But all this looked quite plausible: you looked into my eyes, and the cup of coffee, balancing on the saucer, could not resist to fall to my feet. I involuntarily bit my lower lip, so as not to scream.
«Does it hurt?» You asked.
«Not much. But I'm sorry about the shoes!» I answered.
«You won't believe it, but this is the first time with me! I'm so clumsy!» You exclaimed, looking at my red suede pumps. Dark brown splashes have now been absorbed, and turned into ugly stains with small grains of black coffee.
«As far as I understand, there's no use in cleaning them…»
«Probably,» I sighed.
«My name is Igor!»
«Eva,» I answered.
«Eva? Really? Cool! I owe you shoes, at least… And coffee, if you don't mind?»
«I don't. Anyway, I'm here to meet my sister and I have a lot of time…»
How many years have passed since then?… It seems that all this happened yesterday!
And if it weren't for our boys, I could swear it was yesterday!
Tomorrow you will be thirty, Styopa and Daniel are seven! Who could know you were born on the same day! There are three men in the house and all are birthday people!
Mom always sympathizes with me, thinking that on this day I fulfill all your whims…
Of course, I will give you your, no, my favorite perfume, Baldessarini… The very one that I felt in the coffee house when I met you…
Taska is smart.
She has a whole classification of meetings:
1. Fateful meetings…
2. Meetings that do not oblige to anything and leave a kind of bright sadness…
3. Meetings that you remember all your life, but nothing can be changed for a number of reasons…
Meeting number 1.
Meeting number 2.
Meeting number 3.
Lord, I just don't understand how can she build and systematize such a gamut of human feelings!!!
Taska, I remember my promise.
Chapter 3
A Miracle…
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine. It's lethal.
(Paulo Coelho)
January 23, 2016.
Monday.
You know, I always envied you. Not just because of the way you feel about life and know how to color gray dull everyday life.
No. I envied your dreams…
How do you do it?
Today… You just came up and told your dream, without resorting to various tricks and metaphors, in casual words.
You only mentioned that the dream was colorful as always.
And then I saw what you dreamed…
My imagination added brightness to its colors and space to its volume.
I even felt the wind play with my hair.
And also the smell. The smell of ripe wheat…
Yes.
But in a dream, all this is absolutely obvious things. Objects that have become significant for some reason become the same height as secondary ones, those that are much higher… Those that are now in front of the eyes or lens. A twenty-story tall wheat.
I see it in every detail, as if looking at it through a magnifying glass.
I remember once Taska and I went to a plein air… Having set a sketchbook somewhere on the high river bank, she began to paint…
Sky. River bend. Steep coast…
And then for some reason she wanted to draw some buttercup in the foreground.
The yellow buttercup seemed to have the same height as the dark tree on a high slope.
The law of perspective.
Unlike wood, the buttercup was more alive…
After all, she wanted to write out every vein on his petals…
And now you told me your dream.
I don't know, maybe you already forgot about it. Maybe you saw it a little different. But my imagination, like a hungry puppy, continues to return to that situation in search of a place where the «bone» was once buried… In this case, the imagination does not let go of the picture that has appeared and is now overgrown with details.
Sounds. Different sounds.
And then there are poems. Either they are born in my head, or this is how air fills the space…
They seem so perfect that remembering and reproducing them is almost impossible. They have a completely different philosophy and categories that seem to be understandable… But they are so unusually simple, concise and pure…
All Horoscopes claim that Aquarius is romantic.
This is true.
You are Aquarius!
You're also a romantic.
I've never met a bigger romantic. You always surprised me. And, as a rule, in moments when I was not ready to be surprised.
What does it mean: not ready?
It's just that the texture of those moments was too flat and not yet containing shoots for a future miracle…
How do you manage to mask something in this reality so that it doesn't give a sign of a holiday?
I cannot explain this parallel world where you, like a magician, take a magical object out of your sleeve, allowing the «northern lights of the holiday» to enter our house, filling it with a sense of happiness and magic… And at first this feeling makes you sit deeper or lean against the wall.
I am always unarmed.
How do you do it?
Miracle
Miracles Happen, You Know…
I am a bad sister.
Another year has passed. And I'm still there!.. (((
Chapter 4
The Quintessence of Love…
March 23, 2017.
Thursday.
Yesterday, while I was lying in the bath full of sea salt and foam (though, alas, without rose petals or a foggy high glass of red dry wine), I thought:
«This activity is to my liking, as well as lying on a sunny Turkish or Thai beach…»
Well, I'm not a lazy one!
Although I can lie in the bath for 2 or 3 hours!
I'm going down into the water, very carefully: first one leg, then another. I try to sit down and then I go to bed slowly, because the water very hot, but not so as to leave burns…
You quickly get used to the hot bath, and after a couple of hours it only cools to body temperature. Igor scolds and spoils me at the same time:
«Eva, my fish, you know how harmful it is! Stop cooking yourself! Jump out, I've prepared something delicious here!»
«Darling, you know this is my office!» I answered once again.
Exactly, my office! During these two hours I manage to systematize my problems… Think about the things that concern me, and set up plans for the whole week!
Yesterday I thought about why I became a doctor…
Since I was a child my Mom inspired me that the doctor is the first man after God, while a priest or a pope is the second. Of course doctor sounds better, but physician is fine too…
The way people look at you walking in a whitish starched robe! As if you possess secret knowledge that is beyond the reach of mere mortals…
Indeed, it is!!!))
Some of them have awe and fear in their eyes, someone can barely cope with their excitement and constantly blush, others look at you with poorly disguised distrust.
I like to read these emotions in the eyes of my patients and find a key for each of them in order to let love into my heart…
At least to myself.
After all, all illnesses are caused by dislike, dislike of ourselves in particular… You can starve and be an absolute ascetic and at the same time have enviable health, or, conversely, suffer from chronic diseases with an abundance of funds and a set life, and think that this is okay…
But comprehensive love is also akin to disease…
Surpri singly.
What a paradox!
Taska has one interesting poem, a kind of test.
Few pass this test. The whole damn catch (!) is that 99.9 percent of those reading this poem take it literally!
But those who understand what kind of feelings the author is trying to tell find the quintessence of love…
I finally agreed with the publisher!!!
I think that the collection will be ready for our 33rd anniversary!
Taska will be surprised!)))
Chapter 5
Numerology… Or Number Twenty Three
April 23, 2018.
Monday.
At first I had a dream…
In this dream, the smell of coffee drove me mad!
The smell of coffee and flowers…
I opened my eyes. My God!
On the floor, in a vase, I saw the most delicate cream roses.
Nearby there was a huge polar bear and Igor, pleased:
«Coffee is in the kitchen, my girl. Happy Birthday, goldfish!!!» He kissed me on the forehead as if I was a little girl and stroked my right cheek. It was so nice. I even closed my eyes and answered: