recent rain

I had a dream in which I found out I had an infant child. I thought "shit, how did I forget I had a kid? when was I pregnant? and how the hell am I supposed to take care of him with my current schedule?"
I woke up and was relieved, only to find out that I really did have a kid, just learning to hold his head.
When I finally really did wake up, I double guessed myself, touched my stomach to see if it felt like I had recently been pregnant.

My schedule really is strange: I work every other weekend, and my workday is either 7-3:30 or 3-11:30, depending on the shift. I've been tired a lot but hopefully once I adjust to the demands I will no longer come home and fall flat on my face. This job is exactly what I was looking for, out of the jobs available for my level of education and clinical aspirations. But it requires interacting with new people everyday, running around, being 'on' the entire time, and I've never been good at that.

The rest of my family is in Vegas until the 29th, so I have Potemkin for company. He's currently purring next to me in hopes of receiving some affection. Recent rain is dripping from the gutters.

bubble gum

I taught Sima how to blow bubbles with bubble gum. He was so gleeful with his first one, and then right away decided he wanted to blow a bigger one. Are we never satisfied?

Thanksgiving was the usual blur of people and food, different topics spiraling out of control, music in excess, bad poetry with better people. I was told to shut up, and listened as the entire American Black population of the US be called "those fuckers". Watched tiny girls made into superstars while their mothers glowed close by.

Spent a day doing nothing over coffee with Max M. and had margaritas at Sunset grill&tap with Yulka to celebrate my new job, followed by tea and Settlers of Catan, the sleepy settler loosing but I was sober for the ride home and how I wonder about those two girls who died this year at Bard in the hit-and-run. Faces of the past will meld into faces of the future, I want to find an apartment and hope I'll like my new job and arrange my life so that I read and sing and dance and paint and all those other things I consider to be living.
I make it beckon, and then I come.

ice swan feathers

a few weeks ago Mama and I went to see the show Bad Jews. The four actors were pretty good, and though the characters could be misread as caricaturish, I have met people exactly like each of those characters.
There is a Sabbath blessing that fathers do for their children; placing a hand on the head and saying a prayer. I've always liked that moment.
Mt. Washington with my father and his friend ended in a satisfied fatigue. We drove to New Hampshire and stayed the night in a motel, got up at 5, started climbing at 7. Near the top, the wind blew so hard I was afraid I would get blown off, and we couldn't see from one cairn to the next because of the fog. But it was beautiful; the wind had swept the moist air into ice formations, like frozen swan feathers. 

infinite party people

I have been told I look like Lorde, Kate Winslet, Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway and Miriam Sekhon. But by far the closest anyone has gotten was my boss this morning, when he said I look like a Vrubel demon.

Mikhail Vrubel - Head of Demon

***

dream -- It was daylight but this party was being set up in a field in a city. On the other side of the field I could see people running around, young people, and others from their group were in other places as well. You could tell they were one of the same because there was something mystical about them, and they were so fervently happy and sharp. One looked straight at me (through me) with dark eyes.

But I went indoors and there was this strange creature, like a bird or a dog. Some of these people were there, and everyone was standing around chatting. I came up to the creature and petted it. I felt like there was some chance that it would bite my arm off (it was very large) but it was impressed by me, and I felt like a shock though my system, all my hairs were on end, goosebumps. It's feathers were bristly and it pretended to eat me up whole, because for some reason I needed to appear like this other group of people, and they were already dead.

One boy with a beautiful face and dark eyes whom I had seen earlier in the field had an intestine from someone else. They were like patchwork people, except that they remained youthful and beautiful and intact. Not quite zombies, flitting in and out of here and now [8:05 alarm, back to sleep]

 
Then I woke up in my bed in a room I was sharing with two other people. I was parched from all the drinking of the night, and I took an appetite suppressant because it was cheaper to eat those than to buy food. I was very poor. But I went out and met this woman who was also from the other plain, but not quite, still too attached to this one. A witch. She was trying to find the middle room in this large doll house, but it kept disappearing - it existed when you looked at the roof of the house, but the space contracted when you looked inside. Finally she found it, and there was a chicken inside wired up. She created a path back to the field, and then, to put the (dead, cold, featherless, headless) chicken out of its misery, she snipped just one wire. [8:15 alarm, back to sleep]

I was at this crazy party, no longer in the park, no longer in this world. We had kept walking and walking until I was only surrounded by dead people. The scavenged soul of Zeus was a glow the size of an elephant. People on stilts and in fantastic dresses through all different time periods. A band was playing on the stage, and the party went out and out forever into the dark, but it wasn't the dark of night. But then the band starting singing a song attacking the dead boy who led me there (the one from the field, except now blond instead of a brunette, and with an entirely different facial structure, shorter too. I was also now viewing from third person, so it felt...less). The band said that he was foolish to think he could let me be here, that he shouldn't have brought me. I tried defending him but turned into a cartoon.

Then I woke up in a hospital, wired into life support. Making the connection with the chicken and the immortals, I snipped on wire and hoped that I wasn't going to disappear, but die like they had died, the infinite party people. I started to feel light headed and someone I love, who is familiar (but whom I can't specifically remember) came in and I said good bye and [8:30 alarm] woke up.

marriage

Soon after my twentieth birthday, my thoughts started turning towards what it means to get married.

It is traditional in the US (and probably other places) that little girls think about their weddings. They play brides and bridesmaids, are chosen to be flower girls, think color schemes and flower arrangements, and deliberate about whom to invite before a groom comes into view. It's entrenched enough in culture that 30 Rock had an episode where the main female character at first doesn't want a big wedding and then realizes that, damn it, she wants to be a princess for a day. She dresses up as princess Leia from Star Wars for and they re-do her wedding. And it was funny: that yes, even the women on T.V. that are successful, funny, clumsy, and not stereotypically feminine want to follow through on at least some aspects of having an opulent ceremony; the dress or the venue or something. 

Somehow that fantasy did not weasel its way into my head. The most thought I'd gotten to was "I hate large parties and being the center of attention" and "white doesn't suit me" and "shiny diamond rings are not my style, and why do women get branded twice". Only after watching Gilmore Girls did I even really find out what the hell people meant when they talked about planning a wedding. Centerpieces, food, venue, seating arrangements...

When I say"my thoughts started turning towards what it means to get married" I do not mean I started thinking about weddings. I did, however, feel myself staring at the reality that almost all the adults I know where married in their twenties, and most had a child or two before they hit their 30th birthday. Some had gotten married and stayed together from age 18. Others had decided to get married and stayed together on their first date. My mother had me at age 25. This is not early, but it seems very soon relative to my current age of 22. More recently, a couple of my friends have married, in two very different ceremonies, one involved a campfire, the other was more traditional. I did not grow up in the type of town where my peers from highschool are already married with kids, but some of my friends in college did. The world around me has followed tradition.

