Hello Berlin ~ November & December 2013

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Hello Berlin,

Thank you for welcoming me into your natural community of happy & creative people enjoying a relaxed and productive art life, day & night (mostly night :)).  Winter has announced itself in your neighborhoods with frosty cobblestones, red noses, and snowflakes over Christmas markets warmed with mulled tea…  Although people say the summer is your greatest delight, Berlin, you manage the nocturnal season inventively, as ever, by turning the problem in its head: your countless nameless cafes, bars and venues glowing by candlelight all day & night invite me & my neighbors to enjoy hibernation in homey spaces outside our homes, to meet new friends and just relax into richer, clearer thinking & creativity for artistic work.  My days & nights are filled drawing & dancing, exploring tiny galleries & venues, walking the city & discovering the neighborhoods, writing creatively and professionally, running & practicing new martial arts, visiting Christmas markets & botanical

gardens, wandering museums & writing letters, eating falafel & pickled cabbage & spice cookies & baklava, meeting interesting people, finding the unexpected, wondering when I can return here…  Thanks to friends & friends of friends from Australia & Japan, I’ve met and am living with great folks here, once again. 

Berlin, I feel and love your history rolling under every step, seeping through my boots.  I remember the cold December in 1989 when my 12-year old self would collect the newspaper from our snowy front porch in Connecticut and my Mom talked with me daily about the Berlin Wall falling, change taking tangible form in stone & space from the amorphous Cold War sense I perceived growing up, here a city embodying such ideas, such change in hand.  My adult self has heard about artists and alternative people coming into Berlin's cheap vacated eastern corners in the decades after the Wall’s fall, and my traveling self has met amazingly interesting people of all ages from Berlin, with a sense of their life being in their hands, a willingness to take a risk to explore and turn over a new rock.  Today, artists everywhere know Berlin is a mecca, and fun & cheap to live well.
  I had to come have a look myself – 1 month to get a taste, turn over this rock with my own hand.  I’ve never experienced such a mixture of weighty history and dynamic present in each footfall.  

As I walk your straßes, I think of all they've seen through their history.  To me cityscapes are portraits that reveal the shape of our lives in our brows and lips; here in Berlin I see your body is strong, elegantly unassuming, enduring and supporting the change that animates.  Quiet buildings, graceful with the gentle crest of a small portico, a simple archway over a deco door, modestly curving iron balconies tucked in the side.   Cobblestone footpaths, cobblestone roads – 7 different pattern step across my walk – polished under generations walking powerful changes.  These are brave, strong smooth stones you have here.  And you always make room for dog poo on the edge – no German meticulousness for you, Berlin – this is a free place, for humans & dogs. 

One of the freest places I’ve ever been, I feel in the air around me, and coming through my boots. Misty

darkening straßes, following a waving strip thrown by streetlights on shiny cobbles, are charming… but any city walker is easily drawn to your real story: the people who light the candles (and cigarettes) inside, whose shoes polish the stones on the streets. Days go to bed early now, pulling dim covers up by 15:30, letting your real friend – nighttime – out to play extra long. 

The “edge” of creative experimental neighborhoods evolves quickly for you here, Berlin; I’m told & I feel that the most dynamic blocks & venues rotate throughout the city month by month, year by year.  Bars & galleries open & close every day on the interesting edge.  Somehow I ended up right in the most interesting edge, half a block from the most dynamic street in the most dynamic neighborhood in the most

dynamic Berlin (lucky again!).  By next year it will all be different, surely.  Your social spaces also are famously nebulous, Berlin – most of your venues have no name or sign posted, and fit no category: they’re galleries, bars, creative spaces, cafes, performance venues, studios all rolled into one, on nearly every block .  It fits for the people, who are generally free of classification: your inhabitants are international people, immigrants and artists, musicians & writers, students & freelancers doing interesting creative things with our own time, with richer & more efficient energy.  We appreciate that you’re famously affordable living – flats & food & fun -- are all accessible.  Everyone can find a place here. 

