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05/14/98 An old roomate sent me a postcard from Prague a few years back. Although I enjoy news from traveling friends, I was disappointed by this particular card. In fact, I remember mocking it. Why? My pal, a Harvard honors graduate, could only describe Prague as "wonderful and very old". Period. How could anyone write something so dour? Well... here I am. (Truthfully, I'm now at my PC listening to the Trainspotting soundtrack and pounding in these notes from a tiny pad of paper.) Scribbling these notes on a pad of paper on a brown bench which overlooks the Muldau (Vltava to Czechs). Behind me stand a sunsplashed row of elegant apartments. Streetcars roll past their Art Nouveau entryways. Between the river and these splendid flats is this island, which I am on, populated by Chesnut trees, more benches, little old ladies, dogs of every shape and form (squirting and squeezing), and a garish yellow summer palace surrounded by tables of tourists. The sweltering heat of the sun, I enjoy and endure. Spring is in full swing. Chestnut blossoms hang from every branch, spiders spin their webs along the riverbank, and the air is abuzz with infinite airborne creatures-birds, insects, and cotton seedlings (like the ones you blow into flight with a wish. They flurry through their air like snowflakes. What secret dreams do these seedlings carry?). The trees sing with songbirds, rowers pull on oars, lovers cling sleepily to each other on the grass. Every now and then, a ship ladden with tourists swings into view, churns sideways, and veers back downstream for another spectacular pass through the Charles Bridge arches. I've avoided writing much down over the past two months. I tell myself that I'm simply taking it all in. Observing. Absorbing. That's not quite the way it is. The closer truth is that I've simply grown lazy and insolated. I'm not sure how to share these mundane events without sounding like a cheesy travelogue. I'm appalled at my writing. Reading back, the words ring childlike, and each tale meanders without purpose or direction. Perhaps that's just it. Maybe that is what my life is like at this very moment. Each day is as directionless as the next. Oddly enough, its as damned near paradise as I'll ever get. I don't know what day of the week it is, let alone care, and I hate holidays because that means more people to wade through. For me, everyday is a day off. I actually enjoy Mondays. I haven't felt this way since I was a kid faced with a whole summer. I live in a world of opposites. I work little, and enjoy a lot. Museums, galleries, strolls through parks, and emersion into novels is common place. I actually have time. To say I'm busy, would be stretching the truth.. Workwise... I druge for a month, then relax for two. I can't complain. Why is this so? Perhaps the lesson is literally right in front of my face at this very moment. Okay... What do I see? Water. Boats. People. Hmm... romantic. Yes, romantic. But it dawns on me that its more interesting watching people row boats, than actually being out there in one. They look more hot and anxious, than relaxed and romantic. It's peaceful here beneath the trees. You don't have to row, you're not burning in the sun, or worrying about how much time you've got before you need to return the boat. Out there, all one can see is water and a few glimpses of the ancient skyline through these broad leaves. So they paddle back and forth with the current, trying to discover something before it is too late. Perhaps we try too hard to see things the way we want them, rather than discover them as they are. Leaving San Francisco was difficult, but unexpectedly liberating. Oh, I miss my family and friends greatly, but the daily routines, idiotic job titles, protocol, and mind-numbing gab are a comfortable distance away now. Return? What do you think? Ironically, the friends that I have made here -- they are few -- seem just as dear because we are entombed in our own languages. We are therefore on equal ground, and gesture at modest ideas at best. However, it is this will to communicate our shared situation that forms the bond. For lack of better words, I have discovered tender people who might otherwise be obscured by (their and my own) words. For example, there is a Serbian family that runs a grocery store up the hill from the flat I'm in. They're refugees. We enjoy each other's company, even though the mix of English, German, and Czech that we speak are frustratingly limited. The father pats me on the back and talks to me in Czech or Serbo-Croatian, the mother and I joke in German, and the kids, Bobu (the daughter) and Alexander (the son) practice their English on me. We share foreigness and come here for opposite reasons. But meeting them, expressing basic ideas, and realizing what this person is taking the effort to express to you, feels wonderful. For lack of words, I feel like a human being again. Perhaps my greatest frustration is sharing these experiences with loved ones. In other words, I don't write home much. If I'm not ready to write, a blank page can be a vista of confusion, and a postcard can feel unbearably claustrophobic. Besides, where do I start? Will I make sense? Is this line too abstract? Do they follow my drift? Perhaps I ask too much in my letters? Writing well is like describing something to a blind person. Beseeching the imagination to create rivers, trees, cathedrals, people, movement, stillness, sound, light, life. So I sit on this bench. The shadows have grown long and the sun has cooled. The park is absolutely still, and the city still stands behind me. All I can say is that it is wonderful and very old.
06/07/98 ...with a twist of a knob the downpour eases. Trees quiver, brilliant beams peer through heroic clouds overhead. They scan the grayness, leaving color, warmth, and life. A warm sigh moves through the branches, the heat returns. Blinding pools steam in white light. Drops drip and plash from high places. Leaves shimmer and flash. An airplane mows lazily through the sky. The engines drone deeper and deeper -- to unfathomable depths -- casting their sleepy spell. I drift between worlds -- of rain drops, blinding glints, cotton-mouthed vapors, and pristine floating mountains rumbling ancient metallic words...
02/12/98 I write in total darkness. Badly, at that. Will I be able to decipher these vague, childlike metaphors? What reveries have been lost on this bridge due to the lack of a pen and paper? Novel phases, sudden insights, curious compositions, marvelous prose... lost by those who step across here in thought, unprepared. Before and behind me rise black gothic towers. These stilletto silhouettes have witnessed all who have journied over this expanse. They are as eternal as our fragile memory permits. Perhaps it's the beer and the cold... I cannot see clearly... everything is soft focus. Now and then, bodies drift past, dark and bundled, mouthing strange words as they pass by that I cannot comprehend. Only when five drunken Irish boys -- shoulders bent and swaggering -- stumble by do I fathom the words they slur at each other. My fingers tingle numbly inside these winter gloves. Penciling words is a fight. Hyperdermic teeth sink into my unseen nails and the lead falls from my fingers. Picking it up, I hear a furious fluttering of pages. Looking up, I am startled by the apparition of my other hand gripping dancing pages in a black sky. The snowy gales wail and I move on... Somewhere along the King's Coronation Route, I come across a gurgling fountain... Kafka comes to mind... he wrote something about hearing a noise, turning his head, and seeing a drunk by a fountain. There it is. Am I the drunk? My head swims. I lick my lips. A few steps beyond the fountain and a massive cobblestone square opens up revealing the massive Tyn Church -- a looming structure of stilletto spires that pierce the imagination with radiant gloom and dark beauty -- crowned below by golden street lamps. The market stalls are empty, and across the square Jan Hus' steely pose breaks a cheerful facade of Barroque buildings. Towards midnight, I head home. In the subway I watch the play of reflections in the window. Cables rush, lights wink, faces frown. I drift in and out... thinking about "sleep" with a dreamy logic. "Perhaps we are always sleeping. If so, are we more conscious when we sleep, and asleep when we are awake? At night, with eyes shut, meaning takes form in a visual language that uses emotions instead of words. By dawn I'll be chasing the vapours of this pristine language that I won't recall. And once again, by day, I'll be confined to awkward words.
07/11/98
09/13/98
People mill about, arriving, departing, waiting like tiny plastic figures on a train set. They carry bags, rummage through sacks, read newspapers, eat sausages, fold their arms... As a kid, I thought these figures looked hopelessly old fashioned. But here they are lifesized, moving about on the platform before me.
09/07/98
If you look carefully, even the most mundane moments reveal something facinating. Here, I jokingly refer to them as Euro-moments. I remember seeing a man walking causually along a crowded street with a live swan under his arm; and just last week, a man passed me on the subway escalator without pants.... and now, through the window of this cafe I spot a nice 3-piece suit hanging high in the branches of a tree across the street. Before long, some children playing nearby also take notice and gather below it. At first, they search the bottom pockets, but finding nothing, they use a long stick to unhook the suit and bring it down. I watch them from my table as they carry it off into the bushes like a prize meat. They rummage through the pockets but come up empty. No treasure today. They sigh, laugh, and casually toss it aside when someone finds a coin in a patch of dirt. Before long, they're all digging for gold, looking up only now and then at the tweed apparation lying on the ground a short distance away. A lanky girl ponders the sight. For an eternal minute, she is elsewhere, her mechanical fingers moving slowly through the hard greasy earth... Ultimately, she stands up, trapses over resolutely, and gently slips each piece back onto the hanger and hooks it onto a clothesline.
09/18/98 It's a quarter past midnight. We just got home from a Cafe Slavia. I still can't believe it... Lauren Bacall (The Big Sleep, 1946) was sitting at the table opposite me, in a black turtle-neck and jeans, sipping on a glass of white wine. According to the papers, she's been in Prague for the past few weeks. Bogart's ex, "The Look of 1945", is pushing 74.
11/11/98 Eighty years ago, on this day, the killing stopped. Dazed by the senseless slaughter, the survivors of WW I were finally faced an equally daunting task of returning home with this incomprehensible experience. I recall one particularly telling book whos name eludes me, and is long out of print. A friend in Berlin shared it with me eight years ago. Then and there, I saw the true faces of warfare -- countless faces. These were casualties photographed in German hospitals during and after the war. They were horrifying. Missing jaws, eyes, noses, yet alive. I could not fathom the person beforehand, but the expression in their eyes exposed the soul trapped inside. Perhaps that explains why I felt compelled tonight to once again view Steven Spielberg's film "Saving Private Ryan". Although difficult to see, it forcefully opened my mind to the all too recent past. Afterwards, I decided to take the long way back to the subway station... through Old Town. The streets shone gold from the lamp lights. Somewhere along the way, I felt a strange sensation rush through me, and I suddenly looked upon everything as if for the first moment. Towers, Tyn Church and City Hall rose magestically above the Baroque facades. Witch hat rooftops, illuminated by the brilliant floodlights below, pierced the black skies. Awestruck by these things, I only faintly detected the progress of my feet across the cobblestone, and the steady ebb and flow of air tingling in my lungs. In that fleeting instant, I felt at if I were walking along a tightrope; a silkened strand of life stretched between my person and some unknown point ahead. So I walked home, sensing this precarious moment in time, along some unseen lifeline... Middle-aged paranoia?
11/14/98 My fingers smell of lemon. There is still tea in my cup, and a half glass of soda water. I am alone at this round table next to the window. I should feel compelled to write on days like today. The skies are gray, the wet streets reek of dog shit, dirt and oil, people bump past you, strangers look through you. I sit alone in this crowded cafe. Conversation surrounds me, street cards rumble around the corner outside. In this torrent of activity, I am but a pebble in the stream. Pen to paper, however, I am wordless.
12/05/99 We emerge from the trees and glide through a clearing.... as we gain speed, the bucking and rocking picks up tempo... the windows flash movement Powerlines -- wireframe monsters -- move behind stately rows of poplars and sway-backed barns. The hills glide slowly by, air whistles through the sill, pages flip.... Outside.... Underwear, sheets, socks, childrens clothes, and jeans sway stiffly on the lines. An old man with a cane hobbles down a hill of dead grass, a patch of snow survives in the shade next to the rail... hazy skies, smoky blue mountains, gray horizon... Suddenly the sun slides briefly behind a stout stand of pine on the hillside. Branches and needles rush by. In a flash, the trees vanish and I am blinded by a burning pool of water... translucent, chrystaline, movement. Perhaps that's the magic of travel. Life is turned inside out, and you simply empty out the contents of your mental luggage until you're down to bare essentials. It's is moments like these, where I have least, that I feel free-est.
01/20/99 My mental map is rough and tattered. I have seen parts of the world that have no name, bear no particular feature, and to this day occupy only the dimmest corner of my mind. They are there, in reality and emotion, but the details are lost. The changes of landscape before my eyes and between my ears are in constant flux.
01/23/99
Beyond my keyboard is a stack of unsent postcards. Scribbled on some are trails of thought, unfinished. I keep them out of fear... of forgetting. It is an unwinable war. My first days here were a constant vigil to remember, but somewhere along the way, I have come to this pathetic indifference. Topping this stack of thoughts, is a Xmas card from mom. I can't decipher her writing. Only fragments. I see her scribbling these thoughts down between cigarette puffs. The TV is on. The room smells. Voices outside, people pass her door. Her hand shakes as she pinches the plastic pen retrieved from somewhere. The thoughts behind her jagged letters are a mystery to me. I laugh, but tears trickle inside. She's always had horrible handwriting, but it is so much more difficult now. The card itself, the touch of paper passing between hands, says more than the letter itself. It bridges distance, the deepest ocean of longing, and for a moment, shares. I miss her. These shapes in black ink are from her hand. An afternoon. A cigarette. An inhilation, an exhalation. A thought. A worry. A joke. An insight. Sharing. Will I ever see her? She has no phone. We are separated by a long silence. Our thoughts distracted by new routines and distance. On the other hand, if I were nearer, our convenient proximity may keep us apart. I miss her terribly. But now and then, moments flash in my head, a smile crosses my mouth, and the distance washes before my eyes...
01/25/99 These words come to me, but in the mirror I see a different man. He is aging and quiet, with a curious gaze that falls upon each line and gray hair. Who is this familar person staring back at me?