When the boy from Tula asked me when I thought the appropriate age to get married is, I said that there are things I have more control over: my education, my career, even having kids. But that marriage depends on when I meet this person, if he even wants the ceremony, if he's ready etc. and I have don't have enough control over all this to set a time frame. Of course, some people get married when they feel ready, and it has more to do with their place in life than whom they are with. Either way, the question stands: why do people get married? What is the purpose of the ceremony?

I'm not speaking about this on a historical scale. I know that the wedding ceremony across the globe has meant different things, and was by and large influenced by politics and reproduction. Even today, the upper class seems to breed themselves in a manner that reminds me more of dogs than humans (we want to stay poodles, down with the mutts!). However, what I am talking about is marriage for love and stability. For most people, this means monogamy and/or children.

Obligation: A couple of people I asked said simply: it's a social obligation. People expect you to get married. The government gives couples incentive to get married.
Stability: One said; helps you get through tougher patches in a relationship that otherwise would result in the end. You made your vows, you have to work harder at making the partnership work. It made me think about divorcées: they tend to get married again. They must believe in the power of it, even if it fell through once.
Flexibility: Another woman said that very few people are naturally monogamous. She added that if I ever meet such a couple of truly monogamous people, I will see that they are not the reason monogamy is so etched into our culture. And that generally, with good communication, this expectation can be worked around with my future partner.

photo by Brandon Stanton

Comfort: A woman in a Humans of New York photo said “I was engaged eight years ago, but my fiancee died in Iraq. After that, I promised myself that I'd never be that dependent on someone again. So after I met my husband, I fought marriage for the longest time. But we got married in September. And even though I was rebelling against it, and I always saw it as a meaningless formality, I've been surprised. There's a comfort in knowing that you're sworn to someone else."

Last Friday I went to Brookline to see Yulka and her new apartment. We had coffee and raspberry oatmeal bars over chess and hunted for a day planner. She had recently been at a wedding in Chicago, and she told me over sushi how she had asked about why people have the ceremony. The person she had asked said that some people are just so in love and want to share it, show it, announce it. In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

***

Three Epithalamia
Georges Perec

On this beautiful Saturday in May
Sophie has married Michel
and Michel has married Sophie
They have married
and they are now together
like Aucassin and Nicolette
and like nut cake and honey
like hand and piano
      table and chair
      soup and ladle
      tench and hook
      science and doubt
      pen and drawing
      dove and millet
      hospital and silence
      candle and bed warmer
      camomile tea and madeleine
and even couscous and chick peas
It’s a delectable morning
the sun lights up the countryside
bees are gathering honey
a butterfly delicately alights by a mimosa
sheep are bleating
in the distance bells are ringing
everything is calm and peaceful
At the very end of the little wood the vast planet begins
its lakes its oceans its steppes
its hills its plains its oases
its sand dunes
its palaces its museums its islands its ports of call
its lovely automobiles glistening in the rain
its white-bonneted Salvationists singing carols on Christmas Eve
its bowlered worthies in conference at the tabac on Place Saint
    Sulpice
its mustachio’d sea captains exuding patchouli and lilac
its tennis champions hugging at the end of a match
its Indians with their calumet seated by a sandalwood totem pole
its mountain climbers attacking Popocatapetl
its eager canoeists paddling down the Mississippi
its Anabaptists mischievously nodding their heads as they discuss
    the Bible
its little Balinese women dancing on cocoa plantations
its philosophers in peaked caps arguing about Condillac’s ideas
    in outmoded tea rooms
its pin-up girls in bathing suits astride docile elephants
its impassive Londoners bidding a no-trump little slam
But here the sky is blue
Let’s forget the weight of the world
a bird is singing at the very top of the house
cats and dogs drowse by the fireplace
where a huge log is slowly burning up
You hear the ticking of the clock
This little poem
where only simple words have been used
      words like daisy and broomstick
      like lady-bird and cream sauce
      like croissant and nonchalance
and not words like palimpsest, pitchblende, cumulonimbus,
      decalcomania, stethoscope, machicolation, or
      anticonstitutionally
has been specially composed
on the occasion of these nuptials
Let us wish Sophie and Michel
years and years of rejoicing
like the thousand years gone by
      in which Philemon and Baucis
each May are born into the world
      she as linden, he as oak

voting in the flesh

The church where the vote is held in my town was pretty empty. The light in the tower was lit, the foggy moon hung over it. Inside, everyone looked grumpy. You would think having the "Green-Rainbow Party" on the ballot would cheer them up. Ah well. I filled out my sheet and let the machine gobble it up.

***

I drew for the first time in a while yesterday, finally executing a piece Sasha commissioned me to do when I was last in NYC. If you want a drawing by me, just ask (in the comments I guess?)

***

I had a dream in which people were shot and infected with this strange bug: their eyes would turn entirely blue and they would start attacking other humans. And somehow I figured out how to stop it, and the I started appearing in different places: space shuttles, huge rivers with candles and people floating around for some party. But then to save everyone, I turned into this octopus thing that filled up the sky and intercepted whatever was shooting people and turning them into blue eyed monsters. But there was a moral dilemma, because the shooters were The Fates, and the reason they were shooting was that humans were just living too long. I was up there in the sky, no longer human, and thinking that maybe The Fates were right, but I no longer had a way of communicating with humans.

I thought I'd share in light of this article about mice and reversing aging.

steam

I brought facepaint along to the first party and the next night the theme was steam-punk. I'm disappointed that my more youthful plans fell through (I spent both nights in the company of my parents) but hopefully next year I will spend Halloween in higher spirits (a couple of puns intended).

It is snowing and the snow is sticking. Some trees have trunks that turn into branches that turn into twigs, silhouetted against the white gray sky. Others stand in almost full green coats of leaves, surprised that such a warm autumn is so quickly turning to winter. Or at least I think they are; I am.

assorted squash

я: у нас постоянно гниет чеснок.
мама: не постоянно, постоянно значит он не переставая гниет
я: ну, почти
мама: я тебя все ровно люблю, не смотря на то что ты такая ворчливая

eng --
me: our garlic is constantly rotting.
mama: not constantly, for that it would have to rot nonstop
me: well, basically
mama: I love you anyway, even though you are so grumbly

***

Yesterday we went to a birthday party for s&b, so many people came that the table was in an L shape from the dinning room into the living room, chairs set tightly all around, food a plenty. Guests from here, NYC, LA, Toronto, Tula, St. Petersburg. A boy a year younger than me from Tula asked "What do you think is a good age to get married?"
What a strange question, I thought. 