Cold straßes dotted with glowing windows invite the walker in, behind the glass, where candles wave over

quietly talking faces, shoulders unroll and knees lean against small tables and easy chairs, misting the windows with human warmth.  It’s easy to wander in and say hello, share a story, make a friend and start a journey.   Candles and cigarettes, cigarettes and candles, candles and cigarettes.  Musicians pop in from the street, wander from bar to bar with gypsy jazz horns, guitars, harmonicas, fiddles & tambourines, passing the
hat on their way home.  Good beer, and cheap.  Cheaper than water, in fact.  Good music all night.

There is something absolutely unique about your creative culture, dear Berlin, and I sense it comes from your history.  Here, living an artistic alternative life is underpinned with a sense of gritty urgency; Berlinners know – like maybe no one else on earth – that the

freedom of mind & lifestyle embodied in an artistic life is essential, carries a weight that we fight for.  Artsits & writers & playmakers here are not hedonistic – we are living an imperative, and we feel it under our boots, in the streets where walls once stood, on the cobbles walked by generations living lives.  Those 7 layers of cobbles follow the line of the former Wall, weaving our present steps with past.  Berlin is an urban embodiment of political, philosophical, ideological, cultural edge, and living an art life is the next step out on that edge.  

And, on a different visceral note, sweet Berlin, no love- note to you would be complete without thanks for your falafel & baklava, and their warm creators.  Fortunately, amazing Turkish food spots still outnumber hipster bars in your warrens (of course, this is how the real hip folks know we’re in the right space).  My first meal here sealed the deal: Al-Andalous café is lit by
candles and kind smiles, where I have a delicious feast several times a week for 2.50 Euros (including my Thanksgiving feast - that was 4E!).  The gentlemen who run this cheerful & delicious restaurant cheer when they see me, “Madamoiselle!  Hello!  Falafel?”  They wink and pop the falafel hot out of the pot, rolled with mint and pickles, tziki and hommous, peppers and extra love.

Warming at your bars and venues, I notice that people are not here to relax – because our days & nights aren’t frenetically busy or debilitating stressful – instead, we’re here to be together and enjoy company, see or experience something new.  I can see it in the relaxed posture, calm voices, soft eyes

of the people next to me, and in my own.

I look forward to saying hello to you again in the not-too-distant future, Berlin… Maybe for a productive & fun summer working at one of the city’s amazing art print studios, connecting with new & old friends here, discovering something new, and enjoying the moving wave of your dynamic evolving life… as my own. 

Petersburg Waking Life ~ October 9 - November 15, 2013

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9 October – 15 November 2013

I arrived in Petersburg with precious mud on my boots. Two months in Siberia and small towns of Western Russia had fallen me in love with this mysterious country. And ahead of me: five delicious weeks living in Petersburg. I had been dreaming for over a year of living in Petersburg, working as an artist and having a short home in Russia, in one of the most fascinating cultural capitals of the world. And really, Petersburg folded me into its quiet sharp style and cracked open a new stage in my awareness and creative life. Russia is a special place in my world; I know this is only my first visit, the one I will look back to as the eager love of first discovery, full of raw ups and downs, hesitant and shaky at points, addictively pure.

Some fragments of my Petersburg dream for dipping in the common bowl:

Lacy iron bridges wing over canals, inking wavey lines around the city’s heart, to the Neva. “Neva”, river, such a beautiful sound over my tongue...

Along Nevsky, though the parks, in the curving lanes: trimly wrapped figures striding – ladies in high black boots and smart coats slimly belted, men in high black jackets where their hands plunge deep in pockets – moving firm and fast beneath streetlamps, griffins, angels, and iron athletes haunting every bridge, alive in their own world a step beyond, timeless and cold in the blood.

Clear autumn days, misty rainy spells, luminous nights, heavy winter lurks ahead. This city is not afraid of the cold, its will of steel is warm indoors, where the temperature is high and teeth show in easy laughter and smiles too bold for streetwear.

The big window in my Petersburg room looks onto foresty Park Pobedy – Victory Park where I walk twice a day to and from the metro, running laps around on the weekends, watching golden autumn leaves blow over to glistening frosty canopies, muddy footpaths beautiful enough to make me happy to clean my own black boots daily. A plate of country apples fragrant in the musky homey air.
Nabokov, Pushkin, & Gogol at the end of my bed are lit by stained glass globes and the dull mysterious shine of old gilt wallpaper, dusty fur skins rippling out toward four paws, ceramic mermaids and bears dancing through ceramic countryscapes into my dreams. The moon fell in through this big window, opening the door to my dream eyes. Through this door, my walking life felt as a dream, as the whole city and its denizens.

