the science of being naked

blue soapy water swirls around my naked ankles and i get goosebumps all the way up my legs. 
we all have these days. days of hot baths, of many glasses of wine, of chocolate ice-cream, of cigarettes. or all of these together.
and then we usually get asked: 'well, what happened?' 
everyone knows that bad things hurt. well actually, good things hurt just the same. 

so many good and encouraging things happened to me in the last few weeks... but here i am, in my bath. 
wtf? i ask myself.

my son recently asked me: 
- mama, what is a wonder? 
and i thought and i answered: 
- a wonder is something very big and great that we would never expect. 
it is all very wonder-full what happens to me. and exactly because of that, it settles on my skin like a weight of lead. and my shell cracks.
but you know how it is with seafood? it's delicious inside!
so it's time to shed my shell.

in my life, i had many of them. there is something about the scientist's life - it is our constant travelling. we move between places, we move between friends and we move ourselves. it is our cross to bear - the boredom we all feel when we stay at one place too long... 
we are nomads of the mind. first we get to new places, then we get to be another person. we all pretend at first. and when we pretend long enough, we change for real - the new shell is born. we shed the past. it is so addictive, and we get used to it so much that we can never keep still anymore. 
i, as well, changed many of them, many skins and carcasses. and i still kind of love them - not because they have always protected my naked self, but because they let me grow inside in peace.
but you know what? i had so many, i fear i don't even know what's inside anymore.
and now, with skies and rainbows and new things crushing above, i realise there is time to get rid of everything.

you know how it is with leather? it gets rained and snowed on until it gets tough. but by that it also gets softer.
when you reveal yourself to someone, you might get anything. rain or sunshine, smile or shitstorm. you never know. but that's how you get the tan!
and i've always tanned pretty fast..

so, i lie here in my bath and i see my naked skin and i feel my naked heart. 
i know i will protect it with all my teeth and i know it will hurt. i am not bulletproof and i have a lot to lose. 
sure, if you don't dare, you don't suffer. but if you don't suffer, you don't change. and if you don't change - you don't live. 
it really is that simple.

i love my safe and beautiful shell. 
but right now, i would like nothing more than to get naked.

There is a cracking in my shell
with naked flesh inside.
I put my ego on the shelf,
I tossed my thoughts aside.

I tried so hard to love myself,
but it just doesn’t work.
I put my ego on the shelf,
I throw it into dirt.

For many years I’m fighting them -
my demons with their horns.
My thoughts are constant traffic jam,
but no concern of yours.

And in the middle of this mess,
when wine is not enough -
I see my unfamiliar face,
I see it from above.

I feel your words, sharp like a knife,
they cut and my heart drains.
I kiss my ego back to life,
I feel it in my veins.

I rub my eyes, I stretch my bones,
I look inside - and then
I see my demons with their horns.
And I am one of them.

the meaning of meanness

'keep it mean - keep them keen'. someone just recently said to me.

and although i hate to admit it, i actually think he is right.

why is it that we always want this one person to like us, that never will? why is it that we always want to be best at the thing that was never ours? i am a girl and i am not a bad looking one - and yet, i also remember these couple of times desperately wanting a guy that just wouldn't look my way. 

i could have everyone else. 

i could have the only one! (which i fortunately ended up with), and yet, here i was - wanting it. i would change everything - my look, my hair, my character, my behaviour, my habits, just to have him. try to be better, try to be good enough, being sure that i will finally get it. the thing i can never have. that is not made for me. why?

i feel that this is a part of my personality (or maybe, even just a girl's personality), to yearn for unreachable stuff. i don't mean a bag, or a shoe (alright, it might have been a shoe :)

being a scientist, at least for now, i am asking myself if academic science is exactly like this - does it keep us interested only because it is being a bitch? 

and so we try and try and try. all over again. we do not give up. we never quit. we never look the other way - only because there is a glimpse of a hope that journals, grants and fellowships once upon a time will finally look our way.

and walking upon these sticks and stones, we keep hearing this: you are a scientist, that means you are a fighter! i know you can do it! i know you are strong enough!

oh, how I hate these sentences. how much do i want to just be. not 'strong' or 'a fighter'. not even a weak little girl. how about the right to just be myself? sometimes strong, sometimes weak - sometimes refusing to give up, and sometimes not even being able to stand up from the ground.

