Wednesday, June 18, 2008

a logical impossibility

"You know, this happens a lot to Russians. The Soviet Union is gone, and the borders are as free and passable as they've ever been. And yet, when a Russian moves between the two universes, this feeling of finality persists, the logical impossibility of a place like Russia existing alongside the civilized world, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, sharing the same atmosphere with, say, Vladivostok. It was like those mathematical concepts I could never understand in high school: if, then. If Russia exists, then the West is a mirage; conversely, if Russia does not exist, then and only then is the West real and tangible. No wonder young people talk about "going beyond the cordon" when they talk of emigrating, as if Russia were ringed by a vast cordon sanitaire. Either you stay in the leper colony or you get out into the wider world and maybe try to spread your disease to others."

Absurdistan Gary Schneider , 2006

Monday, June 09, 2008

poem from high school

how dissappointing is
the end of my day
with what
tether of imagination
do i recall your
image
this is my illness,
charmer,
my time feels,
unimportant,
trivial
how easily do I
become distempered
by the good fortune
of my satellites
the elements
cutting down and nearing
that blood organ
the domain
of affections
tenderly snipped
you are a test.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Sun June 1st

Gotta write Denis a letter - apologize. I'm so out of it right now, trying to steer my head clear of depression. Keeping busy definitely is the key for me. I should explain how I've been unable to be productive without a computer. I should explain all the film from the Grand Canyon and Portland, just sitting around. About how Sobaka magazine requested a picture from me and I couldn't even send it because I couldn't hook up my hard drive to my mother's computer, and then when I finally got to a computer in Philadelphia, I brought the wrong harddrive. Many tasks don't get done like this.

I should explain the empty hours wandering around the city with Anastasia, with Wilkes, and with Tim. I was telling Wilkes - I guess life makes a lot more sense when you know that you'll go home and every night eventually that other person will be there - it makes life make a lot more sense. What is that that the kid in Into the Wild wrote? Something like "true emotion is shared emotion" I'll have to look it up.

Everyday I consider the possibilities - the next step. Someday it will be great to have a home, to have someone to come home to. Today I felt so unexperienced at life. I helped Tim move into a new apartment - a row home on a block where he's the only white guy, him and his brother and his brother's girlfriend. I helped these folks move, packed up the Uhaul, drove over the new place and unpacked it. And Tim's brother is 22 i think and he feels so adult. He's lived in Bolivia and his girlfriend is fearless - the way she drives the U-haul and seems to have already lived a whole life - you know, its like she's done all this before and this is her 2nd life. I don't know where all that confidence and i-know-what-I'm-doing feeling comes from, but I sure don't have it.
America is strange though. What I expected. I don't really know where to insert myself into it - I don't know if I"ll ever feel at home here - and I'm not saying that I'll feel at home in some other country - doubt it, I suppose it's just a general feeling of not belonging anywhere.

But what about this girl - this girl that was locked up in a basement for 8 years in Austria ( not the one who was locked up for 20 ). She comes out and she starts her own talk show. A 20 year old - she was down there from the ages of 10 to 18. She never even finished high school. I mean she was right about the being gutsy thing - about how you'll never grow if you don't present yourself with challenges. So I have much respect and I hope I can learn to live with dignity.

I should get back to the San Fran kids just in case - tell them I'll be available in July. I should do the job search on Craigs list and the other journalism search engines rigorously.

I should explain the feeling of being a renegade of sorts - running from one person's house to the next - from one city to another. I'll use writing and reading to heal I guess. and NPR. Folks behind me on the train speaking Russian - comforting - I will apply for the interpreter's job - I would enjoy that.

I would have talked to you now. on the train. but you are asleep. it will often be like that. calls will happen at the wrong time. i could not talk then with the noise of the hipsters on mushrooms in their utopian freak show, with the muffled mobile phone connection, with Wilkes sitting next to me, and the sun beating down on me. I'm sorry. I do miss you now, quiet on the train, in need of a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold. But out there in the middle of all that mess, I am outside of myself.