Live Petersburg energy murmurs around the clock, not bothering with foreign notions of “day” or “night”. The memory of white nights blinds out ideas of prescribed sleeping time. There is more energy here in the wee hours, and the
possibility of anything, anytime.

Shimmering, as Nabokov writes, “behind the eyelids”, illusory, elusive, murmuring in the streetlight - the city’s mirage vibrates in that untouchable air above the canals, between the bridges and footpaths, streetlamps and sculptures, business people and grandmothers, young stylish women and ambling students, gliding through their choreographed waltz on the footpaths…

Art life every single day in Petersburg – 6 or 8 hours a day, falling into my page and working out the shapes that rise in my mind and eyes, slinking about the museums, thinking and dreaming about art on the subway.  Drawing a city in winter is a good old challenge. Lost in these reveries of line, my consciousness knocks after a couple of frigid hours on a bridge, my paw frozen around my drawing pad, the buildings and sculptures around me coming through graphite gestures on the thick rag paper. I unbuckle my legs, pushing my pencils into my bag with clumsy joints, hobbling to refuge in the blini shop, tea café, or cafeteria where I can thaw and work in the drawing for more hours by candlelight and a long pot of tea.

In the Russian Museum I stand gaping with my sketchbook for full days in front of paintings of peasant ladies laughing and Byzantine icons – all bold and graphic gilt gold, poppy red, emerald green, solar white, and thick soot black, defined with strong halo lines. This style speaks to me, and makes the subjects strong, earthy, and otherworldly at once. I am the very last patron to be chased out of the museum, packing my erasers and winding up my floral scarf as the babushka docents roll their eyes and smile me through the exit.

Russia made me a better artist, and I have precious little on paper to prove it. Despite daily drawing and painting, I developed more questions and deeper realization about my art than work that quickly satisfied. Taking time to understand what I really have to say about this unique and complex land and culture through images, and working out what style and medium best express this…these are the right questions for me to be working over. This story is very different from Australia, for sure. The tools & style presently in my pack need to be reinvented for Russia. Here is a big reason I’m excited to return soon, to work the art through to a deeper step. Feels worthwhile to work it out – the imprint on me from Russia is strong and open-ended; I would love to explore and tell this story visually.

The Russian alphabet’s curves and architecture mesmerizes me, making it fun to be a child sounding out words on streetsigns, advertisements and menus. I remember my first days in Russia when I sat on the train with my small vocabulary notebook, quizzing myself on the Russian alphabet in the sideways Siberian summer light on the chrome train table… Now I have a few hundred words, I can often figure out the big ideas when I listen, but I have a hunger for language here.

Treasuring the elegant-sounding rouble , watching mine carefully, and appreciating the socially gracious traditional of low-cost and good value caffeterias with lots of good fresh food and quick service for working people, I stood in line at my favorite cafeteria in Petersburg…at least once a day. pick up my brown tray, fork and spoon, ask in my squeaky awkward Russian for my favorite bowls of fresh salads (cabbage, cucumber, tomato, carrot, beetroot, pickles) borscht, and sometimes a fruit compote or apricot slice, and exchange a simple conversation about roubles and a smile with the dark haired girl at the register, and enjoy my meal by candlelight. Since I never paid more than 120 roubles for a good meal in Petersburg, this life feels sustainable for working people…although I haven’t had a chance to discuss this with the girl at the register...

