My mother was born one Saturday in September. She grew up an only child in a village far away from my father's. She was the pride of her village. They loved her because they couldn't love anything else. She was the youth they desired to recapture. Her name was Darya Movitz.
She was the place where everything came together for them.
THIS IS HOW MUCH THEY LOVED HER:
The priest would step down from his place above the congregation and take her by the hand and lead her up for Communion. He would cross her and bless her. She would kiss him where his bearded cheek met his jaw. He would whisper in her ear, "Thank you little czarina." Darya would skip back down the aisle past the smiling villagers (who whispered loud enough so she COULD hear "She is so beautiful") to her seat next to her silent mother.
Yitzak, who ran the village flower stand would sing to her as she walked by.
"A peony for your thoughts,
Those special things that can't be bought.
A jasmine necklace to match your dress,
You know you're a beautiful mess.
I'd grow a field of golden sunflowers,
Just to bask in the glow of your smile for an hour."
Young boys cat-called from wrought iron balconies as she walked below, ever louder when she dared to bestow on them, a delicious wink.
Young girls clung to her, only wanting her for her secrets. They asked her questions.
"How do you turn your eyes that particular shade of blue?"
"Should my hair be pinned back, like this?"
"I apply my blush in round strokes with a big brush, right?"
But most notably-"What does it feel like to be loved for exactly who you are?"
THIS IS HOW MUCH HER FATHER LOVED HER:
Her father would take her with him to the city. He would hold her hand in the Red Square and tell her, "Pomni, ya vsgda ryadom." Remember, I am always next to you. Little Darya would run a few steps away. She would call to her father, "How about now?"
He would run to her and scoop her up, "Yes! Even now!"
The birds the square would scatter as my mother would sprint from place to place. Her navy wool coat flying out at the edges, where the buttons couldn't hold it together. Her hair slipping through the confines of her cream beret.
"EVEN HERE?!" She was on the stairs of Saint Basil's.
"Especially there."
"HOW ABOUT HERE?" She was by the Kremlin.
"Of course."
"HERE?" Next to a man selling newspapers whose front page said, "THE SECOND GREAT WAR BEGINS."
"Yes. I said always, Darya."
"Promise?" Yelled at the top of her adolescent lungs from Kazan Cathedral.
"Promise."
My mother ran to her father, Daniil, and he wrapped his only child into him. This is where she belonged; the only place in the world that was ever right for her was in her father's arms, against his chest, wrapped inside his coat. Daniil sat down on the site of a future mausoleum in which the most powerful man would lie in and he held her until she fell asleep. Then he walked to the center of the square. He whispered into the crown of her head, "Did you know that we are in the center of Russia? Which is like being in the center of everything. Right now you are the center of the universe, Darya Movitz." He didn't say this just to say it, he said it because it was true. Because how could something so beautiful not be the center of life as we know it?
THIS IS HOW MUCH HER MOTHER (LOVED?) HER:
However, Darya's mother was different than Daniil. She always wore a silk scarf around her thick, auburn hair and she never smiled with her teeth. She did not love her husband. She did not love her daughter. This was not because she hadn't tried or didn't want to. The fact was she simply couldn't love them.
All her life, Zoya had been in love with another man. His name was Domovi and he filled the space in between her girlhood and her life as a mother. When they were young, he was handsome and she was beautiful and when they danced the world swayed in rhythm with their bodies. He was a good man just like Daniil was a good man. He had eyes the color of blue smoke and thick black hair. His laugh was deep and rolling. He smoked too much but Zoya found she loved the haze too. He used to tell her, "Mne by khotelos uznat o tebe pobolshe." I would like to know more about you.
"But you already know so much."
"Just tell me one more thing."
"Tell me what you already know first."
"Okay. I know that you prefer omelets for breakfast. Your hair is almost red in the afternoon sun. You smile like you've got something to hide. You collect your tears in thimbles. You look best in blue. Your eyes are the color of the irises in the garden behind Kazimir's house. Your favorite reading spot is underneath the dead maple near the river. You find front porches inviting. You pray loudly. You think that carriages are overrated. You'd like to play piano. You purse your lips when you are unhappy. You relish being tickled. You father's name is Lev and your mother's name is Masha. You have a sister, Rada. Laughing is your only vice. Oh, and you are in love."
"Who am I in love with?"
"Well I'm not sure if you know you are yet."
"Oh, really? Here's one thing you don't know about me. I know I am in love and I know I am in love with you Domovi Wolowitz. It has always been you. Even before time began it was you."
"Ne boysa," He told her. Do not be afraid. Which meant something along the lines of, "We will be together, I do not care that you are rich and fine and that I am low and shameless. I do not care if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone. I just want you, for as long as I can possibly have you. You are quite simply my best time."
What Zoya Trubachev and Domovi Wolowitz failed to realize on that fateful day when he told her all her knew about her is: things change.
