Category: Poetry while living

My city, my body

“Look, mom, the lady is going on holiday!” a little girl exclaims when she sees me riding my overloaded bike, moving the last pieces of my luggage to my new life.

Last year, as I was moving house, I decided I would live my life as a traveler. I mean every day, even when I am in the city I live in, all caught up in my daily routine. More often than not, I forget about my decision and spend too many of my days wanting to be somewhere else, waiting for the next trip, the next adventure and forgetting to be curious about where I am now, to be an explorer, a discoverer of beauty and of stories.

Yesterday was a rainy day, but I put my camera in my backpack along with the stuff I usually take with me to school and I took it out on my walk back home. As I was shooting photos (not yet on manual mode, unfortunately), I started thinking that we tend to treat our town the way we treat our bodies.

Let me explain. We’ve lived with our own body for a while now. We were born with it. The time of wonder, exploration, discovery and awe has passed for many of us. We have got used to it. We know its secrets, we know its flaws and we know its best parts. We have seen it all, pretty much. So we just carry it around, we are no longer curious about it, it’s become purely functional.

We do the same with our city. We know everything we need to know about it. We know what we like, what we don’t like, we know the shortest route to work, that restaurant where we used to go on anniversaries, the park where we broke that heart, the street where we lost our earrings, the shop where we bought those great shoes, the pub where we took control of the playlist and danced like we owned the place, that cozy bookshop. We know how the streets are flooded when it rains, the traffic jams, the sound of leaves cracking under our feet, the unbearable heat in the summer and everything else there is to know. It just cannot surprise us anymore. So we switch over to auto pilot, we mind our own thoughts, we make plans, remember things, chant mantras and what not as we’re walking down these familiar streets.

On the other hand, when we are in a new place, all senses awaken. Just like when we are exploring another body. The auto pilot is suddenly switched off and we become alive and curious and involved. We look, we search, we taste, we feel, we take risks, ask for directions, talk to the locals, learn words in the new language etc. That’s how I want to live in my own town. I want to feel alive in it. Offer it my attention, my respect and my love. And do the same for my body. Especially since I do not have permanent residency in either.

Take a walk with me around Harmony Street:

There’s this island in the ocean

I don’t know which ocean, it’s not like I can check my flight details. I just get here. And I land on this wet pebble road. I can see my dark brown leather boots, my feet taking hesitant steps up the hill.

It’s so foggy, but I can still see the ocean all around the small island through the white floating veils. It feels as if the island, like a round bellied woman, is shy and has shrouded herself in these white silk veils, barely covering her, hiding and revealing at the same time.

I can see stone houses in the distance, wet and slippery, streams of fog sliding down their rooftops. No light, no candles burning at the windows, not a soul. I keep walking up that hill. As I’m squinting, trying to catch sight of a living soul, I’m starting to wonder what made me come here in the first place. Why in the world would I leave the comfort of my home country for this deserted place in the middle of the ocean?

Because you wanted to leave the past behind, I hear my own voice in my head. You want a new life. You said goodbye to all your attachments, another reminder pops up. You no longer wanted the dark cave of the lost. You set them all free. It’s ok, I’ll only be here for a short while, I say to myself in an unconvincing tone.

Everything hurts. As if everything has been pulled and stretched when cords were cut. So my eyes are heavy, my head is tied in a plastic bag, my throat is befriending the cactus stuck in there, my kidneys carry the burden of exhaustion and all my muscles are sore as if I’ve swum and walked all the way here.

Suddenly, I’m back at the school again, feeding the children black grapes.
“Are you all right?” a colleague asks me.
“I think so”, I reply. “I just need to get some fruit.”
“You know, Daniela, I’ve always admired how you are always in charge, always so strong and authoritarian and loving at the same time.”
“Really? I’m just tired, I don’t think there’s anything to admire there.”
And as he’s helping me give out the grapes, I’m popping grape berries in my mouth and suddenly realize I’m dreaming and I’m thinking grapes, no matter how sweet and juicy, are not good in your dreams. So I wake up.

It’s noon when I get out of bed. There’s this pressure in my ears as if I’m underwater. I take off everything, including the bed sheets, put everything in the washing machine and get in the shower. When I get out, I light a candle at my window, one at the bathroom mirror, another one on the kitchen countertop and two more on the table. Time for a new life.

PS Photos taken in Porto, Portugal, in 3-5 September 2016.

 

 

 

 

the eurythmist’s breath

a cover for the piano
a dark shade of purple
evening iris withering
naked feet, wrinkling wood
dust hidden between black toes
falling in full flight
such a feminine masculine presence
an absence no longer longed for
hear the dead speak
a sign
in case of emergency break glass
where’s the exit door?
life must have one

PS Written tonight during a eurythmy performance in Bucharest. 

2.11 am

I’m in my bed in Bucharest, checking flights to Konya. Just as the search produces results, the room starts shaking. Ok, I say to myself, it’s an earthquake, it’s an earthquake, just breathe. And I don’t move, I just witness the tension of the earth releasing and my own building up. The earth stopped shaking 9 minutes ago and I haven’t.

For a moment there, I thought the walls might give in (I live in this very old house), so my mind started reciting a prayer. Numerous layers of thought and feeling simultaneously active. There’s the prayer level, the fear level, the anger level, the regret level, the gratefulness level, the stupid level, the practical, what-to-do level, the ‘other people’ level, the love-of-my-life level, the what-the-fuck-am-I-still-doing-here level, the passive level and others I have no record of.

