Home

Advertisement

Customize

There is no inverted country

...and if there is, you won't find redemption there

11/19/09 09:23 am - concertina

I feel like I'm on the verge of a creative breakthrough, but all the best ideas are bottle-necking.

I hate that feeling.

11/15/09 09:39 am - days of miracles and wonders

I'm in Charlotte. My sister and I planned our trips so we could come back at the same time. My three brothers, my littlest sister, all here too. The result: insanity, chaos, wonderfulness, fun, celebration, brawling, and as always, delicious food.

Boskovich things )

11/13/09 08:32 am - 20,000 roads i went down

Impossible to describe how I feel about this, but here it is, anyway:

11/12/09 10:05 pm - Done with November, the whole kit and caboodle, all of it

Today I wrote a song. Here's part of it:

Just another rainy ass day in Broooklyn.
Life sucks.

Here I am,
walking through the rain
with all my bags
Coulda seen this one coming
It's pretty ironic
but only in the Alanas Morisette
kinda way
while it sucks
its also kinda expected
which is not what ironic means

Just another miserable day in Brooooklyn.
Life sucks.

I think it's pretty good.

I also wrote a slam poem:

I saw 3/4 of a pizza with tomato and green peppers and lots of cheese sitting in the rain with water pooling in the middle. I was thinking, I am kinda like that pizza. I used to be all hot and desirable, but now I'm all sad and soggy and nobody wants me, in fact I bet I kind of make them gag a little in the back of their throats when they look at me. I relate to you pizza. I wish we could be friends. But even I think you're gross.

If I'd have known before how good I am at song writing and slam poetry writing I never woulda wasted so much time on that whole "fiction writing" thing. SONGS AND POEMS ARE WHERE IT'S AT.

I don't think I've ever hated November as much as I did today, but that's my fault. I shoulda bought a winter coat.

11/9/09 03:50 pm - for all the toasts

Here's the new blessing I want to bestow on everyone I meet: May you always be sad to leave, and happy to return.
I'm lucky enough to say it's true.

11/8/09 06:27 pm - strobe lights & blown speakers

 All wonderful things come to an end, of course, which is what makes them so wonderful -- fantasy lives on because we learn to let it go and not look too closely. We watched The Prestige last night, a film I still adore, I want to take it apart and put it together again so many times. I feel like it's perfect, even though that's a dangerous thing to say about anything. We went to Roka, our favorite restaurant, and ate lunch to celebrate -- hummus, dolmas, haloumi, french fries, eggplant, bread, wine. I'm going to miss the food here, but it's for the best. Last night, we walked to see the sunset but it was all obscured behind the clouds, all we saw was the dimming light against the orange streaks. The ocean's beautiful any time of day or night in any light. It's hard to take all this beauty, for long, I've found -- the breathtaking becomes commonplace too quickly. I don't want it to be like that, which is why I always want to be on the way to somewhere else. It makes you see. A boy sang a beautiful song with so much soul that I could hardly breathe, and for days that was all I heard in the silence. I'll spend the rest of my life wanting to hear that song again, but the moments are always fleeting and impossible. "We conceive and scheme and dream, but whatever exists becomes banal. Only the impossible is worth our prayers." Fantasy is about longing and desire is the only magic left. I try to be OK with that. I miss my family, I miss my city, and I'm coming home. 

I think more than I want to think
I do things I never should do
I drink much more than I ought to drink
Because it brings me back you...



11/7/09 12:03 pm - 20,000 roads i went down


This is what I'm fighting for )

11/4/09 01:05 pm - another early morning adventure

 Woken up at 6:30 a.m. for yet another early-morning adventure, still wearing all my clothes, true Boskovich style. I was too tired to live. I kept curling up and trying to go back to sleep, the way my brothers used to do when I was trying to get them ready for school. 
 
We hiked down the epic staircase to the bay, where the boats dock. It was sunny, chilly, windy, the breeze whipping hair everywhere and cutting through clothes. The water in the bay was very clear, and miniscule jellyfish floated in the water. Stray dogs nosed around, waiting to see what we would do next.
 
We were headed to a small island nearby. It was decided that while we were on this other island, no one would speak. A group observation of No Talking Tuesday. I was too tired to say anything anyway, so it worked fine for me. 
 
We took a small ferry boat to the nearby island, called Thirassias. It's a short ride, fifteen minutes or so. Once our feet touched the ground on the other side, no one said anything. We paid for the ferry, got on a bus, went partway up the hill. The bus dropped us off and we hiked the rest of the way up to the top of the island. We walked along a deserted gravel road for a long time, empty hills stretching away, terraced fields with rock walls and dry hillside. Finally we reached our destination: the abandoned monastery. Lost in my thoughts and the silence and my semi-lucid state, I felt very open and receptive to the inspiration of the environment. I had some ideas. We explored the monastery. I stretched out on a flat roof area and tried to go back to sleep, but the wind was too cold. There a Greek couple there, too. The man kept shouting in Greek, as if he was telling offhis wife, but also gesturing around him, as if he was talking about the monastery, so I remain utterly confused as to what they were discussing. 
 
We made the trek down the hill, onto the bus, onto the ferry boat, stopping for a long time to play in this abandoned playground: swinging on the swings, riding the merry-go-round. On the way home, the water was choppy. A storm was blowing in, bringing rain later in the day. All last night the wind blew and blew, rattling the shutters and whistling in the cracks and tunnels. But today is sunny and beautiful, the prettiest day there's been in a while. Two girls are leaving today, and we're all sad about it. It's not going to be the same without them. 
 
 
You write such pretty words
but life's no storybook
love's an excuse to get hurt
and to hurt

11/2/09 10:40 pm - why i miss my brothers

 
My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
and all I remember
is thinking
I wanna be like them

Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
and it's no coincidence that I've come

maybe we're crazy
probably 

11/2/09 11:22 am - sea change

On a small island things change overnight. A cold wind blew in, bringing with it the feeling of winter. Now a chilly mist hangs in the air and the wind rattles the doors and shutters. Night came early yesterday, darkness falling across the overcast sky. The other shops are closing for the winter. I went to the small shop a couple doors down to buy a candy bar and found it shuttered and chained. After about 2 pm yesterday not a single customer came in; eventually we closed the door to keep in the warmth and watched a movie on our projector screen. There was a feeling of hibernation.
 
This feeling makes me miss home, where winter is more positively defined. Maybe it was Halloween, maybe it was November -- I was homesick all weekend, longing for a winter that feels familiar. This one feels like nothing but abandonment, isolation, an ending of something but not a beginning. I want to sit in a warm house and watch the cold rain fall outside, eat dinner in a brightly lit window with the darkness out there, walk down the street bundled in coats and scarves, and sleep late through the chilly mornings, staying in bed to keep warm. I want to walk through the city streets still full of people, looking inside the windows, marveling at the brilliant displays, entering the revolving doors to a blast of dry warmth. 
 
In 8 days I'll be back in New York. In 10 days I'll be back in Charlotte. In 15 days I'll be back in New York again. 
 
One day not so long ago I said I would only be happy if I was always on the way to somewhere else. I am happy now, but I miss my lover and I miss my cats and I miss the feeling of home. 

11/1/09 02:53 am - eyes that burn so bright they make me pure

 It's three hours into November 1st. I've written 584 words on my novel. I'm listening to Bright Eyes. I miss all the places I've been and all the people I love. Life is predictable, but beautiful. 

10/31/09 02:27 pm - happiness

Last night the six of us went to dinner at the house of a local fisherman named Petros. We set out around 9:30 -- dinner time in Greece -- and made our way through the dark streets of the village. (Always a harrowing experience. With stray dogs running wild, you never know what you might step in.) Soon, we turned off into a side path and began descending an epic staircase built into the cliff side. Being a fisherman, of course he lives at the water's edge, while our bookshop is in the heart of Oia at the top of the hill. 
 
We arrived at his house and there was an absolutely amazing spread of food on the table: five different seafood dishes (all fresh caught by Petros himself), roasted chicken with potatoes and eggplant, rice, vegetables, cheese, olives, garlic dip, bread... incredible. (We later found out that he also runs a restaurant during tourist season. The meal was definitely better than most restaurant meals I've had around here. In fact it was the best meal I can remember eating in quite a while.) We heaped our plates and mounted the stairs to the dining room upstairs. Of course, there was wine -- white and red to begin, then later a sweet red wine that's local to the island, and a strong liquor made from currants that's complex, sweet and spicy with a hint of black licorice. It burns going down and fills you with warmth. We opened the window, looking out on the bay ... fishing boats floated in the dark, moonlight shone on the water, the breeze cooled our faces.
 