Zoya's father would not tolerate her marrying anything less than himself. They lived in a house with electric lights and plum colored damask drapes. He was rich and fine.
Domovi was low and shameless. He brought her a piece of string and said, "You'll have to use this for your ring. It's all I've got." His eyes were at the ground.
She loved him just the same. "Look me in the eyes," her hands gripping the sides of his face, "You're wrong; you've got me."
She wore the string around her finger even after she married Daniil. Domovi's tattered band pushing up against Daniil's gold one. She worshipped that string and mended it faithfully every time it frayed in the slightest. She stroked it when she was remembering Domovi and she when made love to Daniil (which were feelings that went together). She stoked the string and closed her eyes as she brought Darya in the world. She thought, the three D's of my life and I only love one of them. Zoya Trubachev Movitz was low and shameless. She was no mother. She was no wife. She went out of her way to drag her gilded left hand against rough surfaces. Perhaps, if scratches can appear on this band it will prove that this life I live is not real. Perhaps if this piece of rope can outlast this heavy burden, it will prove that Domovi is more than Daniil can ever be.
She knew that she should love the little sculpture of her daughter but she couldn't. When Darya was born she reached for Daniil. She looked like him. Her hair was inky and her eyes were the color of cornflower drenched in beams of sunlight. Her skin was alabaster and she cried like a songbird. She had ten perfect toes and ten perfect fingers. Daniil called her his Bluejay. His daughter was his jewel; Zoya was only Zoya.
Zoya knew that mothers were supposed to tell their children bedtime stories. My grandmother held onto this scrap of information and she desired to become the most wonderful story teller but she found her imagination no longer worked. She was uninspired. She was as far from love as you can be. She cried so many times a day the large house the lived in had thimbles in every windowsill. When Daniil was away at work, Zoya would mix the tears with Darya's formula and then she would cradle her little daughter as she gulped and drank away her mother's sadness.
Even as Darya grew up, her taste for melancholy was never quenched. She become an anthropologist of sadness. Immersing herself in it's intricacies. She searched sadness out in the streets of her village. She found it hiding in the corners of back alleys, in shrouded, shivering creatures with swimming, stark struck eyes and matted hair. She found it in cathedrals where women in black robes prayed to a man they had never seen to fill their voids (their knees were perpetually sore from kneeling and their hands tinged with early arthritis from always being clasped so reverently together). She found it in Flavia's library, where all the books were dusty and untouched and in Kouri's kitchen, when a place setting patiently sat empty every night, waiting for a dead son to come home and pick up a fork. She found it at the ends of dead end streets and in rain clouds. But mostly, she found it in her mother.
She would come home from a day of playing to find her mother curled in her bed. Darya would wrap her arms around her tiny mother and nestle her face against Zoya's temple (every one knows this is where sadness is most evident on a person because it is the place on our bodies that is the most vulnerable). Darya's mouth would be even with her mother's ear and she would whisper bedtime stories to her because she knew this is what made her mother the most sad. The sadness that comes with the inability to do things we desire to do most is the hardest sadness to find because we bury this sadness so deep within our selves. Her mother was a rarity, a treasure trove of sadness and this is why Darya loved her.
"Mother, once upon a time there existed a world where the moon was made out of parchment paper and God drew the stars in the sky with a silver felt-tipped pen. In this world, love grows on trees and happiness can found in a carousel ride. Papa is the czar of this world are you are the empress."
A tear would begin to slide off from Zoya's dark lashes and Darya would run and grab a thimble and then collect the tear.
"The air smells of fir trees and fresh snow. In this world you laugh and dance. In this world your eyes glow like amethysts. Clouds are the stuffing for our mattresses and your dresses never crinkle, even after you sit for a long time."
Zoya closed her eyes and somewhere in her mind she was thinking of a world entirely different from the one Darya was describing. Of a world where love didn't grow on trees but of a a world where love was the mystery she could spend a lifetime figuring out.
Darya always thought her mother was asleep.
Darya always thought her stories were a lullaby.
Darya always thought her stories would make Zoya turn her head and kiss her on the bridge of her nose like Daniil did. In the language of their love, a kiss on the nose meant, "I CANNOT IMAGINE A WORLD IN WHICH MY LIFE DOESN'T CONTAIN YOU."
Darya always finished with this line-"In this world, you tell the most beautiful stories. In this world you lull me to sleep with words. In this world you love me."
Zoya did not love her daughter, but every night as Darya would gently close the door to her bedroom she would whisper into the forgiving darkness, "You must know if I could I would."
I promise that I won't ever imagine a world that doesn't contain you (even if I could, I wouldn't).
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Time Capsule of My Mother
And there is a lacquer box that makes you realize you are more like your mother than you thought.
And it's full of all the beautiful things that existed before you did: things from her wedding, a coupon for "ONE FREE KISS...OR MAYBE TWO, THREE OR FOUR (THIS COUPON CAN BE USED MORE THAN ONCE)", pins from a forgotten Olympics, a fading National Honor Society pin, pictures of people you never knew and a fortune that reads,"An airplane is in your future."
