9 posts tagged “life”

"So you have gained nothing from it at all!"
"Yes, I have gained something," said the fox, "because of the colour of the corn."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

As you can see, I've become quite the fan of a certain French writer. It's just that I managed to read The Little Prince. Which was brilliant. Now the author's a bit of an obsession of mine and the vibes of the book seem to be floating about everywhere. Speaking of new obsessions, I've broadened my circle of loved music, adding to it Travis, VAST and some singles from various artists.

First day of school was controversial. What else is new, you ask? It was a little magical as always, offered plenty of excitement about seeing people and witnessing our class acting most immature in Biology (and we haven't even reached the regenerative system, or what's-it-called). Of course I managed to pull off a silly act of taking offence and spent most of the evening talking on the good old topics that never seem to stop offering reason for discourse.

Funnily, it's holidays in three weeks' time again. Comfortable, yes, at first. But not when we've got to go all the way to the final exams without a single break. D'you know what those holidays also mean? The teeny, tiny possibility of me going to *drumroll* England! How shocking! Betting on whether I shall have a nervous breakdown or not will start in a week's time.

In the mean time - two more major events spark excitement. Chronologically the first is my 18th birthday. A little appalling, if you ask me, but I shall survive. I cannot possibly imagine the awkwardness of the moment when certain things are all of a sudden legal and quite allowed. Weird. And then, in ten days' time, the Spring Ball's coming up. Which is a pile of headache. Probably. At least the dress part of it - everything else I might blatantly ignore or pretend to ignore. But then, on the other hand, it might be a lot of fun if it's half a good as I imagine it to be. Shall see, shall see - miracles aren't that impossible.

The weather's brilliant. In the mornings, when you go to school and it's not nighttime anymore and the great glowing orange of a sun is rising, you feel a little prone to soar. And the sun makes me smile. When it's not too intruding upon my privacy. Whatever. I guess I'm in an odd mood. Strange thoughts, strange progresses, strange plans.

A silly day and a silly month it has been! A retrospective of the whole of November would be a little beyond me though, so I think it more a matter of a few colourful illustrations from the recent days.

Today's History test didn't go well at all, at least in terms of numerical value. No, I am pretty certain, as opposed to the usual worrying. But when you're faced with a test that's ridiculously beyond what you thought it would be, the situation becomes incredibly funny and wild and a tad psychotic, so some of my worst tests have been met with a crazy laugh. I'm not at all the person to write anything witty in them, but today I was just in the mood for answering that the leader of the Bolsheviks in Russia was 'Comrade Lenin, until he popped his clogs and everyone's favourite Yosif Stalin became the man'. Not overly funny now, although that moment it seemed quite appropriate.

After school we tried our luck at getting theatre tickets for 12 December. Naturally none were left. A big, big disappointment, seeing I was determined to see the play Juliet before the year ended. And now, besides the twelfth, it won't be played until next year. I can't even tell why the obsession with this year, this December, but whenever I imagine seeing the play in January, it feels another world. This year ending soon, it going into oblivion and past and all the shades of 'was' is horribly freeing, while the beginning of a new one seems to require so much of me, with everything being ahead, needing attention and care. It's just like with days - the evenings are heaven and the mornings are grey oceans of sleepiness and possible dread.

Speaking of theatre, we also saw The Seagull yesterday. In the least, I was freed of fears that NO99, a theatre built around the brilliant idea of numbering their productions until they reached NO1, was an 'artsy' and 'modern' sort of thing. I'm phobic like that. Now I can't wait to see more. But the play was unusual, partly because I've never been as close to the actors, close enough to see the tiny droplets of sweat on their faces and notice the patches of blush, partly because the way I look at them is a little different now, partly because it was again one of those cases where in the end, I did not understand. True, I could think and deduce, but I didn't empathise with the heroine and her troubles, although I wanted and still want to very much. It's highly disturbing when leaving a play you perceive is thought-provoking and monumental, you cannot really relate or fully understand and be struck by it.

It was probably the thing on my mind as we did a round on the city centre, admiring the brilliant blue Christmas lights. It's been funny weather here lately, with no snow whatsoever, pretty green grass and terrible, terrible wind. If not the wind and the cold, I could remain sitting on a bench somewhere high in the Old Town, speaking of love and life and illusions and feeling that if there only was a profession involving all of those, there would be no difficulty with deciding upon a career. From a platform, I saw a falling meteorite today, I swear. It was like a falling star but bigger. I thought of Stardust immediately.

