive outdoors and chase adrenalin in all its forms- and so you follow them on hikes and bike rides and fishing trips and skiing because you are addicted to them and because you’ll get another rush of desire when you see how they look at you when you excel at the thing they love... what a fucking stupid circle that is.

Being with them is exciting (even if you thought you lost all ability to be entertained)- great conversations, constant laughter and mind blowing sex because there are no rules between you two. Seemingly, life is so easy for them- they figured it out. While YOU are consumed by thoughts and inconsistencies, they tell you life is simple. When you’re happy you stay. When you're not... you leave. And so they chase happiness ... new country, new sport, new car... new girl. Over and over because there has never been and never will be a person to tell them “no.” Not until they get old and lose their charm but by then their long suffering girlfriend would have become the long suffering wife- content with ignoring the painful moments for the price of being “Mrs X.”

Being with them is like a drug. You get addicted to the idea that maybe.. just maybe.. two alphas can be together. Because you grew up with movies and books that made it seem possible. Because you finally feel like you don’t have to be the strong one all the time. Because someone stronger is there to catch you. And that feeling is what I end up chasing. Curling up against a big muscular chest at night and feeling safe. Being tossed in the air like a feather and caught in giant hands... knowing that anywhere we go doesn’t require a plan because it will be perfect anyway. Insidiously the desire for more of this grows and it’s too late before you realize your heart has joined the fan club of the Bricks. And worst of all.. now it has given you ideas of the future. It wants more. It wants a lifetime of this. But that lifetime usually belongs to the girl next door they already know. Because your alpha doesn’t want an equal. They want “comfort” and “safety” and “easy.” And hard as I may try... easy has never been a word to define me. And even when I’ve tried in the past (mistakenly) to change and bend with the boy it’s never enough. Because like a wolf they know your core and any desire for you is trumped by the need to continue to do whatever they want whenever they want it.

Perhaps that’s too simplistic. Perhaps I’m missing the necessary details to truly define this... to understand this. And when I ache I turn to the film. Where a gorgeous strong girl fights for her handsome broken husband and says the words I long to say. To watch her win her love back scratches my itch. I pick at that wound daily.. I’m sick of it, frankly. I wish I could stop feeling like shit.  But I cannot help doing it again the next day. Because every night it does scar a little bit. And with time it heals... though much slower than it should. And in the end I still have hope.. that one day, my Brick is going to choose me.

Мой Лисик...

Я часто думаю о тебе, моя маленькая девочка. 

Сейчас ты паришь где-то в еффемерной вселенной. Ты ждешь меня... Видишь ли ты меня? Знаешь ли ты как долго я тебя жду? 

Давно ли ты выбрала меня или ещё решаешь? 

Когда я вижу тебя в снах, то только с сзади. Твои маленькие загорелые плечики на пляже. Твоя панамка вот вот наровит улететь, но ты не замечаешь потому что ты сосредоточенно строишь замок из твоих абстрактных видений. Ты не видишь мамины руки которые наровят унести тебя под защиту большого зонта и намазать терпко пахнущим санблоком. Ты спишь на мне...мой маленький заспанный пупс. Ветер нежно колошит твои золотистые пряди и нам так приятно прятаться от знойного дня...

Вот твои маленькие ступни которые шлепают по холодному деревянному полу когда ты, ещё заспанная, идёшь к завтраку. Твоя большая копна волос все время наровит упасть в лицо...и ты убираешь её всей рукой потому что твои пальчики ещё не слушаются тебя. 

Твои строгие пальчики, которые надевают мундиры из малины перед тем как те нырнут в ротик, так как учила мама. 

Черные кожанные ботинки которыми ты весело болтаешь на кресле самолета, большое как диван, пока я терпеливо обьясняю почему оливковое масло не растворяетсья в воде. 

Твои большие, пухлые губки, которые ты сжимаешь вместе, перед тем как спросить меня твой очереднной, серьёзный, вопрос. 