Inside of my mother's lacquer box, there is a story about love, coffee, letter writing, God, polar bears, a lost princess, babushka dolls, time, oceans, one particular statue, favorite tables, language barriers, sunflowers, the moon, the sun, forgetting, Bob Dylan, promises and wishes.
And there is a lacquer box upstairs with a drawing of a boy and his grandfather laying down in green grass on its cover. Inside of this lacquer box are things that tell you about a summer in Russia. Inside of my mother's lacquer box, there is one particular photograph of a girl and a boy.
The girl is wearing a grey skirt with orange flowers on it and a black blouse. There is a gold pin on her left lapel and a small, brown watch on her right wrist. She wears no makeup and her hair is short and boyish and red.
The boy is wearing a brown and blue plaid shirt and brown corduroys. He is wearing sandals with socks and glasses. His hair is brown and his eyes have dark shadows.
The boys arm is around my mother's shoulder.
Their heads are touching at the temple.
Her right leg is crossed at the knee over her left leg. His right knee is cradled; his right foot touching his left knee. Somehow, both of their right knees are touching.
He is smiling with pressed together lips and he has dimples.
She is smiling and her teeth are showing.
They are sitting on a bench in a park. There are yellow leaves underneath their feet. There is a canopy of pale green leaves above their heads.
The girl's name is Mary.
The boy's name is Sasha.
Once upon a time, they met in a crowded street in Leningrad where Sasha asked my mother, "Do you know what time it is?" in perfect in English.
She said, "Yes. It's three fifteen."
Sasha said, "Are you an American?"
"Yes."
He looked at her with his dark eyes bright, "Do you want to see something cool?"
She shook her head yes.
Once upon a time Sasha told my mother, "Take my hand." His hand was pale and bony with slim fingers and his command sounded more like a question and so my mother took it.
And it's full of all the beautiful things that existed before you did: things from her wedding, a coupon for "ONE FREE KISS...OR MAYBE TWO, THREE OR FOUR (THIS COUPON CAN BE USED MORE THAN ONCE)", pins from a forgotten Olympics, a fading National Honor Society pin, pictures of people you never knew and a fortune that reads,"An airplane is in your future."
Inside of my mother's lacquer box, there is a story about love, coffee, letter writing, God, polar bears, a lost princess, babushka dolls, time, oceans, one particular statue, favorite tables, language barriers, sunflowers, the moon, the sun, forgetting, Bob Dylan, promises and wishes.
And there is a lacquer box upstairs with a drawing of a boy and his grandfather laying down in green grass on its cover. Inside of this lacquer box are things that tell you about a summer in Russia. Inside of my mother's lacquer box, there is one particular photograph of a girl and a boy.
The girl is wearing a grey skirt with orange flowers on it and a black blouse. There is a gold pin on her left lapel and a small, brown watch on her right wrist. She wears no makeup and her hair is short and boyish and red.
The boy is wearing a brown and blue plaid shirt and brown corduroys. He is wearing sandals with socks and glasses. His hair is brown and his eyes have dark shadows.
The boys arm is around my mother's shoulder.
Their heads are touching at the temple.
Her right leg is crossed at the knee over her left leg. His right knee is cradled; his right foot touching his left knee. Somehow, both of their right knees are touching.
He is smiling with pressed together lips and he has dimples.
She is smiling and her teeth are showing.
They are sitting on a bench in a park. There are yellow leaves underneath their feet. There is a canopy of pale green leaves above their heads.
The girl's name is Mary.
The boy's name is Sasha.
Once upon a time, they met in a crowded street in Leningrad where Sasha asked my mother, "Do you know what time it is?" in perfect in English.
She said, "Yes. It's three fifteen."
Sasha said, "Are you an American?"
"Yes."
He looked at her with his dark eyes bright, "Do you want to see something cool?"
She shook her head yes.
Once upon a time Sasha told my mother, "Take my hand." His hand was pale and bony with slim fingers and his command sounded more like a question and so my mother took it.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Letter Two: The Spaces Between
Dearest,
Have you ever thought about space as a metaphor for life? Everything is so far away from away from each other but it is our destiny to try to reach out and touch the untouchable, to long for our Pluto and to dance circles around our Jupiter. It is our desire to destroy the boundaries and to cross the infinite spaces between. But as Newton said, every movement has a force behind it. Every dream has a fuel source. You are the dream and I am the inspiration. You're the best of what isn't real, that is what makes you so remarkable, Sasha. What everyone must someday learn is that the intangible, make believe, happily ever after thoughts they have are the closest thing to real; that they are more plausible and believable because we yearn for them to become more than legends with every fiber in our bodies and every prayer that escapes our lips.
