and a new day dawned

One day too late, a day too soon...

I get out of the cab and close the door, cross the street without looking back, losing myself in the crowd, walking through the mist of raindrops hanging like a veil over the brightly lit city, cars and people passing me by, steam and laughter behind my back… I quicken my pace and walk into the building, climb the flight of stairs, short of breath, open the door to a room that suddenly seems to have acquired so much space, breathing in the silence that has settled in…

There is nothing more comforting and beautiful than solitude…

I stay up late, watching the lights in the windows go out one after another, and somewhere far away it is Christmas day – a life that seems so distant and remote…and once again I’m dreaming of places I’ve never been before and long past midnight the night sky speaks to me and it comes- the snow- light and flaky, a cloud of silver butterflies, bringing dreams to the rooftops of a city that I call home.

just come to istanbul...

Come... i'll show you

how many more dishes did i have to break to finally let go...

to all the unbroken dishes and the unspoken words
unreleased anger and spiteful grudge...
i'm letting it all go
and it's falling, falling at my feet

"every chip from every cup, every promise given up,
every reason that’s not enough
is falling, falling at [my] feet.

everyone who needs a friend, every life that has no end,
every need not ready to bend
is falling, falling at my feet.


[they]'ve come crawling, falling at my feet.

[You]’ve come crawling, now you're falling at my feet.

all fall down...

all the manic taste faces that you pull,
all the action is none of that you control,
the graffiti rolling down on five feet tall,
and the compromise you make for soon.

all fall down...

all the effort makes it all the bigger deal.
all the radio waves, electronic seas.
had to never give? had to simply be?
to know when to wait this blessed simplicity.

in hope shall I trust. in heaven I’ll be staying.
teach me to surrender. not my will, my will.

-u2

Blue morning...

Night is turning down, dawn is getting close and it always comes soon, oh way too soon. And this morning the air smells of snow...

***

Living out the dream

A woman alone in a big city...

and once i said
"i think i am happy..." how do i know?
I still dont know what it is that defines happiness, just as i do nt know what makes me so ultimately happy, but what i do know is what this happiness feels like."

Once I dreamed of decadence. Now it’s all I’ve got—life of decadence, in the very heart of downtown Yerevan, in the city that like me, seems to have turned restless, throbbing beneath my feet with its rapid pace, in its incessant stream of cars, humming, roaring behind my window, glowing at night, dawning its morning light on me as I come out, arms wide open, embracing the day.

Yerevan, I can’t hold you close enough.

Oh the decadence, raspberries and truffles, overpriced bagels and apple walnut crepes, hours spent at my coffee shop, lazy afternoons as I sit and watch the city from above, slanted rays sliding over the rooftops… Late night outings, loud music and laughter, endless talk, and the rhythm of the day and night, day and night as I’m living every moment of a life that I once dreamed of and am watching now to turn into my reality…intoxicated with my own freedom in its absolute shape and form that’s almost too sweet to bear… This is how I know that I am happy. And I accept it, unquestionably.
And I walk on, with the lines of my song blasting in my ears…

“And you feel like no-one before
You steal right under my door
And I kneel cause I want you some more
I want the lot of what you got
And I want nothing that you’re not…”

I kneel cause I want you some more
I want you some more, I want you some more…"

-u2

notes to self

I sit and marvel at the thought of how easy it has become to let go. I’m slowly letting go and every minute brings relief. Every breath comes with that much more ease. No more weight pressing upon my shoulders, no more chains tied around my chest.
I no longer wonder. I no longer dwell.
I’m letting it all go. And I’m slowly becoming.

Too late for fall

The smells of fall, late fall, bitter sweet and tart, of wet leaves and soil, of chestnuts…. And I’m craving cider and cooked apples, cinnamon and nutmeg and roasted almonds, hot steam and the smell of wet soil again, and leaves and trees and rain…

***
Gray morning and the sun hardly touches the ground. Streets half asleep with no one around, and we come out, still warm with sleep and head to the coffee shop right around the corner, where they serve strong coffee and early breakfast and I smile as I watch you eat and the day begins.

We stroll down the streets in the afternoon chasing sunrays and looking for bright spots and you laugh at me cause I always run into people and stumble on the little cracks on the pavements, and we walk into that park set aglow with sun and golden leaves, and I have an urge to grab a bunch of them and throw them all over you and I laugh as you try to take me in your arms, and we fall on beds of leaves, laughing, laughing like kids and I watch the sun caught in your eyelashes that are almost white and your eyes are pools of light that bear the reflection of the sky and the sun is now on my face and the instant freezes in the eye of my mind while the world swirls in a collage of vanishing leaves.

It’s twilight and long shadows start to stretch, The sky turns pale, the first star appears, street lamps come out one after another and the city is lit with neon lights. We’re still in the street, a little dizzy with cold and too much happiness and steam comes out of your mouth and I’m craving for a smoke and at home there is dinner and the night grows dark and thick behind the window, you turn off the light and let darkness in and I curl next to you, listening to your even breathing, fading into you and into a warm soft pit that closes us in…

And long after midnight I go into the kitchen and turn the heater on and we sit at the table drinking tea, and the night is long and an eternity away from dawn and tomorrow we’ll sleep in and I look at you and realize that I’m in love with you all over anew, and yet it’s too late, and I’m dreaming love again, we’re too late for fall and I love you.

