...once a upon a time, there lived a Princess in a lovely castle that was set on a lovely green hill surrounded by lakes and forests and stuff...
the Princess was pretty and cheerful and could have as many ice-cream as she wanted but never grow fat...
and she had kind and loving parents, who ruled their kingdom peacefully but rightfully, even without extra taxes, which was why they never really got rich, but then they just made it up for their daughter that money isn't what really makes you happy...
and she had a siamese kitten, who was her one true friend and, additionally (to keep the prestige of the royal family), a pet chinchilla with long ears, the really fashionable one...
she had a walk-in wardrobe full of mirrors, a whole huge room just for the shoes and a crew of make-up artists, stylists, hairdressers, personal trainers and catwalk professionals guarding her every step to ensure she always looks super-glammy-over-the-top-fabulously fashy and has shiny hair and a BMI under 21...
all in all, one can say - the Princess was a great catch for everyone, especially for knights on white horses cause the current color of her hair - diamond-chestnut with sunburn and brown-eggshell streaks - would have matched perfectly with the horse's shiny white and the knight's armor...
well, so here the Prince came.
he rescued our Princess from a dragon, whom she accidentally run into on her way back from a girlfriend's slumber party, found her missing shoe (that obviously still fitted), fought the kingdom's competitive army to cheer up the Princess' parents, found the missing treasure on the other side of the world, including a huge solitaire as a wedding gift, proved his true love for the Princess by first domesticating all the dragons in the neighborhood, then removing all the potential witches to far-far-away, then sustaining the flirting charms of other pretty looking princesses to-be, aka Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty etc etc, subsequently, he completed the check-in procedure for the upcoming princes, including some general tests on higher maths, theoretical nuclear physics and a waltz performance and then (totally exhausted!) calmly waited for the Princess to accept his marriage offer and finally have a nice long bubble bath...
well, what else could she do, right?!.. after all, the Prince was handsome, did sooo many nice and useful things for her (well, not especially for her, but... whatever...) and, let's face it - she was a Princess and the white-horsed knight was her fate anyway!
and so she said 'yes', ordered a Parisian wedding gown and the entire Victoria's secret bridal lingerie collection, they had a huge wedding that costed the king and queen a fortune, went for Honeymoon on the beach, came back tanned, moved into a brand new castle with a roof-top terrace overlooking the kingdom and were very eager to start a life according to 'happily-ever-after'.
well, what else could they do, right?!
and then the fun started.
to be continued...
when something happens to us, we generally notice the bad things more don't we?
outside my window the spring is happening, while I'll be staying home the second week around, sick.
I missed the time when the flower buds are just coming out of the soft, fat earth. I missed the trees getting the green haze made of emerging leaves around the
branches. I am missing them blooming and throwing the flower petals down the street, where they are carried away by the warm new wind.
am I sad?
I was angry, yes. especially when someone said to me 'well, everything happens for a reason - if you had to be sick so heavily, there was some reason in that, maybe your body was just asking for a rest'.
I hate sentences like that. what sense could there be in being incapable of anything, while the time is hot in the lab, the experiments just going to boost? while everyone is reporting on BBQs, cycling, hiking, whatever...
and yet, looking at the picture that, after two years, I finally finished drawing in the time I was recovering, I am starting to think about the reasons.
why do bad things happen to us? I guess, this question is as old as the world, especially since mankind started to believe in a good god.
why do we fall for bad people?
what good or at least sensible can come out of being deceived by your best friend?
what sense does it make when your great love suddenly dies?
do you ever get these events in your life evened up with the good stuff?
I guess, I cannot answer that until I've lived until the end.
I just hope, that at least this is true: everything is a part of a grand plot. and our being is a part of it, as well.
as the world is not happening around us, but inside of us.
and I hope to experience that sometime - like a drop of water, falling into the sea, realizes that it has always just been a part of it.
there is a precious rule in Japanese cuisine: one should always leave some space on the plate. one should never make a bowl completely full. the tea should only fill eighty percent of the little cup...
emptiness is a very important attribute and should always be present. why? - one considers that only the empty space can give harmony to a subject...
and is that not true?