Have you ever just gone into a library to just walk around-to smell the books, feel their spines, read a few pages here and there, to lose yourself? I'm in one today and it's so beautiful. Great big stain glass windows and thick wooden tables (the kind with carvings from rebellious teens). For me libraries seem more like churches; I feel so much more in them. This one is old and some of the books are kept in glass cases. I could spend hours wandering, just running my fingertips over them. It's so much easier to believe another person's idea of the perfect story than to believe my own. It's easier to believe in words and lies and yesterday. Books are like those glass prisms you hold up to the light. You can see the all the colors but you still have to decipher what each one means for yourself. That's why I like them. I'm writing to you from the floor of isle 14 and I am alone. I'm stealing a book off the shelf and sending it to you. I hope you like it.
Have you ever heard Moonlight Sonata? It's so beautiful it makes me want to cry. Do beautiful things make you cry? Beautiful things are so sad, so tired. This is what makes them so lovely. Sometimes things are so beautiful that they are hard to look at. Do you know any thing like that? I do: that promise you made about our child. That promise made my arms ache for a baby I had never held. That promise was more something than anything else. Why do I reach out in the night for you? Why does looking at the stars make me miss you less?
Since you make promises, I will make wishes.
I wish the world spun in reverse. I wish it would spin back to the day in the woods. That day where time was nothing and we weren't sure about each other. You said, "Are you ever afraid of me?." Your hair was still long then and the trees cast these shadows on your face. You asked the question like you'd been thinking about it for a long time.
I said, "No. Well sometimes you look so angry and that is more sad than scary."
"That's because I am sad." You're so honest, Sasha.
"I know." The worst feeling in the world is when others know you're sad. The worst feeling in the world is shame.
"I don't feel anything." You looked me in the eyes; I wanted to make you feel the way I felt when you looked at me.
"I feel everything." Which wasn't a lie.
"Will you teach me how to be alive?"
"Yes." You know what happens next. A kiss, more kisses, a thousand kisses, in a thousand places. A thousand touches stitched together with good intentions. A thousand heart beats, a thousand seconds, a million times over.
Then I would rewind back to that night at Lake Lagoda with that violet, starless sky. You told me of your family for the first and last time. You said your father was fierce and your mother was so quiet. "She slipped through the rooms of the apartment like a wisp of smoke. She almost never spoke and when she did it was to say, 'Prastite.' I am sorry. Her life was an apology. She never once said, 'Ya tebya lyublyu, Sasha.' She had no conviction, no place, no backbone. She loved all her clothes because they were more costumes she could dress up in, more masks she could don. She could play so many parts: Stepan's wife, Sasha and Nikolay's mother, the woman who prayed with her eyes open, the once beautiful daughter of Daniil and Zoya. She was a weak extension of her ancestors, an aftertaste of her adolescence. She had no definite side or characteristic."
You paused and closed you eyes: a trademark, a sign. Your hands came to your face as if they could sift through the sand of your past, as if they could find truth. "Darya Petrov, was not my family, she was a ghost."
I took those hands into my hands and said what Darya never said, what she should have said at every moment, at every single inkling of a chance, "Ty takaya chudesnaya." You are so wonderful. I took those hands into my hands and I didn't say, "I love you." I said, "You are so wonderful." I didn't say it just to say it. I said it because you are so wonderful. I said it because I wanted you to know you're wonderful. I wanted to wake you up. Because you need to hear someone telling you, "You're so wonderful," because everyone needs this. Because you are a human and you can dream, think, run and say "I love you." Because you are alive. Because you are mine. Because I wanted to take the world you had given me, rearrange it and give it back to you.
I wish I could wake up next to you every day for a year just so I can tell you you're wonderful three hundred and sixty five times. Just so I can see if the hue of your eyes has changed slightly or if your arms still feel the same when they are around me. I will kiss the shadows away, all the while whispering...
You are so wonderful.
You are so wonderful.
You are so wonderful.
You are so wonderful.
Have you ever thought about space as a metaphor for life? Everything is so far away from away from each other but it is our destiny to try to reach out and touch the untouchable, to long for our Pluto and to dance circles around our Jupiter. It is our desire to destroy the boundaries and to cross the infinite spaces between. But as Newton said, every movement has a force behind it. Every dream has a fuel source. You are the dream and I am the inspiration. You're the best of what isn't real, that is what makes you so remarkable, Sasha. What everyone must someday learn is that the intangible, make believe, happily ever after thoughts they have are the closest thing to real; that they are more plausible and believable because we yearn for them to become more than legends with every fiber in our bodies and every prayer that escapes our lips.
Have you ever just gone into a library to just walk around-to smell the books, feel their spines, read a few pages here and there, to lose yourself? I'm in one today and it's so beautiful. Great big stain glass windows and thick wooden tables (the kind with carvings from rebellious teens). For me libraries seem more like churches; I feel so much more in them. This one is old and some of the books are kept in glass cases. I could spend hours wandering, just running my fingertips over them. It's so much easier to believe another person's idea of the perfect story than to believe my own. It's easier to believe in words and lies and yesterday. Books are like those glass prisms you hold up to the light. You can see the all the colors but you still have to decipher what each one means for yourself. That's why I like them. I'm writing to you from the floor of isle 14 and I am alone. I'm stealing a book off the shelf and sending it to you. I hope you like it.