Я готовлюсь к ним. Я знаю что не буду знать все ответы потому что у тебя нестандартноё мышление и все что ты видишь вокруг ты воспринимаешь с интересом и серьёзностью не твоих лет. 

Я хочу быть сильной для тебя. Я научусь кататься на лыжах что бы держать тебя когда ты будешь падать (было очень страшно но я переборола себя потому что ты важнее всех страхов). Я научусь стрелять чтобы защитить тебя и говорить по французски что бы говорить тебе "Бонжур ма петит фий" каждый день. 

Я качаю мышцы которые помогут держать тебя в волнах дикого океана и ты будешь звонко смеяться как я, когда меня держала моя мама. Я читаю в запой что бы рассказывать тебе интерессные сказки....ты будешь знать все балеты, пьесы, истории, поэмы и картины. Я буду достойной тебя, мой Лисик. 

Я не буду плакать от злости и обращать внимание на тупых людей жаждущих моего внимания. Я не буду терять терпения и надежды что все получиться как я мечтала. 

Жди меня, моя маленькая прекрасная девочка. Пожалуйста, жди меня. Нам осталось совсем чуть чуть...

Te semper et in perpetuum amabo (a study in fiction)

The first time I came to California was when we landed in America. I was 11 years old and the trip was a blur… We stopped in Los Angeles for a quick layover before flying to Vegas. It was the first time I breathed American air and all I remember is the piercing blue sky and spiky palm trees waving in the breeze like skater boys nodding to us with their tussled mops of hair.

 I didn’t get to see the ocean until a few years later when my grandparents moved to LA.  Nothing can compare to seeing that all-encompassing mass of water spread out infinitely in front of you… its strength and power overwhelming yet not frightening…the impression softened by the gentle lull of the waves hitting the sand.

That sound…I’ll give anything for that sound to be the first thing I wake up to every day.

California immediately became my love, as I imagine it does for most people who see it. And despite being so familiar, has remained effusive and, dare I say it, unattainable. Perhaps my love life is the root. Over the years I have traversed the desert hundreds of times…first to visit family…then a string of boyfriends who have all, strangely enough, originated or ended up in CA.

Driving down the immaculately groomed streets of Newport I always try to memorize every detail …the whimsical street art, the colorful doors, the names of the tiny stores that manage to exist despite selling plain items at inflated prices. I hungrily absorb the fit moms clad in Lululemon as they push their precious cargoes in designer strollers; the preppy teens, too blond and too tan from their daily sun worship; the retirees who leisurely sit in small cafes and savor their coffee…Everything is illuminated in golden sunlight and the roar of the ocean is never far away…the air is saturated with sea salt and a light breeze beckons towards the water.

LA always feels hot and saturated…with people, cars and buildings upon buildings upon buildings. So many landmarks fly by. So many memories of days past and times well spent. The city feels like a giant animal belly filled to the brim with tiny insects..all scurrying along to accomplish their tasks for the day, trampling and crawling over each other to get closer to the sun.  Up on the hills the mansions turn their cold facades towards the ocean and raise their gates high so that no one can disturb the expensive peace of their inhabitants. The hipsters and the cool kids duck in an out of galleries and obscure studios…I am mesmerized by their patterns. I wonder what that life would’ve been like. I love it still.

I drive down PCH. The car glides along the edge, so close that I pretend I’m  driving on the water. It curves and pivots in a symmetry reminiscent of a waltz…and takes me down the most beautiful coves and valleys. Malibu is it’s own world. So achingly posh and deceptively casual that one can start to believe one belongs. But Californians always recognize a stranger. The see the eyes thirsting for the salty water…the hands nervously grasping grains of sand…those little granules running through my hands like minutes slipping away…How do these people live here? How did they manage to stay in Nirvana? Do they have unhappy days? Is that even possible when you have the beach at your command whenever you wish? I grasp at straws. 