I watched “The lake house” tonight, it finished about 40 minutes before the earthquake. I was crying for half of it. And as the earthquake’s unfolding (How long did it last, anyway? How many minutes? How many years?), my loneliness surfaces again just like this wave from deep within the earth is surfacing now. I could die here. Or anywhere, for that matter. Have I died already? Am I still waiting to meet you (again)? Are you still out there?

Later update:

Since I was looking into travelling to Konya, I thought consulting Rumi on the current issue might be interesting, so here’s what he says:

“Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I run after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.
I should be suspicious
of what I want.”

(Rumi, Selected poems, Penguin Classics, London, 2004, opened radomly at page 110)

We, the nightshoppers

Some of us still wearing our office clothes, others just baggy pants and t-shirts, others bathrobes and slippers (yes!), squinting at the shelves in that tiring, artificial light that makes your skin pale, your brain foggy and suddenly so needy. Getting single beer bottles and the smallest pack of peanuts there is and then just walking among shelves looking for salvation.

I remember a night in Pnom Penh, Cambodia, when I went out and walked around and then just before returning to my hotel, I got into this shop and walked among the shelves and stopped in front of the beer fridge. And this short guy, in his late twenties or early thirties stopped next to me and opened the fridge door only to find we were both reaching for the same bottle. I don’t remember the brand, something local. We turned to one another and smiled and, with a short gesture of his hand, he let me have it and then reached for another one. I wanted to ask him if he cared to join me and have that beer in a park nearby, but before I got to the cash register he was already gone. I had no intention to pick him up and lure him into my den, I was just craving for conversation and companionship. At least we smiled and had a moment of connection there.

Here, in Bucharest, the fauna in the supermarket at night is much wilder. We never smile. If we see someone interesting, we just stare. Repeatedly. We lack the courage to smile, smile back (if an alien does smile to us) or say anything. If asked “Shall I wait for you?” we would probably collapse or just die through implosion. Such things are unheard of. In our autism, we simply move around like headless pawns in an electronic game of chess played by a slow computer on its own, in a demo version. And when we are out of the game, we cease to exist.

Not writing because everything has already been said

Then what if after the first autumn the season would have simply canceled itself? Because in no other year could it repeat the extraordinary display of color and the whole autumn paraphernalia.

And then after the first love story we would have simply stopped falling in love and writing poems and books and making movies about it. No one would ever have to repeat lines like “Do you have the time?”, “Do you want to go out tonight?” or “Will you have dinner with me?” or the ever so used “Hi. How are you?” No one would ever strive to come up with a more original first line like “Sorry, do you know which way the river flows?” And the cute couple in party clothes would not be kissing at the corner tonight. We would not develop gastritis, either.

And what about living? People have been living since forever and everything has already been lived. Yes, it has. Then, after the first human being, everything would have simply stopped. Because a human being has already lived, felt, experimented etc. And so I would not be writing things like “I want you to feel my breath in your hair” or “my mouth in the palm of your hand” and no one would say ” I’m a good cook, but remember I never eat meat”. Or “you are insane”.

Then Florence Foster Jenkins would not have existed. Or if she had, she would definitely not have sung. And what a waste that would have been.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ubiUIxbWE&w=560&h=315]

“People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.” (Florence Foster Jenkins)

the time of the butterflies is gone

I have this little demon in my stomach
eating from within
hungry for fears
for mistakes
for wishes
and dreams
and weaknesses
it swallows my secrets
it has a huge mouth
and all the food I eat it swallows
and asks for more
it’s growing fast
it’s even got me to eat a huge portion of failure fear today
fooled me into believing that even exists
got me to swallow my own words for fear they might be misread
gets me to swallow air
and sweat
and dust as I go running
makes my fingers tremble
my legs so anxious I get sore muscles while sitting
or trying to, at least
I tried to exorcise it and it’s got even stronger and angrier
I’ll try my luck and love it tonight

 

That wedding night in Porto

porto

The sunset had spread its honey all along my arms. Out on the terrace overlooking the river, looking at the stars, listening to stories, smiling and dancing, wearing high heels for the first time and a stunning dress, having decided Portuguese is very similar to the Moldavian accent, tasting yet another drink, my lips leaving soft plum marks on the rim of the glass before smiling again and sending more words to kiss your ears.

“Sorry, Mr Maker, do you know which way the river flows?”

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA41Y4t9Rbg&w=560&h=315]

PS It must’ve been the proximity of the ocean that made everything much deeper and more dangerous. And slightly colder from the tide. Made everyone take good care not to let themselves dragged by some strong wave and lose themselves. So now, in the safety of our homes, we can look back.

Foray into the bank

I’m standing in a long queue at the bank as the branch manager comes out of his office, talking on the phone. When he sees me, he stops in front of me for a moment, looks into my eyes as he keeps talking and then pauses to say hello. I answer him. He goes into another office and then comes out again after a short while, walks past the queue and into his office again, leaving the door open. A few seconds later, he comes out again.

“Is everyone here for cash operations?” he inquires.

The people standing in line say yes and he’s looking at me as I nod.

“Can I help you with anything?” he insists addressing the queue and then approaches the man standing in front of me, who looks rather sick and has difficulty standing, and asks him what he is there for. The man wants to make a payment, so the guy shows him how to do it himself, using the self-banking robo (whatever its name is).

“If you are here for anything other than cash operations, please come into my office or go to my colleagues’ offices over there, who are counselors and can help you. So that you don’t spend too much time in our bank.”

He keeps looking at me and smiling while addressing the queue, so I smile back. Only for a few seconds do his blue eyes slide like melting ice from my eyes down to my neck, collar bones and cleavage.