Have you ever heard Moonlight Sonata? It's so beautiful it makes me want to cry. Do beautiful things make you cry? Beautiful things are so sad, so tired. This is what makes them so lovely. Sometimes things are so beautiful that they are hard to look at. Do you know any thing like that? I do: that promise you made about our child. That promise made my arms ache for a baby I had never held. That promise was more something than anything else. Why do I reach out in the night for you? Why does looking at the stars make me miss you less?
Since you make promises, I will make wishes.
I wish the world spun in reverse. I wish it would spin back to the day in the woods. That day where time was nothing and we weren't sure about each other. You said, "Are you ever afraid of me?." Your hair was still long then and the trees cast these shadows on your face. You asked the question like you'd been thinking about it for a long time.
I said, "No. Well sometimes you look so angry and that is more sad than scary."
"That's because I am sad." You're so honest, Sasha.
"I know." The worst feeling in the world is when others know you're sad. The worst feeling in the world is shame.
"I don't feel anything." You looked me in the eyes; I wanted to make you feel the way I felt when you looked at me.
"I feel everything." Which wasn't a lie.
"Will you teach me how to be alive?"
"Yes." You know what happens next. A kiss, more kisses, a thousand kisses, in a thousand places. A thousand touches stitched together with good intentions. A thousand heart beats, a thousand seconds, a million times over.
Then I would rewind back to that night at Lake Lagoda with that violet, starless sky. You told me of your family for the first and last time. You said your father was fierce and your mother was so quiet. "She slipped through the rooms of the apartment like a wisp of smoke. She almost never spoke and when she did it was to say, 'Prastite.' I am sorry. Her life was an apology. She never once said, 'Ya tebya lyublyu, Sasha.' She had no conviction, no place, no backbone. She loved all her clothes because they were more costumes she could dress up in, more masks she could don. She could play so many parts: Stepan's wife, Sasha and Nikolay's mother, the woman who prayed with her eyes open, the once beautiful daughter of Daniil and Zoya. She was a weak extension of her ancestors, an aftertaste of her adolescence. She had no definite side or characteristic."
You paused and closed you eyes: a trademark, a sign. Your hands came to your face as if they could sift through the sand of your past, as if they could find truth. "Darya Petrov, was not my family, she was a ghost."
I took those hands into my hands and said what Darya never said, what she should have said at every moment, at every single inkling of a chance, "Ty takaya chudesnaya." You are so wonderful. I took those hands into my hands and I didn't say, "I love you." I said, "You are so wonderful." I didn't say it just to say it. I said it because you are so wonderful. I said it because I wanted you to know you're wonderful. I wanted to wake you up. Because you need to hear someone telling you, "You're so wonderful," because everyone needs this. Because you are a human and you can dream, think, run and say "I love you." Because you are alive. Because you are mine. Because I wanted to take the world you had given me, rearrange it and give it back to you.
I wish I could wake up next to you every day for a year just so I can tell you you're wonderful three hundred and sixty five times. Just so I can see if the hue of your eyes has changed slightly or if your arms still feel the same when they are around me. I will kiss the shadows away, all the while whispering...
You are so wonderful.
You are so wonderful.
You are so wonderful.
You are so wonderful.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Letter One: The One Who Illuminates the Sapphire Sky (And Makes it Hardest to Say Goodbye)
Once upon a time there was a girl and a boy and they would explore their little corner of the universe together. The boy was always the one photographed, the girl was always the one taking pictures. She would say, "Smile" and he would look away from the lens. This is why she loved him.
The boy would grab her wrists and say, "Let me take pictures of you, for once" and she would say, "No, that's not how it's supposed to be."
"Well then how is it supposed to be?"
"Like this" and she would snap a picture of him. "Isn't it odd how I can take as many picture as I want and yet there's always a glimpse of you I find that I've missed? Some curious hidden angle or glorious lighting that illuminates a new facet I've never seen before. You're always changing right before my eyes."
You were right that night when you told me I was an enigma, more of an idea than a human being. That night when I asked you to marry me, your eyes asked-who are you? Here is the truth I have been trying to say: I always change because I am afraid of staying static, of remaining here, in Leningrad. So I change my appearance, the music I listen to, the friends I have all to remain in constant motion. You're the force that propels me towards something greater. My perpetual motion machine. If I have any advice for you it is this- don't stop, don't ever stop moving not even for a second. If you stop moving, stop being so alive and so earnest and so right, the world will end or at least the only world that matters to me (which is the world we have created together).