This life…this beach life in this perfect place… I wonder why it can’t be mine. I’ve wondered that since I first met you.

My love for this place is irrevocably tied to my love for you. The places I see are colored by my memories… they are the precious jewels saved in a far away corner of my mind. Like an avid collector I have stored them and locked them away yet, once in a while, I summon them and tenderly relieve the moments, taking care to polish the details…to clean the crevices, so that they’re strengthened and protected…so that they last forever.

The secret beaches we snuck into…the wild roar of the ocean at night that accompanied many of our adventures..the smell of steaks sizzling on the grill and the deep red wine decanting on the table..Beast of Burden and 2 AM…sunblock covered hands and pervasive sand in my carryon…I taste the sun on your skin…I run my fingers along your tendons and bones and trace your life as I fall asleep next to you.

Time mercilessly flies and before I blink the weekend’s over. And I am forced out. It’s time to leave and California expels me again. 

I want to stay! Why can’t I ever stay? Why can’t I stay forever? But no, career, taxes, family and friends.. all perfectly valid reasons to return home.

I have an almost primal need to be near that water. To walk along the edge as water licks my toes. To fall asleep as the waves enter the bedroom through open windows. 

To hear the ocean crash against the cliffs and retreat back again…

....to fall asleep next to you again curled up and scratching at your heart to let me in. 

Je t'aime...Je ne t'aime plus

Ugh... it's been a while again, hasn't it? I must admit I thought about you, my little blog. I thought about you often. But I could not bring myself to write anything...for a long time. New move...new job...new kitten...new boyfriend...None of that seemed to be enough to open myself up again.


Until now I guess.

Another break-up has taken place. This one much more short-lived and bearable in terms of pain and depression.

Which made me think...does the quality of a relationship (it's intensity, it's length, it's milestones) have a direct correlation to the duration and quality of the break-up? I suppose it is not an exact relationship. Of course there can be short-lived but "once-in-a-lifetime" romances that devastate you when they end. And there are the "dragged out much too long" monotonies that may end fairly amicably and, even, kindly. But it seems in my life so far the correlation has been direct.

When a relationship ends...no matter how long or brief it was...it will still always hurt. And it is such a special type of hurt isn't it? I wonder if I could ever describe what one feels in a break-up to my child? That special hopeless, dull, unfathomable ache that takes over like a black abyss into which you feel yourself slipping.
It physically hurts because you feel actual pangs in your heart and your stomach.
It hurts repeatedly because every time a thought catches you of guard and a memory flickers before you the pain intensifies and doubles you over.
It hurts so much more whenever you wake up - for a few moments you are barely awake and safe and content...and then you remember what broke you and the tears flow and the hopelessness takes hold as its cold jaws grip your heart. Thus weeks in bed are spent...eyes are puffy...wine bottles empty.

It's the emptiness that catches you.. that place the person you loved had filled (a weird place you created for them in your life) is now empty and it does not disappear right away under the weight of the interests and stresses of daily existence.
How fascinating are humans? A stranger had a necessary, vital role in your well-being...and now they are no longer there. And even though how they impacted your life is, largely, your doing...and can be easily undone...you feel empty. And sometimes lost. And what is the absolute worst...you feel hopeless. You wonder if this was the last time you were loved. If this was the one person you should have tried harder with.  Should have changed for???

Yeah, no. FUCK THAT. I am all for (sensible) compromise but I will be damned if I change a single thing about me for another human being that is not related to me by blood. I am an adult now, for better or worse. And a pretty great one actually. So to change for someone because I do not want to face loneliness?? That is just absurd.

Happiness comes in many forms and this, of course, won't be my last relationship. Nor my last break up I imagine. But marriage and co-habitation remain big question marks for me...I am truly unsure if these are things I want or need. Perhaps my opinions will change with time. Currently, willingly living a shorter life because I want a male companion seems ludicrous (there is actual science behind this should you choose to investigate further).