i have also recently discovered a courage to give it up. it takes a lot more that to continue doing the thing you are used to do. it takes a lot more to stay the way you truly are. without trying to lose weight and to keep your long hair, just because the guy you want might like it this way. who the hell cares? he doesn't. 

and science doesn't, too. for sure.

i have met a person who just quit academia. and i have met many afterwards who also did. they did not die of shame and no one called them losers. quite the opposite, most of the people are jealous of their 'life after'. they will just never admit it, because they secretly hope to get their share faster because the air is getting thinner, the higher you go.

after all - you would be really glad if a girl this guy fancies, finally went away or got married, right? so now, it's only you and him, and you got a chance. 

so you think. 

but actually, you know what is the only thing that happens? he will find another girl he fancies. and it will not be you. again. 

this is not about how you look and not about how you can look. this is about what you are and what he is. different lives, different paths, different interests, different sexual preferences, different face and different chemistry. 

and so, shattered, you finally understand - you will not win this one. even if you always won before. no matter, how well you fight (and believe me, i know how to fight).

it's just that, sometimes, he is not that into you. 

and it's just that, sometimes, the thing that you have been doing your entire life, might not be yours to do. as simple as that.

after all, if you are having a hard time doing something, maybe, only maybe - you are just not good at it! as simple as that. and no shame in it at all. it only means that your abilities are better and best elsewhere. 
there are so many ways to fight. there are so many ways to do science. and i am not forgetting the overall unfairness of nowadays science that plays a fair share in demotivation of young scientists, but this is not a motivation speech!.. i am asking you and myself - don't you want to find out what you are really amazing at? go on and take the big leap! jump. run. play. look left instead of right.

our endless scientific education is fantastic for teaching us to cope with frustrations. it is tremendously helpful in showing us how to stay focused and ‘think with your gut’ (alias scientific intuition). 
but it does this one thing to us: after all these years staying concentrated on the sun, we forget the sky around it. not to mention the clouds. 

see, it so happens that when you drop something and move your gaze from the tunnel in front of you - you can finally look down and see the right path that has been underneath you all the time. 

you might continue into the tunnel, if this is the right thing for you. fair enough. but you will also have the choice to stop and turn around. maybe it will be the right path, maybe not - who knows? stay or not stay, this is for everyone alone to decide.

but this is the thing. when you finally give up on this guy and leave the party, he suddenly looks your way. and offers you a cup of coffee. for free.

because, you see, 'keep it mean - keep them keen' works both ways. 

the power is all yours.

inside the insight

nothing is sexier than storytelling. 

his hands tremble a bit when he enters the hallway to pick me up. it is eleven in the evening, too late for any bus or train, which means he walked all the way through half of a city to be here now. 
which means he started walking after he waited six to seven seconds after he hung up the phone after i called him that i am in town today. a single flower - white carnation with some quite confusing glitter sprinkled on it. they sell them in those little cigarette kiosks along the road. he had no time to loose.
his eyes go down on me - and back to my eyes again. there they'll stay. we always go for a walk, that's all we do. we talk without saying things. and when there is no other way to bear it, our hands slightly touch. electricity rushes from fingers to the heart. electricity is not good for the pulse. so it stops for a while. and raves off again when his fingers wrap around my hand - heartbeat raised only by a million of times. 
it is almost corny and it almost hurts. but it hurts more than it is corny...
i float on the waves and listen to his stories. he narrates all the books he read in my absence, and i see his hands on the pages that smell of old paper, of typographic ink, of heavy leather covers. his words drop into my skin and produce little spots of sweat that run down my neckline. it's just little words - but they are phantasies in our heads and we begin to share a world. 
this world we created, existed for five years. 
then he died.
i still live in it. since nine years this month.

