This Isn't Everything That You Are

*These pictures were taken on January 2nd, 2011 in Ukraine and the blog was written in late January in Georgia. The photos are meant more to evoke a feeling or mood rather then show information about my setting*

On January second I was suffering from a slight post holiday depression and woke up really, really angry. A feeling that I could not shake and might have been a slight carry over from the night before when I was over tired and all I want to do was enjoy my horrible hang over at home, but I was told to shower, because I kind of smelled. Brush my teeth, because my breath still reeked of alcohol from New Year’s Eve, and put on something other then a god damn, hoodie, jeans, and L.L. Bean slippers to show that I had some pride (Um hello, I was sporting Mainer pride clearly by my slippers) and go out to a going away party. I remember muttering that if I was in America I could have gone out like this. Yes I played the “if this was America” card with my roommate. He was right though. I was a horrible wreck that needed to be cleaned up to go to a going away party for a good friend, however that did not fix my mood.

The morning of the second I got up and showered before my roommate was up. By the time I was done he had woke and I stayed silent out of fear of an angry outburst. He could tell that I was upset, it was probably the way I was violently drying my hair with my head upside down so it would be done faster. I dressed in silence, cursing under my breath, when I realized that I had left my knit winter hat in Georgia, having only brought my fur Mad bomber hat. I was going to wear my hat so I didn’t have to do my hair, but now that was out of the question. My hair is currently divided into thirds. The two side parts are shaved completely and the midsection is left long. (I also have had it dyed this amazing bright orange- red color, that looks great with my complexion. The girls in the hair salon kept oooing, and awing over it after it was done, and I was like “Um you guys did it, but I guess I did pick out the awesome color.”) So with my hair being dried in such a way it kind of just fell everywhere and I ended up pulled it back into a high ponytail in frustration and was done with it. I threw on some clothes and packed my camera bag and started to put on my jacket.

My roommate finally asked what was wrong and in one rushed sentence in a slightly harsh tone I let out, “I just want to go out, get coffee to go, I would really like Starbucks right now, but that’s not going to happen, because I’m in Ukraine, take my to go coffee, get on a marshooka to who knows where, until I am in the middle of no where, take photos, and be completely alone, that is all I want right now.” He looked slightly startled and a little hurt. I said I was sorry and I knew that I had not been active enough in the passed few days and that can make me go a little crazy just sitting around. I promised that I would be better when I was done. 

He said it was ok and told me to have a good day, then the great coat debate begin. Something that pledged me the whole time I was in Ukraine. I brought 2 coats with me, a Gap moto jacket, that is mid weight and my heavy L.L. Bean Baxter State parker that I normally wear when it is around freezing. Everyone always wants me to wear the L.L. Bean one, because they think I am going to die from the cold and then I start throwing around my “I’m from Maine!” That day I explained that it wasn’t that cold out, I was going to wear my massive chunky cream wool scarf, it looks like a neck brace, and as soon as I got shooting I would warm up and start sweating if I worn the Bean’s coat. My roommate, smartly, knew not to fight with me. There was no point. We could either start a screaming match over a coat, that stubborn me would never give into or just let me freeze my ass off, if it really was that cold out and I couldn’t complain about it later.

I said goodbye and then booked it to the wannabe Starbucks. I went in and assessed the menu and confirmed that they indeed did not have “just coffee”. I asked for an Americano, in the largest paper cup that looked like a venti. The guy told me they don’t make it that big and pointed to a cup two sizes down that brought me to the size of about a tall. I muttered and said whatever and asked what kind of flavors they had to add to it, I went with the caramel trying to make it as much like as my Starbucks back home. I walked out of the coffee shop and took the first sip confirmed that it was indeed nothing like Starbucks. Epic fail. I jammed my headphones in and listened to Runaway by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

“I was feeling sad,

Can’t help looking back, 

Highways flew by, 

Run, runaway,

No sense of time.”

As I walked through the streets I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a car window and I thought I looked some what like a model, or at least very European, with my hair pulled back, my face freshly scrubbed with only tinted chap stick, my high Euro scarf/ neck-brace (they are all the rage over here right now. I seriously wished I bought the one in the other color now too), my coffee in hand, and this odd look, that said “I mean fucken business. Get the hell out of my way, I am more important then you.” It startled me, but made me smile to myself at the same time since I was in such a bad mood. 

When I got to the marshooka stop, I stood there drinking my coffee and watching the chaos ensue, as they had just changed all the bus routs with the start of the new year, for a good twenty minuets. Number 38 pulled up and I got on, with a sneaking suspicion I knew where it has headed.

