In the arms of a different sky

"make a circle in the sand
make a halo with your hands
make a place for me to land..."

cc

["Sometimes in this world there are things that make us question who we are. Question why we treat people the way we do and how people treat us. A cold night, grey sky, a lonely apartment, a phonecall. No matter how hard we try to figure out who we are and why others are the way they are, there is no single answer, no true solution. Time is the essence of it all, the ticking of the clock determines the fate of the world, the family, the relationship, the individual. The wrong tick, the wrong tock, the wrong moment in time. Yet with every passing tick it gets easier, with every passing tock it gets brighter. As time passes with sunrise and sunset, the air gets colder, then it gets warmer. There is no physical way to put it in reverse, look through the rearview mirror and take that right instead of that left. We are all bound by time, place, limits. Sometimes we just wish we could take that U-turn, back to the intersecion, stop, step out, look around, ask the same question with a new perspective and take a different path. NO REGRETS. We are limited to who we are now, not then, not going to be.
I will never forget.
I will always be here with my car in drive, listening to the clock go tick-tock and waiting for the next intersection. I will always be here. I will make time."]

In retrospect... quoting

"Because i was permanently confused, dissatisfied, unhappy, tormented by inadequacy, driven by wanting towards every kind of impossible future... I dont think i saw people except as appendages to my needs. It's as if i lived in a brilliantly lit haze, shifting and flickering according to my changing desires...
Maybe this is only a description of being young..."

Doris Lessing

It's spring behind my window...

Hitting the bottom to climb up again

What does it take to recover?
Why is it taking so long?
Does it have to get worse before it starts getting better?

I've lost the count of days in an endless wait.
stuck in between two worlds, neither here, nor there, but somewhere else, in the back of my head... trapped inside the four walls i so tried to once escape...

and yet, the more i think about it, the more i realize that there really is a reason to all this. perhaps i'd never have another chance to face all that i once wanted to forget, trying to deny the roots of my origin- this very room, the old view from the window, the endless hours spent dreaming of the moment when i'd be able to leave it all behind, and go without looking back.

it's only now that i know that there are always things that you can't leave behind

the gutter you've come from will always be with you- it gives you more room to spread out your roots. and yes, you are rooted to where you have come from and i'm finally coming to accept it.

Choirs of winter birds are calling...

Restless

and i'm restless again. restless for life, a kind of life at the rawest edge- raw, unpolished, sharp, scraping though the skin and cutting through the bone, a life of extreme that's almost on the verge of insanity... i keep saying to myself "all I need is some sense of normality..." and yet i keep throwing myself from one extreme to another, as if walking through some kind of mine field, constantly testing the limits of my reach, the limits of my freedom and my own sanity...

Spective

I used to wonder whether it was really possible to remain mentally and emotionally unaffected by certain experiences and whether it was this immunity that determined a certain level of maturity. I used to wonder whether this level of maturity was determined by the ability of putting certain experiences behind and moving on without looking back, without the feeling of remorse and regret. I used to wonder whether this is what made one jaded, and whether there was a limit to how jaded one could get.

Now I wonder whether there really is a point in trying to seek answers to questions that are better left unanswered. Makes you look like a fool when you ask anyway. So you let go- a simple act –once the hardest thing to do-almost effortless now…
Releasing the static cling from everything that once you held on to for mental and emotional support, using it as appendages to needs that didn’t need to exist anyway.

Acceptance is the key. It brings relief, Opens new perspectives.
Nothing more enlightening. And liberating.

I seem to have finally learned to reconcile the past with the present. I am finally able to look at my younger self with kinder, more loving and forgiving eyes. I have learned to put both the experiences and memories behind me and move on.

I have finally learned to stand on my own feet without the support of a concept or an idea, or any emotional stamina. And by doing so, I really have overcome my biggest fear of all-the fear of living.

Nine months

I remember waking up one Sunday morning in our white apartment, looking at the spotless walls and sun pouring into the room, getting up and wondering around the quiet and empty rooms with a growing feeling of discomfort. I remember looking at the clutter of familiar objects and feeling displaced, uprooted, out of place. Looking at myself from aside, in this spotless apartment in this perfect vision of happiness and domestic bliss and suddenly becoming afraid of how easily I was getting used to this life of comfort and how slowly and gradually I was getting sucked into it….

I had everything to be happy.
The scariest part was that I was happy in this bliss and I could see myself living an entire life like this, in this cloudless and comfortable existence which didn’t even take much effort to create and maintain. I remember the feeling of discomfort growing into panic and then restlessness with the thought that despite its promise of comfort and happiness this was not what I wanted, and that I did not belong to this life just like this life did not belong to me and to continue living it would be the greatest betrayal I could ever commit towards myself.

And now...
Sitting in a crowded bus, moving slowly on a desolate road, in the silence of hills and nothing but miles and miles of snow, thinking about that other life that seemed so remote and almost not real.

Almost nine months…
I could have had a child in this time.
I could have stayed in this almost perfect life that had everything that one might need. Including happiness.

Instead I shunned it away, rejecting it as something unwanted and almost unpleasant, and choose to return to a place that I once ran away from, to this godforsaken land of destitute that once held me captive and landlocked in the chain of mountains that once I wished to escape….

To go against all senses of rationality, to interrupt an entire life and leave it in shambles and disarray, and come here, of all the places in the world, at the brink of a nervous and physical breakdown and somehow, magically manage to stay alive and in one piece, and instead of breaking down, finding a different kind of happiness, the happiness of self-discovery and self-fulfillment…

[I laugh at myself, this whole story sounding so banal, no matter how drastically I changed it almost overnight, and how crazy were the events that followed afterwards… A textbook version, or rather, almost fiction, as if I was following a pattern, the steps already trodden by so many feet. The Fear of Flying. Children of Violence. The Hours…. And so many more similar untold stories….A woman at the brink of self-liberation…. Words like self-realization and self-discovery sounding almost like clinical terms.]

And yet...perhaps this was not the only thing to do. Perhaps this was not the smartest choice to make. And what I did or discovered was nothing new, nothing that was not known before. And yet this was my choice. A free choice, and not one offered to me among some other options. I made it, aware of the consequences. I made it, even though I myself was afraid. And by doing so, I overcame my biggest fear of all-the fear of living.

And as it turns out, I was not running away from, but running towards to. And perhaps what I needed was to return to the roots of my origin, and by merely coming here to claim my freedom back I found a home that I had been denying to myself for as long as I can remember, a home that will stay with me no matter where I go.

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