it all happens in your head - that's what they say. the whole life around you might just be a phantasy inside your mind, a picture imprinted by the circumstances coming your way, a reflection of people you meet. quite an old thought, really... does it mean that there is indeed something true to it? 
do you know how sometimes you are only left with the phantasy instead of the real person, and then - how difficult is it to get away and find your way back?
"fear not to dream", the american way of life. the thoughts you have, will keep you pushing forward...
well, you know, they also do tend to give you headaches. 
confusions. 
hesitations. 
tears.
let it go, and you will fly - that's what they say. after all, this is the purpose of meditation. saves your life.
i am sitting at the lake of the fine city of Madison. fireflies on the grass, fireworks in the sky. and there is that seagull, flying free in the american jeans blue, white wings in the wind. well, i reckon, the seagull can fly because it has no thoughts. do i want to be happy and a seagull?

meditate and let go off the thoughts... just let them pass, notice but not linger. did you try? it is near to impossible.
and yet sometimes, it is so much easier to let it go! not think of it. chicken out, bury your head into that nice fluffy warm sand. so here you go, no?
well, turns out that if you have that perfect phantasy, that truly beautiful story in your head - do you let it go? or do you dare to give in to it and hope that, like a wave, it will pass? sounds tough. and i always liked challenges.

an easy life? sure. it is all about keeping covers. oh don't get me wrong, i love appearances! nice things. long legs. bedroom eyes. what's inside? who does care? 

turns out, nerds do. i am a scientist not because i love it. but because i really hate not knowing what's inside. so i ask questions - and they say, there are no stupid ones.
well, maybe only uncomfortable…

but complications make a good story. 
and this is truly sexy.

coin-cidence

it flashes bright brown gold when it shimmers towards the sun, then it turns around and shows its earthy dark side - once it falls into the fountain, it will reflect the air and the waves and current around it and become indigo blue, then steely grey. it reflects the flower petals falling from the blushing apple trees at the road as they are seized by the wind and fly above the church towers and the colleges.
i flip the next 10 pence coin in my hand and throw it into the water.

and just as it is, i look up and see the same reflections and flashes in the eyes dashing in a hurry towards me, then past, then they are gone - bright brown, shimmering grey, dark blue, steely green… 
eyes of busy people running to work, some of them being dreamy or thoughtful, some of them already angry, some of them enjoying themselves and checking their reflection in the shop windows. 
this is my way to the university, i have music in my ears - but my eyes wander around, just as the ones are that come across my path. some linger on my face for a while, others dash away.
i wonder which side of a coin they see in my eyes. 
les passants. 
passers-by. this word is hardly used in the English language - it is highly used in French, though. is it because of the parisian cafes that have become a cliché many decades ago? places to sit and look into other peoples' eyes, into the street, into nothing, into yourself. you can hardly find such places here. 
but you can find such people. 
people who look straight into my eyes and see my soul without even realising. people with blue eyes. or brown. or grey.

i wonder which side of my personality i ever show in my eyes. this is the beauty of coming to someplace new - you get to be someone else all over again. you can re-invent your life by leaving out some details and emphasising the others. you can determine your wishes anew. you can even change your way of talking. 
it is as if you have a first date or make a new friend. you try to be someone you always wanted to be, and the other person does the same. eventually, you get closer and you realise some things that were hidden, but that actually account for the individual personality and make out the nuances and shades of a character. little flaws, hated by yourself, but liked (or at least unperceived) by the other person. however, you are already friends, so no point in hiding. you are being taken in as you are. 
in a fortunate case.

but being someplace new really does open up your mind - also to yourself. 
and as i see my coin flipping, i wonder which side of me it is going to be. maybe, instead of inventing someone new, someone better, someone i thought i wanted to be - now i just GET TO BE ME. 
it is impressive and gets more difficult the older we get, to be someone and somewhere you actually want to be. sometimes you just have to dare to do it.

i look into the blue eyes. the brown. and the grey. and as i drown my reflection in the fountain my eyes shimmer. 
they shimmer with a new light.

passion progressive.

so you are there, alone with your phantasy. you finally made it - be it your wistful place, your dream result, a person you've been obsessed with. you are there. this is where the fairy tales usually end - the happily ever after.
well, i've always been interested what happens to the Phantasy after.

don't you remember and absolutely LOVE this butterfly feeling of falling in love? the brief intensive looks, the giggly stomach, the electricity of every so brief touch… isn't that just the Unknown that calls and excites us? every relationship begins this way, every friendship, every secret love. only very rarely it persists. usually it disappears, leaving only a faint scent of the exquisite memory of the butterflies. and because of that memory relationships still last, because of this secret affairs begin - in a hope and a longing to bring back the thrill after every certain stolen look…
whether it was true or not, real feeling or just a phantasy.
but i sometimes ask myself, what is more real?

