It’s simple: you have to really want it. No more overbearing ego, only the present moment telling us both: we are happy.

The clock stroke two and I heavily walked out of the house and onto the moon lit path of dewed grass. I walked steadily for many hours. I walked South.

I feel so close to all the time that we lost. We never have to lose it again.

brings you here

“It seems very pretty,” I walk around a theatre lobby looking at various bouquet arrangements left after an opening night, “but it’s rather hard to understand.” Every card inside each bouquet has been signed by one hand. There is only one fan behind this. However, the cards bear no signature. Instead, they each list a film title. One says, “My Own Private Idaho”, another, “Drugstore Cowboy”, yet another, “Elephant”, and another yet, “Serry”. “Hmmm..”, think I, taking a sip of espresso and turning around.

At the opposite end of the lobby stands Stanley, short hair and mystery eyes.

I take another sip, exaggerating the slowness of my reaction. I lower my eyes, to bring them up again. I empty my hands of the smallness of the cup and… what else?.. oh yeah… open my arms widely for the hug of a honey-like “ahhhh…!” The wires that run from one street lamp to another say “bzzzzz”. As if nothing ever hurt us, Stanley and I are talking freely now, laughing and not remembering.

“What brings you here?” I say, knowing the answer. “A Russian play,” he says too seriously and too loudly to out-yell the “bzzz” of the wires. “I was a part of it tonight,” I say with dignity, “I still am and so are you now.” “I recognize that,” he smiles with relief. He stays nervous for ten minutes. I am not nervous any more. I just spent my own first ten minutes in the distance, looking at his profile and mostly at his back, having noticed him before he saw me. Time passes, the crowd around us melts, he is not nervous anymore, just close and familiar. We laugh like maniacs at each other’s jokes because we have always in the time before shared a sense of humor. The theatre is empty now and, as if there was never any pain, we are still talking in the middle of the hall. Nothing has changed.

I get into his car. Even the car’s color hasn’t changed. “I still have the video of you cleaning the snow off my car,” he shows me the video he shot with his cell and we almost get hit by some van because he is also driving at the same time. As if nothing ever broke those hearts, we laugh. I feel like I have never left this very passenger seat. “I’m really a cowboy,” he said back then about the Volkswagen, “And this is my trusted horse, my VeeDub…”

The wires are now going, “BZZZZZ” and we are approaching the new residence of Sir Don Stanoite which he had acquired so recently that I have not been to it yet.

It’s both familiar and unfamiliar, to be here in this moment.


We hug again and this time this tall, solid person of a man looks like a baby, far removed from our broken story and its histrionic passages. Everything disappears: time, pain. It’s only us now, floating. I let out little moans. I kiss all the little creases of his skin that I was too good to care for before. I had let a lot of shit go since then. It is not about keeping my face, it is about helping each other heal. Little creases of his skin… I am tiny, wrapped up in his huge body. I call him ‘baby’ and hear him loose his breath in it. There is no time. There is no pain.

I escape breakfast the next day. My mind takes me over as it does. I now know why we hurt so much as we did back then. In reality it was not painful at all, but our minds were cluttered. We did not quite make it out. The day has come for me to see that these ideas were just ideas, never reality.

You and I are no longer statues on the frozen pond. We are moving pictures. This is a film production that I am involved in and so are you now, Cowboy. My Jewish Cowboy.

house

I gasped and sat down. The rapid journey through the air had quite taken away my breath, and for a minute or two I could do nothing but hug the little lily in my hands in silence.




When people let me down, I cry. Stale food makes me cry. Unrealized potential, in general, makes me miserable. “It’s all just glimpses,” I said to him, paralyzed by the idea. Moments earlier he climbed closer and resumed explaining to me, so much younger and so much more confident, how he is looking for a full-size happiness in life, and not just for its little poorly unbuilt glimpses.

Would I choose to build my happiness slowly, start from afar, and bring myself closer day after day, spending, investing?

Or would I choose to make love here and now to little explosions of stars while they are madly burning in a wicked heat, passionate, berserk, violent in their intensity, lasting only for a beat and then dissolving into madness of a loss?

“It’s all just glimpses,” I repeat on my own now. I settle into the fog, sleepwalking through envelopes of thick air. I come upon an abandoned skeleton of an unfinished house. In someone’s forgotten past, building of the basement was partially completed, but no floor was ever put over it. It is a lonely pocket of things unhappened. I now look at the naked torn brick walls forming narrow uneven steps up and down. I throw shoes off and jump inside the unvisited room. The ceilings above me are the unchattered skies.

