the end

"и если кто-то снова вдруг проникнуть попытается

в страну чудес волшебную в красивом добром сне, -

то даже то, что кажется, что только представляется,

найдет в своей загадочной и сказочной стране."

life lessons for snails

i found that if i carefully iron every article of clothing, they take up almost half of the space than they normally would in my suitcase.  my mom took away my newly acquired books, but i somehow managed to acquire more, and now my baggage is not light, although quite compact. i dragged my suitcase through the rain to g.'s flat yesterday, and on the way a nice young man named petr dragged it for me for a few blocks.  my flight to london is in a few hours.  

"this is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me..."  i am immeasurably sad to leave this magical land.  i have lived here for almost half a year,  and i can feel the beginnings of czechophilia blossoming inside.  i don't know what it is about this culture and these people that is so magnetic to me:  the czechs love their dogs more than life itself, and cynics beware during a walk in the park: one glance at the young dads playing with their kids, and images of marriage, children, a cute little house with a rose garden and everything you previously gagged at the very idea of begin to play in your head against your will.  the language is a mouthful of ř and ž sounds, and the word "tak" is the czech equivalent of "like" in terms of frequency of use, and you have to stand in line at the library to return your books, and if anyone can make socks and sandals look normal and i daresay even sexy, it's the czechs.  prague is my star.  i have dreamed of this city since my first visit.  i was sixteen then, and i made a wish to someday return to live and study here, and now i see that my wish was actually a promise, and a goal that i subconsciously worked toward.

with the knowledge that my time here is limited, i found motivation to fill every day with interesting activities, and to expect magic and fancy from everything around me, and it really works, i began to see it everywhere.  writing about it gave me the initiative to continue.  i thought a  lot about how i can apply these methods to my daily life, because i don't want my happiness to end here; on the contrary, i know now that it is in my power to live this way wherever i may be.  i like the idea of going far away in order to find myself.  and suddenly remembering my childhood in places i had never been before, triggered by the smell of linden trees or the sight of clothes drying on a balcony.  as milan kundera wrote, "whoever wishes to remember must not stay in one place, waiting for the memories to come of their own accord! memories are scattered all over the immense world, and it takes voyaging to find them and make them leave their refuge!"  

as for magical sweater czech, what started as an amusing game turned into a serious wild sheep chase, with too much needless fuss, but the real regret would have been not having tried at all.  and anyway it seems like this is the beginning of something rather than the end.  in writing i can explain to him what i couldn't say in person, partly because it makes no sense, but mostly because i didn't have a dictionary nearby.  i am naive and dreamy and slow to accept life's lessons.  i always thought that if i only applied myself a little more in certain spheres of my life, everything would turn out as i wanted, but now i find that i can miss the mark even if i really really try.  and nothing is what it appears to be, and even the most seemingly solid elephant can vanish without notice or explanation.

but i suppose this is the whole point.  if everything went smoothly and good luck spoiled me even more than it already does and there were no false doors, no missteps, no painful impossibilities,  no laughable loves, and nothing to cry a pool of tears over, then i would have nothing to draw.  sometimes i will find myself in the middle of a bright yellow field, at the crest of simple and pure happiness, and sometimes be reduced to a silly little thing on the verge of tears, picturing myself abandoned by the world.  i wonder if i will always be so impressionable.

i was also lucky enough to meet so many wonderful people, many of whom i know i will meet again.  i am glad that they all left one by one, starting a month ago; all at once would have been too difficult to handle.  i can leave the way i came. 

i know that it won't be long before wanderlust sweeps over me again, but for now, i think i have had enough.  i miss my friends and my family, home food, school, and everything around being in english, and understanding what is being said.  thanks so much to all of you who have been reading along, close friends, family, and people i had never met before; i hope you were all able to find something that interested you.  thank you also for all of the letters and postcards that i received in the mail;  they brightened many moments of self-doubt.  if you should like to stay with me, i will of course still be on my illustration blog, for which i have big plans and where i promise to appear with greater frequency.  until then, čau!

"ах, как опаздываю я - почти что на день целый!"

i am rather proud of this photograph, which i took on the tram a couple of days ago.   i had to be discreet about it, which is difficult when you are sitting across from the person, but he looked at me at just the right moment.  

the first of july gives me a sense of closure before i snap back.  this is the part where i begin to grow, taller, taller, until i can hold everyone and everything in my hands.  "you're nothing but a pack of cards!" i find it difficult to believe that five months just swam past, taking me along with them.   soon it will all have been just a yellow dream.