i remember those days and a little girl, the only child, a reading individualist, strolling through the empty streets of a sleepy summer village and imagining things. this girl had a whole world happening in her head, there lived no princes but dragons, there were strawberry castles with balconies made of candied honey, there were robber's daughters and wizards and doors to other strange worlds that opened right there at the end of those sleepy summer streets. 
and i was living there, i spent my childhood in these worlds - every strange voice and sound meant they were real. 
every weird strangers i met there gave me meaningful looks that i still remember. all dialogues are still in my memory. unlike some of those i had with real people. so where is the border to the Phantasy?

it is a dreamer's happiness and his curse. and yes, call me a nerd but i can live in my phantasy and that is why it is real for me. 
i once knew a person who told me something i first hated because he turned out to be an asshole. he said science is a great playground for him. and i realised it is true in some way. they always say we scientists need to stay childish in order to be able to ask Questions. all kinds of questions!
but it's not only that. we need to be able to play, to have an idea, a passion and a phantasy we can escape into - and then it can become real. it might not, and it is mostly a failure. but sometimes… sometimes you sit at the microscope and see it right there, staring you in your face - your idea. 
it is real. 
and your stomach giggles. 
just as it does when this person looks at you in a certain way. 
your faces get nearer. 
you kiss.
end of story. butterflies go away. but the memory stays. so the trouble of staying in science is to remember those moments that get you drunk and high with being right and having seen it with your own eyes. those moments are rare, they might be only a couple in a lifetime. 


but, after all, how many real good kisses do you remember?

fiercely filtered.

when you change your life, you feel younger. 

now, do you?

they were taking my picture for my University of Cambridge card and when i looked at it, the only thing i thought was:

- jesus, i look like a freshman!

and i really did. cute, but scared. unconfident, but naively open and expectant. what is there to expect?

loss of old habits? sure. quitting smoking since two weeks now (though i dare say that John Green's "looking for alaska" gives not much help there).

gain of new challenges? well, i'm loaded. bring it on. disappointed face. memories of school mocking and phd disasters coming right up.

youth associates with them like milk with coffee. or gin and tonic, for that matter.

so what about, let's say, feeling younger but armed? getting rid of old youth fears? cause, you know, you got wiser and stuff. you have failure experience. you start to recognise The Pattern - after sun come the clouds, after happiness comes depression. and after tears comes a smile. always. aren't these the goodies in your bag that gets heavier every year of your life?

well, turns out that changes really do make you younger. without the goodies. i feel a long-forgotten euphoria of a fresh start, a thrill of a new place and unknown streets and names and faces, that will colour my future brilliant. or disastrous. roller coaster without a life safety net, every day.

except that i am now in possession of A Filter. i'll explain.

see, i am not smoking but i take three double espressos every morning. 

i am nice and friendly in my new lab and my cheeks hurt form smiling but i ignore the signs of missing empathy if i am not asked along. 

i come to social events but i do not panic if i am having lunch by myself.

i work when i can but i do not feel guilty if i can't keep up to the schedule and have to go pick up my kid.

i smile when i managed but i still cry like a two-year old when i did not.

i filter.

our fears do not really go anywhere. they are still there, good old friends - there is the one about being an albino among the normal black crows, there is the one of saying no, there is the fear of losing it, of not being smart enough, tough enough, funny enough, cute enough. i could go on. it is just that our age evolves new habits to cope, be it the caffeine or triple chocolate brownie, it is all the same. we quit the smoking but keep the alcohol. we stay partly scared. 

we feel above the threshold of our evolved humiliation, through the sieve that is our age. it passes on some habits and some fears but leaves behind the debris we are done with, and it gets thicker every day until we are no more scared - or we are no more.

so, bring it on, i say. new life. same old, but this time - above the threshold of my fearless self.

nine to wait

seven years, they say. 

seven years is all it takes for everyone: to figure out what you are, to know who you want to be and to quit the bad habits.

well...

seven years passed by the Prince & Princesses lovely home cave. 

the pet dragon got one dragon year older. which in fact is seven human years.

