I put a smile on my face, a helmet on my head, take a bike, and blindly ride shallow winding hills of the beautiful Irvine. A narrow path, framed with an ocean of tiny yellow flowers, sneaking up and down, revealing the mountains beyond. I go to a grocery store, hide in between its empty aisles, bump into the carts, left in the middle. I meet with my friends, we sit around a table, crumbles of sweets on plastic plates, we chat, and giggle like a bunch of five-year-olds, happy not to think of anything for a while. But even then, at those careless moments, a tiny scary thought is burning on the back of my head: I am going to lose you. In the matter of weeks, I will be gone.
I remember driving to the HOAG hospital in Newport Beach that Thursday night. High-rises of MacArthur Place, rush hour of 55 freeway, finally, behind me. The ocean, lost in a haze, the blue sky, splash of pink on the horizon, warm breeze, hints of a soon coming summer. A friendly nurse, print of playing puppies on her blue uniform, goes through the routine of endless questions, pinches my finger to get a single drop of blood out.
- You iron is substantially lower than it has ever been for the past two years.- She looks at me with an air of concern. – Any change in your diet, medicine, anything?
- No.- I think for a few seconds. – Just stress, you know.
I get comfortable on a recliner, my eyes follow pink Valentines, sweet scent of flower mixes with the strong smell of iodine, the nurse is spotting my arm with, while I am pumping a little globe in my hand.
I get dizzy half the way through.
- Do you want me to stop? -The nurse asks.
- No, it will get better. –My voice barely heard.- Like it did the last time. Just give it a few more minutes.
The nurse is hovering over me, not taking her cautious eyes off my face, going white.
- No, not this time. I have to stop it.- She gets the needle out. – You look too pale even for you.
I breath into a brown bag, caring hands place a cold towel on my forehead, lean the chair even more backward. I feel silly. Those people run around me as if I am someone important. Then, actually, I am the one who couldn’t even squeeze a sad pint of blood out of herself.
- Don’t feel bad about it. – The nurse looks at me while I am drinking the second glass of orange juice. – It’s just, blood donation is not your thing.
She sits with me, making sure that I eat ice cream to bring my blood sugar level up a bit.
- Drive carefully. – She waves me good-buy.
I get a phone call the very next day. I go to the hospital there I am greeted by a very smart looking man and my nurse.
I don’t like the way they start the conversation. “Sweetie” never means anything good.
- How much time do I have left? – I stare at the wall, bright fluorescent light reflecting from a bald spot on the doctor’s head.
- A few months, half a year at the most. One can never say for sure.
- But, doctor, I don’t feel bad. I mean, I am in good shape. I never get sick. I don’t even get a flu. I exercise. I keep on a diet.
- That’s the thing. There are virtually no any sign of being sick until the disease is beyond any treatment.
- Is it contagious? – I ask.
- It is. Not in this early stage, like you got, but, eventually, yes. You will have to be very careful.
- What do you mean by “eventually”?
- I would say, you got four weeks before you get the rush.
- Rush?
- Yes, it’s the first sign. But you really have to look for it. It usually outbreaks either on the palms of your hands or on the bottom of your soles and then…
I take my eyes off the wall I was starring at and look at the man.
- Then?
- Then…- Now, he is starring at the wall behind me. – Then, you die.
- I die. – The words echo in my head, empty as a dry well. – OK, so what happens…- Now, they get stuck in my mouth.
- Would you like some water? – The nurse asks, seeing me holding my breath.
- No, thank you. It’s just.. Nothing. I am fine. Thank you. So, what happens in between four weeks and… the day I die?
- Pain. You will be in a lot of pain, sweetheart. But, don’t worry about it. There are a lot of paint killers and muscle relaxants. They will make it the whole way easier for you.
I see rows of orange plastic containers, toy solders, parading on the shelves of a medicine cabinet until my time is finally up.
- Remember, sweetie, you got six months ahead of you! – This is my nurse speaking.
Six months to look forward too.
Four weeks of life the way I know it.
I tell no one about it.
I talk to my parents on the phone as if nothing happened. We plan a river cruise in the summer.
- It’s a week trip, we will stop in…did you see the itinerary anywhere, sweetie? - My mom is asking my dad, her voice, breaking with excitement. –No? Anyway, we are leaving on your birthday and we are coming back on mine. We got a nice room with a view over the side deck.