Friends I made in Petersburg: neighbors & flatmates, artists & writers, international travelers & locals… Vladimir, an accomplished artist and friend of Seva’s father, takes me to the museums four times, teaching me about the great masters through the ages, his grey whisps and my red braid blowing the breeze of great art. Lovely Masha and her son take me on a contemporary art gallery romp, and for spaghetti at their flat where candles lit our dreamy chatter and
the easels and canvasses of a gentle Mom-son team who thrive on art & dreams. Olga and Albert befriend me in a cool bar and take me to local international events, films, bars; share good books and professional research and publishing projects; and instruct me in vodka-drinking methodology. Tanja, Slava, & their son Leo share some fun nights of constant bi-lingual laughter and teach me Russian with the help of one great simultaneous translator (Tanja), one hilarious & unabashedly friendly humorist (Slava), one small Russian Michael Jackson (Leo), and plenty of good-humored Russian cake & boxed wine. My faltmates and I came and went with smiles and helping hands, co-existing kindly; the girls at my favorite cafes chat with me day in and day out; the modest kind acquaintances of daily life give me place and home here.

Petersburg – all of Russia – is still a wonderful mystery to me (I’m sure this is why I’m so captivated in love with it still…). I came to Russia because I know this country is a simple question mark to so many Americans – the kind of mystery from scarce clear shared information or practical mutual experience or proximity. Traveling through Siberia and living in Petersburg, I feel and see the richness of Russian culture and I discover that, to my perception, the Russian soul treasures a mystery… rich enigma beats in the heart, contrasts that do not need to be reconciled are in the air we breathe, mystery living in the fresh mist. We relish the shimmering surreality, where dream life and waking life are quietly married.

I will see you again soon Russia. To be honest I’m so sad to leave… Russia doesn’t feel like “home” to me, but rather a country I want and need to explore more, to weave out my own story and curiousity. In my dream, next time I will have learned some real Russian to have a conversation with the ladies in the market and the families on the train; I will have worked forward in my art and writing about Russia to tell some of the stories I discover; I will have read Pushkin and Gogol

and Nabokov again and again to know and feel their poetry more than a fleeting romance; I will navigate my way even further into Siberia and Petersburg to see new lives and layer under my first fascination. There are birch forests to watch deep in snow some winter, Petersburg bridges to paint under midnight sun some summer, conversations to engage and portraits to capture in small towns, a vast deep land to explore and a magical city to taste again on future pages…

Spacibo Russia ~ Wide Western Russia to Gorgeous St. Pete - September & October 2013

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For those joining my Dad in GoogleEarth questing, my path has been a gorgeous one that I
recommend to any adventurer via rail or desktop. My footprints can be found at all of the following, connected by absolutely delightful local rail journeys including many overnighters. Can’t wait to travel this way again…and again!

Vladivostok (3 days)
Khabarovsk (3 days)
Irkutsk (3 days)
Baikal & Olkhon Island (7 days)
(back to Irkutsk for 2 days)
Ulan Ude (4 days)
into Mongolia, Ulan Bataar (3 days) & national parks in surrounding steppe (3 days)
(back to Ulan Ude for 2 days)
Krasnoyarsk (4 days)
Kazan (5 days)
Yekaterinburg (3 days)
Nizhny-Novgorod (3 days)
Suzdal (7 days)
Moscow (5 days)
Yaroslavl (2 days)
Rostov-Yaroslavski (2 days)
(back to Moscow for 1 day)
St. Petersburg (35 days!)


Some sketches since last Travel Shoes entry…

Kazan, a city of many cultures and faiths, a peaceful & rich environment. Kazan’s central kremlin includes: an Orthodox church which certainly descended from the sky, all creamy and light with white swirling arches, full blue drops, and luminous gold stars; across the small square from a palatial mosque with cheerful blue pencil points to the heavens and serious crystal inside; facing between
them the leaning tower of a medieval monastery and the state offices of this capital of the Tatar Republic (the richest republic in Russia, rubles from oil); all protected in a friendly little enclave by medieval fortress walls overlooking the rest of the lovely city.

In other devoted practice, Kazan is the “sports capital” of Russia. Polished for the prestigious Universidad Sports Expo 2013, the city center was sparkling with fresh pastel edifaces, manicured flower beds, and snappy looking folk (vagabonds removed prior to games).

I stayed at a beautiful, fun, homey hostel where I really relaxed, met new friends, and got good tips to enjoy the city.

