Literati

The family I was living with left Estonia about 6 weeks ago. The first week was AWESOME!! I was thrilled to have my privacy again.

The week after that was AWFUL!! I started climbing the walls. I called everyone I knew (like one person) to see if they wanted to hang out with me, but they were all busy.

So,I went to the Tallinn Central Library and embarked on a reading campaign. I started with The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It was amazing! No one can write like him. I feel like he was not only right there with me during my ensuing existential crisis, but fueling it at the same time. ;) Loads of good quotes have been copied down in my diary for future reference...

Then I read Sophie's Choice by William Styron. Anyone who has read this knows that it contains some heavy sociological and psychological themes that really expose human nature at it's not so finest. As sort of a serendipitous accompaniment to this book, I'm taking a course on consciousness and am reading The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness by Antonio Damasio. Before I turned the first page, I was prepared to have my mind blown. Consciousness, what we know, and how we know it, while being tasty food for thought, is also good tinder for my - you guessed it - existential crisis.

I returned Sophie's Choice and picked up Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, and what may possibly be the oldest copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass ever published (Macy's books, 1921).

Yesterday morning I read A Moveable Feast in it's entirety. It was beautifully written and, again, exposed human nature (and snobby Parisian culture) from 1921-1926 when "Hem" was in Paris writing, drinking, hanging out with Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgeral, Ezra Pound, and gambling on the horses. What he has to say about spring is really true for me as well.

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.

But, the real reason I chose to read Feast was for this sentiment about Paris that can be applied to any place that I have lived. When authors get it right, they get it right. What can I say?

There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.

Conclusion? But this is how Europe was in the early days when I was very poor and very happy.