Elizaveta Friesem
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ANNIVERSARY AND ONE MORE POEM

7/21/2021

2 Comments

 
Picture
On August 16, I will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of my move to the United States. When I arrived in Philadelphia back then to start my PhD program at Temple University, for a first few weeks I had the strangest feeling. It seemed like I was in a movie, a character living on the screen. Everything was unusual - faces, voices, tastes, smells, and even temperatures - but not unfamiliar. As if I have experienced all of that somehow, somewhere... 

A few friends of mine who visited the United States or immigrated here described their sensations using the same "like in a movie" comparison. How come? An explanation seems to lie on the surface. Even though I had never been to the US prior to my arrival in 2011, I experienced many aspects of its life by watching films and TV shows imported to Russia. Representations are far from perfect, but sometimes they can have this strange power to influence our perceptions and emotions.

When I still lived in Russia and could not even imagine moving to the US one day, I wrote two poems about a person stranded in a far-away land. I shared one of them on my blog a few months ago. Today I want to show you the second one. It was not about me back then, and it's not really about me now, although I did become a kind of wanderer myself. I do not feel as lonely and lost as the narrator. But I can relate to his description of the "strange looking-glass resemblance" between our present and our past - between stories we were told, dreams we dreamt and roads we are walking now.
Chestnuts bloom here every spring,
​Almost like where I came from.
This strange looking-glass resemblance
Scares me in everything here: the sea, the pier...

Every blade of grass has its own "almost".
A forgotten umbrella looks like a prop.
Little paths stubbornly dead-end
Into the sloppily drawn horizon.

The voice of the sea has turned into tiresome nagging.
Nothing makes me happy anymore.
And in the evening, it is cold and crowded
In my soul, which will never bloom again.
Здесь каждую весну цветут каштаны,                
Почти как там, откуда я пришел.                       
И этим зазеркальным сходством странным         

Меня здесь всё пугает: море, мол…           
                       

Свое «почти» есть у любой былинки.
На реквизит похож забытый зонт.
Упрямо упираются тропинки
В небрежно проведенный горизонт.

И голос моря стал ворчаньем
нудным.

Ничто меня не радует уже.

А вечерами холодно и людно
В моей отцветшей навсегда душе.
2 Comments
Ольга
7/22/2021 04:28:14 pm

Потрясающе!!!!

Reply
Elizaveta Friesem
7/22/2021 04:29:52 pm

:)

Reply

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    I mostly use this blog to share new or updated entries of my hypertext projects. If you see several versions of the same entry published over time, know that the latest version is the most updated.
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
      • When conflicts get out of control
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A >
          • Anxiety
          • Am I strong or am I weak?
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
          • D >
            • Depression
            • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
            • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • C >
            • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
            • Choice
            • Circumstances
            • Cognitive biases
            • Common sense
            • Communication
            • Content and form of this book
            • Coronavirus and me
            • Culture
            • Cycle of violence
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. evil
        • H >
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Parenting
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power to see things in a certain way
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • We hurt others when we are in pain
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Workshops
    • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
    • Surviving the polarization vortex
    • Understanding yourself
    • Not enough
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Puzzles
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Art
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me