We wined our way through Lviv, seeing parts I had never seen before. I saw some rundown industrial type buildings that would have done nicely shooting, but I just needed out of the city. It had become claustrophobic and suffocating. I needed air. The buildings thinned and I knew we were headed out by a store Metro, that happens to be the way marshooka 84A use to go. (Look at my previous blog, Simply Happy Again, May 2011) I knew I would be ok once I got there. This marshooka happened to go straight at the roundabout, unlike 84A that turned right.  

I saw a cemetery in the distance and got off as we pulled to a stop at the side of the road in a village. I took off at a determined pace, pretending not to notice the dogs that barked at me as I walked pass the houses that they guarded. I crossed a large road and walked through wetlands soaking my boots and up a hill to the cemetery. I walked threw it and thought of how its was in a nice location by farm land, rolling hills, and woods, but it could still not hold a candle to the main cemetery in Lviv. I slipped and slide through the muddy lanes casually looking over the graves, but after a while they all blurred together. No one I knew was there and my own was also missing, so I moved down a hill away from there, to a valley and then back up another hill that was farm land. At this point in time I put my headphones in and started to listen to Snow Patrol’s new CD Fallen Empires. Again it was another great music choice for the day. I have loved Snow Patrol for over half a decade now, and had only heard one song from this album, Call Out In The Dark, before today. I do believe in fate and such and I feel that someone, call them God if you will, knew that I needed to hear this. (Seriously, this album is amazing. I don’t care how you get your hands on it, but just do it.) I needed a day to think over my past four weeks away and how I felt about situations and issues that I was having. One song that kind of put some stuff in perspective for me was “This Isn’t Everything You Are”. It is a song about loosing someone you love and letting people help you to move on and see that this one moment in your life is not all you are about, there is more to you then one relationship. I remember standing in the middle a field so muddy it was hard to pick up my boots as I walked, and just closing my eyes, breathing deeply, and thinking “I can do this.” Whatever “this” was, was more of a general feeling of being able to deal with everything in my life at that at that exact moment, as a small panic about the fact that I had moved half way around the world for a year had set in and the changing of relationships in my life for the good or the worst.

I reached into my pocket to get my phone to text my roommate that I was fine, and I was half way through writing a message and my phone rang. It was him checking up on me. (I swear he just knows sometimes.) He asked if everything was ok and where I was, then he asked about my mood. I said I was ok and I could be better or worse. He said that he wanted me in a better mood and didn’t like to see me like this. I went into a philosophical Emily rant about how could I know what true happiness is if I didn’t experience an occasional bout of sadness and anger? I like to store emotions, tie them up to memories and recall them at later times to change or stable my mood. It’s a coping skill that I find works quite well, especially when a smell is involved. Think about your favorite food that your mother or grandmother use to cook when you were a child, do you relax and feel a warm fuzzy feeling inside as your gut reaction? I am betting yes. It works like that for me some what. 

I then explained to him that I was truly fine, I just needed more time where I currently was, inhaling the dirt into my nasal passages, seeing what my camera lens wanted to show me, and listening to the advice my iPod was spewing. He again knew that there was no fighting with me and told me to take care and be safe after finding out ruffly where I was incase I never came back.

I walked in the fields, much slower then I normally would, taking in everything in the over cast day. Letting the wind hit my cheeks without flinching at the cold. I stopped and looked at the forest, thinking if I should go in or not and decided that I was much happier out in the open. I walked and came across some dead sunflowers and took some pictures for my mother. I always associate these flowers with her. 

I was coming closer to the houses that were being built and I felt calmer and called my roommate and asked him if he wanted to meet me at the grocery store out by my fields to pick up some food for the apartment. He agreed to and I knew that I had about an hour or so until I had to meet him. I went to inspect the house a little closer, but I was loosing motivation in photographing anything else that day. I just wanted to spend the time alone to think. I also used the outhouse. (See the Awwww Shit blog)

I walked along a field that seemed to stretch on and on, now having switched over to listening to Eddie Vedder and the sound track from Into The Wild, an old stand by for when I am feeling lost. The song “Guaranteed” was a perfect close to my day, because let’s face it, I am living in a small village in Georgia, where I am prone to spend my days teaching, reading, writing, taking photos, going for walks and spending a lot of time deep in thought.

On bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
All my destinations will accept the one that's me
So I can breathe...

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know
A mind full of questions, and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes...

Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you...

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I'm never what they thought
I've got my indignation, but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead
Overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed