These free-writings try to lift the constraint of artificially sticking to one language. Most of my days traverse language zones as I metro around the city (home, work, play). I am confronted by and interact in so many different languages that often at this raw, unconsidered subconscious level of writing the words emerge in strange mixture. I teach in English (International British); debate with Americans(USA English) or Russians (Russified - IE - academic); Soviet music; lsiten to modern Russian music in English; American Rock'n'Roll sung by Russians; shop and make small talk in Russian; passively half listen to Russian street conversation read/study the Russian advertisements especially on the metro; speak to real British with their genuine undiluted accent and vernacular on skype; read Russian books in English translation; struggle with smatterings of HUngarian; read French classics; chat in French; write in French and of course write in my own amalgamation of Anglo-Saxon English and things I mistake for it or wish to graft onto it.
It is interesting to see which words are so ubiquitous or so potent that I think of them first in a second language. Then, some words such as 'кошка' (female cat) seem to provide a meaning the English word doesn't. A кошка' just isn't a cat.
Sea of Soda
White Nighties
Russia is the summer madness when the white nights degouline into the crevices of your dusha. They creep some-how through beautiful bright eyes, the ways facilitated by the clear delination of eyeliner yet when the eyeliner is not clear, when the rain spreads, the madness is slower and dispersed. Then the men wandering the streets have a calmer experience of those white nights.
In a white nightie you may create your own white night ; glowing and spreading the whiteness, and that is why Matrushka bought the nightie that seemed to be illuminated from inside. It was better than a torch. The effect wasn't chemical. It was a sort of enchantment which came from the soul. From the soul of the woman who wore it in the dark room, in the dark basement in the smallest room of the communalka. She yearned so strongly for the light, in her room of walled shadowed night, that the nightie glowed when she surrendered it by death to the charity shop and the little white slippers glowed too. She fell into the Neva , running along the electricity path of the of bridges up to the kindred spirit of the Summer sky which like her was afraid to turn it's light off at night. Some said they only saw the leap and they didn't see her fall in. She must have been led to the sky, to the light by the magic of the white nights. It couldn't have led into the deep dark of the water. That would have been a tragedy.
Koshka
There was no question or hesitation about that drop of soleil fallen onto the plancher below and who cared if the soleil was melting and the кошка' with its’ svelte ‘Deep Purple’Tm coat was prowling sincerely along the edges of the boat? The mermaid disapproved clearly. No question about that. And wanted to pull the writhing girls into the water. The flowers n’en pouvaient plus and drooped or fluttered their heads in exhaustion, without a touch of exaltation. I wanted to ask a question but I couldn’t. I wanted to run but I shouldn’t and then I did. I leapt and the coffee shop floated towards me across the waves to save me from the fizzy mess below - the sea of soda that America created - such an original invention at the time - and sneakered millionaires who read Charlie and the Chocolate factory are wont to invent such things. And I do not care, really. Merely a question and the rest is conjecture and menstrual adaptations in the луна. No cats today.