'if there were no clouds - we couldn't enjoy the sky'. they give the necessary background to the beauty of the sunlight.
so, is not the piece of emptiness - on the plate, in the cup, in our heart - the necessary background for a feeling of richness, taste... love..?
i ask myself - could i ever feel that fully if i had never experienced emptiness?
when we were children - did we ever realize we were infinitely happy at that time? why is it only later in life that we long for that feeling of cloudless happiness - is it because finally we experienced the clouds and can value the true meaning of the deep blue sky?
i am looking onto my life and see a lot of emptiness that made me sad, brought me sorrow and left a feeling of hollow loneliness. but then i think - maybe, instead, i should feel thankful for the space it left.
because only then the diamonds of happy moments, of unforgettable times, of wonderful people in my life can have a velvet background to lie and shine on.
and my cup finally seems not almost empty, but almost full.
well, of course, just to the right level...
I am at the window. holding my little cat back - we are both enjoying the night air, it smells like spring, but she is enjoying it much more lively than me. for her, a housecat - this world just starts to exist, it is new, it has so many smells!
I wonder, how does she see it, our world? for sure, different from me. maybe, the same way as I see this world different from you - and you see it different from them... we live a reality which Einstein cursed to relativity - and it has not changed since then.
each word has thousands of meanings even in one language, what to say about views? decisions? thoughts?
how can you be sure that your opponent will understand you exactly as you meant it? it happens very very rare...
most of the discussions, fights, break-ups, wars are caused only by misunderstanding each other.
I am not an exception. and, perhaps, if I was wiser, better, less egoistic and less impulsive - I could have avoided so many disasters in my life...
but I am not. I am just as you are - not better not worse, lost in each and every meaning, trying to understand what's real and what's false, trying to make understand my truth, which - in the end - might be only true for me...
well, I am looking at the roof out of the window - how the fat transparent icicles break down and slide and fall onto the street. like my past, that is breaking off - just be careful that it does not pinch you on the head!
I am not proud of many things... but today I finally found an icicle-proof umbrella for my past, an answer to the most common, most desperate and therefore most boring question 'what to do?'
who are we to judge? how can I judge anything - everything has a right to exist. just as me. the only catastrophes start when this right is being taken away from someone...
I am not proud of many things... but I found a way to make it up. not to my past but to myself.
because the endless versatility of this world makes me - good and bad, devotional and egoistic, timid and arrogant, serene and impatient, cruel and forgiving. and nothing has changed - and I haven't changed. it is just very hard to admit and stand up to both sides of you - not only the one you want to see. and then you can start changing. if you can see it now, you will not be afraid of being everything.
and it makes me feel happy.
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!
so isn't it right to leave a party when it just started to be great? isn't it right to cover the signs of loneliness with a pretty white coat of cheerfulness?
just like the snow in winter covers dirt...
I guess, now we all have to face the fact of that 'evergreen' upcoming question of the 'new-year's-resolutions' once again... well - it's the end of december, right? see.
everyone is eager - to change, to evolve, to do things differently now... and all that - of course, from the very beginning of the poor first of January. probably, the day known for the majority of suicides.
the New Year has something very fascinating in it - it feels like a white sheet of paper, tempting to forget all the slip-ups of the past, pretending they were never there.
well, 'pretending' is actually the key word here...
did you ever wonder if we maybe constantly act our lives up?
why do we do things that way and not this? isn't that because we're expected to do so?
we think about things we want to change next, things to make us better... but - how is this 'better', exactly?
how do we know whether what we want to do is the right thing to do?
how can we be sure what is wrong and what's better?
are we really sure about what WE want to be? and more important - is that really OUR choice?
you want to be fitter - why? is that really the case that you wake up in the morning and feel better thinking of the gym? is the body cult really YOUR cult? are you crazy about your thighs, for example? or your biceps? or, let's say - do you want to be?!
you want to have more friends - why? because you feel threatened by someone who has more than 400 friends on facebook?! but did you ever ask yourself the question - is a facebook-friend the real world? isn't that just a way of pretending?
