Wings and Teeth

(things to aspire to)

Earl Grey, why have you forsaken me?
Guess it's the same everywhere, you let it sit too long & it spoils.

Warm tea & jazz...blankets & thick socks, I do love a good Saturday night beside a fire. Waking up to the tap tap tap of rain against my window, the clock takes it's sweet time to focus in my vision. "It's almost eleven," it whispers. "Don't worry, you don't have to get up if you don't want to." Where's my star pillow? He/She is the best neck support a girl could ask for on a bed of dreams. (well...almost anyway)

Such a separation. A disconnect. I hope I land before my flight takes off. If not, I might never touch the ground again. Seventy one more days...and counting...and counting.

one complete, whole...half.

nights like tonight make way too much sense.
it sucks but it's true. i feel ridiculous.

PS

i leave in 76 days.

Barefoot & Blanketed

tonight you drive me crazy.
i thought i lost it but maybe i was lost. maybe we both are.
tonight i can't help myself. words and lips and voices, they melt together and i don't know which way is up. i need to get away from this before its too late, i need to for your sake. please don't take this the wrong way. i love everything too much tonight including you.

Faces Filling Spaces

"The time has come," the Walrus said. But I thought you were my dentist!

Whatever that means.

I bought my ticket yesterday. I leave in 103 days. Sounds like a lot, but I know it will fly by. And then I will fly bye-bye. If things fall apart, then I'll just have to leave those things. In fact, I'll sell my broken things for broken wings to match my broken teeth and fix them.

One by one, I'll fix them..

Le Vent Nous Portera

Unconscious of the frailty with which my recently altered heart rests in her chamber, I emptied the sand of the black sea coast from my shoes onto the side of my house and was, at the sound of each falling grain, sucked back into the very place from which my steps first captured her memory.

To retrace each swirling shift in direction between Bulgaria and Greece, these words must be delivered aimlessly likewise. I've not the desire to recount step by step the path which led me through Europe and back into the states, but do willingly share these experiences from memory as they fast forward-play-rewind. Beginning appropriately from the end, I let my eyes fall shut and am instantly lifted with the breeze and returned to the beach in Varna, Bulgaria.



The clouds read overcast and, like an elder who lacks the desire to pose as anything but, hover spitefully over our heads. The running joke that Nicki's "network" consists of rain clouds and thunder storms rings relentlessly true as we are yet again met with a darkened sky. We arrive to the beach as several mini cars packed with people and soaking dreams head upward on the road we have so anxiously just descended. One by one we crawl out of Nelly's silver bullet which she has somehow managed to squeeze through the downhill traffic "like butta." The breeze blows wildly on and off, the gray sky shows no sign of releasing the sun from her grips and the air is surprisingly...amazing. At first glance we would be insane to even fathom such an endeavor, but as we set our towels down and stretch our limbs, with a sigh of relief, we have arrived.


Everyone has settled down and before long Nelly and Deyan (our lovely Varna friends) charge into the sea. Nicki and I, silent and eyes to the sky, sit within our own minds and do whatever it is that people do when thoughts have yet to find their words.


As they return from a brief splish-splash, our friends engage Nicki in the where's, when's and why's of her recent life and I take this time to shut my eyes and listen to the sounds of the world around me. My Bulgarian has yet to progress in these first few days of our stay so conversation is shared between the sea and me. I take advantage of my listening tools and am glad to let her do most of the talking.

It was the thunder that first caught my attention, then the lightening in the distance. As if to warn us that we are now here at our own risk the lightening occurred closer and closer together like contractions before giving birth to thunder. Ooo's and Aah's from each of us as the sky danced before our eyes and...then it stopped. Similar to an orchestra obeying a swift command from their conductor, it stopped. The clouds parted, the sun shone brightly and the world rubbed it's eyes to a brand new day.




Me, Nelly, Deyan, Nicki, Teodor

Sofia, Bulgaria

Well all, I'm terribly sorry for the lack of blogs that i had promised prior to the start of our trip, but I'm glad to say that it has been very adventurous thus far, and finally seems to be slowing down just a bit. At last we have reached Bulgaria and are staying with Nicki's cousin Moni in Sofia. All of the people that we have come across have been so amazing and generous to us. It's people like these that make me want to stay out here longer.

When we first started our trip a couple of weeks ago, I thought I would never return to "normalcy" again. By this I mean we experienced jet lag at it's finest and it definitely took a toll on our bodies And minds.

After a fourteen hour journey from San Francisco Airport to Athens, we were in desperate need of some rest. Would we be finding it at any point in the near future? "Ohi." Dimitris (our lovely host in Athens) was kind enough to swoop us from the airport and pack us into his trusty Volkswagen Fox which we have all grown to love and appreciate (she purs like a kitten and hugs turns like I would hug my mom if I could reach her). We then proceeded to the coast to catch a ferry that would transport us to the beautiful island of Kefalonia where we would be spending the next five days. Now having skipped the night completely in transit from sky to sky, what difference would another couple of hours drive be just to miss the ferry? For that matter, why not another "couple" of kilometers to a different port where we would also miss the ferry and have to wait until 5am to buy tickets for the one that left at 6am? By this point we are beyond delirium and running off of fumes and the sheer excitement of knowing that we have FINALLY touched base in Greece!

Now let me stop here to emphasize the fact that many (including myself at some desperate point in time) did not believe that we would make it this far. Yet there we were at 11pm sitting outside of a small restaurant waiting to see our first (well, my first) European sunrise.

As shown in the pictures from my last blog, our very first meal was worth every kilometer, every Euro and every single sleepless night that lead us up to this point. To be quite honest I'm not sure that my reaction would have been much different if our waiter had placed a single slice of bread and a glass of water in front of me, but I was sure we had entered the Greek gates of heaven as he little by little filled every inch of space on the table with plates and plates of wonderfulness. (please, don't question my grammar).

...to be continued.