The City

“You can never confuse real tenderness
With something else, and it is quiet.”
Anna Akhmatova

I love this City early in the morning. When no one is yet awake. When the streets are empty and the roads stretch unruffled like neat tablecloths, fresh from the laundry, without a single crease. When the wet asphalt cools the heels of the few figures, walking quietly across daybreak. This dullness has its own poetry, its own rhythm. And it exudes a delicate tenderness that dissolves later in the bustle of the day. I love this city—a private, personal love. A little voice inside me whispers that this is my City, and none other can take its place in my heart. All it has, all it is, good and bad, is mine. It is my reflection, and what completes me.
This love doesn’t hurt. It’s not what you feel after a long separation or during those minutes of impetuous lyricism.  This is the calm, confident, quiet love, which is so hard to express in words, but is so deeply felt.
I love this City in the early summer mornings, when the sun hasn’t seared the asphalt and concrete.  When your whole being, every cell in you, feels fresh and born anew.  The green leaves reflect off everything, and everything becomes green, as if that is the only color that has the right to exist. You reach for a piece of paper and write. About something. Anything.
You feel this love for those who share your existence—your beloved, friends, some coworkers, people who are as much a part of your life as this City. They know you better than you know yourself sometimes. Every moment with them is a smile and every parting a sweet torment by that cruel Time which quickly passes away, yet always holds the promise of more to come.
In those quiet moments, vanity disappears, time is suspended, and silence becomes the only sound. You look in his eyes and the love is more real than your existence, yet no words can describe it—just a glance into the soul, through the eyes, the touch, or the quiet sound of your living beings. Breathing. Hearts beating. Tears slowly trickling down your cheek. A sweet tightness in your throat.
This is love. Inside us. Around us. Beyond us. Everywhere. An infinite universe which lets our souls roam free into spaces unlimited. Even when we don’t recognize it with our intellect, or remember it. It still surrounds us and sustains our souls. Yet how happy we are when we are aware of it.
I love these minutes of quiet tenderness in the morning, when you are tête-à-tête with the whole universe, and you can hear how it talks to you, in absolute silence.

May 27, 2001

Stories from Old Times

It is a story from the old times, and it is in Russian, but I love it. It was written in November 1995.

***

Полумрак. Горит одинокая лампочка в ночи. В сон погружены люди, вещи и даже сам свет будто дремлет. Ты не спишь. Думаешь, мучаешься и радуешься тому тонкому лучу мира и счастья, что протянулся к тебе издалека. Он неясен, призрачен, но дарит столь нежное и неизъяснимое чудо, стремящее тебя к совершенству, что кажется – весь мир отдан тебе и готов делиться с тобой, как с равным, всеми своими сокровищами. Он улыбается тебе нежно и ободряюще, поет мудрые и чуть грустные песни, болеет и радуется вместе с тобой, хмурится, если ты спотыкаешься, и утирает рукавом пот с твоего лица, в котором живет боль и радость, сон и песня, труд и мечта. И кажется, что за этим лучом ты готов пройти, истоптав тысячи пар сапог, испив до дна все, что предложит тебе Дорога. И идущий рядом по более легкой тропе, не собьет тебя с твоего пути, потому что Дорогу, как Песню и Мечту, каждый выбирает для себя. И даже если свет луча станет столь тонок и далек, что не видно будет его среди сонма иных звезд, ты все равно будешь идти, мечтая и сгорая, и будешь верить всегда в то, что он светит в ночи.
ДЛЯ ТЕБЯ…

The Park

It’s two minutes away from my home, and it is gorgeous! I go there every morning and every night to walk the dog, and every time it is different. And every time I think I want to picture it with words, or painting, or… something and share it. But every time I feel I have no means to retell its beauty.

So please come, and let’s just go and see it.

Autumn

It started. The leaves are turning yellow and the park smells of withering. And it’s getting cold. I used to like cold, but since I spent a year in London, I can hardly bear it. Exactly this type of cold – unwanted, unwelcomed, unexpected, getting to your bones through yet light clothing. And it’s wet, because it comes with rain.

I love rain, but not this one. It’s a farewell. It is transition between the luxury of smells, colors, sounds of summer to the quietness and insipidity of winter. The delightful purity of each season is smeared by this conversion, and it makes me feel sad.

I wish I could jump from one season to another: to finish the day in warm quiet cozy greenish night and to wake up towards a frosty clear breathtaking morning.

But I think there is some wisdom in this low season. It slows me down, and tunes me. Like every turning point it may have a precious gift. I wonder which one it is this time.

Hi

Hello,

Thank you for dropping in.

I’m new here, so this ‘hello’ is addressed to nobody in prticular so far. But I wanted so much to become a writer. I wrote some stuff before occasionally, but I thought I need more practice and persistence. I will post here some of my previous writings too, most of them are in Russian. But hopefully more texts, and especially in English are coming.

Hope you enjoy reading my writings. And… I appreciate feedback and considerate critics.

Cheers, Tati