***

waiting room

Yesterday I went to the mechanic and waited while they changed a headlight bulb and the oil. They have nice waiting rooms: open area with a tv, separate closed area for kids filled with toys, another closed are for those who want quite. There was one man in the quite room, I joined him and tried to read.

He was at his laptop and sometimes his phone buzzed. When it did he would pick it up, look at it irritably, and respond. He wore a button down shirt tucked into kahki pants, and as soon as I entered he became the most boring person in the room. He needed to replace his tires as well as what he had come to fix, and his last name was Shaw.

A brunette entered the room, sat down noisily with Starbucks in hand, flipping open her tip-filled magazine. Her brakes had squeaked once. The mechanic said they were fine, that the sound was a one time thing, that he could change them but there's no point. He repeated this three times but she insisted he change them anyway.

At this point I noticed that the room with the TV also had free coffee, so I went and brewed myself a capsule. When I came back someone's stuff was in the the seat next to mine. Three self-help books, something like "Finding Hope" and "Putting yourself back Together". The man came back into the room and sat down right next to me (in a room of 20 chairs). He answered his phone Dr. Brown. He asked the mechanic to step outside the room when called upon.

A sever looking blond suburban woman, with short hair and a tall thin frame. She too was very aware of the quite sign on the door, looking over at me and saying 'sorry' after the conversation with the mechanic was over. Then she took her magazine and left. The brunette came back in, eyed her old spot, and sighed exhaustedly, having failed to find what she had lost, and left again.

A boy my age came in with a woman I thought was his mother until I realized she was his girlfriend.

I have two working headlights now.
In other news, Sima is very happy with the Halloween costume he picked out.

chronology?

7) Sara said "мне очень нравится как ты обнимаешься. очень крепко"

1) went to the MFA with Max. Saw Jamie Wyeth and didn't like how rubbery his subjects are and structureless his painting.

4) lunch with Tom.

2) drinks and food at Whiskey's with Max. He convinced me to leave my number for the waiter. We tried to go in a straight line and ended up back were we started -- that was before the drinks.

9) read a post Hannah wrote in France. I liked this one.

8) I sent out my resume, interviewed the same day, got a job offer the day after that and declined in the evening, stating a realization that hours of 10:45pm-8:45am wed-sat nights are not optimal for my functioning.

2.5) went blazer shopping at a thrift store with Yosef for his semi-formal. Very difficult task we have yet to succeed.

5) I finished reading Dovlatov's Иностранка (foreigner, or the official title in English A Foreign Woman). Like reading about a familiar zoo, and particularity good because I was just writing about racism in Russia and how it manifests once they emigrate.

3) Sanya is here from Moscow, she brought candy and I remembered that's one of the things I would get most excited about when Dedushka would visit.

6) Sara needed coffee. The girls sitting on the bench were trying to figure out where to go: map in hand, pinpointing a street to orient from. Four in a row, age 13 or so, out in the city.

10) attempted to post from my new and first proper smartphone. 

what is substance

Death: We attended a memorial service for our neighbor Frank Musinsky who passed away in August. I remember one of my first conversations with him, I was nine or so and told him that I would love a boy if he was good and smart, regardless of how he looked: I almost believed it too. He had participated in founding the Paris Review, but I met him years later when he the sharp and inquisitive man in a wheel chair. As I got to know him he became more: the man who loved music and worked for most of his years and enjoyed a good conversation -- as evident by the number of people who attended the service. may he rest.

Growth: Sima just came from school and his roti chapati flatbread got a bit scorched in the toaster. He asked if the burned parts caused cancer, and then asked what cancer was. That he's heard that theres lots of different types and that one is not curable. That this little girl fell and her stomach hurt and when they took her to the doctor they found out she had cancer. He has homework now and a birthday party to attend soon.

Celebration: Eloosha came home for the Rosh Hashanah, so Yulka and I came over. Honey for a sweet year.

Future: Jo told me I seem calm and happy yesterday when we met for dinner. Alana joined and we walked around Cambridge and Sommerville. The future keeps coming and coming.

Season: It is undeniably autumn. Some trees standing bare and some are not ready to part with their emerald tapestry, but the others are yellow and orange and red, parting with their leaves, which one by one hit the ground.

(not at all like in the photo below)

a couple weekends ago; Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary - Mass Audubon

parallel

I hadn't seen Sara in over two years, and in Moscow at that, but it didn't feel like it. She is bright and warm and beautiful. She borrowed a book she loves and which I finished earlier this month (Salinger's Franny and Zooey) in addition to a biography of Brodski. We ate and walked and I told her about the parallel lives I imagine*, and she told me about her future plans. When she was leaving, she offered me her scarf as a gift but I said "no"; "why?"; "because you need it!" She left it on my bed anyway, folded neatly, brown bikes on cyan cloth.

* I don't know if this is an immigrant thing or just me, but I wonder what would have happened had I grown up in Moscow. It's important not to do this too much, otherwise one can go a bit mad. Interestingly, I don't really do it for Israel (though the chance of ending up there is just as real, if not more so). Maybe I would have been a bit more chill, and I know a couple of the people I would know better had I lived there (Ilya whom I met two years ago, and Manya - people used to tell us we look like sisters before she moved to Israel in middle school) but it doesn't seem like I would be fundamentally different. I also haven't been there in a really long time, so perhaps I simply don't have enough information to fantasize.
I also don't really imagine what it would be like if I had gone to Clark University or UMass Amherst (the other two colleges I had been considering for my bachelors), or if I hadn't met the specific part of the Russian-Jewish community I'm part of in 8th grade. It doesn't make sense to, because I can't imagine anything in it's place except misery. 

I think with Moscow it's due to a string of 'coincidences'.
I met a boy Danya from St. Petersburg about a month ago, and he introduced me to his friend, who knew my cousins because they go to the 57th school (it seems that about 50% of the Russian-speakers I know went there). When Andrej came to camp in 2008, I already had been him four years prior in Karelia, and of all the people there, I had made sure to get his address for correspondences (though never wrote to him). In Berlin, I was staying with Sasha and his apartment mates. Mama had a friend through live journal but never met her in person, and this woman knew Sasha had a room. When Dasha Sh. visited me for a day it turned out she knew Sasha's sister. In Moscow I was brought to the same alternative-space by two different people, and it was best put by Varya: this place is widely known in narrow circles. There are others. I may be wrong, there are circles that don't quite overlap. The people I know from MGU who studied mathematics don't know all these people, though Sima is the reason I ended up in Karelia.