This one hurt...But given how short and inconsequential it was, the pangs only lasted a few hours. And now it's hard to even remember why we dated in the first place. A fleeting thought here and there...but really nothing more.

Interest in the male species as a whole is peaking again which means I must be feeling better. My friendships and pursuits have not been impacted and I move on...again. I'd like to say stronger and wiser....but I've always been strong. The wiser part is a work in progress.

A solitary thought...

Am listening to smokey jazz...Kitten curled up at my feet. A lazy spring (or summer really) afternoon - air heavy from absorbing the sun's rays, an occasional swift breeze is all that disturbs the tree tops and even the birds are napping. I feel...content.

On the brink of a new phase of life, I find my thoughts turn more and more to happiness. Not the actual feeling, the concept I think? For the first time in a long, really long, time my life is changing dramatically. A new place to work, a new place to live...new friends, new struggles...I will just GO to work. And come home. How simple yet how few appreciate the concept.

The last decade has been spent somewhat in suspension - God knows, I truly tried to live fully. I fell in and out of love, I met new faces, I saw more of the world. But as I look around my apartment where the things that mean enough to me to make the move to my new city can fit in one box - I cannot deny that the last decade was not lived completely. I will now have decorations for the holidays - an emotional luxury I have not allowed myself until now. I will not fill my days with study texts but rather books on history and art and, oh God, fiction! I can just read. For fun. I can go to a concert, just because. I can invite someone over for dinner...and not worry about how late we stay up. (I have done these things, obviously, to some degree in the last decade but never enough to constitute a pattern. Rather these have been rare and, dare I say, momentous occasions).

As I look at travel websites my heart skips a beat from anticipation. I can leave town for more than a week! Which means Asia and Turkey and Latin America...small luxury cruises and weird treks to "just because" locations not just the big ticket items like Paris which I favored to maximize my sensory overload in a short amount of time that was allotted. I will be the person that knows what the sun feels like on your skin during sunset in Capri...or what sound the whales make when they crash next to an iceberg in Iceland. I will have a favorite cafe in Prague and an all season pass to Prado.
I will have an iron skillet and a wok. And I will make yummy things in my kitchen just because...so that my friends can come over and enjoy a glass of wine while I feed them my creations. I can make museums and parks my routine. I can see my friends...in person!...just because, even across state lines.

Happiness... the word rolls of my tongue. I taste it as the consonants form between my lips. H.A.P.P.I.N.E.S.S.                                                             I like it.
But I am also afraid. For a long time now, and I cannot remember how it started...I cannot submit to happiness. I do not actively seek to be miserable or sanguine. What I mean is - every time I am happy - during an event...a flickering moment captured in time...an experience that will never be forgotten...anything that truly stirs the soul and makes the heart beat faster - that is when suspension happens. My mind separates from my body and I begin to frantically analyze the moment, capturing every detail and cataloguing it (yes actually filing the memory away). I do this BEFORE the moment is even over. Which means that while it is happening instead of submitting to it with closed eyes and an open being I maniacally grab to the pieces and fragments to SAVE, SAVE it for later, SAVE it for when I am sad or alone...SAVE it for when I am old perhaps? This happens without my command...nor is it subject to my control.

I grab my phone and flick, flick, flick ....snap the photos that will help me capture the moment. Instead of losing myself to the emotion I snatch it and preserve it like a rare insect under the glass of my subconscious.

So I am afraid....I am afraid that I will find ways to lose myself in the day to day again...and I won't stop to look at the sunset... and I will blink and a decade will fly past me leaving only photos taken by a stranger to remind me of what once was. I look at pictures of my youth - I still remember how insecure and frustrated I was...yet so young and beautiful and delicately confused. WHY didn't I savor that? Why did I rush to move on and not give those life stages their due? Evolution was key but those steps should have been slower...calmer...colored with patience and a unwavering belief that change would happen as it should, without rushing it along.