From yesterday's music lesson, I had two remnants. The fist was a strong desire be in the Grand Opera of Paris, in midst of all the lights, the gold and the whirl of drama, just like in The Phantom of the Opera. I still have this opera-mood. And when I was returning home today, a melody from the Intermezzo of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana rang and rang in my mind. I have almost forgotten it by now.

Then I realised that I wanted a violin for Christmas.

I'm tired, horribly, horribly tired.

It's strange, because an extraordinarily happy and exciting day has just ended and I haven't had such good mood in a while. Nevertheless, I came home wanting to just rest, retreat from it all and eat spaghetti. My relatives were visiting. The most destructive thing about it is that they get to come whenever they feel like it, whilst I'm never given the choice of whether I'm feeling social or not, whether I'm half dead or brimming with vitality. And the more energy they seemed to have, the less was left to me. In addition, there's no salt to put in the water and no ketchup to season the spaghetti with.

The weekend offers no comfort or prospects of relaxation, it's more a question of how much useful work I'll be able to do. And I don't want to get up at nine tomorrow and go to my Journalism course. I don't want to rise at the same time on Sunday for the drama thing I'm sure I've mentioned enough. I don't want to at all.

And yesterday I had a miniature heart stroke when I discovered there was a huge white cat sitting on the balcony, watching. It must be the neighbours and it looks horribly smart. I wish it would be there today.

Want to hear about irony? Compare: I was greeted with a cheery A+ for my history test which I couldn't care less about and hadn't' even known was coming, whilst a row lower in my electronic report card, a greasy B signifies the mark for my Geography test, the result of four hours of studying and my utmost diligence.

That is NOT funny!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday have all been moderately crazy. I'd call them full crazy if I wasn't so used to my new time-schedule. Starting off with the more trivial things, on Thursday it turned out we weren't as good at dialogues as we could have been. At least when it came to the serious one. The five minutes of break we spent on the second one, Shakespeare's mind you, were much more fun and successful. The elevated mood lasted for quite a while. We got to skip Drama again (have I told you how silly it is? no? a pity) and instead pondered what gifts should be bought for which people.

The event of the day was NUI, my friend's old school's film festival. Apparently, a grand enterprise and all, having taken place five years already and now ridiculously crowded. It was a lot of fun, at least in the beginning when the coloured lights started flashing and every person walking the 'aisle' bumped into the chair I was sitting on. The films were... unlike each other. Some were funny (a mobile phone attacking clay figures accompanied by LotR soundtrack), others were supposedly 'artsy' and deep. Yeah... In any case, by the middle of it the crowd was becoming tiresome and the excitement a little overflowing (not so much in my case, though). The whole impression was a little ruined by the fact that I didn't understand nor like 'the-film-that-everyone-loved-and-was-supposed-to-win-but-didn't'. It was technically well done and apparently philosophical as well, but a little too depressive. I can stand melancholy and sadness and noire sorts of things, but not the ones where little brilliant starlets are all unhappy and dead inside and they hide from reality on the stage and are addicted to illusions and all poor and misunderstood inside. Not my cup of tea, yes?

On Friday I met with my old classmate and good friend. It was great to reminisce about the old times, including our last year at school, when we used to sit on the floor next to a particular radiator almost every break and did all sorts of wonderful things you can only do when you're fifteen. I also spent a while relating the events of my summer trip to her, while she told about her own holidays. In the end we decided we were both potential alcoholics and would have to do something about it at some point. The resolution of the moment, however, was to phone another of our classmates who's eighteen and ask her if we could go drinking at her place some time in the future. Everything was perfectly fine until, half through waiting for her to answer I decided to see who I was calling. Just in case you know. Turned out to be my Grandma.

The people in the cafe were a little frightened at our reaction when we tried to imagine me asking her what I'd intended to ask. Aside that we made some more plans, not all of them involving alcohol, mind you.

And today I had to attend this crazy thing call choir camp. Basically, it's a quick way to dispose of your Saturday. The idea is that we go to our school and practice singing from eleven to six, lunch breaks included. I wasn't exactly excited about a day being nearly wasted, so I was contemplating leaving earlier even before it turned out we'd sprint through about twenty songs, only three of which the majority could actually sing. I stayed for the bread though. Time swept past quickly and it was something past six, I think, when the three of us who'd stayed behind finally left. Tried to leave, until we noticed that there was a huge black hole where, across the bay, the city centre was supposed to be. There was nothing. No lights, no haze. Which was phenomenal. We decided that aliens had either stolen the part of the city or clouded it all with their space ship. Of course we stayed to observe and in short time smaller details surfaced, until we could see the Eye of Sauron and the Mountains of Mordor were among the things involved.