The horizon lost...

The view from my window

all the leaves i came to love are falling...

running with my wet face on
today i woke up feeling sad
i know that you said that one day i would be glad...
hold the choirs of winter
birds are calling to me
all the leaves i came to love are
falling
ribbons on the evergreens, owls that pull them apart
i can hear you singing my funny valentine
oh you know that breaks my heart
running with my rain face on
no idea of what to say
no idea of what to do
in this fear that never goes
waiting for all my dreams...

faithless
evergreen

mean

... just leave

Change of the season...

A woman asleep in a lonely apartment downtown.
Late in the afternoon and it’s raining.
She wakes with a start and sits up. She lights a cigarette
and goes to the kitchen to make tea. It’s cold. She
places her arms over the stove. She coughs. She coughs
constantly.

She remembers her dream.
In her dream she is with a man. She can still feel the
warmth that was present in the dream She can’t see the
face, but she remembers every touch. Firm muscles under her fingers. The feel of the skin. The weight of his body,against hers. The grip. The tight embrace. The intensity.

She slowly bends down struck by sudden attack of pain.
Never has she known a longing stronger than this. A longing of warmth, of touch, physical contact. Never has she known it could be so fierce, so painful…The body, her own body with a mind of its own, is speaking it now in little sobs that grow louder an louder until it is unbearable to hear, and she can’t understand what it is that her body wants and why it hurts so badly.


A woman leaning over a notebook, writing her dream with
rage and fury, while hot tears run down her face. She tears pages on after another, but places them in front of her. She tosses those half written pages and runs her fingers through her hair, rubbing the temples the cheekbones, lines on the forehead…

She cannot put an end to the dream. She cannot complete it. There is no closure. This is a dream with no end. A dream of craving. Craving for warmth.

It's raining- the circus is closing

Today I woke up feeling cold, and for the first time this year I had to close the window and get another blanket. And I knew that it’s only now that the summer’s officially over, and not a few weeks back, when I closed the door to that other apartment, thinking that it was the end…

The summer’s over now, although I have already put my summer clothes away, the summer’s over, even if I have already said all my goodbyes, and just like I neatly folded and packed away my clothes, I will have to pack the memories away, wrap them up, seal them with wax and put them away, on the top shelf in the back of my mind, where they will be safe and free of dust— yet another summer of kaleidoscopic events, of the heat and the sun, watered streets of Yerevan smelling of freshly cut grass, blue and cloudless skies, and me, happy, delirious, a butterfly on the sidewalk with rainbow colored wings, crazed and dazed with the sun and with my own freedom- and now it’s gone, the summer, - I have outlived it, I have outgrown and survived it- my summer of becoming, the summer of acceptance…

The circus is closing…
I stand there, watching them all leave and I wonder about things that they will let me keep, things I’ll remember, and what I will forget, and what it is that I will be missing most, when I look back at what seems now only a colorful swirl that seems to have lasted only an instant…
The circus is leaving- and yet I remain.
I’m slowly becoming.
And I proceed…

Harsh

What makes you think that what happens to you is special in any way?
Is different, has some meaning, rather than being a weird play of circumstances, just a sequence of random occurrences of one kind or another? What makes you think that you’re special in any way, that your story somehow stands out from the millions and millions of other stories of other women? What makes you think…. that all that happens to you has some kind of purpose, other than being one of the millions of the experiences that so many people have, simply adding up more weight to the sack of your own experiences that you carry on your back, refusing to part with them and tiring yourself to death dragging it on and on… This is what makes you jaded… and you wonder why you’re as apathetic as you are now?

What makes you think that giving different names to things that already have their objective, already used and abused and overly common and banal names would change them even a bit, make them different, yours only, and hence unique? What makes you think you’re unique anyway? Aren’t you human after all? And thus subject to all human emotions and thoughts and everything else? Do you think it gives you any sort or kind of excuse to justify your own behavior which you perfectly well know is unjustifiable? And that the overall picture viewed from aside is exactly what you’re trying to ignore- putting yourself in some kind of denial, merely looking for delusion after delusion and thus ending up in the most absurd and ridiculous situations? You stamp your foot on the ground and say that it’s through this absurdity and nonsensical behavior that you get to experience what you wouldn’t have otherwise. You say that it’s through randomness that you learn to see a pattern… You say that you’ve changed, that you’ve grown and matured and have learned the lessons for which you had to pay such great prices and suffer so many losses… And yet, can you not see that the way you act and react is not much different than what it was when you were sixteen? At least you didn’t have the arrogance back then to make assumptions of being always right for choosing to do whatever would come to your mind at the spur of the moment…