And that's where it is: that moment. Some things I have no idea about - how would I have been different had I grown up in a city, specifically Moscow - more neurotic? aggressive? sexually focused? feminine? cruel? educated? What has been lost and what has been acquired by me leading the life I lead, and not the life I don't lead (as Sara noted, there is inevitably a touch of sadness in considering the alternative. like maybe those things are missing from me.)
But some things are fixed. I may not have known the same exact people, but I would have almost known them. Known someone they know or gone to the same space and held the same political and social views. In a world of over seven billion, there are not that many that I could know, even if I had ended up living 4,500 miles away.

goes on

this weekend Hannah came and visited me. I also saw Sam in Boston, soon to leave on his tentatively year-long trip along the coast, on a sailboat he cobbled together himself.

I went to a gallery opening of my photo teacher from highschool, who retired this last year. Her eyes are a sharp blue, and her show was on female beauty and aging (Marky Kauffmann).

Everyone is well.

helix

what?
a helix piercing, followed by vegan milkshakes and watching The One I Love (2014, USA, McDowell).

when?
The 14th of September, it was a lovely day.

where?
Stingray Body Art, then FoMu and finally West Newton Cinema (the theater is slightly decrepit, but I like it).

why?
because I've wanted to for so long it felt like I already had it done years ago. I told Dasha Sh when I was in Moscow in February of 2009, and she sent me a letter with a little hoop earring, which took about two months to come but did make it (surprisingly, happily).

who?
me, the writer, with her lovely friend Yulka.

how?
with a needle. with money. with pressure. with choice. with a hand. with a deep breath in and a deep breath out. with advice. with memory. with metal in flesh.

which?
the right one.

The Mall

For most of my life I viewed buying clothes as an unpleasant but necessary part of existence. Society demands I wear clothes, and so does the weather (most of the time, around here anyway). Eventually, clothes shopping stopped being so horrible, clothes more interesting. I never really started liking malls, other places are nicer, but I will admit that they are an efficient way for the many to get clothes and kill time. Mama often has me tag along to help her choose outfits. Yesterday's trip was like this.

One of the restaurants at the mall Is called Wasabi, and has one of those futuristic Japanese conveyor belts with portions: inari sushi, sashimi, seaweed, wasabi peas. Different colored plates are different prices, ranging from 2-5$ a plate, all going round and round. It's very efficient - the waitresses can deal with more customers at a time and don't have to take an order, and it's easier to decide on what you want when it's passing by you - and easier to take more than you should if the temptation keeps flickering past. It reminds me of the Charlie Chaplin feeding machine, except making leisure more efficient instead of the workplace.

Across from the Wasabi a store had recently opened - Uniqlo, also from Japan (I'm sure its placement is not an accident.) It's had an aggressive ad campaign and the store was abuzz. It is larger than most spaces at the mall, lined with identically repeating plain articles of clothing. Thirty gray puffy vests on one side of a rack, thirty maroon, otherwise identical puffy vests on the other side. More on the walls. Square shelves all the way to the ceiling with socks, different patterns in each square cube. As new-time costumers, they asked us to fill out a short questioner about our experience. Usually I wouldn't have, but this time I did, write in comment: The set-up is alientating. Repetitive and robotic.

but maybe these leggings will last?

hot peanuts cold beer

In NYC for labor day weekend, I arrived at Luisa's and Sasha's apartment a little before midnight. I had the pleasure of meetings Sasha's ginger kitten Filibuster, and in the morning we made pancakes (with Sasha, not with Filibuster). Sasha and I went to meet Hannah and Will, we walked the highline and hung out in a posh village apartment where Will was temporarily staying.

I met up with Bianca the next morning: she's leaving for graduate school in London soon. She told me about Central Park's designer and commented on how weird some the new architecture coming up is. In the afternoon I traveled down from midtown to Brooklyn to meet Shinno. We walked around and right as it started raining, we were inside eating ramen (for the first time, for me). When it stopped we walked and walked until we stopped at Skinny Denis, where an all female modern mariachi band was playing, and in hand-lettering, it said "hot peanuts cold beer" across the entrance window. Alligator lounge later, where each drink came with a complimentary personal pizza, and we were joined by Shinno's friends who'd I'd never met but they seemed familiar anyway.  

Monday was another parting with Hannah and Will, the heat had gotten to us and as we ate froyo a crime scene was being set up across the street.

I've shot three rolls and have only scanned the second one I shot. 

Brimfield Flea Market

Sunday we went to a flea market the size of a few blocks. broken wind-up wristwatches, giant heavy tables made out of found wood and factory parts, jewelry, door knobs, plates, dresses, a giant antique yellow sofa (the kind with the arms splayed out), bells, cameras, Buddhas, all things rust (like old-fashioned apple peelers), vases, glass figurines, posters, step stools, postcards (with and without writing, I got one sent in 1908), scales, glass bottles, suitcases and storage trunks, wooden cases with tons of tiny little drawers, cameo and other pins, and 'open' sign with an arrow (like those seen in movies about old Vegas or old NYC), lamps from many different eras, cigarette lighters with wicks, baskets, furniture keys, chairs, books, Life magazine and Playboy, spools of thread, type keys and other stamps, more tables, rugs, satchels, large coral, shoes, photo enlarger that just needed a light bulb, machine oil, school lockers, mirrors, and so many things that I didn't even know what they were. I  don't know if I saw things just once and they impressed me, or multiple times. If I saw them multiple times in different places, or just past the same place more than once. Like the city of Zirma, a blind black man shouting in the crowd, a lunatic teetering on a skyscraper's cornice, a girl walking with a puma on a leash.

We got Polish food from a man who moved here 25 years ago but still wears Polish crest necklace, and got lemonade somewhere else. I sent the postcard from 1908 to Hannah, the vendor told me all he knew about Marshall McLuhan, which was a lot; About how he predicted that it was information that was valuable, not computers, and that he coined the terms "global village" and "the medium is the message". We also talked about how they no longer are teaching cursive in schools, which I read about as well, and how because of that one of the guys who came by looking to buy (and sell) autographs was freaking out because what happens to autographs when penmanship dies. How writing by hand will be an upper class thing again. "Wait one second, I have to finish" he said "this is one of my favorite topics". Though, in spite all this, Sima came from school today and told me that they are going to start teaching them cursive in third grade, same as they did with me. The vendor was so caught up in his own speech that he gave me an extra dollar back in change.

Some boy tried to get my attention (which caught me off guard more than usual) and Mama said "I know! you can't meet boys at bars. They are too standard and basic for you. You need to meet boys at places like antique fairs, where they are strange and inadequate"

Birthday Queen

Yulka's birthday, as usual, was during our camping trip. She had considered not coming - but something about being alone on the day she turns 22, after spending it with us for most of those years, turned her against the decision (thankfully.) For me the night was perfect in a way words cannot quite describe, though I will pitifully try.