Because all of this seemed urgent, we decided to get back to our school and try to see what everything was about from some higher floor. It was a little difficult with the trees and lights and everything. The next option was waiting for the local geniuses who were supposed to blow up the school, because they'd have access to the chemistry class, a good observation spot. I think we weren't meant to find out what was happening though. In the process of waiting the sky slowly lightened, although now there was a huge H-shaped building on the horizon and we were absolutely sure it hadn't been there before. In the end, we sat in the chemistry class for another hour, eating candy and getting sillier by the second. We could hardly speak and seriously wondered what could have made us so non-sober.

I think I'm slowly getting rid of any spare time I might have. Especially time I should dedicate to writing. This week there is no weekend, it's just the difference in the activities.

Ei ole paremaid, halvemaid aegu.
On ainult hetk, milles viibime praegu.
Mis kord on alanud, lõppu sel pole.
Kestma jääb kaunis, kestma jääb kole.

Ei ole süngeid, ei naljakaid aegu.
Võrdsed on hetked, kõik nad on praegu.
Elul on tung kanda edasi elu,
jällegi Kronos et saaks mõne lelu.
 
Ei ole möödund või tulevaid aegu.
On ainult nüüd ja on ainult praegu.
Säilib, mis sattunud hetkede sattu.
Ainuski silmapilk teisest ei kattu.

Ei ole mõttetult elatud aegu.
Mõte ei pruugigi selguda praegu.
Vähemat, rohkemat olla ei võinuks.
Parajal määral saab elu meilt lõivuks.

Ei ole kaduvaid, kõduvaid aegu.
Alles jääb hetk, milles asume praegu.
Aeg, mis on tekkinud, enam ei haju,
kui seda jäävust ka meeled ei taju.

Artur Alliksaar

I think one of the funnies questions asked on a regular basis is the 'How are you doing?'. Always a dilemma between a simple 'well-good-fine' and a proper explanation. The latter rarely wins because just stopping and telling people what your life's about is a weak option. Not everyone wants to hear the 'drama' of my life anyway. And not everyone's ready to reveal theirs. Despite that, I feel silly when forced to go with the 'good', so that mostly my response is an even less interesting 'more or less' and 'weeeell....'. All the little episodes whipped together make up a lurid mass which can't really be complained about.

Things have never been so interesting before. It seems. At least there's not a moment when I'm bored (History classes exempt) and queer episodes and opportunities surface in pace Time. I was just about to write about the past weekend, but it appears a new one's right here anyway. A short summary would include a scary episode of working, a mediocre emotional upheaval, no Monday Syndrome, a continuously runny nose and a wasted chance of seeing the Queen, that is Elizabeth II. Factually, it's not wasted yet, but considering the most important test of this whole period takes place while Her Majesty will be waving about the Townhall, I can be reasonably sure. I'm amazed at some people's thought there's nothing to see. Yes, I do know she's just a person. Not nearly as glamour laden as an average Hollywood star, for that matter. But that's beside the point. My whole idea was 'mapping out' another bit of uncharted territory. Only when you've seen someone like that from a small distance, can you actually believe in their existence. Until then, they remain fictional characters. A pity such a marvellous chance to have a real monarch in my world is lost.

It was today, while making tea, that an idea that's been running around my head for a while actually shaped itself into a proper thought. I suddenly remembered the Old Days when the world, including yours truly, was young and the sky a lot further away. In that hazy past, my family (a part of it at least) had the tradition of having holidays by the Black Sea. Each summer, we'd go to this single beach, the same monuments spread amongst the grassy hills and acacias, the same gargantuan bomb holes, the same procedure of going to the seaside every morning, when it was still chilly, waiting for the heat, swimming among the wild weed and some stray jellyfish, building fortresses out of hot oblong stones that covered the area. And then there's the memory of other kids scuttling about and the magical proposition of 'Let's be friends'. Completely introductionless, it was delivered with some shyness but not the slightest hint of worry I or them have acquired by now. I guess it was a different time, different country, different world.

How I sometimes wish I could do the same now!