How many more blows can you take? Till when can you continue to destruct yourself causing more and more harm to your body and soul, tormenting them like you wouldn’t treat even your own enemy… Are you your worst enemy? Is it what you think you deserve? Shouldn’t there be some kind of self-respect towards your own self before you can appreciate the respect of the others? These days you are rather annoyed when there is even a hint of praise directed towards your way… and why is that? Perhaps because you do not have much respect left for anything or anyone, and first of all towards yourself? Afraid to face what comes so close to being the truth? Yes, it is the truth, and I am speaking it to you, the judge, the harsh critic that’s been living in your head all this time, and the voice that you’ve so successfully learned to block and repress lately…Why do you always have to learn through pain, through the hardest way… because for some reason once you have told yourself that you do not want an easy life, a life that has at least some grain of rationality in it? So what kind of life do you actually want? Life that makes no sense, even to yourself, life that’s confused and nonsensical any way you try to look at it? But this is what I want, you say, and now, left to your own devices, all you do is sit and wait for some kind of sign, another cryptic cosmic message so that you can confuse yourself even more?

Is there a limit on how jaded you can get? Is there a limit on how much pain you can endure? Is there a limit to how much time you waste and to the degree of damage you cause to yourself before you kill yourself and drop dead without even noticing how you slowly extinguished yourself, and what a waste… Such a waste, Such a waste of time, and faith and everything that went into making you, on who you grew to become, on who you really are, and who you could have been had you had more foresight in the past, have you had more reasoning and common sense… You said you wanted to be a woman alone. A free woman. What makes you think that this was the path to your womanhood, that you have chosen it right, that this is the only way to go, the only road that you can claim as yours among so many that lay in the vast expands of endless possibilities. You say that’s what you want, these unlimited, neverending possibilities, because without them you say there is no freedom, because without them your life comes to its end...
So what do these possibilities offer you, what is it that you have? Womanhood interrupted? Ruins and shambles and once again the real risk of falling apart within a blink of an eye, within the slightest blow of the wind, and the slightest breath of the wintry cold… You know you are going to fall apart, even if you stay intact from the outside, you know that sooner or later you will have to face what you’ve been avoiding all these years, face and accept and perhaps swallow all these truths that you knew were there, and yet you were too proud and to stubborn, even to yourself, to accept what was so obvious right from the beginning… Has denial become your new mode of existence? Have these quasi-relativistic speculations become your only tools of dealing with what you have no courage to deal with? There pretty much is Right and Wrong, you chose the easiest relativist path, the lowest level of the most abject nihilism so that you can try and justify yourself, but you know the wrong of your own actions, you know what you should and should not have done, you knew it right from the beginning, didn’t you? When all you wanted was to jump headfast in to the whirlwind of crazy events and let them carry you away, because in speed you tend to lose your mind, because speed is faster than the flow of your thoughts, and thus you have an excuse not to think, not to do anything, but merely float and how little effort does it take to try and stay afloat? You know you’re going to fall apart even if you say to yourself that you’re holding yourself in one piece— in this latent breakdown that you are already going through…

How little effort does it take to try and stay afloat and what does that accomplish?
Is there a limit on how jaded you can get? Is there a limit on how much pain you can endure? Is there a limit on how long you can go on, trying to pretend that you’re strong and tough and so very perfect. Will you ever get rid of your self-righteousness?

And if there is a limit, where is it…

The loss that you cannot replace...

I've been dreaming about losses. The kind of painful and strenuous dreams that leave you numb and drained in the morning- you no longer notice the physical pain, all there is is the bottomless pit of emptiness, pressing hard against your insides, creating a sort of vacuum that's almost unbearable, and you move through your day as a sleepwalker, knowing that at night there will be the same dream waiting for you in that dark corner of your mind and you dread the minute of going to bed, because you know you won't escape what you've been trying to avoid in broad daylight.

They say the price for knowledge gained through experience is your innocence. And yet, there are certain things i wish i had never learned- i wish i could claim that innocence back, giving up all that knowledge that i've gained at such a high price...
the experience of pain... the experience of loss. A kind of loss that you will never fully come to comprehend, let alone to reconcile with... A kind of loss that cannot be replaced or recovered from... i wonder how long it takes to heal... as much as this healing is possible in a given situation...
a month... a year... or until another loss and anothe pain come to replace this one?
or until you find something that will at least partly fill that void that will stay within you for a long long time...and what do you do till then? How do you continue living with this loss that you know will not be replaced...

How long does it take to heal...

"...Tears stream down on your face
when you lose something you cannot replace
tears stream down on your face
and I will try to fix you..."
Coldplay

and another... short story

A man, relatively young, and yet already jaded- running away from something or rather, from himself, into a distant part of the world, in search of some kind of sanity, or rather normality, in a place where everything appears skewed and crooked…

He runs around, sleeps around, makes himself acquainted with these unfamiliar ways, and makes himself comfortable in his new surroundings so much that he has no wish to return to the place where he has come from. Meets a woman, conventional in every way- a solid, bulky, traditional woman who promises only stability and devotion, unlike the eccentric and neurotic flighty pieces he used to end up with… A woman with a good hand and a stable head, the woman who will know how to run the house, how to hold the family on her shoulders, how to raise the kids… a woman who’s a great investment into a future that speaks of stability and prosperity and is as conventional as it could be…the only thing slightly out of ordinary being that she’s foreign, but that’s also rather banal, isn’t it? Seems to happen all the time- foreigners, and mostly Americans, marrying women from cultures drastically different from their own- these women either being the exotic pieces or those stable, devoted women that know how to take care of their men… so overall, a banal story, and by writing the outlines I pinned him down and now he’s done, finished, limited to a conventional life he chose to live… but I’m still not convinced and I wonder what it really is that makes American men resign to these godforsaken corners of the world and end up marrying foreign women to live their lives happily ever after?