You are half of every combination of things in the world. You're vulnerable and I'm guarded. You're eyes are resplendent and mine are shadowy. You're terribly ungraceful but I can always steady you. I like to believe we approached each other from opposite spectrums of the universe, two stars moving towards each other, then colliding. Imagine it, the colors of two exploding stars. The great and awful beauty of a crash. That's what our love has been like for me. If I could apologize for all the sins I have commited I wouldn't. I would only say this- I am sorry for my inability to make things last.
They say, the end will be chaotic but I am not afraid. As buildings fall and monuments crumble, I will simply grab your hand. I will be that star searching the bleak expanse of sky for something to collide with, something to make me whole and in the same breath make me nothing.
I have decided to make you a promise in every letter. For what is life but a series of kept and unkept promises?
If we have children I promise this is how I will explain the mysteries of our bodies.
"Well then how is it supposed to be?"
"Like this" and she would snap a picture of him. "Isn't it odd how I can take as many picture as I want and yet there's always a glimpse of you I find that I've missed? Some curious hidden angle or glorious lighting that illuminates a new facet I've never seen before. You're always changing right before my eyes."
You were right that night when you told me I was an enigma, more of an idea than a human being. That night when I asked you to marry me, your eyes asked-who are you? Here is the truth I have been trying to say: I always change because I am afraid of staying static, of remaining here, in Leningrad. So I change my appearance, the music I listen to, the friends I have all to remain in constant motion. You're the force that propels me towards something greater. My perpetual motion machine. If I have any advice for you it is this- don't stop, don't ever stop moving not even for a second. If you stop moving, stop being so alive and so earnest and so right, the world will end or at least the only world that matters to me (which is the world we have created together).
You are half of every combination of things in the world. You're vulnerable and I'm guarded. You're eyes are resplendent and mine are shadowy. You're terribly ungraceful but I can always steady you. I like to believe we approached each other from opposite spectrums of the universe, two stars moving towards each other, then colliding. Imagine it, the colors of two exploding stars. The great and awful beauty of a crash. That's what our love has been like for me. If I could apologize for all the sins I have commited I wouldn't. I would only say this- I am sorry for my inability to make things last.
They say, the end will be chaotic but I am not afraid. As buildings fall and monuments crumble, I will simply grab your hand. I will be that star searching the bleak expanse of sky for something to collide with, something to make me whole and in the same breath make me nothing.
I have decided to make you a promise in every letter. For what is life but a series of kept and unkept promises?
If we have children I promise this is how I will explain the mysteries of our bodies.
I will point to my heart and say, “This is my heart” and then I will point to their heart and say, “This is your heart.” I will say, “Your heart is why my heart exists.”
I will point to their lungs and say, “These are your lungs. Now show me my lungs.” As our child touches my lungs I will say, “Now these are what we use to breathe. Your smile is why my lungs choose to breathe.”
I will point to their head and whisper, “Now this is where your brain is. It allows you to think, dream, run and say ‘I love you.’” I will tell our child, “I think of you in my arms when I’m not where you are. I dream of you running towards me, saying ‘Daddy!’ You are the reason the words I love you were even invented. You are the force behind the greatest combination of eight letters that ever has been and ever will be.”
Friday, June 11, 2010
i'm forever, your's.
Highway run into the midnight sun
Wheels go round and round, You're on my mind
Restless hearts sleep alone tonight
Sending all my love along the wire
They say that the road ain't no place to start a family
Right down the line it's been you and me
And loving a music man ain't always what it's supposed to be
Girl
you stand by me
I'm forever yours, faithfully
I'm forever yours, faithfully
Circus life under the big top world
We all need the clowns to make us smile
Through space and time
Always another show
Wodering where I am, lost without you
And being a part ain't easy on this love affair
Two strangers learn to fall in love again
I get the joy of rediscovering you
I get the joy of rediscovering you
Oh girl
you stand by me
I'm forever yours
faithfully
I'm still yours
I'm forever yours
Ever yours
faithfully
Friday, June 4, 2010
thing's i'll never say.
"girlfriend...she's, she's your girlfriend?" her brown eyes fill with tears and her voice shakes with disbelief. "no, no, no, see she can't be, because i love you, i loved you first dammnit!" she screams at him. all he can do is stare and nod his head. "why? why come into my life if all you're going to do is fucking ruin it! i thought i meant something to you...i thought, i thought if i kept trying and kept pushing, that you would be mine in the end. say something!" he moves forward and tries to grab her hand, "i didn't say touch me, i said say something!" he steps back and says, "i told you a long time ago...but you wouldn't let go." her sadness turns to rage. "oh so this is my fault? ha, my fucking bad for loving you so damn much. my fault for believing in you that you could change. shit, do you know what i went through for you? how much i suffered for you? yeah, bet you don't...you never took the time too." tears stream down her face and she continues, "so i hope you're happy. i hope ya'll fall in love, and hell, i hope the rumors are true, i hope she is pregnant with your baby. and you know what? i hope when you're infinitely happy and you don't think things can get any better, you think of me. and then all that happiness and perfection crashes down like a cold wave around you, and you don't know who you love more. her or me. and you know what? we both know what that answer will be, it'll be me. you wanna know why? cause no one can or has loved you as much as i fucking did. no one's stupid enough too..."