Is the answer meditation? Self-help books? Religion? Therapy? Is happiness akin to a discipline that one must practice? Will little exercises every day accumulate to make me happy like the muscles I have trained this year that now glide under my clothes and give me the strength I craved so badly?

I am so fortunate...so thankful...so aware of the positives of my life. But this is different. Comparing my station to others less fortunate is an exercise in gratitude not happiness. Happiness is a different beast. How do you teach someone to be happy? To Enjoy...To Savor...To let my eyes and ears and hands embrace the moment instead of my phone?

I keep reverting to this dream of mine - I am on a small boat sailing at sunset. I am me as I am now (not old nor fragile nor sick) yet I am sitting in a rocking chair wrapped in a thick blanket though it is summer. My mom is next to me and she looks at me as someone looks on one who is terminally ill...with great love, sorrow and a bit of pity. She asks me to look at the sunset...to really look at it. To let the sun bathe me in its soothing light. To listen to the waves splash against the boat. To let the breeze ruffle my hair and not reach up to fix it so that it's perfect again. Her hand is on my back and I feel something on my cheek...it is a tear...I cannot see now because tears are streaming from my eyes...the sun and the water merge in a kaleidoscope of colors and I weep from overwhelming sorrow. I am very old and my mom is just my imagination of her...and I realize that I am alone and crippled by my inability to surrender to this emotion. This is NOT the future I want. This is the nightmare that haunts me now...

How's that for self-actualization? We've acquired food and shelter...conquered higher education and financial stability...and now we are hysterical because we "can't feel happiness." If I weren't me I'd tell me to SIT DOWN. haha

But if we value life for it's experiences...for the people we affect...for the mark we make on the world and the world makes on us...shouldn't the pursuit of happiness equate in value to Maslow's basic needs? A work in progress indeed.

Immigranto

I was a child when we came here. I still remember holding my mother tight in my arms, cradling her face and wiping her tears as the train took us away from our home...HER home...as I promised her that I would be her strength wherever we would go...

America was THE dream. That magnificent something where anything was possible. I
I got only a glimpse of our country. The way our government punished us for years. Individuality...intelligence...passion...were repugnant.
Sins for which we payed.
Secrets we hid in our kitchens late at night.
When we gathered at night we listened to underground rock bands who sang of that unreachable place...and tears clouded the world as we danced in the candlelight.

You will never know what it is like to be on a waiting list for an "forbidden" book. To stand in endless lines for a piece of fruit for your child. To battle every day so that your child feels loved and special. To beg for a phone...to pray that one day you won't have to share a 3 bedroom with 3 families and the kitchen will have only one fridge and not three. That running water won't be orange. That you can move to a city simply because you want to and not require a permit from the government to do so.
How does this still exist??

She was an actress then...the best memories of my childhood were spent in that old theater with her bohemian friends who treated me like one of them and shared everything they had with me as if I deserved it. We longed SO much to come here. We hoped that our lives would simply fall into place and become the glossy perfection we saw on screens late at night. And though in some ways our expectations have far exceeded anything we could have imagined then, the road has been paved with blood and tears. I still remember watching these melancholy young actors...kids, really, beautiful in their tragedy...delicate in their sadness...tell jokes by a fire, give their souls for their art, search for meaning, in a country that was never going to give them anything except disappointment. The country that would beat them into submission and make them faceless clones passing time until death.
It is so difficult to put into words what we thought the world...and America...was. The reality is not bad (that is not my intention)...but it is hard to convey with words those fleeting images of this far away land that we thought gave you happiness as soon as you stepped onto the ground. No, it was not realistic. But I miss the naivete nonetheless.

I thought things got better in my homeland. But tonight, when I watched our "Grammys" I saw a singer who sang about flying over Moscow away from the "cage" to Europe. And the crowd, usually sullen and morose...smiled and clapped and waved...and cried. Because they are still there. Trapped, persecuted, unable to fulfill their potentials. Artists, intellectuals...the forgotten children of Europe.
We are not a third world country, far from it. Yet this response shows how deeply unhappy we still are.

