all I want for Christmas...

first of all - thank you, guys.
for your appreciation of my photography and my writing, and for those non-facebook comments - which I actually value the most. 
I don't really think much about the showing-off status bars etc. I also do not really fancy wall-to-wall artificial posts. those of you who know me best, know how much I actually hate the 'new-style' emoticons - nothing goes deeper to the heart than a good old-fashioned smiley )) right? so - special thanks and my admiration to those who avoid the facebook-exhibitionism and stay non-virtually human.


it's russian Christmas today... and I feel oddly connected with my home country - although it is for that country that Christmas was not allowed to be celebrated for more than 70 years and we almost lost all our roots... I don't know any single old-russian Christmas tradition, I don't have even a memory of those - how could I, me, who was even baptized secretly, in a russian 'banya' of the priest, at night. we never had Christmas. but somehow - not on the 24th of December, but on the 6th of January - it is here now, in my heart.


It's Christmas Eve and I should probably make a wish - the One, the True and Most Wistful wish I have. oh how easy it sounds - and how difficult to choose! the funny thing is - the older you are, the harder it gets to choose your only wish, remember how simple it was as a child? 'A doll!' 'A tractor!' well, in this age it probably will be 'A mobile!' 'An iPad!'...
and yet, I have a line in my mind speaking from my heart, that goes:
"all I want for Christmas is... the New Year's Day."


is it because I was always very impatient? or is it because I am so tired of 2010 and its surprises wrenching my soul and my heart?
or is it because I am curious? so curious as I was and always will be - as a girl, of course, and, of course, as a scientist! - to see what's so new about this New Year??
just because everything is always moving before me, like that Louvre here. eternal and modern. wise and silly. still and - at the same time - faster than the camera's eye.


they say, you get older when you get cautious. they say, you get wiser when you get older.
I say - you wish!! well, it's true. at least, I do. 
to get cautious, to get wiser and yet - to stay young. to be able to reach for the stars... being wise enough to thank the Earth we're staying on.


because the thing is: sometimes the One and Only wish we reach for in the sky - is actually just a step away... holding us by the hand... and the true wisdom is, when you finally grasp that.
I wish us all that moment before it could be too late.


or shall I just say - Happy New Year!