- love always, jenn.
- love always, jenn.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The Failure of Dictionaries
She always found herself asking, what does it mean to be in love with someone?
Does it mean I have to look past the imperfections, the flaws, the annoying habits? Can I not desire to fix anything about the object of my love, or to change things? Does he in turn, have to look past the cracks in my being, the scars? She was convinced she would never be able to be completely sure about something, so resolute in her decision. She was more confidant of wavering, swaying in the non-existent breeze, dancing to the beat of of other drums besides her own. Must I love someone just as much as they love me? How is this possible? For, the girl knew that there would always be favorites and preferences, even in places where they didn't belong. She would think: his name, I like the way it sounds but when you pair my first name with his last name, the sound is quite different. Almost too burlesque and yet too refined. It doesn't fit. Must our names share a perfect and unique sense of cohesiveness? Is this what love is?
Also, she would wonder on the possibility of change- what if by loving each other, so intensely that our love burns with that fire everyone always speaks of -what if a spark from that fire, lands on his shirt and burns his skin? He is now rendered different. Does our love shape us? Can we change our lovers, simply by loving them? Love, has that power to alter and shape shift its captives. Maybe she thought, if I start loving you, I won't really love you anymore because I'll be changing you. Perhaps by loving you so much, I'll actually learn to love you less and less. Perhaps.
Should I be able to pin point the exact reasons why I love him? Should our letters to each other span pages, without the repeating what we've already said or saying what we've already meant? Should my hand never grow tired when I sign the letter, love me. Do the thousands of repetitions of that word make it less or more than it should be?
And what if when he touches me, I remember someone else but only for a second. The imprint of another still on my lips; what if the old kiss collides with the new kiss and makes something extraordinary? Is it wrong to think about the old kiss with affection-must I think of it now as a foreign part of my past? Must I cast off these old imprints and memories, make them disappear? It is wrong to erase those you have loved from anything, for surely they have enlivened the air and brightened the colors and brought about the sensation of flying; to forget them would forever grey the memories you created together. Life is not a chalkboard but rather a specimen of something greater, our hearts have no erasers, only magnifying glasses.
Our heart surges to absorb any outside force and then takes the force into the dark room. It exposes the force to light, transfers it to photo paper, blows up the image, frames it. Hangs up each individual moment, each feeling, each life, in chronological order, birth to death. Love is the space between the two. Imagine, such a gallery of infinity. If time was measured in breaths taken, you wouldn't be able to see the whole gallery unless you ran through it. Unless you made the images a blur. But as you ran the gallery would keep expanding. Your life would build on itself and off you, for technically, it would be your hands hammering the nail into the wall of your heart and your hands straightening the framed picture and then your feet carrying you a few feet back so you could gage it's relative cohesiveness with the rest of your life and then it would be your brain telling you-"Yes, it looks perfect. Beautiful, so beautiful. Words fail. Life is not long enough to explain the intricacy of this picture." This picture is of your husband or wife. They are smiling almost directly at the lens. This is the moment before you kissed him or her for the first time. Fifteen pictures down-"You are wonderful. You make me want to be better than I could ever be." This is a picture of your child. Forever is not impossible here. Four pictures down, a new house. Seven more, you're older, grayer. Seventy more-"How could you leave me here with all these flowers? They're so colorless." You'll want to fast forward over this frame, it's to melancholy. Oh, wait frame 5,996,452-" I'm sorry I won't get to tell you my story. You're quite simply my best time. I do so love to hold you, like this." A grandchild. Stare at this one a while. Stop time for a bit. Don't pass anything, feel everything. You've got as much time as you'll give yourself. Your life is so meaningful. Frame 6,788,934-"I love you more than anyone could ever dream of loving you. Come home." This is the last frame. Every picture is breathtaking, if only life was measured in breaths.
Your life is gallery arranged by love. Love is a question composed of memories. Memories are butterflies. Butterflies are formed by the complementary strings of grace and fragility. Grace and fragility are fragments of a thing called beauty. Beauty is a lullaby whispered into the ears of the youth. The youth are idyllic sparks. Sparks are pieces of fire. Fire is forged from millions of dying stars. Dying stars are hope. Hope is light. Light is, most memorably a sunset or sunrise, depending on who you are (a sunset is a goodbye, a sunrise a hello-is your life a series of beginnings or endings?) There are exactly 344,456,932 sunrises and sunsets in your gallery. What makes them unique? You shared sunrise 4,453,321 with your favorite person in the world. Sunset 804, 234 was when you got your first kiss. Sunrise 344,456, 931 you were alone and it was the most beautiful. Sunset 344,456, 932, the finale, was the saddest for obvious reasons. You are tired. So tired. It's been like this for a while. Time to say goodbye. The curtain closes, the audience cheers for an encore that will never happen.