And i'm dreaming of improbable places again...

"i want to live in a small town in deep South in the States. I want to live in a town where summers are hot and long and careless and women are full figured and wear long dresses and practice magic and men speak in this almost musical Southern drawl and there's music seemingly everywhere…and there's a street named Sullivan Street…"

"Why's that?"

"i don't know. I can just see the place, that town with its people, it all seems so real, uncomplicated. Funny, of all places in the world i want to be in this middle of nowhere place. Do you know a place like that?"

"Well, i am not sure. You're asking for too much, lady. Long dresses and magic...Move to New Orleans."

"But that's a city, I want a small town"

"How's Tennessee? Not quite deep south, but still… Maybe Memphis?"

"Not quite…"

"What then?"

"Don't know. I guess you'll have to find it yourself…guys would call you sweetheart and tell you you're pretty" he said this in this deep southern accent, purrty, made me laugh.

***
and the next day...

"i'm sad..."

"why's that?"

"that whole small town dream... i just want real life. with real people. real men. there are no real men left anymore. they're either fags or too pretentious, too snobbish or too stuck up. or too young even at the age of thirty. sigh. are there really no real men left?"

"hmmm, you're looking at one..."

"yeah, but you don't count..."

"thank you very much i don't."

"perhaps to your missus... i just want real people with real lives. lately i'm getting a feeling that all i see around me is some kind of immitation of life that's being lived elsewhere. yeah, i'm going to move to that southern town one day. just to see how real THAT feels"

"Oh, come on, you just want to get yourself some southern love..."

"Maybe...or i'm just confusing real with redneck. go figure."

"...true potential manifests itself in the one who could, but at present prefers not to act. only in the moment of suspended action does potentiality show itself in its pure form..."

It's August...

... it's not over yet, the summer is not over yet, the heat will persist almost until October, but it will end, eventually, like everything else... sooner than I think, sooner than i'll have time to notice.

I've come to accept the end...

it's not over yet, but it has already ended in my mind, for i know exactly how it is going to be, i can see it so clearly. It's a surreal feeling being at two points simultaneously, a situation when your mind is two steps ahead into the future from where you actually are at the present moment. And i watch myself, from this advanced vantage point, and last night i said out loudly.
«Ever been able to view everything from a point somewhere in future, able to predict your each and every action, watching yourself as it you're watching something staged, already known...»

"You're talking riddles..."

Talking riddles, talking riddles, talking riddles...
There seem to be way too many puzzles and riddles these days, way too much symbolism around. And now the most symbolic month of the year has started... and i'm talking riddles.

In two weeks i'll move into the apartment downtown, it will be four weeks of absolute solitude amidst the busy life of the city crazed and jaded in the summer sun. i can see myself locked inside that apartment, spending hour after hour in nothing but silence, while the city roars behind the soundproof windows... i can see hours stretching long and thin, as i sit motionless playing the game i've always played... i can see myself at the end of the month, packing up my things, not to leave even a trace of my existence, closing the door to the apartment, and the summer gone, but never to be forgotten...

There is only one word to be said in the end, acceptance.
i have learned to accept.
i've come to reconcile with what seemed to be the most difficult thing to reconcile with in the past. i have already accepted and i know i will move on, gone... as if i never existed...

it's not time ...
it is not over yet
august has just started today
august and everything after...

"World, i cannot hold you close enough..."
or is it how it goes?

***

The essence of scepticism is the refusal to accept any choice unconditionally...

***
Jesus is the fat lady...

***

it was exactly what i needed to hear.
i need to find and read that book one more time. before august and everything after comes...

***

When you come to think about it- it’s the simple everydayness that makes up for everything… it’s this everydayness that contributes to this overall happiness that I am feeling now… orange juice in the morning, apple and walnut crepes in the afternoon, late evening ride to downtown, watching the string of lights at night as the cab takes me home… going to bed tired yet knowing that the morning is going to bring yet another wonderful day and it’s all that matters….

