Jennifer is a Los Angeles based screenwriter and a generally lovely person. She is currently at large in England.

There’s a certain kind of genius involved when a man can pull off this look in front of a sign that says, “Basic Looks”.    <3 London.

In the midst of winter I discovered within me an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

While in Poland I spent some time in Sopot, which sixty four years, three languages and two governments ago was known as Zoppot, with a “Z”.  

It is also the place where my friend Lily Mazur Margules and her sister Rachel convalesced in 1946 after the Russians liberated them from the Nazis.  Lily and Rachel barely weighed 60lbs each and they had made it through four concentration camps all on their own having lost both of their parents and their aunt even before they were sent to the Ghetto in 1940.  

Zoppot was a resort town and the shoreline was dotted with glamorous hotels and casinos.  The Nazis took over in the early 40’s and used this beautiful city for their purposes.  When the Russians took control of Zoppot they burned all the fancy hotels. Except for this one, The Grand Hotel.  

I don’t know that Lily and Rachel convalesced here in this exact hotel, but I will pretend that I know for sure.  It seems correct that they were.  The grounds are surrounded by lovely gardens and the beach is broad and deep, some 100 yards to the water.    I imagine they were free to take long walks, breathe clean air, be calmed by the sound of the waves hitting the shore.   

I will pretend they were here and be grateful for this place that was tranquil enough to allow them even a tiny moment of peace.  Zoppot with a “Z”.  

The end and the beginning.  

In Estonia and in St. Petersburg Pushkin is everywhere. &#8220;So tenderly I loved you so sincerely I pray God grant another love you so.&#8221;  A.S.Pushkin And if that&#8217;s not gorgeous enough, how about this one&#8230; I loved you silently, without hope, fully, In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain; I loved you so tenderly and truly, As let you else be loved by any man. &#8220;  And for those who prefer it in the language it was written&#8230; &#8220;Не мысля гордый свет забавить, Вниманье дружбы возлюбя, Хотел бы я тебе представить Залог достойнее тебя, Достойнее души прекрасной, Святой исполненной мечты, Поэзии живой и ясной, Высоких дум и простоты; Но так и быть — рукой пристрастной Прими собранье пестрых глав, Полусмешных, полупечальных, Простонародных, идеальных, Небрежный плод моих забав, Бессонниц, легких вдохновений, Незрелых и увядших лет, Ума холодных наблюдений И сердца горестных замет. &#8221;

In Estonia and in St. Petersburg Pushkin is everywhere.

“So tenderly I loved you so sincerely I pray God grant another love you so.”  A.S.Pushkin

And if that’s not gorgeous enough, how about this one…

I loved you silently, without hope, fully, 
In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain; 
I loved you so tenderly and truly, 
As let you else be loved by any man. “ 

And for those who prefer it in the language it was written…

“Не мысля гордый свет забавить, 
Вниманье дружбы возлюбя, 
Хотел бы я тебе представить 
Залог достойнее тебя, 
Достойнее души прекрасной, 
Святой исполненной мечты, 
Поэзии живой и ясной, 
Высоких дум и простоты; 
Но так и быть — рукой пристрастной 
Прими собранье пестрых глав, 
Полусмешных, полупечальных, 
Простонародных, идеальных, 
Небрежный плод моих забав, 
Бессонниц, легких вдохновений, 
Незрелых и увядших лет, 
Ума холодных наблюдений 
И сердца горестных замет. ”

My nephew Carson is charming and funny and so so smart.   Hard to believe 18 years ago I was changing his diapers and now we are traipsing across Europe together, conspiring on how to get his Cohiba&#8217;s back in the country and debating which country has the best beer.  So far it is Estonia where we discovered Honey Beer.  Ice, ice cold, just a little on the thick side and it finishes with the most surprising kick of sweet. Like no other honey I&#8217;ve tasted.  Carson agrees.  He really liked the girls in Estonia too.  I think he&#8217;ll be back.   What fun it&#8217;s been. It&#8217;s great being an aunt. 

My nephew Carson is charming and funny and so so smart.   Hard to believe 18 years ago I was changing his diapers and now we are traipsing across Europe together, conspiring on how to get his Cohiba’s back in the country and debating which country has the best beer.  So far it is Estonia where we discovered Honey Beer.  Ice, ice cold, just a little on the thick side and it finishes with the most surprising kick of sweet. Like no other honey I’ve tasted.  Carson agrees.  He really liked the girls in Estonia too.  I think he’ll be back.   What fun it’s been.

It’s great being an aunt. 