The trip is almost eight months away.
I turn on “Twelve Week Success Plan” my friend insists on me listening to.
- It’s awesome! Really. In twelve weeks, you life will completely transform. – She tells me, putting the CD in my car.
Yes, it will, I think to my self, but I say nothing to her.
I say nothing to you, either. I don’t want you to know that soon, I will get a rush on my hands, that my skin will dry out, that my eyes will fade into a muddy gray. That in just a month or so, I will live off meds and daily trips to a hospital. I don’t want you to know any of it.
Last week, I started to look for a place to live those last months I’ve got. It’s not that easy to find one, though, it’s not the thing I am concern the most about. The most challenging one is to come up with something to explain to you my moving out; something, reasonable enough for you to buy into.
- Are you sure, you are doing the right thing? - A voice in my head asks me every day.
- Yes, I am. – I lie in return.
I clutch my hands to restrain myself from showing too much. My eyes wander around a brightly lit room, skipping from a painting on the wall behind you, white frame around it, to the white shatters, to the pile of newspapers on the char, has been lying there for a week. I escape looking at you for every time I do, my smile gives me away. I pretend that I am cool. I hope that I am good at that. I hope you see no change in me. I hope you don’t know that I know something you don’t.
I wait for you to get home, even thought you told me not to.
-I will be late.
You tell me to go to bed to get some sleep. I don’t. I am tired, but still, I sit at the table, checking my emails, doing little things here and where, keeping my eyes on the clock, waiting for the garage door to open, waiting to hear you walking up the stairs.
-Are you still up?
To catch a hug, to bury my face on your chest.
Three weeks to go.
My head, heavy as a brick, hits the pillow. I look around the room. Barely seen shadows of the recently installed shutters, the only pattern on a blank white wall.
It’s almost four in the morning. You come into the dark bedroom. Your steps are as light as they can be. You think I am asleep, but I am not. I am just still. Still and silent, listening to the sound of your clothes hitting the floor. You get into the bed and wrap your arms around me. Your body is cold. I push myself against you. Your hand, hard against my body, runs along it, down to my hips and up my stomach. You kiss my back and hold me so tight, as if you die if you don’t. I grab your hand and press it against my chest. I fall back asleep.
Two more weeks.
It’s been three weeks since I moved out. I live alone. You are still around, stop by for a visit once in a while, fix things in my tiny apartment, making sure that I am comfortable, that I have got everything I need. You even offered to pay for the place. I laughed. Then, I cried. How would I ever explain why I rent this place monthly?
I manage to trick you into believing that I have a lot of fun with my new life, then actually, I wish so much to spend those last months around you for I miss our ten-minute chat at night. I miss a pile of newspapers on a chair. I miss a tiny green light of an espresso machine you forget to turn off.
I tell you none of those. I go out at night and sit at empty movie theaters, watching one-dollar reruns, stare at a half-empty glass, my reflection, so sad, looking back at me, and afterwards, tell you about another great night out with my friends and how much fun all of us had.
You don’t call me that often any more.
Every morning, I study the lines on the palms of my hands, I know every single one of them by now. I find nothing.
Another two weeks pass by.
I pick up the phone.
- Good Morning. I would like to talk to Dr. Schmidt.
A few hours off work, another trip to the hospital, another blood test. I wait for the results while looking though magazines. A lot of magazines.
- Dr. Schmidt is ready to see you.
The same room, the same bright fluorescent light, the same shiny bald spot on the doctor’s head. There is no my friendly nurse, though. There is no “Sweetie”, either.
Dr. Schmidt sounds very professional and extremely apologetic.
There was a mistake. A human error. It happens. I must understand that.
I go home. A round table in my tiny living room, bright sunlight fills up its every corner, leaving nothing unexposed to its warmth; the outside, the scent of flowers, blooming by the creek, the sound of the running water, gets in through the open patio door. My dog, collapsed on the floor, her legs moving in a dream of a chase, makes little sounds now and then.
I am not going to die. I have the whole life a head. The whole life.
I turn on the radio. I make it loud. I dance around the room, my feet barely touching the floor. I caress paperback of the books, resting on the shelves. I am going to read all of them. My dog, awaken, looks at me, confused. She gets up and runs after me as I move around. I grab her paws and we dance together.