seven winters and seven summers passed by and left seven wrinkles on Prince & Princesses faces.

seven sorrows met their souls and seven happinesses touched their hearts.

seven big wishes each of them carried through these seven years.

but only six of them were fulfilled. and the Princess and the Prince both had The Only One and Dearest Wish sitting still in their hearts and not daring to come out.

and that was what made the seven great years seem so short and almost over... 

one evening, the Princess and the Prince were sitting on the porch in front of their cave. both of them were mortified - it was their anniversary the next day and nobody had a gift. both wanted to get 'something special' (oh, how i hate this phrase!), something that each of them knew was carried in the other one's heart. that dearest wish, that would make the seven years 'for better and for worse' - just perfect. the big wish, that... nobody of them knew what it was. damn.

so they both were sitting there and trying to make a clever conversation and ask the right questions and... there there! - lure the other one's wish out! 

how do you think, did it work? well, exactly as something never works out when we try to force it. each of them got the answer. to the wrong question. they went to bed, both happy that they'll have a perfect present tomorrow - not knowing how far far away they were from the truth...

the next day, Prince woke the Princess up with "i have a surprise for you!" (he was sooo glad he cleverly thought about it just the night before!) 

"i have a surprise for you too!" said the Princess self-satisfactory (oh, thank god, she thought about it just the night before!)

he gave her a super-expensive haute-couture-designer-mortar with diamonds on top (for her alchemist experiments) that just arrived by the royal princozon delivery service.

she gave him a hyper-comfortable customized lasso (for his dragons) with a golden monogram embroidery.

they both played happy.

they both thought their work was the dearest dearest wish they had left unfulfilled.

seven years were almost over.

meanwhile, the old wizard was watching this scenery through his magic crystal with a heavy heart and tears in his eyes and railed and swore curses. 

- and this is all what they understood from the last almost seven years! - he moaned. 

- and this is all what it was worth to fight for! - he whined. 

- and this is all why i gave up being a bad man and turned into an old darling wizard! - he exclaimed!.

no, that is enough, he thought. (you see, he was an old man - and old people tend to see the world left in a perfect happy shape when they leave it. that is why they always poke their noses into all businesses - just to 'quickly change everything that has gone wrong since the good old times'). and so he did his magic.

meanwhile, the Prince & Princesses cave was full of people who came to congratulate them on the anniversary. there was the Blue Dragon, their oldest friend, the Dashing Donkey, the Smiley Smurfette, the Gloomy Giant, the Honey Hedgehog and many others from many different stories (but these are to be told in another time...). the party was great and going, but our couple felt worse and worse. 

- the seven years, - they thought. - i don't feel good about it. it's almost over and we still do not know what we REALLY want!

dark clouds were about to gather above their heads again...

and then the old wizard's magic reached the cave.

the Prince looked at the Princess and said: 

- you know, don't you think this lasso you gave me is extremely ugly, actually?

- well, the mortar is disgusting and not particularly pretty either... - followed the Princess.

- i am sorry i never told you what i always wanted to get you. 

- i also kept my wish to myself, - said the Princess ashamed. - i thought great alchemists should not have such simple wishes.

- and i thought the dragon keepers should be too 'macho' to ask their Princesses about it.

the seventh year was just about to pass away forever. and so their seventh wish left their hearts and took its place in their eyes. for everyone to see.

- thank you, i already have your perfect present. - told the Princess, trying to hide her tears in order to not being remembered as a pathetic crybaby.

- ...? - the Prince said. (you see, any men actually always need a bit longer to see anything in any princesses eyes... no offends.)

- and i got 'something special' for you, too, you know. - she went on.

- but where is it, for god's sake?! - the Prince politely and patiently enquired. 

- oh you know. - she hesitated. (be kind with her, it was her big moment!) - you know, you will have it... soon. in nine months.

some of you will say - 'nice fairy-tale'. some will say - 'that's just corny'. 

well, those are the ones who never felt the seventh wish in their heart. 

a wish not for yourself. but for that something that you can very rarely see in the eyes of the dearest person just before the end of the 'seventh year' no matter how long this year was.

a wish that will make you know what you are and what you want to be.

and this, my friends, is not corny. that is just classy.