02/08/99
An antique bookstore. There's an unexplicable sadness thumbing through other peoples things.Old maps are gathered inside this box. Nearby, are others stuffed with postcards from forgotten places. Scribbled on back are little memos giving you a glimpse at the forgotten recipient, sender, and circle of unknown friends. ...All so long ago. Stiff portraits, old german typefaces, brittle brown pages. These posessions are filed together by the currents of wim and commerce. Somehow they've made it here, transformed from momento into novelty. Out of context from the person who possessed and lived them. Feeling has been replaced by form. Functional, nostalgic, historic perhaps, but unornamented by the human hand that has passed it along. Holding these cards and books, it is at once a recollection and forgetting, and for but a few Hellars.
05/01/99
A few moments later, a squadron of orange lawn mowers approach the east. Dressed in green, the drivers steer drolly in formation along the edge of the field, then as if sighting an enemy, they abruply break off into positions. My eyes fall on the middle driver, bored and sulking, who stays course while others growl towards distant patches of virgin green growth. I watch the carnage of dandilions and daisies from the balcony. After a few slow passes, those splendid dots of gold and white vanish in a whir of blades, leaving behind a fragrant wake. I turn back to my chair, remove my shirt and hike up my shorts hoping to regain as much sunsplashed healthyness my pale skin can take. It's pushing 30 celcius today. The sun caresses my skin like a warm hand. I have longed for this day. I toy with the idea of dinner out here, if the temperatures don't dip significantly. For now, life has taken on a Biedermeyer familiarity... uneventful, restful, and quiet.... aside from these damned mowers.
05/07/99
Weeks, even months, fly by. I work at nights.... spending far too much time on tiny projects, and rushing through big ones. All the same, I am what you'd call a recovering work-a-holic. As sad as this sounds, I still read my old workplace newsletters e-mailed from the States - but these days, I read them more out of nostalgia than predicament. Meanwhile, my editors sound as harried as ever. Going from one disaster to another, paying mortagages, investing in some new technology, working evenings and weekends, lonely or appologetic. I don't miss it one bit. It was a time where holidays were both a relief and great source of anxiety. That is all behind me now, and to my surprise I have stumbled upon a clarity and purpose I haven't felt in ages.
05/08/99 Another day... the next. Again, the balcony, the sun, further musings... I turn on the radio, but switch it off again finding only noise. That was when, from one of the gaping panalak windows across the lot, I caught a melody. A violyn. From the darkened depths of trees, I discern an open window where the tune -- raw and bare -- is being played. The bow drags across the strings giving each note weight and an edge to every scale. These unpolished melodies mirror the lazy beauty of this day. As I listened to each scale climb and decend from those shady depths, I imagined the coolness of the grass, saw the silvery shimmer of leaves, and mused at the pristine white mountains suspended overhead.
05/09/99
05/8/99 It is days like today, where I can muse unabashedly through these blurry terrace glass walls, that I feel most creative. With each abtract shape and figure passing by, I pluck muddied words from my imaginations. A toddler staggers past like a drunken man, muttering indecipherable words to all and himself. It is a time when literally everything is facinating and incredibly alive. The urge to touch and share is overwhelming. Such is the world at a fresh age. To a child, everything has an element of mystery glowing inperceptibly around it. It is both terrifying and fantastic.
06/09/99
07/12/99 The idle lilt of a leaf, the chrystaline movement of the tap, the halo'd glow of seeds and insects sailing the breeze, and the unexplicable pause in a strangers step all provide an unworded poetry to mundane experiences. Even if I were able to faithfully record these nuances, they might seem deceptively structured and take on unintended meaning in this utterly random play of daily events. Because of this, I write infrequently to friends, and even less to family. It is a sorry excuse, but it is true. When I do write letters, it is with great effort and a tome of disjointed thoughts. Varied and uncollected, meandering as each day... I can't help it. In person, I am quite vocal - irritatingly so. But with words, I am rather vague, and terribly silent. I've yet to master the power of description, or to put it more precisely, haven't entrusted myself to jot down moments -- often non-events -- freely. What I do pen down is a pablum of condensed incidents with a toxic mix of nostalgia. Highlights if you will, conveying only a faint notion of a foregone day.
05/09/99 Earlier that same day, I sat behind another elderly woman on the tram. Winding through the streets, we silently peered out the window at the play of people milling about Prague's dirty streets. I was charmed by her habit of pointing shyly at various interesting things she observed from her window. She'd mouth a few silent words, turn her head to share it with someone else, only to find nobody there. Her lonelyness is both hurtful and beautiful. The romantic in me imagines she is intensely alive, discovering things that others regard as ordinary. In that light, her seemingly stranded world seems so much more passionate. Unlike the rest of us, I muse naively, she has regained the ability to see the existence of lives beyond her own. Meanwhile, my only pleasure is the occasional discovery that detours me from my everyday routes. Finding them, as if by chance or bravery, I feel renewed. |