I stop in the midst of a wild swing. You. You know nothing of what have happened. I run into the bedroom and grab the phone. I put it back. It’s been a few weeks since I talked to you. I hesitate either I should call you. Do you still remember me?
- Of course, he does! C’mon, girl. Call him!- A child-like voice is singing in my head.
My fingers fly over the buttons. I swing back and forth while waiting for you to pick up the phone. I wait for a while.
- Hello.
Your voice, so missed, so longed for, makes my head dizzy.
- Hi. It’s me.
- Hi.
A strange silence falls in between us.
- How are you? - I hear my own voice, awkward words, so impersonal, as if I never knew you.
You are doing OK. And what about me.
My heart beats so loud, I am afraid you can hear it bumping against my chest.
- I am good. – I swallow. - There is something I need to tell you. – I pause, listening to my own breathing. – Do you have time?
No. You don’t. Your friend is coming over. Is it anything important?
I hear a laugh on the back. Cheerful, happy laugh. A female laugh.
No, it’s not.
Am I sure?
Have a wonderful time with your friend, then.
I hang up.
I am still. I am as still as someone, still breathing, can be.
I am numb. I am blind. I am deaf. No thoughts, no feelings, no senses. Nothing.
My dog comes to me and touches my leg with her cold and wet nose. I pat her on the head, drive my fingers through the short, silky fur in between her ears.
I helplessly look around the sun filled room. Golden dust, suspended in the air. The warmth of sun on my feet. The bitter sweet scent of flowers, tickling my nose. Nothing?
I loved and I was loved.
I thought it was going to last. Forever? I was wrong. It happens. A human error. That’s OK. I will live.
I pause. I think. I smile.
I will live.
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October 2009
It’s the very end of fall. The sky is gray and heavy. Leafless trees and bare hills as if embarrassed by their own nakedness are hiding behind a thick fog. There is not a sound heard except for the monotonous uproar of the ocean. It's just another cold morning on Oregon Coast.
I sit down in a comfortable sink-in chair, fuzzy slippers on my feet, soft bathrobe, with nothing but a light nightgown underneath, on my shoulders. A heavy mug of a hot, burning my fingertips, coffee in my bare hands, an empty lobby of an one-night-stand hotel.
Had I ever intended to spend a weekend in this God forgotten place? No. I was planning on going to Portland to breath in spicy sent of fallen leaves and to refresh my memories of the brightly colored trees. As I got to my hotel downtown, I decided to explore the area a bit. Renting a car and driving to the coast for a day seemed like a great idea. Renting a car without navigation- not so much. Forgetting a map at a cheap diner by a freeway- bad. I got lost. So, what? Life happens; deal with it. As a result, I ended up here, in this gloomy place, miles away from cheerful reds and yellows.
I curl up in the squishy chair, my eyes still sleepy; my short hair messed up after a short night, not completely awakened yet. I look through a big, floor to ceiling, window. There is nothing but a steel-blue ocean, gloomy sky, and the fog out there. Nothing. There is not a sound on the inside; just silence, pushing on my ears. So peaceful.
I take a sip of coffee. Its bitter and smooth flavor warms me up from the inside. I close my eyes and think back.
Just a year ago, I was a prisoner, my own executor, and my own guard, all at once. I locked myself up in a prison, built with my own hands; I put a stern guard to remind me of how worthless and undeserving I was, at the door. I was looking at the world through obscure Plexiglas walls of my cell; the walls made of hate, anger, jealousy, and disappointment. I hated myself for not knowing what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. I was angry with myself for being a coward, for giving up on my dreams for the sake of means of comfort I have got, and for staying in this stinky and slimy swamp of a routine, just like everybody else's life and doing nothing about it. I was disappointed with myself for, as I compared myself with other people, I saw me failing in every single category: I had no proper education; no prestigious job; no handsome and strong man next to me; no cute babies running around.
I took people and events not for what they actually were, but for whatever meaning I forced into them. Like a trapped animal, I was making one loop of hopelessness after another, tracing my own steps on the cold concrete floor of my cell. Time passed. Days turned into months, months into years.
