11-12.11.2014

I

и вдруг подняли якорь, и твой корабль
ушёл за пределы моей карты.
я долго пыталась тебя искать --
но компас не знал даже, в какой ты стороне.
солнце, месяц и ветер не знали этого или скрывали.

одни лишь деревья, освещенные рыжим светом,
молча, изо всех сил, напрягая все свои жилы, едва не вырывая корни из земли от натуги,
тянулись вверх, тянули взгляд мой вверх,

туда, где, конечно, ты есть.

тогда в это ещё верилось.


II

тогда в это ещё верилось,
и я утишала боль,
рисуя тебя схематично в райском саду,
писала о том, что тебе там хорошо, 
как будто наносила дом твой на карту.

но теперь я не знаю.
это верно, что тебя не может не быть, но
разве я могу надеяться на справедливость вселенной?
разве она не показывает каждый день, что справедливости не бывает?
разве друга моего не учили в детстве --

никогда не говори: "это несправедливо"?

III

Пройдёт сколько-то лет (надеюсь, десятки).
Кто-то станет рыться в моём порядке.
Понемногу станет отдавать вещи.
Пару лет ещё
Моя комната, может быть, останется той же,
И запах там будет стоять похожий,

но потом непременно ему или ей
надоест видеть рядом мой силуэт,
и намного стремительней станут меня
раздавать,
убирать,
забывать,

и не будет бессмертья.

IIII

Поверить заново -- возможно ли?
Когда уже
забыты ласковые притчи,
и обещанья, и угрозы,
наивные, как на картинке с крестьянского сундука,
наивные, но очень страшные?

поверить заново,
когда твой мир сломали,
и, затаив дыханье, ты ждёшь следующего слома,
точно ты живёшь на рыбе-ките, и раз в пять лет он ныряет на дно морское.

жить от взрыва до слома.
жить
на краю пропасти.

в детстве на даче:
дом на краю оврага,
прямо над тиной зеленой.

жила там, наверное, Офелия.

* Many people are so enthusiastic about LA 'cause they've experienced a lot of American (pop) culture. I -- haven't. It's not in my heart, in my blood, in my childhood memories, wherever. (Mind: pop culture, because I've read Mark Twain all right as a kid).

* But Britain is there, and that's why it was so incredible a feeling to stand before those English paintings at the Tretyakov gallery. It was as good as half a journey to the British Isles.

* Dog roses, meetings with friends, warm weather. Dear summer Moscow, the most childhood-ish of all seasons.

My first Skype meeting with my future host family.

Was really frigtened and nervous. 

And then -- oh my!

Five blue-eyed blonde people and one dark-haired, all in front of the camera; a house and lilac branches in the background.

Real French words, spoken by real French people, pretty gestures and all -- not as stunned as should be, maybe 'cause I'm already used to such experience (think Croatia and Poland).

But still -- absolutely REAL and sometimes even understandable French! Something so clear about it.

So beautiful. And -- feels I've known them already. Well, I had photos. Sometimes people's features, gestures seem so logical, so proportional that it causes those feelings.

Gestures, three languages, my magical memory/mind producing the word savage. Remembering the words I've just recently learnt and making awful (masakrycznie) errors when using the verb aller. And never sure of my pronunciation. And the lovely h-free English words, which I've read about in Wodehouse, in "What did Katey do"...

Adventures, adventures!

2 months! Crazy!

I recently told my friend: " I would like my future job to be connected with travel". And she pointed out that right now it looks like I'm successful: Croatia, USA.

But USA... never crazy about pop culture, that's why don't scream with happiness.

Learning foreign languages is an attempt to escape loneliness, but then when you're alone in your room with a French lesson, French radio, a notebook for new words and all that stuff, you realise that it doesn't make you happier. I do need classes, do need communication with people.

Soon to plunge into a whole galaxy of adventures. Lucky me. Could I imagine all those travels some 5 years earlier!..

 

Milosz, my travel to Poland... and I'm soo enthusiastic about learning Polish language, Polish culture! Finally loving smth I will definitely learn... I hope.
Milosz's book -- how exciting it is.

How strong must a person be in order not to inhale a single molecule of hatred towards other countries. You might be sceptical and moderately liberal, but that won't help; some pores on your skin let it pass into your body, without your being aware of it at all.

Milosz's Happiness. So Chestertonian -- and for me there are few words (if any) that mean something more beautiful. It's not just my admiration for GKCh that makes me say so. I found my new favourite author (only Andric was my new "acquisition" during all post-school years). His speech flows like water, and is almost as easy to read. And the language in this essay really resembles GKCh; language of images, too. One should not forget though that GKCh in my mind is, first of all, Trauberg's GKCh: both linguistically and critically, I guess. And she knew Milosz (?).