For instance, I discovered the “anti-café”, a Russian concept which has spread to the major cities – hidden in cool loft-spaces in the city center without advertising, these are beautifully inviting & comfortable creative spaces where patrons pay for time – 1 ruble per minute (about $2/hour) – and can enjoy as much tea, coffee, cookies, and their own byo food as they want, with evening events like game night, open mic, performance art, gallery, language circles, etc. NPR got on to this gig My favorite “Clockface” has a fun website - This anti-café space was fascinating & powerful to me -- I’m contemplating opening a Cambridge branch!

Extra love to Noor & Zach from Kazan, where I was blowing many kisses on their wedding day!


A different kind of Russian gem nestled in Suzdal, a tiny town with deep history and unbelievable rusticly charming character winding the rutted tracks along the river and cobbling between countless tiny old churches. The churches were like nothing I’ve seen, truly one on every lane, many abandoned to the pigeons winging low, others filled with candles and incense and brightly scarved babushkas murmuring prayers and news to their friends in church or setting
homecooking on a potluck table. Every church has its own unique architectural style, but all so light and strong at once, true Russian style, starkly human and divine against the dramatic gray skies.

In Suzdal’s cobbled main square, under the medieval belltower and arching market passageways, a row of well-padded babushka sell their onions & apples, parsley & cucumbers,

horseradish & pickled veggies, berry jam & fresh wild cranberries harvested from the bogs behind the market, & homebrewed HONEY MEAD. Russian honey mead, what angels drink, combines the best elements of sunshine, flowers, beer, wine, clouds, and homebrewed tradition. The tiny weathered but sparkling lady who sold me a re-purposed water bottle filled with her homebrew honey mead got a hearty at my enthusiastic follow-up thanks the next day.

In Suzdal I also expanded my Russian & my adventure: I pieced together an “I love homestay”/ “Я ЛЮбЛЮ Семье…” note in Russian, explaining myself & the quiet room I sought as an alternative to the (uncharacteristically)
impersonal traveler’s hostel where I initially parked, and took this note to the babushka at the outdoor market in Suzdal… One lady passed it to another, they conferred over cucumbers & sauerkraut, someone phoned Tania, the hairdresser, who picked me up and brought me to her quiet homey flat where she has a neighboring unit for short term rent. I stayed a week & enjoyed painting, cooking, gazing out my window past her collective garden to the moors & berry bogs dotted with spires & monastery bells. I was grateful for my Blundstones walking the curvy muddy roads past wooden cottages and traditional rural life in this sleepy beautiful town. Truly a “step back to old Russia”.

In a Nizhny-Novgorod café I met a sweet new friend, Irina; over honey cake & tea, she rapturously recounted to me the romance of the country town of Rostov-Yaroslavski, just a few hours from Moscow: I must go there! She recommended her favorite place to stay, and I rolled out there at the next opportunity.

Indeed, Rosotov-Yaroslavski is magic: of all the cathedrals I’ve witnessed in Russia, this touched
me most. Glowing façade and silver spires against intense clouds… The bellkeeper took me up a tiny winding stair to the belltower, in a world truly between heaven and earth, home to countless tons of lightly ringing bells and views around the tiny medieval hamlet town, we and the birds look out at the tops of heads & houses. 

Rostov-Yaroslavski is a living monastery, where monks decked in long black robes and wispy beards carry briefcases and unlock car doors, monastery chambers are used for residence as well as guest accommodation & café & children’s theatre, and a huge veggie garden inside the monastery walls is mulched by the fellow scurrying about with his wheelbarrow brimming with
divine compost. The interior of the chapel is in the midst of renovation, uncovering centuries of frescoes & buried saints, which gives this place an added feeling of ongoing tradition, new life on old paths.





Sliding into Moscow, my eyes were wide at the big city… but my heart was sad to have Siberia so far behind me, for now. Moscow welcomed me with a more stately & kind handshake than I necessarily expected, as practically everyone I’ve met outside of Moscow rolls their eyes at this behemoth. Palatial museum-quality subways make the urban safari quite civilized. Snazzy Red Square towers were ribboned off preciously while I was there for the Sochi torch to alight. A classic town Russian banya taught me that fire, plants, honey, & water nourish rosy skin. Highways where city streets ought to be ran me around in circles –
sometimes I had to retreat to those fancy subways just to cross the street!