I felt like a complete failure. I wanted to be loved and cherished but I got a message that I didn't deserve it; I wasn't good enough. I was told to change myself to be loved and I submitted. I gave up on myself and made others more important to me than I was to myself. It didn’t last long. Something deep inside me rebelled against it. Then, I was called a selfish bitch. It seemed that the world outside didn’t want me for who I was.
This was my state of mind when I went to Portland last fall.
I loved the city the moment I saw it from my plane. Before I landed, I made a decision to enjoy my time there no matter what.
Next morning, I was wandering around downtown, taking pictures, and looking at the storefronts. I gave some change to the most friendly beggar I have ever seen. He wished me to have a great day. I chatted with a sale person while buying post cards for my friends. I was asked for directions and thanked for my help. Sun was shining, people were smiling, and I felt as good about myself as ever. I got to a little park and there, sitting on a bench and looking up through red and yellow leaves above me, I asked myself what was this “selfish bitch” a few days ago all about. Was it about me not loving people I was supposed to love? Was it about me dreaming my own dreams? Was it about me not living my life according to someone else’s plan? If this was it, I was fine with that. Actually, I became very proud of myself. As I was saying: “Good job, Lyubasha”, I felt as if I was flushed, flushed of all the scum I had stored inside all those years. I felt a new me emerging out of the very depths of my being. The new me, who got a light heart, clear consciousness, and sharp mind. I felt like I could walk on clouds and take off from the ground I was standing on to soar above the city. I realized that I could be happy if I choose to. I finally got the idea that everyone has got their own happiness; let mine be zooming through piles of leaves or driving to the ocean to see a sunrise and clime rocks at 6 am on Saturday morning. That was fine. Whatever it was that made me happy was just fine.
Right there, downtown Portland, I saw the walls of my prison crush into pieces and turn into dust, my fears gone, my disappointment dismissed.
I consider that day a year ago, the day I started to live again. Like a blind who recovered her sight I cannot get enough of this world. I am obsessed with it, I learn from it, I get to know it and accept everything just the way it is and the world does the same in return. I accepted myself, too, just for who I was- a woman. A woman, who is in love.
I am in love. I give all of me to that feeling, which makes my heart dance in a wild broken rhythm, my soul sing in its deepest voice, and my body act jumpy and flirty for no good reason, as if it turned into a puppet, held by an invisible thread, controlled by a lost its mind performer. I am high with love. Could I really think just a year ago that I wasn't able to experience anything like this? Did I really think that this part of me, the part that was able to love, was dead? Did I really think that I wasn't going to fall in love ever again? Or even just to love at all? How bizarre. Back then, I was as much in pain as I am in love, now. Back then, I welcomed pain for it was the only way I knew that I still existed. And now, I feel like my body is not big enough to hold all this love I experience. Now, everything feels so intense, so vivid, so strong. Every occasional glance, every casual touch, every kiss, rashly given and every kiss softly stolen lasts longer than a whole night of lovemaking. The whole world seems to explode with millions of bright colors. Over and over again.
For years, I have been looking for someone to love, but I found none. Last year, I gave up on looking and simply opened up to all those people who came into my life: some happy with their pregnancies and weddings and some who are just like me- new born puppies blindly looking for a path to their own happiness and knowing nothing but that it does exist, and among them did I find the one I loved so deeply, so desperately, and so unpossesably.
Sometimes, I feel like I get exhausted with all this unexpected love and happiness, I get tired of this new me and this is probably why right now, after all those hectic days and sleepless nights, I appreciate this moment of silence and solitude, so fragile and so pure. This moment of being alone and listening to fascinating, scarcely heard, whispers of my mind and soul. The two parts of me who are finally in harmony with one another.
I hear an elevator going up and a door slamming.
As I take a sip of a barely warm coffee, I am thinking that renting a car, going to the coast, and getting lost wasn’t such a bad thing in the end.
I look at the clock on the wall. It’s time to leave this place and move on.
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August, 2002
Do you remember that night? You do remember it, don't you? Snow, dimly lit Drottningatan, slippery mud underneath your feet. You can barely walk for the heels of your shoes got broken and its soles are as thin as a parchment paper, so you feel every single cobblestone you step on.
