Because if the end is bitter, why not say fuck all and get it over with?
Georges Rousse in Durham
We almost missed it. The last day of the exhibition was yesterday. We had a late start, and the lines were long, but we were still able to see two of the projects.
Standing in line at the battered old Liberty Warehouse was an experience in itself. My hat/scarf/ponytail holder goes off in recognition to all the volunteers who worked on these installations.
I have to admit that I love Durham. There is so much coolness here to go around.
I don’t think I could spend the rest of my life here.
But I will spend the rest of my life carrying it around in my heart.
Thank you, Paula, for getting us out of the house and into downtown.
Monday Night Poetry Club
The original Ukrainian version of this poem was read at Yaroslava’s wake. It’s a bit nationalistic, but it translates beautifully.
Testament (Ukrainian: Zapovit)
When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper’s plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes … then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields —
I’ll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I’ll pray …. But till that day
I nothing know of God.Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants’ blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.– Taras Shevchenko.
25 December 1845, Pereyaslav
Translated by John Weir, Toronto, 1961
And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Yasia.
My name is Natalia,
In the eyes of the law, I am a grown-up. I can vote, drink copious amounts of alcohol, and star in a pornographic feature if I so choose. I have a job, a budget, a car, a dog, a boyfriend, and number of suit jackets with pants to match. I also have a crush on Orlando Bloom.
I am blissfully unashamed.
Anniversary
A year ago today, my cousin, Yaroslava Tarasovna Mel’nik, was killed in a car crash outside of Kiev.
I called her parents yesterday. My fingers remember the number in that peculiar way that memory often associates itself with physical stimuli. I caught myself expecting her to pick up the phone.
I remembered a summer day in center of Kiev, swallows in the air over the theater, the sun burning in the windows, and she and I were on a bench, drinking beer. I drank Chernigivske and she drank the Russian beer familiar to any study abroad student – Baltika. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I remember being very happy and very sad at the same time. Even while it was happening, the evening already held a quality of a memory, as if she was leaving my life already, turning around for a backward glance, eyes squinting slyly, as if she had a secret she could only reveal when my own time came.
Natalia A. 