The four of us (Yulka, me, Lizza, Veta) celebrated, first sitting on top of the playground structure, trying to get enough reception to play a Miley Cyrus song from when she was still Hannah Montana. We watched the sun set and felt the chill set in. Most everyone went to the theater that day, but we drove to a gas station instead; played a mix cd on the way, got chips and the saccharine poison Red Bull. Ordered a Dominoes pizza and consumed it, crouching in front of Yulka's car on the pavement. Lizza and Veta presented the Birthday Queen with cards and flowers and a bracelet. I was happy, and I think they were too.

CC 2014

I wrote to Sorrel about camping this year, and she agreed that this is what it's like when you meet up with old friends: everything is exactly the same, yet different.

We did things, as usual - same people with a few variations, and the kids are growing. KVN, climbed in the trees of an adventure park, swam. We put on plays, played music, cooked, played games, attended classes, hugged, slept, stayed awake, drank, recited poetry. Part of the time I felt anxious like a crumpled piece of paper. Part of it I was as gleeful as a soon-to-expire spark of fire, singeing joyously against the cold summer night. Sometime I will be back again, but not to this place, not quite.

coconut cake

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT

says the banner in the middle of town. I'm not sure what they want me to vote for. People have been standing on the corners of streets with signs -- waving and smiling, but their waving and their smiling is so peculiar that I have yet to read what the sign says.

Yesterday Yosef and I sat in the car after buying him school supplies, ate Reese's cups and debated who has a bigger nose. He turned 16 the day before, complaining about school the second day in, but I hope he enjoyed the coconut cake.

Tomorrow I'll be helping at a 3D printing booth at Sudbury Fair.

small summer

Yosef and I met the falling sun on the front steps, trying to scrub away the black crust from camp pots. We'd gone canoing earlier, past people jumping from trees into the water under the beating heat. Summer is coming to a close; the geese plump enough for flight, the trees whispering "we are still green but not for long", the period of convalescence from the academic year not quite enough for those returning to high school, but already too long for those not going anywhere at all.

they landed!

Yesterday a little before midnight I got in the car and drove to the airport. I passed a car in flames, smoke billowing mercilessly, a figure a few yards in front silhouetted by the street light.

Papa and Yosef seemed quite cheerful when I picked them up, despite the fact that one of their suitcases had been taken. I can only imagine the surprise of the person who took it when they get home: opening it up only to find it filled with ice picks and other mountaineering gear. (we got it back today though so it's okay).


currently on level 31 of this game: http://gameaboutsquares.com

girl on ground

1) Yesterday, Yulka and I went to Vegi Galaxy (black bean burger for her, chickpea and mushroom for me) before wandering around Central Sq. and inevitably ending up at the Arts&Craftsman store. We indulged ourselves in calligraphy pens and ink.

3) We then watched The Double (2013, UK) though I should probably read the Dostoevsky short story. Also recently: Man on Wire (2008, UK).

Welch-Dickey Loop from a couple weeks ago

4) Karen and I met up for the first time in a long time at the beginning of the summer, ate at the Border Cafe in Harvard Sq, walked from there to Northeastern. We followed up last weekend with pizza and coffee. The distance between people vacillates.

5) I dreamed I was dancing on water. I had to make sure my weight was distributed equally on the soles of my feet and that I moved quickly not to fall through into the lake.

6) Our refrigerator broke over a week ago. The snow my brothers gathered and kept through the years melted. The oldest bag filled with water and small twigs is from winter 2008-2009.

7) Sima did not manage to keep it a secret when his tooth fell out. He was too excited, running up to Mama and me to show it before washing it, putting it in a sandwich bag and under his pillow to be replaced by a Sacagawea coin.

20 teeth 6 letters

I've been coming up to make sure Sima's tooth is still there when he goes to bed: two days ago I tickled him, yesterday I convinced him to growl at me like a lion.

yesterday got six pieces of mail: one asking for money, one returning my old US passport, one postcard, and three letters. My day was made.

twentysomethings

Boston: Yulka and her boyfriend. We ate brunch at Church, and then
drank mimosas on the esplanade, watching the rollerbladers, dogs, their walkers, and bikers pass. Laughed at being twentysomethings in the middle of a summer day.

Tooth Fairy

Sima has a loose tooth. He told me not to tell Mama when it falls out - so that he could check if the tooth-fairy is real.
When I told Mama (in front of him) that he has a loose tooth he squinted at me and smiled distrustingly. The main reason he believes in the tooth-fairy (as he told me a few months ago) is that he always gets a golden dollar coin under his pillow "and nobody has that many dollar coins". Similarly, he still believes in Father Frost (Ded' Moroz) because he got a watch from him last New Years, and Mama and Papa knew that he already had a watch.

I watched the Germany-Argentina game, grow more cynical than ever when I read the news, and met up with Adrienne in Central Square when she visited from Vermont.

the rain

I want to go outside because the downpour smells warm through my window. The trees are relishing the wind and the lightning is tearing the thunder asunder.


Went to Baxter State Park with my family for the fourth of July weekend but the tornado made us too miserable to stay a third night. We canoed in the rain and walked quickly in a vain attempt to escape the gnats and mosquitoes (they do so relish our blood).

The prodigal daughter has returned to write again.

movies: Cabare (1972, USA), Blade Runner (1982, USA), F for Fake (1973, France, in English), Magnolia (1999, USA).

nicely

a little over I week ago I wrote to Eloosha "currently I just feel like I'm finishing another year and it's taking longer than usual - next September I won't be coming back but that hasn't sunk in yet. I've had two dreams involving housing for next year & dorms & subletting in the area" and he concurred.
last night I dremt someone offered me to go to Australia for a conference, so I guess I just want to leave.

I hung out with Max, he leaves for a road trip tomorrow (plane to Kansas, car from there possibly to Alaska). We drank white russians in the middle of the day while watching an episode of the Twilight Zone. Swung from hammocks and he told me that he recently attended the most posh and sleazy event of his life: black tie boxing at the Harvard club. Later that night, he and his brother listened to a a homeless man talk about his aspirations to get a famous person's skull and turn it into a bong.
After that I came home and made dinner and we celebrated Papa's birthday, and I can safely say that today was a day spent nicely.

undergraduated

• when we were packing up my room, Papa stepped on a party popper. A little of the curled up confetti tumbled out, and I put it in the trash bin with other scraps of forgettable memories.
• after the ceremony there was a bbq at Blithewood. The sky was the clearest I've ever seen it. Looking at the river and the mountains beyond felt like looking through a stereoscope: everything was too three dimensional, each plane flattening in the saturation of detail. A little after nine, the fireworks started. We lay on a blanket, the dragon spirits flickering overhead. With each explosion came a delayed sound, which in turn rolled up against the Catskills and echoed over the Hudson river and back into the valley. I remembered that my first memory was from not wanting to fall asleep while watching the fourth of July fireworks at Brandeis (I was two)
• the robes are made of 100% polyester. I saw people that I thought had graduated, or dropped out - but no, there they were, lining up for the procession, sitting through Nancy Pelosi's campaign speech, shaking president Botstein's hand and receiving their diploma. Walking out and trying to find relatives and friends.Taking photos, smiling.
• I didn't get to say good bye to everyone. I bumped into Shinno and Ben there, (Shinno's going to Pratt!) and met Kelsey's brother. Sorrel Kelsey Hannah and I went to a bon fire at the community garden. When we arrived it was filled with alums and everyone seemed content and happier than we are now, and I chatted with some '09-er for a bit and Jo and others came. We waited for the shuttle which was an hour late, with Jack and Will and Steven and Jeff. Those were the partings. 
• there are other endings. 