after all, can 400 facebook-friends ever be there for you when you're devastated and puke into the toilet? won't you want a real person to hold your hair?!
you want to quit smoking - why? is that because they tell you how bad it hurts your body, damages your lung, pollutes your breath etc etc... or - is it because it really does not satisfy YOU anymore?
relationships are a constant chain of events - 'what you want' versus 'what the other person wants'. but - do you want to change it because YOU really want to change it or because it's what you want to be in the other person's eyes?
isn't the pressure of the 'wannabe' killing your 'Want To Be'???...
and, anyway - what do you want to be? isn't BEING already enough? after all, that is exactly what Shakespeare was not sure about at all...
if I ask a person 'are you really happy with the way you are?', with the few lucky exceptions, the majority will find lots and lots of things they're not satisfied with. but there are different ways to deal with that - some are going into their shell and hiding the 'dirt' under the snow.
and others seek attention in every way possible - just to prove they're worth something, just to get any acknowledgement at all... which is turned and recognized as egoism, in the end.
so - why can't we just stand still for a moment and acknowledge ourselves, just the way we are? so there is no need to tell the outer world what we 'wanna-be'?..
I am standing at the window after two weeks of non-smoking. just to test - what is it all about? and just like that - I discover that the first half of the cigarette is what I was missing.
but the second half - is what I do not want to be. so I quit. that is why - because that is MY choice. and I don't need the New Year's Eve to start with...
after all, they say 'actions, not words'.
so - do you Want To Be?
or are you a 'Wannabe'?
location: tram no.13, to Dresden-Neustadt. time: pretty late, I guess after midnight.
in Germany they call it "Adventszeit". in Russia, we say it's the "Upcoming New Year".
it's coming.
and I guess, I don't wanna be a 'Wannabe'.
confronted with an infinite desire to smoke and - careless! an awful, careless oversight! - having a fresh pack just over here in the kitchen... drawing circles around it... concentrating on the chewing gum...
i am asking myself - what the hell is it all about?
it cannot simply be the craving of my body to have nicotine in the system - since it is nowadays a widely known fact, that the addiction of the body is gone after 3 days...
well. i guess it is true - it is simply all just about the habit.
the mankind is constantly fighting against 'bad' feelings - anger, jealousy, envy, ignorance etc etc... fully ignoring the most powerful emotion which is ruling our each step and does never let it go. the habit.
well, don't you agree? what is the most frightening thing for everyone? something one is unfamiliar with, something yet unknown, something which has never been experienced before. whereas things we have been experiencing all along - become normal. even if they were quite inconvenient and irrational at the beginning - once we get used to them, we do not notice the abnormalities anymore... and that is with every category in life, isn't it? here just the example of smoking...
but what about jobs? enthusiasm in the beginning, routine in the end... however - familiar routine, something we won't be willing or even afraid to change.
and what is with our eating habits? our apartments? cities? home countries?
and... relationships?...
if you had something... someone. and lost it, and with it - all the things that went along with this relationship, with this person, with this way of life... you're facing new land again, and haven't got a slightest clue about it! and the old doors are closed, you cannot enter anymore, although they're just there - come and get it, like the pack of my cigarettes in the kitchen drawer.
but if you can't get it - you need to find a substitute, another style of life, different habits, another person... which is difficult, because you know how to handle the old habit, but it's hard to imagine something absolutely new! it's tough for everyone... so... isn't that what it is all about in a break-up?
and then, to give up a habit - what's the best strategy to go? to shut down step by step? well, of course not. don't you remember? you slam the doors, you throw out the cigarettes, you delete the phone number, you rip old pictures apart...
unhealthy? of course... human? most certainly.
so, in the end, how do you know for sure whether you really gave up the old habit and are free from your addiction?
i'll say, it's when you smell the smoke - and don't want to follow the direction it's coming from. when you hear the familiar name (even if that's not the same person at all...) and don't shiver anymore.
when you see an old picture - and you smile. instead of crying. and can enjoy the things for what they are - not because you are used to them, but because you want to.
location: Dresden-Neustadt. time: quite late, thank god! (the forth day without)
and not so cold anymore...