I miss certain aspects of living in the states… I am coming to realize that.
I am also coming to realize that despite the fact that I am so incredibly happy here in Yerevan, and move and breathe with so much ease, from aside i act as an American… and I think I enjoy acting as one, although I know I am not… a funny thing, when in the states I used to feel my foreignness, my armenianness almost all the time, and here… yeah, I am acting like a damn westerner- yet I’ve never been more myself than now. I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin, more content amidst all this shit that brings nothing but dissatisfaction… and yet, I miss the states. Chris asked me today what it is that I miss, and the only thing I could come up with to define this vague feeling was “the everydayness... and bagelland” and I told him about that morning, right before we left, when I had gone to bagelland, right after we had had one of our last fights, and sat there for three hours, my head in complete disarray, grateful for the fact that I was leaving in four days. And I remember those kids who sat at the next table- they were young and happy and so decadent- and so everything I wish I had had when I was their age- and it made me want, for the first time I can ever recall, this decadent living, this careless, easy living of simplicity, when days are filled with sunlight and color and you’re unaware of the time ticking away, when every day has a life of its own, every day a threshold of discovering something new, unknown… when life is nothing but an endless string of possibilities and yet it’s not your turn to make your choice yet, and they shift and flicker according to your whims and you never know what’s the next day is going to bring…and I want this life more than anything I’ve ever wanted- and I get a funny feeling that now is the only time I’ll ever get a chance to have anything that comes even close to that kind of life, and I have to have it before I run out of time,,,

And the summer is slowly progressing...

The other day, sitting at Mariott cafe with a friend, talking about future plans that are still vauge and full of uncertainties i caught myself thinking out loudly, more as a note to myself than an actual conversation "It's amazing how you continue living your life day by day in a way you've always lived, doing the same things you ordinarily do and yet with the knowledge that every day is bringing you closer to whaever you've set to accomplish. It's a wonderful feeling..."
He gave me one of his sly smiles, saying "That means you're growing up..."

***

*
how do you reconcile the knowledge of the present with your past self?

... for looking back i cannot help the feeling of dismay and I laugh the laugh of malie at my younger self, the laugh of spite at my own innocence and naivite.

*
what you lost in return of the knowledge you've gained is the innocence.

*
and when you realize that there's no going back to this innocence that's when you know you're old...

Stories

An almost banal, overly sentimental situation.
A man and a woman in a relationship (for this instance I'll use the "terms" man and woman only out of convenience, since they were not ready to accept these roles and play them properly or with dignity of adults.) They have everything to be happy, from outside it looks like a perfect idyll, and yet the relationship is as dysfunctional as it can be- at least on of them, the woman, knows that they are not happy, that she is not happy despite the man's constant denial of the fact or rather his inability to notice what should be apparent to the eye of an insider. Perhaps he IS happy after all, at least during the moments when everything's quiet and things are going seemingly well. He is happy because she's there, with him, he couldn't have possible asked for more, and yet what troubles her is the awareness, the knowledge of the fact that his happiness is because of her, by the mere fact of her existence, and her proximity to him. This makes her extremely uncomfortable and restless, she realizes she does not want the responsibility of being the sole provider of someone's happiness. Even if this someone is the man she loves more than anything in the world. Here is where the discrepancy lies. He's content, does not want anything else, she's trapped, feels burdened with the responsibility of being the reason of happiness she knows she cannot bear it anymore, especially when she knows that she no longer has or wishes to be giving anything any longer. One day she leaves.

He's devastated. He's lost, hurt and unhappy. One moment he has what seemed to be perfect happiness, the next moment everything is gone and the world he thought he knew is no longer the same... He doesn't fully comprehend the fact, only notices the emptiness of the rooms and the cold spot in bed. She's gone, miles away, and for the first time in a long while she realizes that she can breathe freely. She's happy.

Another story

A man and a woman, apart. Separated because of the will of the woman, in the most painful manner ever possible to imagine. She runs away to a place where he won't be able to reach her- halfway across the world, and only when she knows she's beyond his reach, she finds herself finally at peace with herself and happy. She's like to shove this happiness to his face, for he was the one to accuse her constantly for not wanting to be happy... "You just like being unhappy. That's the only way you know how to be..." A statement that's been haunting her for as long as she could remember, and perhaps her departure was partly because of this, and out of spite to prove him wrong, that no, she can be perfectly happy and content, that it IS possible to be ultimately happy, and that her source of happiness does not come from the outside, but lies within her.

U2, the trip and everything else...

Notes from the trip

“It hasn't finally clicked in that this is happening. Still stuck in that one moment when the escape seems inphantomable, when the hopelessness of my confinement in my own condition is all that i will get-and yet, here i am, almost halfway done with the journey, and all i can do is count hours, and hope for the best, perhaps pray for the best, whatever the best is...”

It's been a while- seems like forever, and I cannot fully grasp what is happening, And once again, I'm traveling alone, and I find myself in random locations, surrounded with people as strange as they can be, and I am starting to recall how much I hate airports and traveling alone and I literally count every hour until this whole nightmare is over and I am finally home…

The whole trip is in a haze. Vaguely I remember the uncomfortable ride to Orlando, tension building up between us as he drove silently, occasionally giving me a critical remark or another,,, Tension that wouldn't let go even when I was up in the air, all the way until I landed in JFK- dirty, crowded, depressing… The moment I stepped out I knew I was on my own- I could have chosen to step out of the airport and lose myself in the city- New York, the place I fell in love with only a few months back, the place I still dream I'll be able to live in who knows what distant future- and yet, I knew I had to go home, not even New York with all its temptations could keep me back- and here I was, loaded with a ton of luggage, running around in circles, trying to find some stupid terminal 3- yes, the airport was as depressing as it could be- and yet I entertained myself by talking on the phone- it helped to kill some time as I waited for Aeroflot to finally start checking in the luggage. The crowd around me was even more depressing- Russians from New York or who knows where, flying into Moscow. The only good thing left from New York was the guy with dreadlocks who was flying to India- although I never got a chance to talk to him… The flight itself bad- I was desperate for sleep and yet all I could do was curl in my seat and listen to music- U2 again and pray for a safe landing…