emerald leaves

The emerald leaves are like a latent desire. Autumn comes and the leaves fall shivering in the wind, until the trees stand naked, branches arched achingly against the sky. The trees' heart beats slow and they hold the weight of snow and break under the burden of ice and we want but know not what. And then spring comes, and first the flowers bloom, and then the leaves begin. Tentatively, limp translucent green and fuzzy curls. We say "I had forgotten that trees have leaves, but they do and Oh! Oh! that is what I wanted all along". 


partings are beginning. I swung with Amanda in a hammock one late evening before going down to the waterfall, sang at Baccalaureate yesterday, which was followed by senior dinner. Had a meeting with a clinical professor for an hour and half, hoping for words of wisdom, and attended a bonfire/bbq at the co-op. Psychology luncheon and surrealist circus.

campus is mostly empty and almost all the students left are seniors -- feels nothing like l&t. It's more or less the same group, at least by name, as the ones who entered freshman year three weeks before the rest of the school had arrived. Oh! Oh! We cannot and will not go back.

night blossom

I was the first Russian girl Adrienne was ever friends with, so we have been planning on watching The Russians Are Coming The Russians are Coming (1966 USA) since freshman year and finally followed through today. This morning Amanda and I got brunch and then I had my last class on Joyce's Ulysses (читала, читала, прочитала).

it's been raining and the drops have taken down the apple blossoms, wet petals hitting the ground. Sasha and Luisa visited me for a day and we went to a senior photo show. Yesterday after Hannah's board we went to the Tivoli bakery. Lemon square, coffee, cranberry scone.







--for some reason I don't think I can study parts philosophy without understanding quantum physics, which will never happen. How can I understand choice if I don't understand chance or the splitting of the universe?

aquacities of thought and language

Senior photo exhibit I, Alex's senior opera recital, the senior dance show, Dani's senior music recital. Pill for reduction of lyme disease by 80% if taken within 72 hours of being bitten (the bite itself swollen and itching.) My shoulders have browned and freckled from the sun. The picking of a stem of apple blossoms and putting them into a glass milk bottle. Kelsey said “Brooklyn is the Bard afterlife”. Jono got a bird and it screams at the birds outside. Text from Yulka, 11:59pm 10/3/13: It's ok, understand. I took a picture of the magnolia tree behind my house, after asking Sorrel and Hannah to stand in front of it. Found out that (wood) Sorrel is what I know as заячья капуста (bunny cabbage). Text from Hannah, 5:07pm 3/25/14: Between ny and philly: bleakest train ride ever. Nj a hellscape. Valley of ashes. we were making a film but we could do more complicated things, such as overlay ourselves into previous renditions (so that there could be two of each person in a scene). And we decided that we could each interact with the previous version as we wished, without planning out everything before hand. But then a couple of us started killing us off. And I was upset: not only because we were being murdered (it only half felt like it was only in the movie we were making) but because a horror flick didn't fit my artistic version for the film. I screamed in fear and woke up silent. I need to install my AC again because it's getting hot and humid and my room is right under the roof. I can hear it when the rains, which I like. I tried smiling at someone from class but it he looked away mournfully. Emma is to come around noon and we will walk to the burrito stand. She switched majors from psychology to photography, I never did a senior project for studio art, taking a drawing III class in my final semester. Text from Sasha, 10:48pm 4/21/14: (I know but one soul this romantically damned.) I watched The Garden State (2004 USA) last night alone, and found it irritating. Some say say happiness is the absence of sadness. Farm fest was 4$ chili with bread and rice and we left the music when we came around in the evening. Mass Text from Kelsey, 10:49pm, drunk and standing right next to me 5/2/14: I love you ;) Went to the klezmer concert at Two Boots, eating mediocre pizza with Hannah and Will before going to Kelsey's room to watch ParaNorman (2012 USA). Sang the last full chamber singers concert for the masters choral conductors (Sicut cervus – Palestrina; Trois Chansons – Debussy; Spirit Seeking Light and Beauty – Stuart; Pater Noster – Stravinksy; Agnus Dei – Hassler; Rest – Vaughan Williams; There will be rest – Techeli; No. 8 Wenn so lind dein Auge mir, No.16 Ein dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe – Brahms; The last words of David – Thompson). “you can't make eye contact with half of campus” Emma said as we sat in the grass eating our burritos. This is the final truth. 

 

accepted

I wrote this few weeks ago and waited in hopes of getting a very specific photo but alas – here it is anyway.

A few days ago the accepted students swarmed campus, as they do every April. Last year it was on the 20^th, this time a week earlier.

"Do you have a tattoo?" one asked another

"No" said a girl who looked and sounded like she cared and wanted to come off as if she didn't care "but I want to get one"

"I do" said a third, softer looking one "here"

"oh, that's cute, I wanna get..." and then they were out of my range of hearing. I walked on to change for tennis practice.

I remember coming and being so excited. I got a balloon that said "studio art" on it and the campus was (and still is) beautiful - though now I know that they trim the trees and plant fresh flowers and finally finish up renovations started months ago in time for the horde to look.

I gave a girl and her mother directions (or tried, I'm not sure which parking lot they were looking for and the one they described physically could not exist) and remembered asking for direction and someone telling me "past the chapel" and thinking but all three of those buildings look like chapels. The first one is a chapel, the second is Bard Hall, the oldest building on campus, and the third is a fancy grave I think, still not sure.

The food they gave us was the least impressive of the schools I looked at, and so my Papa's theory started: that Bard wants to push you out the physical realm by giving us shitty food, so that we focus on our intellectual and spiritual development, outside the body (he jests; we drink and smoke to compensate). I thought the girls dressed so pretty and daring. I wanted to read. Dance. Love. I wanted everything though technically I was still considering Umass Amherst and Clark.