The song playing now cannot be translated. It is a goodbye to America - where the singer has never been. He is mourning the loss of something he never possessed. He faces the reality that life will never change. Years later, though I have never lived communism how my mother or my friends have, it still brings back pain. That delicately excruciating pang of nostalgia for my childhood...my youth...my beautiful country that I so deeply loved and didn't want to leave. The self pity I feel for never being able to belong anywhere since... and the unforgiving realization that no dream is ever real. The perpetual guilt I feel for having my success be paid in my mother's youth and happiness. The America I thought I would find...that Paradiso that we created in our heads.
I have made the most of what she gave me, far more than either of us had expected. I have taken "The American Dream" and I have pushed it to its limits. I am the story parents tell their children. And I worked to the bone to get it. And now, on the almost eve, of another decade I am reflecting on what once was. I look to the future...but I can never forget the past. I was but a child, but those memories are burned in my soul.
My blood is Russian. My heart is American. Where the rest of me ends up is anyone's guess...

La Reve D'ete

Hello old friend...it's been a while since I've confided in you. Life became hectic and there was not much to say...Let's try again?

Today the wind changed. Summer has been creeping in slowly...in small bursts...a warm breeze deep in the night...a random hot day on a cold week... a solitary flower bursting out earlier than it's meant to as if its coming will defy the laws of nature.
But today...today summer came to stay. And I am so happy to see it.

As the sun slowly melts into the horizon it colors the sky in the most beautiful reds...it looks like love. It feels like a passionate embrace. The air is heavy with the remains of the day and one can almost see it sigh as the sun disappears into the landscape. It is so so comforting...so calming...like the embrace of someone you call your home.

One of my most favorite times of the year are the lush warm summer nights. When the night is pitch black and the cicadas are singing. I love nothing more than to look out onto the lights of MY city with a glass of dark red in my hand. The windows are open (the only time I let nature in) and the night envelopes the bedroom, quietly rustling among the sheets, carrying with it such restful, dream-less sleep that is so sorely desired and so rarely attained.

When I was younger summer meant never ending parties at our house. Every night people would come and evenings were spent over yummy dinners and long conversations on the patio...The house was filled with music and laughter. Wine flowed and people danced...so happy to be alive.
I never feel as young as I do in the summer. Never as beautiful or social. I long for it to come. I miss it like an old friend when it is replaced by unwanted seasons.

I yearn for hot desert nights. The heat waves fill my veins and make me warm again. They calm my mind and relax the chains I bind myself with every day. The desert whispers at night...it softly speaks of life...it searches for meaning. It is a secret meant for only a few. Perhaps this is as close to meditation that I will ever get.

Someday my house will again be filled with people. Soirees and fetes and dances, a kaleidoscope of life, will never end. And each night...when the world sleeps...I will look out onto the lights of my city and the stars burning fervently eons away and feel ALIVE.

Old skin

It's funny....It's been a while since we broke..yet, once in a while, I find myself missing HIM. Like a whiff of a stranger's perfume or a fleeting image, a memory of him appears and creates a ...pause.

I shake it off. Memories of him no longer make me sad...or even melancholy. I can listen to, what used to be, our song and not feel that familiar stabbing pain in my heart I learned to count as my own when we were together.

But once in a while...once in a while a song comes along and I revert. Memories of our wintery love flash back...I long for my friend. I long for the  LOVE I had with a handsome man who loved me so passionately. I mourn what we used to be. I close my eyes...and wish I was back in his arms and all was right with the world. The future that I once held in my hand...the future with grey eyes and soft lips...is gone forever. It was never "to be"...but the pain remains. Despite how strongly I convinced myself that it was the right choice.
I KNOW with the entirety of my being that it was the right choice. But my heart misses nonetheless...especially on cold dark nights like tonight.

I blink and the moment passes. He was not the ONE.
...all the is left now are killer songs.