Calmness
12/3/2023
Calmness
A month has passed since the day my dream came true. Strangely, now that calmness feels different. I had missed it and forsaken it. Now, I just listen to people speaking about stories that were once mine, from different lips. Stories that were once me. Now, as everything has settled a bit, I feel like the book has started a separate life, allowing me to finally create something new. It has been a month since I haven't opened the book myself, although for the past five years, I lived only with those words, with those sentences. Now, I open only the first page and just to write a wish for the future reader. It probably still hurts. I dream that someday the pain will stop.
One publishing house, after reading a few chapters, said they don't believe everything written in them is true. I don't know if anyone has given me a greater compliment. The lives of me and my loved ones sound incredibly. What amazing years fate has thrown our way. And here - without irony.
Now, I look at distant horizons that I have missed so much, and that eternal, confirmed belief - how many of those unexperienced stories are waiting for me. How many of those evenings when you feel devilishly alone until you, for the first time, hug your beloved and finally feel what you never knew you were waiting for. So now, I count those remaining evenings of peace.
Loaded with books that I no longer read, I write wishes to everyone who will read. And so for three more weeks. Earlier, I wouldn't have thought of it as a sacred moment to write a note in a book. It doesn't matter - to a stranger or someone never seen. How the hand trembles, fearing not to make a mistake. It's even stranger to realize that the person, turning the last page, will know me better than I could ever introduce myself. At first, this thought scared me. But now it's calm somehow. I don't differ from you in anything. Everything, differently, but we all went through it.
Not many of those swollen days are left. When you know there's not much left, you probably start to enjoy it more. In the mornings, I check when the sun sets in Asia, at noon I pack parcels and try to dig a path out of the woods with a small shovel, and in the evening, I put all the books in the mail and, on the way back, listen to a song from my beloved friend. "The Storm Calmed" - it sounds in the car, and I release the gas pedal a little.
From the post office to my home - 3 songs. And they are all the same.
Photo: Monika Markeviciutė photography