“And I'm trying to figure out how to spend the next 20 or so hours without going completely insane over the fact that this is finally happening. I try to imagine what it will be like, and yet, i know there is no use doing something like this, the imaginary never matches the real, and yet, all i want is to open my eyes and see mount Ararat again, all i want is to walk along Sayat-Nova avenue, to breathe the cool spring air, to listen to the Yerevan sounds, and watch the streets, and stream of lights, in my city of lights...

I wish i could sleep. I really do want to sleep, or perhaps i could try and make a list of hundred and one things that went wrong with my relationship during these last 2 years... Or hundred and one things on why life is so beautiful and getting better as i slowly progress into my recovery. Or hundred and one reasons why i should stay in armenia, although i guess that's too dangerous an issue to speculate over...

And again i listen to U2, i've been listening to U2 for the last two months, my freedom songs, the songs of hope and my liberation, the songs of past and a brand new, almost impossible future. Whatever that future might hold, it's the freedom that makes it so attractive, the freedom that will perhaps be my own salvation...


I listen to u2 and entertain all possibilities, and yet this time i do not want to force any decision upon myself. I will let it happen, i will let it fall upon me rather than force fed it to myself and him... although there's a lot at stake, i think i will put my inner peace and well being first this time and see how it goes.

I wish i could stay at home longer. i wish... i really wish i could just stay there... and not return. i really wish...”

Russian Airlines sucks, but that was pretty much expected. At times i think that it really is worth it to spend some extra for comfort and everything else. Moscow, and the airport nightmare started all over again, although the worst part was yet to come- by the time I stepped out of the terminal I was so tired and grateful for my uncle to be there to meet me that I was about to collapse in his arms- and yet, obediently I let him walk me to his car, although the last thing I wanted to do was talk, I did find some energy to make a quite a decent conversation and even joke. Six hours, a glimpse of Moscow- the city was too bizarre or maybe the time interval too short, and me way too tired to form any definite impression about the place. But at least I can say that I've seen the Red Square if that makes any difference at all. Flying out of Moscow was the worst- luggage, passport control- and I completely panicked and broke down for I could already sense trouble coming towards my way- trouble I was not able to deal with yet- too tired, too ravaged, the only thing on my mind being to finally get home.

Stepped off the plane into the night, all my luggage safe and in one piece thank god- walked out of the gate and saw my mother and my brother- and again, I could help the tears, and I cried like I had never cried before with the realization how much I had missed them in these past two years and how much I needed to be with them at that very moment. Calmed down while waiting for the taxi- and we talked, as if nothing had ever happened, as if it was only yesterday that I had left, and it gave me a very strange feeling of dislocation as if it was not only the space that I crossed, but time as well, and here I was, back in two years, at the exact spot that I was right before I left.

Our apartment at first sight looked more shabby than I remembered, not much had changed and yet it looked like the apartment itself had aged, whereas my mother and my brother looked exactly as I remembered, A surreal feeling- sitting in the living room, drinking tea and talking- and I kept thinking about the place that I lived the last few months, and couldn't help but compare. The strangest thing was going to sleep- I thought of the bed, my bed, and our bed- the white bedroom and everything else, and it gave me a painful pang in the stomach, and a creepy feeling that I would never see those things again….

The last i wrote on the trip...

“And I never really got to say goodbye to Gainesville, anyway, despite the fact that i kept changing my mind- or rather situation kept changing- every other day, i still think that most likely than not i will be coming back, i have no choice but do so, and how much i hate situations like this, when even though you know you're doing the only possibly right thing, in the end you will end up regretting about your choice bitterly, blaming your fate and the one single life that you've given, and dream about another life of a different choice under different circumstances...what can one do in situation like this? I really wonder and admire those who are able to make a decision and stick with it till the very end, without experiencing any feeling of remorse.

I no longer want to live regretting...”

*Interlude

To leave, in such a state of mind, the irony and fucked-upness of the whole situation, who would’ve though... i thought i was the victim here, and yet, i guess, we both are the victims of some cosmic fucked up joke that’s being played on us. Maybe somehow this is a sign for us to wake up, and open our eyes... although whatever that cosmic message might be i still don’t have any interpretations. perhaps i should really consider being alone as my only option, and the more i think about it, the more attractive the whole thing seems, and yet at the same time i think about him, after i’ve left, him, devastated, lost, hurt and torn into pieces, a caricature of himself, mean, spiteful, cynical, hateful... if he were to tell his story to someone at a random bar, i would be the bitch who ruined his life in that story. yes, i would be that one, the evil bitch, that was the end of him.... But at the same time, is it worth ruining my own life for the sake of his happiness? not even happiness, for if we go back to the old ways, it’s going to be yet another nightmare that neither one of us deserves. So tis there possibly an answer, a kind of solution that would be the least hurtful for both of us?

