21:30

Enveloped in the elders of the islands and assisted by melatonin, I enter my happy place, hearing the gentle trickle of evening sea waves and the wind brush through the forests, whispering “The moon is coming, the moon is coming, we must tell the queen earth.” Like le petit prince, I sit atop a home asteroid, one that took a bit of climbing if you are blessed with satyr’s limbs. I don’t spill my coffee (kreemi- ja mesiga), not a drop, although the rock probably wishes it could have a bit of caffeine to stay on guard through the night.

I face the waters, calm yet still forbidding, look-but-don’t touch in their lackadaisical collision into the ground. The silence is uncanny, you hear nothing but the wind and water; you feel tempted to create a motion picture soundtrack, but your nerve will fail you in the end. There is no ethereal score for a moment like this. The landscape will provide you plenty of music without the need for earworms.

Around 9:30 pm, I see another soul in the distance, walking from the old spa towards my way. She walks with an andante pace, creating squiggly fumes of steam from her energy. The fumes create pictures in the sky, giving me the urge, like Pille-Riin, to ask the sky to draw a dog or cat. I sit puzzled, a smile on my face, and breathe calmly.

I later realize that it is not her creating it, but from a mug of tea, for she does not like coffee. She comes around the curve, and I slowly slide down my little B612 to greet her.

“Noh, tere-tere!” I say.

“Sau…kuidas läheb?”

“Hästi, aga sina?”

“Aaa…pole viga,” she says with a tired smile on her face.

“Want to join me?” I ask. She smiles and nods yes. I climb up and help her follow suit. Clacking our SuperBox cups together, we give a quiet ‘terviseks’ for good measure.

We sit there until dark, venerating the rock like an icon for the ages. And thus the night begins, blanketing us in tranquility with moss for a pillow. My prayer rope descends from my hands and to my side. And I say to her, ‘Goodbye, good night.’

She turns around and says ‘There is no goodbye here, only an ‘Until later’…” Therefore, the cycle continues….

high wind warning

coffee and water down

fight the high wind

and synthetic heat

speaks like Kerouac

laughs like a banshee

don’t talk to me,

the bourgeois are coming

down the bend

in honor of 9 February 2007

I woke up at 4 am that morning, ready to take on the new day. 

In a society like my native ground, this is entirely possible. But in waking up, I soon realized that I am not at home…this is not my bed, but it is tonight. The sky is navy blue, the street lights that faded amber, and the snow is a coat waiting to make you joyful and wishing you were dead for having to walk through it. But because it is early, your face is protected by a necessity to have to watch the telly to kill time. 

I fell asleep to biathlon and woke up to John Lee Hooker’s “Boom-Boom” and Enya’s “Amarantine,” ferociously requested even in the wee hours of the Tallinn morning. I could barely get my computer to work because of the battery messing up with the new voltage, leaving a potential source of entertainment out of the picture. All of a sudden, All in the Family, with Finnish subtitles, shows up. Archie doesn’t know how to make a Harvey Wallbanger.

Finally, breakfast comes around, and I accidentally put kefir in my coffee. It was perfect otherwise…a foretaste of feasts to come. I freeze walking to Rimi to buy supplies, none of which are to be found and none of which is accessible in English. I never really learned the phrase for “voltage adapter,” but I figured words like “help,” “crap,” and “orange juice” were a bit more vital. Welcome to the morning.

I take a cab to the bus, where I lie and tell the cabbie I’m Canadian because I’m, at the time, afraid of my nationality and ashamed of my nation. He never says anything that displayed skepticism…he takes the bag out of the trunk of the Mercedes (which I would never envision as a taxicab) and I go into the bus station. Too edgy to sit inside, I brave the bitter cold and sit on the bench, risking frostbite to know that that bus will be nearer to me very soon. 

An Asian man sits next to me. I don’t speak to him for a while, but when the bus finally comes (platform 9, I think?), we sit together. His name was Joseph. Singaporean, teaching in the MBA program. He and I sat and talked while I read Dilbert and Zits in Estonian and did a sudoku, finally something that requires no language skills.

 

The bus windows reveal a flat, snowy prairie, like Point Township after a bad storm. There are no towns to pass through, only villages with a school and a bar. Occasionally, it stops for passengers, many who are literally standing in the middle of nowhere, alone. I wonder what that feeling is like.

Joseph and I part ways at the bus station, then magically bump into each other. I say I am taking a cab or walking to the hostel, and his ride says “no way.” All of a sudden, I’m riding in a BMW wagon with no recollection of where I am. I just remember the Kaubamaja. Go figure…

eight-month stipends, twelve-month leases, three-month sessions

why don’t i tinker and play music while I’m at it?

the months are short, but the loans are long

drawn out like dali’s dreams

headlong,

they feel the winds of change 

a wind screaming like banshees

longing for a place

to establish their over-sprouted roots:

can one establish a baseline

by in vitro domestication?

or is it simply too much to ask

for a home to be

exactly that….