The deserted floor is covered with tiny pieces of broken mirrors. Under my feet they are like little lost hearts. “Hello Hearts!” I say melodramatically, “It’s all just glimpses!” “Maybe you have already found out,” he said to me then, trusting my seniority. He was too beautiful and ageless to give away. Yet I am facing instead this unbuilt house with mirrors covering the floor. “I want you to know that it is nothing you did,” I said to him, disappearing. “I hope not,” his voice was heard.

I remember my own voice sheets of time ago fading away like this. “Just juice please,” I said then, and the words came out as coarse whisper. Have I heard myself since?

I am now in the unbuilt house, listening.

Dust of unmade plans blankets the disarray of the mirrors. I pace back and forth, naked, in fever, undecided. This house, unfinished in a rush, reminds me of a shipwreck down by Icelandic rocky shores. That ship, like the dreams of this house, was on its way someplace no doubt. Until it was over with, as it happens.

I pick up one of the little broken mirrors and dust it a little. I see my face reflected. It is a ridicule of an expression. I almost drop the mirror as I see another face showing through the features of my own, the face of my mother. I resist the fear and remain holding the mirror. After all, our fears come from insecurities. I will not run away, I have decided not to sleepwalk any longer, I say to my mother in the mirror. I am still holding a lily in my other hand. I offer it to my mum. She used to love lilies.

I will turn cold to the very end of my whiskers (if I have any at the time), but I will not turn away.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre gimble in the wabe.

I am going to not run away one day. And for that to happen, I am going to move into my basement and try and finish building the whole house. There will be lots of big opened windows and pots with living lilies all over. My Mum and Dad will come to stay here as soon as I am done.

Forgiving. As soon as I live in a house.




“people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” Carl Jung

“But it’s not a show… It’s my life… It’s my [stands and thrusts his arms up in victory] HOUSE!”
“House” by Daniel MacIvor

“I’d rather not go
back to the old house
there are too many
bad memories”
The Smiths

“Little solace comes

to those who grieve

when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves

Moments before the wind.”

“House Of Leaves” by Danielevski

dante and the honeydew melon

First things had to come first. I positioned the moon of a honeydew melon in the very center on a counter, neurotically and rashly alluding to the Japanese flag. I picked up a chief’s knife. Its blade remained scarred by the knife’s recent messy cilantro affairs, now ostracized from the leafy mistress and, in anger of hopelessness, prepared to leave its green fragrant mark on the wholesome cheek of the melon’s inside, after swooshing through it perfectly in the very middle with the precision of a surgical scalpel. I cut the melon in half.

The pith rained out of the melon’s acorn-shaped center into the bucket underneath the sink, forced down aggressively by the same knife’s blade that was now acting as a hasty scoop, too hasty for my taste, merely a show-off. The fleshy halves were then halved again, exposing extra surface area of the lavish honey color that was identical to that of my kitchen walls and counter-tops. It was no doubt their big plan to melt in with the surroundings so I could no longer swing my lonely knife at them. We each have our perfectly naïve escape fantasies. But I couldn’t be fooled this time. Not I. I placed an issue of The New Yorker between the table and the tricksters. Ha! I can see you perfectly well now! The face of Ben Bernanke, noble and silent, looked at me in a well-reasoned calmness, as if he was allowing me time to properly arrange my words into sentences, as if he was assigning importance to my opinions. Mr. Bernanke… sir… why couldn’t you be my father?

Oh..! What is this digression? Who am I to commit this conversational nuisance all over you, readers of cooking stories? The disillusioned tapdance on my laptop keyboard is not beaming with any purpose, this is a confession. We can analyze to our hearts’ content, the fog won’t lift. But then again, some people write entire plays where nothing happens. And then they make their second act a subtle reprise of the first, so as a result, nothing happens in those plays twice... So what?.. What of it?

Back in the kitchen I carefully slid the knife’s blade between the firmness of the melon’s skin and its forgiving prayer-like softness of a dewy orange cheek. The color was less rich on the bottom, where the yellow was just recently covered by stiff skin. The skin was the protection, not allowing the content to spill into the world. We all have such protection for the time being, like another naïve impermanent dream.

All this cutting I did casually, automatically.

It was the following part of the process that required expertise, not the mundane preparatory nonsense outlined above. After the melon had been skinned and cleaned of pith, it was the time for a truly masterful hand to possess the knife and to further architect the melon’s body into immaculate, defectless pieces that were to be displayed afterwards on a white plate with crisp waffle-rippled edges. I ran the blade under tap water to wash off the cilantro juice and its likelihood to offend the yellow again. I then sliced the melon in many pieces. I then ate it.