And it's happening again...

Reoccuring
“Sometimes all you want is a place you could go to and
feel safely hidden and lost. An unfamiliar place in a foreign city, a street without a name, you walk into a bar you’ve never been to, order a drink you will not drink… Talk to yet another stranger, smile a disappointed smile, give a shrug, and walk out, sober, leaving only cigarette ashes behind… For you know better, you should- you’ve spoken to way too many strangers…

You walk into a building undistinguished in any way, open the
door to a room that has no personality; look at the bare
walls and a single chair in the corner. In fading daylight
coming through the stained glass you are alone. You walk
into that empty space, sit on the floor with a full pot of
coffee and smoke cigarettes one after another. Watch the
smoke curl above your head and melt in the air. Watch the
air turn blue and heavy as hours pass…

…and you’re still there, on the floor trying to recall who
you are and where you have come from. Trying to remember
what was today and what was yesterday. All those faces and places, and bits and snippets of conversations… They swirl around your head- distant echoes of forgotten voices, past instants flashing before your eyes… here you are at sixteen, here you are at twenty… now you no longer know your age, it’s been too long since you stopped to ask. Scenes from the past flashing before your eyes, scenes that seem to belong to someone else’s life, you’re merely an observer with indifferent eyes, watching a poorly cast movie with badly matched characters. You go through each one of those scenes, one by one dismissing them all, letting them roll into the dark void of oblivion, without experiencing any regret. Hardly feeling a thing. What a waste…

Nothing remains. Your mind is yet another space, bare and empty, uninhabited- there is nothing left to remember. Nothing to evoke even a slight resemblance of what you once used to call an emotion. There are no more thoughts, none of the moments of past holding you
back, making you want to return, no useless weight holding
you down. You could interrupt the film at any moment, leave that life as it is, unfinished, yet suggesting no logical ending. You could chose never to leave the room and no one would even notice… Leave the body behind, dissolve in the air in search of the eternity… And as
you stand staring into the huge dark eye of the unknown,
you’d know that’s where you have come from."

*

“You need to see a shrink.”
...and although I was quite surprised at his comment, I simply shook my head and told him that there was nothing in this world the shrink could possibly tell me that I didn't already know.

“You've got to figure out whether you're running from or to, you'll be just fine when you know for sure…”
...and it makes me wonder...

Notes to Self

... since i've had no time.

o When they ask me what I miss most about the States…
o Toxic wife
o Met a stranger at a bar…
o Stories.
o Does it have to get that bad before it starts getting better?
o The city
o Letters to a friend
o Comments on the blog
o Spective
o The reality
o In another life we could have something…

Scenes

A man and a woman in a room, barely looking at each other. Heavy silence has settled in the room and in this silence they sit, each with a thought of their own, excluding the other. One wonders what they can possibly have to tell to one another…

A scene with similar settings but a different context.

A man and a woman, this time facing each other, while the necessity to speak brings anticipation that drifts in the room. She is hurt and is waiting for him to speak, to make a move in a word or an action. She has an urge to get up and put her arms around him, yet pride makes her remain where she is. He is baffled and confused for he does not understand what he has done wrong to make her act the way she does. It pains him and in his turn he is waiting for her to speak. An awkward silence prevails.

Two in a room, her back turned to him, while he restlessly paces the floor. Tension growing in silence, tension that rejects, is repulsive. Unable to stand any longer he walks towards the door and steps out, closing the door quietly behind him. She hears it, but remains where she is, without even turning her head toward the door.

***
Once, long in the past, in real life, she ran after him, down the stairs and into the street, where she caught up with him and took him by the hand. They walked together, without speaking, holding hands and avoiding looking at each other.

They returned late at night to the same room, where they lit candles and sat in each others arms, still not speaking. They fell asleep, on the floor, while the candle slowly died in the dark.

***
Now i no longer run after you, you no longer stop to look back, we've had too many scenes of silence, they do not matter anymore, only the haunting heavy presence of the other, the desire to escape, to be elsewhere... Now i am only glad when you slam the door and leave, or else i run out of the door, away, away from this dark and destructive place, the eye of the storm that will inevitably swipe away everything and send me off spinning.

....

it's dark in the house, dark in my room, we either screwed all the light bulbs out, or we deliberatlely do not turn the lights on, hoping that the darkness will hide us, protect us, save us from looking at each other, from cruel confrontation... darkness is soft, it's soothing, warm, protective, ever absorbing and there really is no need to talk, to look at each other, to see the other's face, pale, pained and confused. Darkness soothes the pain, the confusion, we're merely two people in a house, each in a separate room, and we know it's the end and darkness brings acceptance.

...

And I sit and think, sit and think, as I finally have the time and luxury to sit doing nothing else.

No one can be held as a source of your contempt. Or maybe it's me who's being held in contempt, held captive in something that lacks the power to nourish. Who is it to blame or is it really necessary to have someone to blame?

