S.A.D.

S.A.D. means 'seasonal affective disorder', a type of winter depression that affects half a million people every winter between September and April. Hey, at least they can explain all these problems now, listen how the SAD Association is describing it: lethargy, overeating, apathy, loss of feelings, anxiety, mood changes, vulnerability to infections and viruses...Yay! I feel half cured already :) My fellow countrymen should be able to relate to the description above. Listen on: "SAD symptoms disappear in Spring... (and) are extremely rare in those living within 30 degrees of the Equator".

By the way, i need to clarify one common misunderstanding about me. Most people seem to think that i truly am this happy-go-lucky person who is always around to make others laugh. A friend wrote me some time ago: "I'm usually happy. The funny thing is, I'm sometimes happy even when I'm sad. My sadness usually has nothing bitter about it- it's just there, and it's ok."

Me, i'm the opposite. Even when i'm happy, there is always some sadness so deep inside that you never get to the source of it. My friends - they get confused when Dr Jekyll turns into Mr Hyde and they start telling me to stop the nonsense and return to my playful self :)

Ok my dears, let's face it. Look at the design of my blog. Look at the images i use, even the poems i chose, for god's sake :) Doesn't it scream "melancholy" all over? Truth is, it's always going to be a rollercoaster with me. One day on top of the world, the next looking into the abyss.

The reason why i'm talking about it? I actually want to thank someone. Last week i did something that was hard but needed to be done. I had postponed the decision long enough, but it was inevitable to face it. So i did it and shared my news with friends who were all really nice and supportive, much like the way they always are. But it didn't make me feel any better. Finally there was one who, after hearing my story asked right away: Why? And are you ok now?

I wasn't ok. But later i was again. Thank you - you know who you are - for giving me the opportunity to explain. It meant a lot to me :) Talk to you later, got to go pack my swimsuit now.

Wonderful discoveries

To be honest, when i started this blog thanks to my wonderful friend Bettina, i first suspected i would be rambling about things only to my own eyes and nobody else would pay any attention to it. Apparently i was mistaken and i am truly thankful to Aggie who first found me :) Her sharp and irresistibly funny blog is definitely worth coming back to again and again.

Now i have managed to infect Rita too, feeling really humble about my own blog at the moment... read for yourselves and found out why. The picture below is to added to celebrate her joining us fellow bloggers :)

More to come, so stay tuned - hopefully Bettina will give me permission to link her blog here, as well as Lav whose writing skills are something i cannot compete with, and some more friends who have promised to take up blogging... (yes, you!). I'm waiting in anticipation.

Little addition here, they did :) Look for their blogs under the links in the sidebar and happy reading.

Taken through the airport window as i was leaving the place i always, always miss when i'm away...

Home sweet home

When something goes up, it must come down. Perhaps a simple pendulum effect that has to bring you down from the heights sooner or later (usually sooner)?

Last night i was completely under the spell of a magical waltz. This morning on my way to the office, still carrying a smile on my face, i saw a police car standing on the sidewalk in front of this old decayed building. As i tried to squeeze myself through the wall and the car, i overheard one officer calling the forensics: will you please come to this address, here's a female corpse that has been identified... Bloody hell! My heart jumped.

At the moments like this people prove to be truly selfish, don't we? I was deeply disturbed, but not because of the poor woman lying there who probably had a family and things to do in life, i was worried about myself and trying to fight this creepy feeling that i will have from now on whenever i have to pass by that house again. I don't even know whether she died of an illness, alcohol/drug overdose (very likely) or was killed (also likely in this neighbourhood), but whatever happened, it's a miserable way to go.

Under a spell

I was heading home from work today. So tired, so hungry, aiming only at getting there as quickly as possible. As i was getting closer to the central train station that i have to pass by, i heard music. Most surprising in a place like this. Not street musicians - you can't find them here in the middle of the winter anyway. No. And there were lights...

Everything was different and i had to stop and look for the source of it all. There is this old pond surrounding the walls of the Old Town, an abandoned and gloomy place at night, but today everything was different. A Strauss waltz playing, lamps covering the trees surrounding the pond.

There were people skating. For a while i just stood there, absolutely enchanted by what was going on in front of my eyes. It was a fairytale and yet so real. Human mind is a funny thing, all my worries seemed so far away and i felt like going back in time, to some different era, to an entirely different atmosphere. I knew where i was, i was inside the story of Silver Skates that i read when i was maybe seven years old. The pond was not a pond at all, it had turned into a canal now and i had gone to Holland, 150 years back in time.

I smiled and people who passed by looked at me with a question reflecting from their faces. Can't one be happy just because there is music, lights and a little miracle on the way home? You have no idea, i thought looking at them, but all this is here only because i needed this. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find it all vanished tomorrow, but it doesn't matter. What matters is now.

After a while i felt recharged again. I closed my eyes for the last time, quietly hummed along with On the Beautiful Blue Danube while it played. Then i turned away and came home, smiling.

And spring doesn't seem that far away anymore :)

Typical female masochism as a friend would say

REQUIEM, 7.
Anna Akhmatova, 1939
И упало каменное слово
На мою еще живую грудь.
Ничего, ведь я была готова,
Справлюсь с этим как-нибудь.

У меня сегодня много дела:
Надо память до конца убить,
Надо, чтоб душа окаменела,
Надо снова научиться жить.


ÜLE KURISTIKU
Doris Kareva
Ma ütlen: armastus. See pole vale.
Kui tahad kuulda, tule lähemale.
Kui tahad tunda, tule päris ligi.
Kuid rohkem ma ei ütle ometigi.
Ma ütlen: armastus. Ja kõik on öeldud,

Mis? Ma ei kuule hästi, mis sa küsid.
Jah, kõik võib olla. Jah. Võib-olla möödub.
Kuid imelik, et ta nii kaua püsib.


AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE
William Blake
/--/

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,

Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

If you are not thoroughly confused, you have not been thoroughly informed

Yesterday's lesson No 1

When you have absolutely nothing to do on Valentine's Day (besides work, but that would be so pathetic), go see a fortune teller. I'll be doing it every year from now on, beats most awkward and uncomfortable dates, that's for sure.

Yesterday's lesson No 2

No matter how hard you try to catch a fortune teller from talking nonsense, it won't happen. The more you try, the more they make sense.

Yesterday's lesson No 3
In a way, i already knew everything that she told me. But how could she have known? Is my life really that predictable? And does that mean now that i really have to face the things that have been on my mind for a long time?
I didn't think i was going to have my whole life figured out after seeing the fortune teller, but neither could i imagine i'd be more confused than ever.
I must be thoroughly informed now.

My very own wonderland

Down, down, down.

Would the fall never come to an end? "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud. "I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think-" (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) "-- yes that's about the right distance -- but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?"