The End.

looking glass

I stepped off my greyhound at the Toronto bus terminal and in another moment I was through the looking-glass and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass Room.

acidic and non-inspired, I looked to see whether there was a fire in the fireplace. I was quite pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as the one I had left behind.
I am constructing a glass, a looking-glass. I am erecting a looking-glass tower around myself. You can look through it, see yourself reflecting, and see me here as well. I am a good tower builder. Before, I used to build little fences with perfectly oiled fence-doors.

Back in Toronto, realizing all this stuff about looking-glass, I began looking about.

The pictures on the wall near the fireplace seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece had got the face of a handsome young man (who was presumably very tall and with broad shoulders), and grinned at me. Looking-glass was reflecting you, my audience, watching. One of you is pulling off a sandal, noisily. One of you is taking unauthorized pictures. One of you is blowing your nose. I am reflected in a looking-glass, and you are watching me.

I notice several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the cinders. In another moment, with a little “Oh!” of surprise, I am down on my hands and knees watching them. The chessmen are walking about! There are tiny houses, so colorful that my eyes have to adjust for a moment to see beyond the brightness. There is a toothpick tower in the center of some kind of settlement. There are pretty flowery things along skinny paths that lead to little houses. There are little fences with curly vines embracing them in some places, and swallowing them entirely in others. Some of the chessmen are walking through the little fence doors, which appear to be perfectly oiled (the doors). Some of them are jumping over the fences. They are awfully cute, the walking chessmen.

I wish to know how real the tiny place is. is it self-sustained? is everything in it functioning? What kind of elements make up the pillars of this society? are its members aware of other cultures and civilizations? How do they treat their elderly? What do they laugh at? Do people get sufficient time off for maternity leave? Does the church operate as a spiritual leader or does it have its word in every nook of private life as well? What kind of art do people create? What do they call traditional and what do they call surreal? is there anything good to eat?

I want to find wells, full of fresh water, power lines, factories with happy workers in them, bakeries, banks, children playgrounds, bicycles, stores, tools, art, invisible barriers to keep the society from collapsing, comedians, bars, symbols of advertisement, hospitals, monuments to poets.


I start moving slowly, still on my hands and knees, through the odd little town.

Figuratively, I was swept off my feet with excitement. Literally, I swept some chessman off his, by accident. “Imperial fiddlestick!” said the chessman at me. He turned out to be the Black King. Mysteriously, he was now covered with ashes from head to foot. I am not very much used to talking to royalty. I always have royalty in the back of my mind though. They lead a fascinating lifestyle. They eat amazing variety of food. English muffins and cupcakes, all kinds of soy milk, eggs and fish, strawberries and watermelons, all different kinds. Fascinating food for fascinating people. And so I ask his majesty, “Have you had your navy beans soup yet tonight?” If so, I wanted to know what came with it, crackers or breadsticks, deli canapés or salmon sushi rolls. Was there any sour cream to top the soup, and how many types of pepper did they use to spice it up? Sadly, it became obvious that his majesty was done talking to me.

For some unclear reason, he was covered in ashes.




There used to be pretty flowery things and little curly fences around me, with perfectly oiled little doors that weren’t even locked. You could walk in through a door, or you could jump over a fence.

One day it so happened that I erected a looking-glass tower in place of the old fashion fence.
The end.

mouths full of pancakes

Way out at the end of a tiny little town was an old overgrown garden, and in the garden was an old house, and in the house lived a family. At nights their windows lit up and sweet smell of fresh bread softly lingered around for passers-by to admire. I was never invited. I came specifically to see them, the little houses and the old overgrown Scandinavian gardens. But I overestimated people’s affection, and their ability to remember little things like how years ago they had changed someone’s life.

The first night they saw me, the characters from Lindgren books, they were delightedly surprised. We snuggled up around a quiet fire in the woods and talked until 4 in the morning with our mouths full of pancakes. When it started to sunrise they walked me out of the forest and showed me the path to Villa Villekulla. There was another garden there and another house. I walked along the road a little way and then, not wanting to arrive yet, turned into a pasture where a charming path wound in and out among the thickets of birch and hazel. I wanted to draw out the feeling of the morning and of the night that just ended. Had it ended? Or did I just think it ended but in reality it will never end, because time is construction and those moments that we think have passed are really still happening, we are just not able to perceive them as present any more?

It was all still happening: me just meeting the bats and the horses from the sketches written by two boys in their pajamas. Me, spending nights with them, not sleeping until 4 in the morning, without their pajamas. Me, walking out into the morning and flying over coastline paths.

