if i may wax a moment...

Love is the single most important thing in my life. The love of family, love of friends, love of another. And there is absolutely nothing I would not do – or sacrifice – for love. I would consign myself a hundred times over to a life of mediocrity and sadness to know that someone I love truly – deeply and heartfelt – would be, from this moment forward, forever happy. I would forgo fortune and fame, turn down career and comfort for love – for all of these things are meaningless in its absence. Love is my north star, my guiding light – the strength in all my human weakness, a blanket’s warmth in coldest night. It is my only, and my all.

And with all of this in mind I know one thing with utter certainty: a life without love is a life less lived.

And how grateful now, am I, for this opportunity to travel Europe with my best friend – to sit in a park, swallowing down two and four scoops of gelato as they melt with a vengeful madness in the sun.

So happy birthday, Nina – my lovely, beautiful sister. And though this day you grow a year older, you stay – in my eyes – forever young.

before the day

It is interesting, watching a town ready herself for the day. She goes through much the same routine as a woman would in the early morning – the rubbing and scrubbing, the cleansing, the momentary self reflection, the makeup.

Hallstatt’s morning is the early spring, her working day the summer and fall, her night the end of winter. Everything seems to open on April 26 – the funicular to the salt mine, many of the larger shops and restaurants, several of the pensions. And until that time – until that hour when she must face full-force that worldly crowd of tourists and their cameras – she will beautify herself, and ready her face for the lights.

And it shows. Tractors and cranes rumble around every corner of market square – there are men with ladders and paint brushes, wheelbarrows sloshing with cement, puzzled looks and long drags on cigarettes. It all seems very hectic for this tiny, peaceful town on the edge of this pristine lake.

But perhaps the seasons weather a small town faster, and with more ferocity, than a large city. Or maybe Hallstatt is just more self conscious, more self aware – perhaps it is her constant reflection in the lake that makes her question her natural beauty.

Hallstatt should be known at all times of day – during her snow filled night, her shuffling early hours, her bustling noon. But if I had to chose – or recommend – one time to visit, I’d say come when the flowers are in bloom, and the children swim in the lake, and the paint and caulking have all since dried, and set.

But regardless of the hour – should the opportunity arise – come, by all means come, to Hallstatt.

for that which is not there

I sit here looking out on Hallstatt lake as the snow falls like a particulate curtain, draping the mountains in its fabric white, and in the distance – at the very edge of vision, peering out from behind the snow – sits a large and looming ship, weightless like a feather on the waves.

Her two masts jut out like javelins angled in earth, her sails hang modestly from the rigging; her bow – a compass point drawn by some invisible magnetism toward the horizon. A whisper thin plank leads to land where I barely make out men crossing back and forth, loading the vessel with salted pork and loaves of bread - the women standing on shore, waving.

I sit for minutes staring until my eyes turn dry, searching for any sign of movement, waiting with baited breath for the vessel to push off and begin her long and lonely voyage.

And then the snow lets up, and the mountains come into view dusted now in a soft layer of talcum, and I see that there is no ship – just a small island with two trees, the branches fanning out against the backdrop. The plank is a tiny bridge. And the men crossing back and forth do not exist, and the women waving do not exist.

A sigh escapes my lips, and I watch it press against the cold window – it, too, yearning even separate from my body. Only later does it occur to me that I am in the middle of Austria, at the edge of a lake.

And how cruel, how bitterly spiteful to have a ship built for the sea – a thing of such imagined grandness – moored, in mourning, there.

punk is not ded

There was a hint of something magical along the way. Looking out from the train I noticed that the river water was not clear or black or blue, but bright green – a greener-than-grass green, as if the thing was distilled from crushed and melted emeralds. And I thought to myself how very strange and peculiar that such a river should exist outside of a fairytale, or an illustrated children’s book.

And then we arrived in Hallstatt, and I no longer found it strange and peculiar, and I understood: this place, this Hallstatt, is a thing of the imagination – forged from a magical, childish fancy. When you close your eyes and think of the most serene, timeless place you can picture – though you may know it by a different name – you are thinking, in part and perhaps unknowingly, of Hallstatt.

The town is tragically picturesque. Soft, pastel colored buildings with lattice-work balconies and brown wooden rooftops scurry down the hillside, crowding over each other and almost toppling into the lake like giddy children running to the sea. A protestant church clings to a postcard promontory, and narrow cobbled pathways lead down narrow alleys to quaint households and tiny restaurants. And overlooking it all the mountains lay like nude bathers in a shallow pool, their thighs stretched out in the sun unabashed and bronzed.