This is what dictionaries don't tell us about love:
That it ends just as everything must end.
That it is unexplainable.
That it is undefinable.
That it is vital.
Does it mean I have to look past the imperfections, the flaws, the annoying habits? Can I not desire to fix anything about the object of my love, or to change things? Does he in turn, have to look past the cracks in my being, the scars? She was convinced she would never be able to be completely sure about something, so resolute in her decision. She was more confidant of wavering, swaying in the non-existent breeze, dancing to the beat of of other drums besides her own. Must I love someone just as much as they love me? How is this possible? For, the girl knew that there would always be favorites and preferences, even in places where they didn't belong. She would think: his name, I like the way it sounds but when you pair my first name with his last name, the sound is quite different. Almost too burlesque and yet too refined. It doesn't fit. Must our names share a perfect and unique sense of cohesiveness? Is this what love is?
Also, she would wonder on the possibility of change- what if by loving each other, so intensely that our love burns with that fire everyone always speaks of -what if a spark from that fire, lands on his shirt and burns his skin? He is now rendered different. Does our love shape us? Can we change our lovers, simply by loving them? Love, has that power to alter and shape shift its captives. Maybe she thought, if I start loving you, I won't really love you anymore because I'll be changing you. Perhaps by loving you so much, I'll actually learn to love you less and less. Perhaps.
Should I be able to pin point the exact reasons why I love him? Should our letters to each other span pages, without the repeating what we've already said or saying what we've already meant? Should my hand never grow tired when I sign the letter, love me. Do the thousands of repetitions of that word make it less or more than it should be?
And what if when he touches me, I remember someone else but only for a second. The imprint of another still on my lips; what if the old kiss collides with the new kiss and makes something extraordinary? Is it wrong to think about the old kiss with affection-must I think of it now as a foreign part of my past? Must I cast off these old imprints and memories, make them disappear? It is wrong to erase those you have loved from anything, for surely they have enlivened the air and brightened the colors and brought about the sensation of flying; to forget them would forever grey the memories you created together. Life is not a chalkboard but rather a specimen of something greater, our hearts have no erasers, only magnifying glasses.
Our heart surges to absorb any outside force and then takes the force into the dark room. It exposes the force to light, transfers it to photo paper, blows up the image, frames it. Hangs up each individual moment, each feeling, each life, in chronological order, birth to death. Love is the space between the two. Imagine, such a gallery of infinity. If time was measured in breaths taken, you wouldn't be able to see the whole gallery unless you ran through it. Unless you made the images a blur. But as you ran the gallery would keep expanding. Your life would build on itself and off you, for technically, it would be your hands hammering the nail into the wall of your heart and your hands straightening the framed picture and then your feet carrying you a few feet back so you could gage it's relative cohesiveness with the rest of your life and then it would be your brain telling you-"Yes, it looks perfect. Beautiful, so beautiful. Words fail. Life is not long enough to explain the intricacy of this picture." This picture is of your husband or wife. They are smiling almost directly at the lens. This is the moment before you kissed him or her for the first time. Fifteen pictures down-"You are wonderful. You make me want to be better than I could ever be." This is a picture of your child. Forever is not impossible here. Four pictures down, a new house. Seven more, you're older, grayer. Seventy more-"How could you leave me here with all these flowers? They're so colorless." You'll want to fast forward over this frame, it's to melancholy. Oh, wait frame 5,996,452-" I'm sorry I won't get to tell you my story. You're quite simply my best time. I do so love to hold you, like this." A grandchild. Stare at this one a while. Stop time for a bit. Don't pass anything, feel everything. You've got as much time as you'll give yourself. Your life is so meaningful. Frame 6,788,934-"I love you more than anyone could ever dream of loving you. Come home." This is the last frame. Every picture is breathtaking, if only life was measured in breaths.
Your life is gallery arranged by love. Love is a question composed of memories. Memories are butterflies. Butterflies are formed by the complementary strings of grace and fragility. Grace and fragility are fragments of a thing called beauty. Beauty is a lullaby whispered into the ears of the youth. The youth are idyllic sparks. Sparks are pieces of fire. Fire is forged from millions of dying stars. Dying stars are hope. Hope is light. Light is, most memorably a sunset or sunrise, depending on who you are (a sunset is a goodbye, a sunrise a hello-is your life a series of beginnings or endings?) There are exactly 344,456,932 sunrises and sunsets in your gallery. What makes them unique? You shared sunrise 4,453,321 with your favorite person in the world. Sunset 804, 234 was when you got your first kiss. Sunrise 344,456, 931 you were alone and it was the most beautiful. Sunset 344,456, 932, the finale, was the saddest for obvious reasons. You are tired. So tired. It's been like this for a while. Time to say goodbye. The curtain closes, the audience cheers for an encore that will never happen.
This is what dictionaries don't tell us about love:
That it ends just as everything must end.
That it is unexplainable.
That it is undefinable.
That it is vital.
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