Petros DJed, alternating between traditional Greek music and party hits from the eighties and nineties. We danced -- he demonstrated Greek dances and we broke it down American-style. We looked at his old photos, snapshots from the seventies and onwards. Fascinating. Like pictures of my parents when they were young and sexy and having a bang-up time wearing bizarre fashions. Except also in Greece. 
 
When we were downstairs getting second helpings, one of the girls said "This is the kind of thing you always hope will happen, except usually it never does." I knew exactly what she meant. 

While I was screwing around chatting online earlier in the evening, the other girls had prepared a delicious apple crumble to take to the meal, so we ate that too, proving once and for all the existence of the "dessert stomach."
 
Two of our crowd asked if they could go fishing with Petros sometime, and he offered to take them out that night. So they went. The rest of us worked on the dishes and watched from the open window -- the small boat bobbing in the bay, the three of them fumbling in the dark, illuminated by brief interludes of flashlight.
 
They returned with a net holding a number of small, sardine-like fish caught by their heads in the net. We sat on the living room floor and untangled the net and extricated each fish by hand, throwing them in a colander near by. It was wet and messy, but satisfying. It reminded me of my childhood. When we'd finished this time-consuming process, Petros fried up some of the fresh fish with olive oil and salt and lemon. 
 
Then we made the epic journey up the 200 stairs, which was painful, but probably good for us considering the feast we'd just consumed. 
 
I went to bed last night reveling in the feeling of pure and utter contentment.   

10/30/09 07:14 pm - November

 Against my better judgement, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. I'm so excited, I can hardly wait. 

10/28/09 08:58 am - politics

 What you wear is political. What you buy is political, and where you buy it. What you eat is political. Who you sleep with, and how, that's political too. Where you live is political. Everything is politics but somehow I still can't bring myself to read the news anymore. 

My 15 year old brother is working on a year-long research project as part of his academic program. He's going to help a grad student at University of North Carolina-Charlotte with field research on an environmental science/climate change project. He's going to write some newsletters for their website about saving energy. When he told me last night, he was so excited and I was so proud of him that I couldn't stop smiling. I might have almost cried a little tear. :)

10/26/09 02:16 pm - cold sea


"We may be done with the past, but the past is not done with us." I still remember the first time I saw that line, and how it stilled me. I couldn't tell if I was being sentenced or released. Sentenced to a lifetime of remembering, or released from a lifetime of wondering when the past will stop. The answer: never. "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past."
 
Winterson. Faulkner. I'm finally taking on my own story once again, both farther and further from home than I've ever been. It makes sense that I could only begin while stranded between continents. 
 
It makes sense that my story belongs to the South. You want to talk about past? Past, present, future, in the South it's all the same. Some scars never heal. Some fault lines go all the way to the core. 
 
That's how we are, too. I figured that out when I was 16 years old. Another sentencing that felt like freedom: the simple knowledge that there are some traumas we'll never forget. I realized I could stop trying to free myself. I was already free. Damaged but unrestrained. Broken but unstoppable. 
 
Here's what I want to do. I want to jump into the ocean, no matter how cold it is. Kate said it best: sometimes drowning is the only way forward. We've been talking about that cliff for a long time, you and I, but I'm the only one who will ever be brave enough to jump. That's the only knowledge that could give me the courage to say goodbye. Because it's a long way down to where the future lies. 
 
 
 

10/25/09 12:30 pm - chaos & circumstance

 Last night came like the end of the world -- an island storm that poured water from the skies like the ocean turning itself inside out. Lightning ripped the sky and thunder rattled the buildings, vibrating through centuries-old stone. The water flooded down the stairs, under the cracks of the doors, and the lights flickered, flickered again, then went out. We lit tea candles and streamed through the dark, but open flames and books? Not such a good combination. The cats were restless and afraid, leaping among the books, hiding beneath the shelves, barely missing the candles, so we blew them out. It was ten or eleven; a few straggling customers trapped inside the bookshop, perched on the floor, looking through the books (until we lost the lights), waiting out the rain. (And more water, flowing through the cobblestone streets.) The lights went on again. Mysteriously, all the flies had dissapeared. We went up onto the terrace to watch the lightning. Then came back inside for baklava and pears and hot tea. 
 
