Not alright

at one point our paths crossed in the sky.
but we did not know how to stop moving forward.

Helsinki, December 2008.

find a song that makes you happy. whenever you'd play you'd feel this joy in you. even if only briefly. post random messages around your hometown. leave a note in the bus saying 'I'd like to be your friend, but I'm too scared'. go to a tourist information and speak in English with a strong foreign accent. ask ridiculous questions. apologize every minute. tell them that you are from Moldova. smile. be sad and be happy and be joyful and be jealous and be whatever you want to be as long as you are not afraid of being what you are. it is hard. if nothing else, then be alone. and be what you want to be. write a letter. write about yourself. things that you like about yourself. things that you like about the world. things that you like. things that make you happy. pick a telephone directory. browsed until you find a name that you really like. take the address and send the letter to that person. one morning wake up earlier than your mother. make breakfast for her. ask your mother what was her dream when she was young. what did she want to become? what's her favorite color? did she have her own room in her childhood? take a local bus that you have never taken. take your camera and preferably your friend. talk about the things that you did yesterday. keep your eyes on the view. get out of the bus at a random stop and take another public transportation. get lost. wonder. be with your friend and get to know him/her. don't worry about what will happen. (take a phone, too. just in case, but turn it off.) go through your old photos. see what you used to be. see what you are now. embrace yourself. love yourself because you came this far. it has been a rough, difficult journey but do realize that you're still standing and breathing and living and that if nothing else is already an accomplishment. when someone compliments you don't start arguing with the person. accept it. say thank you if you cannot say anything else. imagine that the person was being serious. picture a scenario where a person really enjoys you and likes your work. feel good about it. feel amazing about it. feel free to be a good person. write a note to yourself. 'everything will be okay' and put it somewhere where you'll see it all the time. because everything will be okay.

Everything should be alright. Yesterday I found out that my new university will offer me a full scholarship covering the tuition fees and the rent.

Yet everything around you & me crumbles.
And the sad man is left to pick up the pieces of things that existed a second ago.

Complexity

They say things will be easy when you grow up; the universe will expand and the marriage between the oceans will be legalized. However, the more you become older the more complex things seem to get. One moment you worry about the papers that you might have lost and the next second you have to cook as relatives that you probably have not seen since your cousin got married in Hong Kong a few years ago decided to drop by out of nowhere. We always think as children that oh only if I was fifteen and could do everything; at that age you realize that there are even more things that are denied and you keep wishing to be older; by the time you reach the age when everything is allowed, nothing seems to be tempting anymore. Life has taken over you and Hong Kong and Paris and Rio de Janeiro are dreams that you can only dream of and they are even more distant than they used to be. And suddenly you wish you were a child again.

I should be content at this moment; I am in love with a person who loves me. That used to be my dream, that used to be everything that I wanted and that was all. I thought if that ever happened, everything would be perfect and dreams were not needed anymore. However, dreams are still necessary and unfortunately we crave even more. I am in Croatia and there is nothing do as I barely can say my name in the language that was completely unfamiliar to my tongue. My loved one has his work, his life, his family, his friends, his thing in this city and I am beginning to get used of feeling being "all by myself". I spent daily nine hours doing almost nothing, wondering and littering the streets of Osijek and there is a little else I can do. My friend said I am like an American middle-class housewife only without children and certainly the feeling strikes to be fairly similar. I have no education nor can I become anything. My work is completely nothing and everything is handled by my husband; I have no authority and no knowledge and I seem to be a puppet with strings. I just follow and I have never followed before in my life. It makes me feel empty.

Last week I found out that University of Maastricht wants to interview me and I am rather terrified as it is the only university that has given me an invite for an interview. I know I am in a weak position. I am a kid that threw away Middlebury College in order to live with the person I love. I wish things were simple. However, now I believe they will never be simple anymore. They will only get more complex.

(Photo from New Delhi, Summer 2009.)

Planning the future & forgetting the current

I am strong enough to tell you

I love you very much.

We plan future, we discuss what we should do today and tomorrow and next month and perhaps even what we have drawn for next five years. You talk about having children & so do I, but it really is irrelevant, because they are the ones who do scribbles on the walls of cities.

You are the reason why I undressed in the harbor

naked in front of the whole world

in front of

you.

Helsinki is in a total chaos; buses come whenever they are able to reach the destination; trains miss their stations, because they are too exhausted to carry frustrated passengers who are filling their guts; airplanes say we have had enough, we need to make love so we will be unable to forget how it feels to be in love; boats and ships break the ice in the sea, two lovers separated with force. And we plan the future.

You said

dress up, you will get cold.

I told

I won't, you keep me warm.

This story is a short one; when things go according to other person's plans, there are new opportunities for everyone else. Unfortunately we see only the shattered imaginary future in our plants instead of the seeds of something new. I wonder constantly where I will be next year -- maybe I continue living in Croatia. Perhaps I have shifted to the Netherlands. I never think of the United States again, but the truth is that I would like to go back.

The following morning I woke up next to you

still naked, clothes laying two feet away from us.

You opened your eyes and said

even the sunrise is not as beautiful as you are.

Things you do for love, they say.