Here in gorgeous St. Petes, the wide stately roads and canals
are lined in low creamy buildings rich in style & history, horses and griffons and mermaids live in statuesque drama on bridges everywhere, good food & pleasant cafes are easy to come by on a tiny budget, culture vibrates in the air among phenomenal museums, and the pace of life is full but peaceful. 






Thanks to the great generosity of my friend Seva and his family, I’m staying at the flat of his extended family in a cool room filled with classic Russian character – heavy stone façade, thick doors, interior walls hung with great original art, animal skins, & dusty gilt deco wallpaper, windows overlooking one of the most beautiful huge parks in the city, generations coming and going. Lucky! As usual! 

My Pete days are filling with drawing & painting in museums & cool cafes, getting to know the city by foot, museum-hopping, and making some new friends. This is an absolutely beautiful life to me, and its tempo fits perfectly with Petersburg habitat. Five weeks here will just not be enough…

Siberian Dream ~ August & September 2013

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 For me Siberia has been an absolute dream… one filled with...

...vast birch forests
deep in a life of their own,
magical with pink sunsets illuminating white limbs as we flick past...


...warm & strong babushkas, Russia’s powerhouse, some who give me a twinke & kind words in Russian peppered with English, some who become new friends...

 

...hushed sunny traincars, crinkling with the sounds of candy wrappers & sunflower seeds munched by kind babushka & mischevious little grandsons climbing between the bunks, pages of my book ruffling along, fluffy pillows, hot tea from the samovar, & chrome handles glinting against the passing forests...

...wonderful wonderful wonderful Russian friends & hospitality at every turn. This is a land of passionate people who show a tough game face on the street but are quick on the draw to turn a genuine smile, extend a helping hand, open their homes, start a thoughtful & interesting philosophical discussion filled with genuine curiosity & deep thought, share a meal, return a kind word… and offer chocolates.

I’ve made many new real friends here that I’ll keep in touch with, and many who are memorable motivation to learn more Russian & keep enjoying this beautiful land...

...airy blini pancakes, with forest blueberries and local honey from the market… mmmmm!!!



...markets teeming with stalls and stalls of the most bountiful completely local produce I’ve ever seen anywhere , most sold by the babushka who raise the veggies, gather the berries & apples & pine nuts from the forest, ferment the curds & skim

the milk, raise the honeybees, bake the endless cookies, and salt or steam the fish they sell. They stand proud, shoulders back & kerchiefed heads up, round & hearty & not to be messed with, but quick to smile and share a nice word once you buy a beautiful tomato...

...quickly deep & happily rambling real discussions about literature, philosophy, history, religion, culture, and language with a huge demographic of new Russian friends; minds are deep & bright here, quick to open in genuine dialogue. I love travelling in this territory, it feels like a dream of home...

...sweeping land and seascapes, ocean lake & shores, rocky cliffs, grassy steepe a blanket of silence stretching the longest continent away...

...theatrical cityscapes, glowing architecture dressed in pastels and luminous whites, gray swirling stone plazas & walks, dramatic billowing grey skies, or brilliant blue with deco clouds full & strong.  Everything about this landscape looks both solidly strong & luminously light, like a dream to me...   

 

...the opportunity to explore territory mysterious to most Americans: weeks in the Buryat & Baikal regions of Siberia where east & west truly mix in every way... a week down to Mongolia to experience the dusty capital Ulaanbaatar & get out for a few days to stay with a rural family in their small ger/yurt camp out in the mountains... lots of sweeping steppe, bumpy tight bus rides, and beautiful people...

...completely happy days filled with the absolute joy of solo travel, lucky as it is for me to be
welcomed by the amazingly warm & helpful new friends & friendly strangers that I’ve met at every turn, easy good luck, enormous smiles.  Traveling in "platskart"/3rd class, couch surfing & staying at hostels, piecing together my own adventures by asking friendly strangers for recommendations & help has been once again absolutely the best way to get to know a country; it's a way of traveling that takes some adjusting but for a lot of travelers, but is just perfect & easy for me right now & by far the most fun & interesting (and affordable!).  absolutely beautiful.

Thank you family and friends who have given me this freedom & love, these wings which I love using. 

This life is beautiful...