Unfriendly wind throws cold and wet snow into your face and you feel mascara running down your cheeks. Your long fur coat got wet and heavy and it makes it even more difficult to walk. To walk... Where? Are you going to the rail station to call your parents? Again? And then? Oh, you are going to look for a place to spend an evening. You want so desperately to find a warm and crowded place to crash. Can you afford it? Have you even been to a bar in Stockholm? Do you have any idea how expensive it might get? Yes, you do. Is it why you started to set some money aside a long time before this trip? You have your limits set, don't you? No more than what?! Did you just say “sixty crones a night”? Good luck, girl.
Yes, I do remember all of it as clearly as if it happened just yesterday. I could never imagine that it’s possible to dislike a place so much, but, obviously, it is, for this is how I feel about the street I am on now. I do my best to avoid it, to walk around it, but I am so tired by now that I don't want to play games anymore. Drottningatan will take me straight to my hotel, so I keep walking. This long and wide street reminds me of a stage in a theatre after a performance is over, all actors left, but scenery is still there. I feel like I am an actor who got confused and forgot that the play is over and keeps playing her part. I am surrounded by scenery of lights, brightly lit windows, huge signs welcoming to come in, but as I get closer I find that all doors are locked, everything is silent and deserted. I am the only one alive here and look at me now: wet hair stuck to my face, I am sweaty but I am shivering for snow got behind the collar of my coat, melted and now, with a cold drop, is running down my back.
I walk down the street, through a dark alley, lit up only by lights from a few windows here and there, down narrow staircase until I end up at a wide and bright avenue. Zooooom! Cars passing by. I look around and carefully read names of street and places. Finally, I see a brightly lit entrance and a name, which sounds so grand to me: "Hard Rock Cafe". I have been in one, in London, years ago. At once, I imagine a crowded place, loud music, excitement and staying up until early morning. "Unfortunately, we are open only until 10 PM tonight...(I am looking at my watch and I feel my heart sinking. It’s almost 9 PM)…but there is a bar across the street. I am pretty sure that it’s open until 3 AM”. I really want to give this guy a hug, but instead, I rush outside. I smile as I, half-running, cross the avenue (never mind my broken heels).
Back at the hotel, I storm into the room and see Olya sitting on a bed.
- I found a great place nearby. Do you want to go?
- No, I don’t feel well and also, there is a movie with Julia Roberts on TV I want to watch.
I go one floor down and knock on a door. It’s even good that Olya didn’t want to go; I have always preferred to go out with Valay, anyway.
- Hey, I found a great place nearby. Do you want to go?
- Give me 15 minutes and I will meet you downstairs.
You love this place, don’t you? As soon as you walk in, music, voices, smell of cigars and cigarettes wraps all around you. It’s a club or rather a bar with a small stage in a far left corner. Almost all tables are occupied, but, fortunately, Valya sees people leaving a table by a window. You march right to it, take off your coats and hats, and make yourselves comfortable. A bit later, you go to the bar and look at the menu. This is precisely what you have expected. You have just enough money to buy beer.
- Two beers.
Yes, it was exactly like that. Dim light, music in the background, foreign language and smoke. We sit at a table across each other; there is a bottle, used as a candleholder, in between us. It feels so warm, so comfortable, so relaxed. I look at Valya and I want to tell her how beautiful she is right now, but I hold the words back for I know they are going to spoil everything. Yes, she is beautiful. Sometimes, when she doesn’t know that I look at her, when she leans her head to the left and stares somewhere in the distance, and when her hair run down her shoulders. She looks so serious and naïve. Her beauty is so fragile, so still, like the surface of a pure forest lake, high in the mountains then a single leaf is enough to disturb its stillness. At moments like this, she seems so close and so far away, so much involved with something that I cannot sense from being only a few feet away.
I look outside. It’s getting late. The big avenue is getting empty; there are no more cars zooming by. It’s snowing heavily and the street is covered with a white blanket, which is getting thicker. It doesn’t melt any more. It got cold. It seems like there is nothing else in the whole world except this table, candle, window and snow, which seems to fall till the end of time.
Valay catches his eyes. I glance at him, too. He stops for a few seconds, makes a couple steps back and disappears. Few moments later, he shows up inside. He is here. We know without a shadow of a doubt that he came in because we caught his eyes.
He puts a big backpack on a floor and takes off his winter jacket.
- Another beer? I ask Valya. I walk to the bar.
- Two beers.
We know that he is going to come to us and he knows that, too. It’s just a matter of time. This place is open until 3 AM.
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