And when it snows, and all you see is drifting white and all you hear is silence, you feel like here – in this place protected from time and trespass – you can escape anything, and never be found.

It is a wonderful feeling.

Hallstatt soundtrack: The Ramones

sorry for the bulk posting - internet is hit-or-miss here...

the seafarer

I am now a third of the way through Melville’s Moby-Dick, and it has quickly become one of my favorite novels. Melville writes with such wit and humor, and such a keenly educated, referential insight that I often find myself shaking my head in amazement. That, combined with its almost encyclopedic knowledge of whaling and the sea-faring life, both of which are completely foreign to me, makes the book hard to set down.

But more than that, I like the white whale as a metaphor for life and the artist’s aspirations, and for love. The Pequod’s journey is one I think all of us can relate to on some level – and just as she is populated with a crew of contrasting characters so too do we each handle the journey differently. We each search – and some of us are fortunate enough to find.

I look out now from the train to Hallstatt – book in hand – onto rolling green and brown hills, rising and falling like the swells of some great earthen sea. And I sit here, a mast-hand at his post, looking out for any break in the surf. The skies darken briefly and the soft ebb and flow grows thrashing mad and violent, and suddenly the Alps tower above the horizon, their foam-tipped waves smashing against the earth, the spray jetting upward to form the clouds. I watch it all with a keen eye.

And I wonder what it is exactly that I am looking for, and if I find it – or spot it slowly diving in the distance, out of reach but accessible on a strong wind – will I recognize the thing for what it is, and accept it and sing it out, or look to the next patch of sea? Is there, then, a great white whale that I hunt? And if so – do I chase it with the madness maddened of Ahab, or Starbuck’s bitter hesitation?

Or with a chuckle, like Stubb?

i'm sad to say...

Vienna did not strike me as I thought it would. I expected the city to fill me with poetry, to capacity and overflowing – this the city of Mozart, of such immense tradition and culture, of art and opera. But it did not. Walking the city I felt very little at all. The streets were so very wide, everything so distantly spaced that I felt like I was walking through a museum, staring at old buildings as if they were artifacts behind velvet rope or glass casing. The city felt, to me, very inaccessible – so grand and opulent, so regal and out of reach – so much so that I tried not to cough for fear of disturbing something nestled in a divine equilibrium.

Which is not to say there was a shortage of activity – our two days in Vienna were amazing, and packed to the brim. I saw wonderful exhibits of Bruegel and Arcimboldo at the Kuntshistoriches Museum. I learned about the Empress Elisabeth – she who found comfort only in the shadows, and so became the shadow. I walked the Naschmarket and tried all sorts of food and wine, and marveled at the strong Turkish influence on the city – then pushed my way through the throngs at the flea-market. I watched Ariadne auf Naxos from the standing room only section at the Vienna state opera house, and closed my eyes every few minutes just to hear. I wandered into an anti-EU demonstration. I walked for miles without aching.

Everything was there to make me fall utterly, completely, irretrievably head-over-heels in love with the place - but still the city did not speak to me.

And so Vienna… Wien – we had fun, and you are a lovely city with so much to offer, but I don’t think it will work out between us.

It’s not you, Vienna – it’s me.


Vienna soundtrack – The Rolling Stones

to everything - turn turn turn

Long train rides fill me with a certain melancholy. They are times of introspection, of reflection on the things that I have done, the decisions I have made. Reflection on who I am as a person and who I wish myself to be. We are none of us perfect, that is certain – and when faced with our greatest fear we are all vulnerable, and naked. It is not a time of confession for me – I do not believe in sin, only human faltering. Human misunderstanding. Human miscommunication. These long train rides are more of a cleansing – a dusting off, a shaking of the sheets. I find it helps me breath better.

Regret is perhaps the one thing I fear above all else – I would rather not have it in my life. I have tried to live without it, and have acted to shield myself from it. Perhaps because of this I tend to dwell on things and over-analyze situations, perhaps because of this I am more cautious in my ways. I don’t know – but this way has brought me here, and I am happy with the view.

I think back on all the friends I’ve had, their faces reflected in the window some sharper than others. I think back on all the women I’ve known, and remember their touch some softer than others. I think back on some of the pain I’ve caused people, and some of the joy. I grimace at times – at times I smile.

And again I feel that heaviness of time like an iron shawl around my shoulders, pressing. I look from the window and see things passing by. I see all the streets I will never walk, look through windows into rooms I will never pace. There is a park I will never run, there a café in which I will never write. They are silly thoughts, I know – pointless. But still they haunt me.

Then the train pulls into the station, and I close my eyes and breathe in deeply and feel that much lighter.

And the doors open. And I step outside.