This morning we woke up early. James had rented a car, perfect for an early morning adventure before the bookshop opened. The weather remained strange, the light diffuse and gray, the sky still strewn with clouds and fog. Moist, cool air. The streets were scattered with dirt and stones and the occaisonal boulder, all washed across the road from the flooding the night before; the whole world seemed wrecked and disheveled, almost post-apocalyptic in places.  Under the overcast skies, the landscape took on unfamiliar hues, browns and grays and steely blues all intense and lucid. We drove through twisting mountain roads listening to the Jackson 5, later Elton John. We drove down a twisting, rock-pitted, wet gravel road that should only have been attempted by a pick-up truck or a serious SUV. We were battered and dinged in our tiny european car. We made our way to the beach, stood on the wet black rocks and watched the waves come in and out. Surf on the stones makes a thick squelching, sucking sound as the waves go out, like nothing you've heard before. On the way back, we stopped at a bakery. Greek bakeries put all other bakeries to shame. They are magical, filled with so many delicious treats, so many tasty things in miniature, shelves and shelves of perfectly formed pastries of more varieties than you'd think possible. We bought savory pastries, stuffed with potato and spinach and leek, plus cookies, a loaf of fresh bread. 
 
All the time I felt this strange dreaminess, both lucid and trance-like. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was being awake earlier than I've been in days or weeks. Maybe it's the thoughts I've been having about writing, on the verge of another breakthrough. Everything felt meaningful. I could see the story making itself, just over the edge of the eroding cliff. 

10/25/09 12:02 pm - surface and shine

 
 
idyllic is one thing and beautiful is another. but still:
 
a story told, she was a little girl
in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
and there were rows of ripe tomatoes
where a secret was concealed...
 
i guess what i'm saying is -- let me never forget what lies beneath. 

10/22/09 12:28 pm - a fantasy so real

 Life has become magical. 
 
I sleep in a bookstore -- every night I clear the books off my bed and every morning I put them back, arranging them in three neat rows, a varied display for every day. It's like a fantasy I've had since I was a child; it could be a child's daydream, in fact, living amongst the books. Seeing them first thing in the morning, last thing at night. Browsing the shelves in spare moments, picking up poetry here and Le Corbusier sketches there. 
 
In the morning I dust the books and I sweep the floor and I think little thoughts and hum little songs; I drink earl gray tea with honey and lemon, and eat fresh bread from the bakery. There are two kitties who live in the bookstore -- a big cat named Maxie and a kitten named Sylvie. In the mornings, they're frisky. They chase each other around the bookstore, tussling on the book displays until Maxie leaps onto a shelf that Sylvie can't reach. 
 
I sit on the terrace and eat falafel pitas for lunch, looking down at the ocean that stretches away, the islands rising with jagged edges. The white houses sprawling down the cliff side in the sunshine. Doing laundry by hand in the sunshine on the roof, clipping my undies up to dry. 
 
In the evenings the five of us make big family style dinners -- roasted vegetables and pasta and fries and tzatziki and fresh bread and fresh fruit, and greek wine and chocolate. We make each other laugh so hard. Sometimes we sing songs. We walk in the dark streets and see the swimming pools glowing aqua light. 
 
Two days ago I saw a sunset so beautiful it was almost unbearable. The ocean was slate gray, a lucid grayish-green. The beach was black pebbles and sand. The sun was brilliant orange, sinking into tangerine and pink. The light glittered on the water for just a few minutes as the sun held itself at the right angle, and then it slipped down, farther down. All I could think about was how brutally gorgeous everything in this life is and how short. 

10/14/09 08:20 am - So I'm up at dawn

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Greece for a month. Today is my last full day in New York. 

I have some big plans. They involve blue skies, green parks, warm breath, delicious pasta, and enough acorns for every year to come. 

10/13/09 07:23 pm - Just give me november

October in New York feels like November in Atlanta. And the rest is for history.  
Powered by LiveJournal.com

Advertisement

Customize