But this piece of prose is even better than GKCh, for it is free of his sometimes tiresome wordplay.

Accepted. Some people are excited. Some are sad. Me -- both.

But why did I start those PhD studies, after all? Now I remember one good reason: to be able to travel. How stupid. Of course this wasn't the one that made me begin it all, but still.
Tired of living and working in a place with so many lies. People study what they don't want to. People pretend one can study and not work when one is 23. People say -- ok, we'll try to give you leave for "family reasons", but if not, you can do it only for medical ones. Lies, or, as Ch. put ut, "puddles, puddles, puddles, puddles".

To dance.
To draw.
To travel.
To read Forster, Dickens, Chesterton.
Just a few things I would be able if I quit those pointless PhD studies.
So happy I'm back to dancing. Forgot it brought me so much pleasure. Literally can't wait for our next class!

How could I have overlooked the simple fact that I have read almost nothing GKCh wrote IN ENGLISH? I have the same amount of happiness waiting for me, or even more. Though a bit afraid Napoleon might be not as funny. Russian translation is superb, enjoy it so much. 

...

One day I'll go to London and visit all the places from The Napoleon of Notting Hill. The Waterworks Tower:

(from https://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/tag/campden-hill/)

Вот это светотень... Оттуда же.

Wordsworth edition: 3 novels, and in each I find something which was omitted in Russian. Or, vice versa -- something that wasn't here and which is in Russian.

...

Did I ever dream about the theory of literature? Not really. And tonight I dreamt I was talking about GKCh. Feel the difference.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. Research what you love. Made a mistake in my 1st year, not going to make the same one.

Сопротивляться силе инерции. То, что меня забросило на эту кафедру, еще не значит, что я должна там учиться. If I groan when I see Bakhtin's name, if I, let's be honest, prefer history of literature to theory of literature -- I should do it. I should be bold. My first dark lipstick was called: be bold.
Припадок недовольства ситуацией -- после теоретического семинара. Да не хочу я быть теоретиком лит-ры!

I have a little white box full of great expectations, naivety and hidden romance: a box with my school letters. Joyfully-painful, like the spring sun which is too bright for one's tired, winter eyes. As I recently thought: those bright, wet and cold spring days, when you leave school and go to the metro station -- no, those sunny days didn't lie. I am quite successful, I have done a lot of things after school, though not everything I wanted. Those days didn't lie.
And I am much, much happier now -- less anxious, more grown-up. I even don't envy the kids all the time since I don't have their burden of daily homework.
You little box. You innocent spirit of youth and hope. I haven't changed that much, I swear. I did become sort of mature, that's true. I'm much more a woman than a girl. I'm not that disappointed person one may find in literature, but not very naive, no.
I don't want to go back: life was not a bed of roses then, as it isn't now, you white bed of dreamy roses. But the hopes, but the expectations, vague and sunny thoughts about future...

*

Sometimes I think -- what if I hadn't become a RSUH student. What would I miss? Several amazing people, my Croatian adventures... and that's, basically, it. The idea that university education changes you is true; I didn't realise it until recently, because we philologists know so few terms, and I personally know so little facts, that you don't seem to be much more wise. But the way you think, at least about some things, changes; and my logic is much more logical now.

An unbelievably good day -- or rather evening. Feeling almost as happy as on my birthday; maybe because once again I am so, so sleepy. Have been to Serbian Culture; chat with S.U. and Zh.; then went to have a sandwich and a Serov experience; too many people so I cancelled the second part; went to Leninka and there met SO many people I know! Ar., two girls from folklore practice, N.K. and my ex-teacher of Culture in 1514 who, curiously, studies Serbian Culture with me. What was especially amazing and Chestertonian (in one of his novels all the heroes gather in a single place) is that all these encounters were squeezed in less than half an hour. I said bye to Ar., than in 2-3 minutes met the girls, next minute met N.K.
And one of the reading halls, so weird. Both stuffy and cold, dark and with little lamps above people's desks, and Kremlin wall just outside. And when I got out -- a wonderful blizzard and a white Christmas tree, seen through the narrow passage (they are renovating the columns). Then I had  a stroll to the Red Square and saw Saint Basil's miraculously appear.
Snow on fur hats. Manezh. Zhivago...

"Life is not a bed of roses". I love this disappointed English expression, maybe because I can imagine an actual bed of roses, maybe because it is such a beautiful image to have in your mind when you feel that life is a cruel and an awful experience. They just didn't tell you that when you were a kid.