Even as I remember these things, it's hard to know how it really was. What is it like to look at this campus with fresh eyes? How do we look to them? At this point I am: the trees, the winter-bleached grass, the cigarette butts, the bandannas tied around mason jars filled with tea or coffee. My face has changed so have my thoughts my dress my heart. I am: the buildings I lived in and the hours I spent, the broken glass by the waterfall, the faces which I have looked at but never spoken to. On Thursdays and Tuesdays, I get off the shuttle and go to the library to make myself tea and get my notebook for class. As I exit on my way to Olin LC, I pass a boy on the stairs with a wide angular pale face and dark hair and a beige backpack. As I walk on the path, I pass another boy who's tanner and with lighter hair, who looks at me intently. I come too early – before the previous class is out – and drink my tea on a couch outside the classroom. I saw one reading the newspaper the other day. I saw the other at the library. We do not know each other but we are a metronome keeping the beat for the orchestral campus.* All this I will carry with me when I leave. I hope my best years are still ahead of me, but I am grateful that I was accepted, I am grateful that I came.

*the saddest part is that I haven't seen either of these boys since I wrote this. devastated.

sum some

The last month was a whirlwind - trying to finish up senior project while attempting to pretend that I don't have that weight on my shoulders. I attended an ASO concert (Strauss - Emperor Waltz, Accelerations, The Blue Danube; Conus - Violin Concerto; Brahms - Symphony No. 2). That night I came home to Jono and Noah playing goat simulator for two hours.

All the tennis matches happened in April (I think we lost almost all of them). 4/20 at Blithewood. We celebrated birthdays - Kelsey turned 21 on the 21st. We were 21 together for a day and then I turned 22 on the 22nd. Golden birthdays. Went to the diner for Adrienne's birthday on the 28th. Eggs and potatoes and rye toast, everyone else got chocolate milkshakes.

We performed Verdi's Requiem with the ASO two nights in a row, very close to the senior project deadline. A 92 year old man had a heart attack because of the music the first night. That Saturday we sang at William Weaver's memorial service - he was the first to translate all of Umberto Eco's works and some other modern Italian literature, and seemed to have had some colorful characters in his life. 

This Wednesday I finished formatting my project and went with Adrienne & co to get it bound - three copies, one for each member of my board. We got food at the Golden Wok and then checked in around four, an hour before the deadline. Many birthing jokes ensued: 9 months for delivery. Bard t-shirts, alumni sign-up, bbq and snacks and then we went behind stone row for free beer. Ended up sipping margarita's at Santa Fe and then the Bard Orchestra concert and then saw Hannah and Jack and Will and his friend Steven. Thoroughly sleep deprived and incomprehensible, though I still fell asleep at one, unable to break the habit from the past month, waking up at 8:30 as usual and kept going. I joked that we drink not just to numb the bruises from senior project, but fill the void left behind by it.
As I was falling asleep the next day for a nap, I was swarmed by thoughts like bees buzzing bumbling bustling and realized the tunnel vision that comes with working on one thing so single mindedly, that you forget (can't afford to) think about all the other thoughts in your head, though they are still there.

And then this weekend was spring fling. Thursday night was a small gathering at the Root Cellar (incoherent singing and the cliqueness of the people who tend to go there: Sorrel Hannah and I left pretty soon after arriving). I joined Kalena the second night and danced with Kelsey (music: Deerhoof, Branchez, Giraffage, Speedy Oritz, Celestial Shore).

The third we had a pre-party with Amanda & co. and that's where most of the dancing that night happened - at the tent, it was too crowded and jumbled, the currents making it impossible to stay still and sway, one moved through the river, bumping up against rocks, coursing round in circles (music: Lil B, Slava, Silent Addy, Chi Ching Ching). We hung out in the beer garden and campus center instead, smiling broadly and talking to people we don't talk to and holding hands and hugging: Bardians are nice when drunk. I went to the waterfall where Will and Hannah and others set up a fire and that was lovely until I felt sleepy and took the 2:40 shuttle home.

and that's the last month, summarized.

cranberry tincture

Once I started reading Moscow-Petushki this winter, my mind turned to making an infusion – specifically, one with cranberries. You could also make it with other things i.e. black current or lemons or something more complex like oхотничья. My mother sometimes makes a nastoyka by simply cutting up horseradish root and putting it in vodka. Julia told me her brother puts apple pie filling in drinking spirit and that the result is very effective.

You would think a recipe with four ingredients would one have only one or two versions, but I’m almost tempted to make a flow chart because everyone seems to combine the ingredients in a different order. Most of the contention comes with the timing of the sugar and water. From what I gather, if you make the quick version and only have it sit for a few days, you can put the water and sugar in early on. Otherwise, put it in later.




You will need:

-A 3-liter vessel (I used a Carlo Rossi wine bottle)
-1 liter of cranberries, fresh or frozen (~600-800g)
-1 liter of spirit (95% 190 proof. They sell at liquor stores, I think Everclear is the most easily available brand. This stuff is prohibited in some states, including my home state of Massachusetts. If this is the case, you could just get vodka and omit the water)
-300-500 g of granulated sugar (1.5-2.5 cups – one recipe didn’t use any sugar.)
-1-1.4 liter water (depending on how strong you want it. A few recipes said to make the sugar-syrup with ~700g of water and then at the end fill the 3 liter vessel to the top. Some recipes said there’s enough water in the cranberries: a version that results in something quite a bit stronger. A few recipes underscored the importance of using quality water. )
-Scrim aka cheese cloth aka gauze
-A strainer
-A funnel

1. In one recipe the guy picks his own cranberries on a bog and then freezes them for a bit to make them drier. In another, someone adds a bit of sugar to the cranberries and waits for them to ferment a bit – ‘to the first foam’. Either way, you have to press them so that the skin splits. Some people cut each cranberry individually with a knife, others just chop it up in the food processor, though this potentially makes it more difficult to strain later. One woman actually said that you have to poke each cranberry individually with a needle, preferably multiple times, which seems a bit neurotic. I just smooshed them with a wooden spoon.
2. After this you cover the cranberries with spirit. Some say put the sugar and/or water in at this step, though this makes the end result weaker (for more details, look up Mendeleev). If you only want to wait a few days, you can add the sugar and water now. If you are willing to wait longer, put off

   first strain

   the sugar and water, and let the cranberries sit for a while in the spirit: time indications ranged from a couple weeks to a few months. Some say to mix it occasionally
   during this step. I kept putting off the last steps so mine sat around for five months.
   
3. Once you have waited, strain.

4. cranberry spirits, water, sugar water

   If you have not put in the sugar and water, you can do so after straining. Or, don’t strain, add the sugar and water, and then wait until all the cranberry stuff drifts to the bottom. Then pour the clarified drink, bypassing the need for cheesecloth. (Mine didn't really need to be strained with the cheesecloth; it got a couple cranberry seeds and that's it. Also I ran out of white sugar and used brown sugar, but I don't think that makes a difference.
5. Enjoy! Be careful, it’s stronger than it tastes. I'm ready for spring fling
   
   
   
   
   
    
   
   
   
   

main references
http://sadoved.com/domashnie-zagotovki/napitki-i-nastoiki/3240-klyukovka.html
http://forum.homedistiller.ru/index.php?topic=195.0

Pursuing Forsythia

The following is a piece I wrote at this time freshman year, and edited a tiny bit just now. It's quite strange to see where I was emotionally (in a way that I didn't not communicate here) and what I was thinking about. Probably more interesting to me than to anyone else, but somehow it seems appropriate to put it here now that I'm in the last stretch of my undergraduate education.

Removed.

“Clair, I don’t think you’re drunk” says Marie, yawning – her knees bent and feet bouncing her little body up and down before she plops down on Andrew’s bed next to me and sips some more yellow orange juice and rum. I doubt that she should be drinking anymore. Marie is on her computer and on occasion rocks towards me, the frame of her computer nearly bumping into the rim of mine.

I’m sober and thus isolated, uselessly. Isolation does not create the craze that is romanticized as a byproduct of productivity. (Imagine: a thin man locked up in his room for nights on end, composing his final masterpiece. Imagine another: cooped up in the middle of the woods, tapping into his brilliant mind away from the humbug of his fellow human. Not fellows at all!).

It is like a normal night, all of us in one room. But their minds are clouded gray. Isolation does not create independence. I almost wish I was drunk with them, silly (or that they were sober), but I had been writing and then I came, and they were already inebriated. I wish that I didn’t care.

Only very few people can be independent; it is a prerogative of the strong. Yes, I am dependent on society—is that weakness? Is enjoying companionship, preferring companionship—weakness? Is to feel lonely in a group of friends removed by a few glasses of diluted yellowish liquid—weakness?

And does it impede one’s ability to produce?

Leaning, swaying, smiling, giggling, and then dancing: just the two of them, in the middle of the room.

***

Removed.

My face is covered in the thin sheen of sweat, my breath is audible.

Hot air in and out of my lungs.

I feel almost lighter, perversely, melodramatically. My eyes feel lively, darting around.

It’s death I tell myself. Death. Just death? Death (panic).

Easter. I saw it and at first I thought the deer’s head had been ripped off. Then I realized it was its tail, white fluff. Cold, wet, its long neck swung over a rock so I couldn’t see the head at all. I raised my hand urgently, pointing at it and giving a panicked looked at Emily who as scrambling onto the other side of the road: away from it as I walked towards it, its large body cold, wet, four legs jutting out of a large brown gray body. I looked at her walking away and followed. It was raining. I imagine its eyes, rising it from the dead.

I can feel my sweat now that it’s growing cold against my skin. We walked up the path towards the water processing plants, yellow forsythia in full bloom. I remembered that I hid in them one time in middle school, because I didn’t want to walk back home yet. I came up towards it and smelled the bright yellow flowers, grayed by the cloud light and rain, the water dripping onto my face. Emily was standing making a face with large eyes, trying to look vacant and dead. It seemed like one of those moments when one tries to arrange ones facial expression to how it should look, and more effort goes into that than actually feeling. She stood. I stopped smelling the flowers, feeling that perhaps I should also make a dead face. We walked to the dorm. The tree branches let through water droplets, there were deer hoof prints in the gray mud.

On campus there were people; a violinist was practicing above in one of the dorm rooms made of cinderblocks, a boy skateboarding by. I let her go in front of me to open the door to our dorm and didn’t (couldn’t) respond when someone in the common room said hi. Neither of us could. We walked up to our rooms silently. I put down the empty 40 bottle I had fetched out the Hudson and took off my coat and sweater and looked at my face, still covered in the thin sheen of sweat.

Death. Just death? Cathartic because it brings my emotions into perspective—they are nothing in comparison, but are also there, solidly expressed in nature. The tips of my fingers feel lively; I write quickly with a tinge of guilt — perhaps my classification of Emily's facial expression as a simulated version of what it should be is simply bitterness on my part…

A knock.

“Come in”

“Okay”

“Is it locked?”

“Yes.”

“One sec…”

I get up and open the door, Emily gives me tea and I say “come in” again, and wave at the room for her to enter. “That was disturbing” she says. Yes, yes it was. Disturbing. I should feel disturbed, which I do, but mostly with myself by this point. My initial reaction had been wrong, morbid even, like one of those old women who attend stranger’s funerals to wail, in hysterics. But then all I could think to do was write.

We make small talk about work, and then about boys.

“I think you should go after your trombone player” she says. I don’t really want to talk about boys, so I shrug. I don’t really have a trombone player either, but I know who she means. “Seriously though. I saw him talking with a girl the other day. She was not pretty at all” because that’s it, right? Beauty—but I don’t want to pursue this conversation, so I just say “He’s always talking to someone. At chamber singing, behind stage, always. In Czech and in English,” I sipped the tea.

“I really think you should.”

“I don’t really feel like pursuing anyone right now. Or anything, really. Just writing and producing art” I say it straight out. My voice isn’t bitter, but it isn’t bright and yellow either, it isn’t forsythia.

“What time is it?” she says, because she has orchestra rehearsal soon, and we haven’t eaten.

“17, do you want to go quickly to dtr?” after 5, that time of day when nothing has yet been done.

“Yes, let me go put on socks” but we have done something, we have seen a dead deer.

***

Removed.

not to be dependent on any person, not even the most beloved-every person is a prison

It seems that isolation is romanticized, that the virtues of writing or painting alone in a room for days straight augmented: that it is only way to go past normal human capacities for productivity, driving oneself to the point of insanity to create. Genius (inspiration, perspiration) is strange, seductive, a person willing to forgo society for creation (isolation)…

I am not alone, lying in the middle of Blithewood at night, a yellow pink light of the road lamps shinning onto a yellow tractor, painting out the yellow tinted leaves against the dark sky. It pushes up against the creamy yellow columns, calm, strong, melting into shadow. Little bugs flying, their transparent gray wings, and another person is with me, typing, sighing at the trouble of work, listening the sound of the waterfall in the distance, its water hushing, hissing, humming. The air is warm and the clouds over the Hudson are gray; the rumble of the cars in the distance, as well as the sounds of people talking, reaches here.

I enjoy the non-silence around me, the yellow lights, and the sound of another person typing by me. But still, something inside me thinks I want…full independence, full non-reliance, an unattainable illusion of strength: this ideal.

The misconception that pure isolation is the perfect form of independence, it plagues…And when independence is attempted by someone who has the right to it, but does not need it, we have proof that this man is probably not only strong, but bold to the point of recklessness

And that (only) this recklessness allows for creation? Only the independent are strong, and that this independence is ultimate, uncompromising?

It is a lie, but I can’t shake it.