I never saw myself since, has anyone? The next day everything went berserk. Nobody wanted to eat pancakes with me anymore because they realized that it would violate their social contracts with all their other pancake-pals, or was that just a good noble excuse. I never saw you again, the comedy of my life. I forced another night nights later. I stayed on a whitest pillow next to you and urged for honesty.

You peck my cheek. I see the saddest thing: myself in your wrinkled face and in your life-long lingering loneliness.

This is the world’s most selfless grandmother. She lived in Moscow during the war, when the times were bad, and during the Soviet regime, when the times got better, and during the time when it got even better after and because I was born.

She died this Friday and I feel like from now on I will never be lonely any more.

I don’t believe in afterlife, but I think, and some agree with me, that we all initially exist as pure energy. As energy we are contained in the universe for eternity. When we acquire human bodies and spend a lifetime as people, that’s the time for us to play and to see what’s what. After our bodies die, we are released back to where we are from, into the universe as pure energy again, but with knowledge and experience we had collected when we were humans. I think my grandma’s energy is very close to where I am now. She can finally see how I live here in Canada. I think she is very happy for me.


One New Year’s Eve, when I was in high school, my parents left for a few days to a cottage and left me the house. “Invite your friends, if you want,” they encouraged cheerfully. “Yeah okay, if you say so,” I complied. That New Year’s Eve I had 90 people in my house. My parents were out, where else would the whole high school be? 90 people were there and also my Grandma. My parents left me my Grandma for supervision purposes. I protested. My Grandma argued, “I will stay in my room and will not bother any of you!” And with authority.

Us, high school students, the generation of the collapsed wall, the 90s children, we were hopeful, unlike our older siblings, who had intelligently experienced the Russian crisis of changing ideology in the 80s. Unlike our older siblings, all we new was that there was money everywhere, that commercialism was pouring in through every crack like light, and that we were about to build some future that had no precedent. We were living in new Russia, going down a path that no one had gone before. We smoked imported cigarettes, and drank cheap but quality vodka. We held on to our Beatnik poetry collections and quoted as much Kerouac, Bukowski, Kesey, Thompson, Snyder, Ginsberg as we could. We each had copies of A Clockwork Orange and The Fear and Loathing. We listened to psychedelic Seeds and 13th Floor Elevators. We wore brands our parents could not pronounce. For the first time in Russia we were hanging out not on the streets but in cafes, bars, and clubs. Oh we were cool. So was my Grandmother.

“Don’t smoke inside! Why would you smoke inside?” She would appear at unexpected moments in different areas of the house to give advice to my guests. “Who is out on the balcony with wet hair? You will catch pneumonia!” she would usher my drunken friends in and out of rooms. “Who broke the sink in the bathroom?” she would inquire persistently, following us everywhere, but going to her room every now and then to keep her promise to stay there for a few minutes. People were taking showers, having sex, getting high, screaming out poetry, singing rock’n’roll, and talking heart to heart all over the place. My Grandmother personally attended to each of them.
“This is parents’ bedroom! Don’t stay here!” she would direct naked couples out, shaking her head, and laughing, no doubt.

That party was like my entire life growing up with my Babulya, as I called her, endearingly. No matter where I went, she was right beside me, either telling me to stop closing my room, to turn the music down, or to eat something. Her whole life was me. Her whole identity was me.
Well, not just me, my brother too. He got it more intense, I think. She did not approve of any girlfriend he ever had. She used to kick out the girls he brought home because she didn’t like them.
My boyfriends were safer. Maybe because she always wanted me to be with a man, no matter what man, but for my brother she only wanted somebody who was perfect. The guys I brought home, she only picked on them after they left. She picked on them softly. My high school boyfriend only received criticism for his heritage, which was Jewish. My grandmother grew fond of him in the end.

The last time I talked to her was about a month ago. She remained clear-minded, wise, and even hilarious in her 85. The last time I talked to her she was surprisingly understanding of all the choices I’d made so far, including not having got married, the most important zosja-issue in my family. She trusts me. Just the way a very close person does. I invited her to live with me in Canada. I even wanted to go home and spend this winter in Moscow in the country house with her. She didn’t allow me to come over. She also didn’t accept my invitation. Mom says that until the last moment she kept saying, “don’t let zos fly over to Moscow just because of me.”

I won’t fly over. She always feared for me when I traveled on planes. It’s safer for her now to come over herself where I am. She can now again watch over and tell me exactly what to do, how to behave, and what to eat. Only this time I will appreciate it.

And hopefully Babulya will know now that I am doing really well and will be happy with me. Right, Бабу?