The past couple of days were spent in a haze. The house is in disarray. Chaotic days, days without shape, with no destination, no apparent relation to anything familiar, estranged days, weightless, shapeless days. Days spent neither here nor there but rather in a place deep within myself.

And today i wake up feeling pacified. I’m amazingly calm, happy and relieved. The decision that at first was being forced upon me found its resolution and the resolution brought relief. Suddenly i feel such an elevation that it feels as if i’m weightless. i do have a destination now, i do know what i need to do and where i will be going now. And i have an incredible feeling of freedom, again, the kind of feeling when only the sky’s a limit and i’m slowly letting go...i'm going home...

To reach a point where one realizes that love is not the most important thing in life, to realize that happiness is not the only priority or aspiration, that there is more to life than finding self-realization in a relationship and someone else, to reach a point where personal freedom and the need for self-expression are of pressing emergency, that the voice that’s been put to sleep deep within oneself has awaken and now speaks of desires and aspirations that go beyond the limits of the current life, beyond the confinement of a relationship... to reach that point and realize that it is possible to carry on one’s existence without the other, that there is another life, not of the impossible future but the life that is possible, tangible, real... the life alone, the life without...

With or without you...
So liberating
With or without you...

I can live with or without you... without you... without

Outrospective

If you place a thing into the center of your life,
that lacks the power to nourish,
it will eventually poison everything that you are
and destroy you.
A simple thing as an idea
Or your perspective of yourself of the world
No one can be the source of your contempt.
It lies within you,
in the center.

Faithless
Evergreen

This day of all days...

It’s that time of the year. That very month. It’s the day. This day of all days and I’m miles away under a radiant sky and around glorious palms... Elsewhere the sky is heavy and overcast, the ground glazed with ice, trees, magnificent buildings and broad streets covered in snow...

Yerevan, gray and dull in February, almost lethargic and yet how much I miss it right now, on this very day, how much i miss the mood, the state matching with the month. Nostalgia, a wistful longing for a moment in the past, a particular event, a mood, emotional state.


Two years, two whole years and I am still having seconds thoughts, still allowing myself to return to the event, living through it, speculating over the outcomes other than what followed, what has shaped my present now. My heart still hurts when I think about it, that time, the house, the city, the gallery, the artist, our meetings, the snow, the cold and me, dazed and restless, sleepwalking and yet awake, only wakeful in some other kind of reality where I was free of circumstances binding me... and yet, even in that life i would to be bound, not as much to the idea of him but to my own solitude.

And two years ago I wrote

"I open the door to chaos and let chaos in. I plunge myself into it headfirst, letting it consume me more and more. I become a tiny ripple caught in the storm, swirling rapidly in a downward spiral.
Drifting away from what used to hold me once. Drifting away from the future that lay before me unfulfilled."

"I draw a scene. It's dull and barren. I color it gray and let shadows swallow the light. I watch the light grow dim. The outlines blur and the air thickens.

I create a mood— I let the mood create itself out of the scene.
I draw the mood... I draw myself in it— small, dark, brittle, almost transparent.
I watch myself from above, I watch the mood drift through the thick air. The entire scene is on my palm. I let long hours pass as the slanted rays slide over the scene and there I remain, shivering in the wind, looking dolefully at the sky."

And today I write

"February and the sun is bright. Outside my window palm trees stretch towards the sun. The sky is blue, the kind of blue that can only be seen in a place that does not know cold. And yet I think about a place, that place under a different sky, laden with heavy clouds, the world white and trees covered with snow. And i long for winter, for the snow. Somewhere there, under a different sky, I could’ve had a different life. Somewhere there I would be waking up to snow and not to sunshine. Somewhere under a different sky I would be in the city, with a chance of running into him in the crowd. Somewhere in that other life i would be living in one of the old buildings made and carved in stone, and somewhere in that other life there would be a chance that he’d come knocking on my door only to be gone the next morning. But as long as i lived that other life, under a different sky, there would always be a chance of running into him in one of those art galleries - giddy with wine, he would take me home with him, and maybe, just maybe another masterpiece would be born of the outlines of my curves in bold strokes on canvas that he'd cover by a cloud of golden mist..."



I am repeating myself, over and over again, the same thought, dressed in different clothes, made of different words, appears again, and again and again, and i walk in circles. with this idee fixe. Will writing it down set me free? Will i be able to leave the event behind, to hang the canvas on a wall of some unknown gallery of the past and walk away?

I feel like I'm running out of time, and I'm full of longing, the most painful longing and wistful nostalgia for a place that stands now as the very symbol of my freedom and solitude.

Yerevan...

Sometimes an utterly random event can knock you off your path and let you go spinning in a whirlwind of chaos and confusion, disturbing what you once thought to e perfect order and stability. And yet, the mere occurrence of the event opens your eyes to completely new possibilities you never considered before— but those are possibilities you’re never bound to know. They are always left unknown, because by choosing one over the rest you set the path your future will take, and close the door to the rest of them.
 
Out of many possibilities only one asserts itself. The others might exist, only in different lives.