finding the human element

I like the kitten at my parents’ place.

she just rests her furry head in the palm of my hand, cuddles trustfully and falls asleep.

her own sneeze wakes her up to her surprise and to me it is something deeply, truly beautiful and endlessly sad to watch. 

out-box #8

days bring plenty of

strawberries bikes skirts

I hear

long night echo

it’s been so long

it’s already so late

I bother you because

nightmares wake me up and

I don’t know what’s next so

I search in the past

I feel you there, deep down,

the center of gravity circled by gentle ripples

faint traces

attempts to repeat

the unattainable perfection

it’s hard to compare with you

the one whom I

dreamt of

idealized

longed for

the ripples soften, the surface calms down

I throw the rock

again

right there.

organic kind of truth

and when I go out straight into the fresh hair of grass, the evening is darkening and the clear air is hazing over, when fifteen storks are flying over my head and the day is fading away to the meter of distant trains, I am wondering why this all cannot be the essence of functioning, striving, beginning and aiming.

knowing the hierarchy of phenomena and events – feeling the tension of meaning in the countryside when the summer is slowly swelling – reading texts written in a language as dry as good old wine – listening to music so humbly and thoughtfully replacing the respected silence – knowing and recognizing

and yet

getting on mental and literal subway every day, letting it exhaust you like an animal – depersonalized, numb and helpless.

knowing it all so well, feeling it like some organic kind of truth – still not being able to find its way to the daily reality, to every breath, to every gesture.

I miss it

I remain

in debt.

the idyll of March

lying in my bed. sick leave: 4 days of freedom from my corporation – a gift from the surgeon. white walls, bed linen, strong spring sunlight, gulls from the riverside and distant echoes of the train calling. it all makes me think of a text by Renata Litvinova: Finally, I laid down in a clean ward with flowers in a jar on the window sill, they brought me some porridge and put me on an IV - I found peace and went to sleep.(...) Probably that is why I like hospitals so much – they create an illusion that you've been let go for a while.¹  

after the worst pain is gone, I forget about my job and begin to hear my real thoughts. I write to Z., we buy the tickets to Romania, we make plans. I order a guide – almost 700 pages. feels like I’ve bought a Bible. I cannot imagine how Romania might look like. I read “Bucharest. Dust and blood” and I know it’s only someone’s experience that can tell me a lot or can tell me nothing about how it will actually be like to me.

in the evening, before I go to sleep, I watch “Вечное возвращение” by Kira Muratova. I have goosebumps when I hear Zemfira singing the Duke’s song from “Rigoletto”. the scenes with Natalia Buzko – so ripe and heavy, like a late summer fruit. noble gestures of Litvinova, about whom I’ll have a dream later that night. I wish I had managed to see the movie in the theater back in October when I was in Kiev.

every few days I meet A. in the flat. I cannot make myself communicate with her in any way. my body and mouth are closed for her – it’s beyond my control. meanwhile, the red carnation she gave me has come into full bloom on the kitchen window sill. I remain silent. inside me, all the words, pictures and sounds explode and transform. I love life with its bitter overwhelming weight – but I just cannot let it show.

the weather breaks, the temperature starts falling, the wind pushes against my windows, I close my eyes and I feel as if I were in a lighthouse in a middle of a storm. I clean the flat. the order brings me mental peace.

I put my blue rubbers with yellow shoestrings on, people on the street always look at them when I pass by, and I go to the theater to see “Only Lovers Left Alive”. when I enter the building and the door closes behind me, it starts raining and the sun shows up at the same moment. there’s still a quarter before the movie starts, so I go upstairs and sit to read a few pages of “Bucharest”, but I can’t; behind the window there are old tenements with bullet holes, the bricks dark with dampness, the March sunlight in the windows, in the puddles, in the mirrors. the world demands attention.

and then the movie – like a beautiful, perfect dream. Jarmusch, who always introduces order of things that I accept so gladly and to which I always surrender. Tilda Swinton – oh, everything about her performance – I could almost worship her. the music of nighttime. what a perfect dream.

although the movie theater is near my home, it’s so cold I can’t walk and I tremble; on my way I need to buy some warm coffee. I get back and I write to Ol. that she definitely should go and see the movie. she says, there is no way to see it here, in Berlin, without the German dubbing. I imagine German feminine voice instead of Tilda Swinton’s accent and although I’ve never experienced the popular instant dislike for German, I feel so sorry for Ol.

before I go to bed, I swallow the painkiller and wash it down with carrot juice from a wine glass. A. is not at home. I buy “Only Lovers...” soundtrack and I watch my thoughts like a photo album.

Sadness came when they delivered my test results and I was discharged – with my skin white, looking healthy. Deep down I felt like clinging to the headboard of my iron bed, as I was leaving the old hospital wing. ¹  

Tomorrow I get back to office.

^{1 Рената Литвинова “Она влюбилась во вторник... Как я похудела”} (translation attempt mine)

so unexpectedly.

Pat sent me an email saying that Mag is on her maternity leave and so they want to recruit someone to fill in for her. the job advertisement is attached. perhaps I would like to join her team?

it was at the end of summer 2011, I had just broke up with the psychopath and Mch. appeared again. I remember drinking Israeli wine in the warm evening and I also remember how well I suddenly understood that the thing I have for her is deep and real. and in the morning I woke up and went across the big square surrounded by white buildings, full with early August sun, heading Pat's office. up there I spent 4 hours each day, being polite and shy like an intern should be, sealing the envelopes, copying and pasting glossaries and translating hungrily each text they let me work on.
when I told Mch. about them, I called them 'aunties'. they were all slightly older than me, they listened to the same Sade's CD over and over again, they translated 8 hours a day, they cooked for one another and they called each other childish diminutive names. I liked them. and I didn't fit.
I remembered two of them very well: Matilda and Pat.
Matilda had red curly hair always done up in a small bun. her speech was ripe and skepticism was just written on her face.
Pat was warm and mild. She told about her voluntary work at a children's home and she naturally paid attention to me. once I burnt my ear with hair iron in the morning before work. Pat went to the toilet with me and she stuck a band-aid to my skin. in a very simple and friendly act.

so when she asked me if I wanted to replace Mag for a year, I suggested we should meet me for coffee to talk about it. she agreed instantly. simply and friendly.

we met at a street corner and she hugged me. not effusively, just like a friend. but this was a real hug. she laughed saying we chose the worst possible evening: not only Friday, but a Valentine's Day. she said, when someone sees just the two of us sitting at a table, they will have thoughts... and she laughed again. I said: it's Warsaw! she nodded. and kept on laughing.

I had a cappuccino, she had black tea, and we talked as if a dam was burst. I talked so much I felt heat waves on my face. at 10 pm the waitress told us they were closing. we went out to the cold night, I asked her which way she took, and then she suggested we could still go and sit in some other place. with liquor? with liquor, she said.

we went to a small café where Jewish festival takes place in the early Autumn. Pat bought us a big carafe of my favorite wine and leek with goat cheese quiche and she wouldn't let me pay for myself. she told me about things that you don't tell someone you hardly now and haven't seen for over two years. it was nothing personal, no confessions. just usual chat, with comfort and ease typical of good old friends that don't need to be afraid of anything between each other so they just let the thoughts come out their mouth. and I did the same.
and then we just went home.

I was at my place at 1.30 am and at this point a battle started in my head: to take this job or not to take. some enthusiastic part of my head had visions of me handing in my notice in mu current kolkhoz, where I always stay overtime to fix system defects – because this is what I'm supposed to do as a cheap Polish labor. I could almost enjoy the luxury of my way to office that would now take me half as much as to the kolkhoz site. I could sense that peace of well-organized translators' work, I could see myself leaving the office at 5 pm, and finding myself in the city-centre – not kilometers of traffic jam away. the fresh wind of change, slaming the door and quitting the job that takes more and more of my private life.
and then the other part of me warned me against a replacement contract – only until the end of January, after which I would probably have to leave and look for job. looking for job in Warsaw... a nightmare. a recurring one. seeing all those shitty job advertisements. seeing my money melt, going to job interviews almost every day, not seeing any of them lead to anything serious. hearing the clock ticks. and then it struck me I would miss those funny idiots who make me laugh my ass off in our lunch breaks, and sometimes after work, with beer and bowling. I could see me saying goodbye to my relatively good position of a senior employee and a place where they could never possibly sack me. finally, I realized I would replace chaotic and badly organized, but interesting work with translating and verifying translations. each. and. every. day. eight hours a day.
the battle in my head was like the Israel-Palestine conflict: every party is right and there's no way to consensus.
I sent emails to family and friends with requests for advice. Ol and Mash told me to accept Pat's offer. They said a change would do me well. Z. wrote he would never leave interesting job for people that have guts for a job that consist of translations only and that I should really think it over. my sister's email took away the tiny little peace of mind left as she asked what I wanted to do in life in general. I don't know. Of course I don't.
I talked to Ol. for a while and we both suddenly noticed that what I did was look for reasons why I should stay in my current job. Ol.: your mind is already made, you only ask people for advice 'cause you want to double-check if there's any aspect of it all that you missed. and she was damn right.

and then something clicked. I suddenly could see how much I like my shitty job. this bank crap that has nothing to do with my humane and art interests and hobbies. the dynamics, never having enough time and billions of yesterday's deadlines we missed. those incidents and failures. and that student-like atmosphere I have in my team, that moronic laugher all day long. being already someone although I've been there only for a year and a half. getting emails from the Netherlands, saying: 'you're a doll!'
feeling at peace with my life and the sense of harmony started to spread in my head. tonight I was supposed to go to a post-Valentine's Day-party, but I felt that my tracksuit, Chinese noodles and reading a newspaper in my empty flat is exactly what I need and I'm fine with it. in the afternoon I watched Ellen Page's speech that made me watch 'Juno' eventually. and this lonely Saturday evening felt just ok.

Blue Is the Warmest Color

I know what they say. That shooting those scenes was humiliating and gruelling for the actresses. That  the director is a madman.

But it’s a masterpiece to me.

Feels llike I’ve been where Adèle’s been. When she’s excluded by her age group members. When she’s sitting with Emma on the park bench in the afternoon sunlight, excited and shy at the same time. When she's told that she evokes endless tenderness, but cannot be loved – I understand this. I feel this. I can still recall this.

I’m only dreaming about one additional story. I know how Adèle felt about Emma. Cause some time ago I experienced my Emma too. But I would like to know, for once, how Emma felt about Adèle. If it was real. Could it last. What could make it happen.

I texted my Mom that this movie is a must for her. Initially, I wanted to add that Adèle is me, but then I figured she might think I’m bisexual and I don’t want her to settle with the compromise option. Perhaps after the eight-minute sex scene she might finally work it out.

blocks of ice

New Year has the colors of a Scandinavian detective movie: massive block built back in the 50s under the pale gray sky, empty windows, silence. I can’t hear the gulls scream through the closed windows. Yesterday when I woke up at 6 am, the fog was so thick that all I could see was the bright head of the street lamp. And then later at night, while I was drinking cider I could hear a dog whimpering with fear of fireworks. Now the soft white bodies that have flown from the river are circling peacefully between the blocks. The war is over now. The most solitary night of year is over.