Tallin, Estonia It was my fault that we were running late.  I had wandered into a shop off the square and the others were waiting for me and by the time I got back to the meeting spot we were about ten minutes late.  We rushed to get to the church on the opposite side of the square only to discover that we were in the wrong place. Our guide doubled back to the other side of the square and brought us to a 12th century church right across the street from the wool and linen shop where I had been dawdling.  The concert had already begun and we snuck into the back of the church, the only seats we could get gave no view of the front of the church where the musicians were performing and we had to lean this way and that around columns and pillars.  I worried the others would blame me.  I worried that they felt cheated.   I felt so bad that I had made us late from the beginning, even though there was confusion about which church was which.  And I couldn’t see the musicians so I gave up trying to see them, the others in my group though craned and pitched forward in the ancient wooden pews. The man played the lute and the woman played the hurdy gurdy.  And her voice was so pure.  Not terribly light in tone, but clear and rich.  Like caramel.  And they performed songs that were hundreds of years old, even a love song written by Henry the 8th.  And I closed my eyes to listen but I couldn’t concentrate because I still felt bad about being late so I opened my eyes and I looked to my right because it was the only view that was clear.  I looked to my right and discovered the light coming through the stained glass window at the back of the church.  Lovely orange, green, pink and blue light splayed across the wall from the late afternoon sun. The others in my group soon one by one discovered the light.   We all just looked to the back of the church away from the musicians staring at the colored light on the wall, listening to the caramel of her voice.   And I breathed in the smell of the wood and the centuries worth of life and faith that had waxed and waned in that tiny church.   And again I was reminded there are no mistakes, certainly not here in Estonia.

Tallin, Estonia

It was my fault that we were running late.  I had wandered into a shop off the square and the others were waiting for me and by the time I got back to the meeting spot we were about ten minutes late.  We rushed to get to the church on the opposite side of the square only to discover that we were in the wrong place. Our guide doubled back to the other side of the square and brought us to a 12th century church right across the street from the wool and linen shop where I had been dawdling. 

The concert had already begun and we snuck into the back of the church, the only seats we could get gave no view of the front of the church where the musicians were performing and we had to lean this way and that around columns and pillars.  I worried the others would blame me.  I worried that they felt cheated.   I felt so bad that I had made us late from the beginning, even though there was confusion about which church was which.  And I couldn’t see the musicians so I gave up trying to see them, the others in my group though craned and pitched forward in the ancient wooden pews.

The man played the lute and the woman played the hurdy gurdy.  And her voice was so pure.  Not terribly light in tone, but clear and rich.  Like caramel.  And they performed songs that were hundreds of years old, even a love song written by Henry the 8th. 

And I closed my eyes to listen but I couldn’t concentrate because I still felt bad about being late so I opened my eyes and I looked to my right because it was the only view that was clear.  I looked to my right and discovered the light coming through the stained glass window at the back of the church. 

Lovely orange, green, pink and blue light splayed across the wall from the late afternoon sun.

The others in my group soon one by one discovered the light.   We all just looked to the back of the church away from the musicians staring at the colored light on the wall, listening to the caramel of her voice.   And I breathed in the smell of the wood and the centuries worth of life and faith that had waxed and waned in that tiny church.  

And again I was reminded there are no mistakes, certainly not here in Estonia.

St Petersburg, Russia - L’Hermitage

L’Hermitage is incorrect.  It’s not French, it’s Russian, The Hermitage (derived from the word ‘hermit’ and meaning a place of solitude) but I find that I have to say it with a French accent and use an improper French article. 

L’Hermitage. 

I can’t help myself.    L’Hermitage.  Perhaps because almost two centuries ago, the last time I was here I came as a guest of the Queen, Catherine the Great.   I certainly was from France and since I was a guest of the Czarina’s I’m sure I was nobility, but probably not because all of France’s nobility had been executed some years prior.  Perhaps I was the wife of one of Napoleon’s generals who was spying for the Russians.  Maybe. 

Or maybe I was the daughter of a nobleman who had escaped the guillotine and brought us here.  I was nothing more than a child when I first arrived in Russia and as I grew I was something of a curiosity, a young French girl, the last of France’s nobility now living in exile here in Russia.  And since the winter palace was modeled after Versailles, perhaps we were the icing on the cake that the Russian’s couldn’t eat either.  The Czarina allowed us an apartment there in the palace, there are more than 1,000 rooms, she had plenty of space for us, for me her novelty, the little French pastry that I was.  Perhaps.  

I am collapsing my history, folding one event into another, anything I can do to place myself there.  Anything I can to satisfy the yearning in my gut for this place…for sometime long ago that feels better to me than now.  How strange it feels to not belong in a time and space and even more so to find history more comfortable, but even still I cannot settle on a time nor place that feels most correct.

And all the photos I took of L’Hermitage are of the floors and doors and ceilings.  The art is of no interest to me now.  The Picassos, the Rembrandts, the Michelangelos, I take it in but quickly pass it by feeling only moved by the floors, the doors, the ceilings.   

For me there is a certain kind of comfort I found in the exits at L’Hermitage, it’s as if I was always hoping to escape.   And maybe the floors and ceilings are so appealing because from the floor all you can see is the ceiling.  And maybe when my father insisted I marry that man, when even Catherine also demanded I marry that grotesque general, even when they knew I loved another, perhaps I tried to escape L’Hermitage, the place of solitude, and perhaps I was dragged by my wrists to my wedding, across the cool mosaic floors, skidding along brilliantly polished parquet woods of tans and browns.  And from the floor all I could see was the ceiling, bottoms of chandeliers, the mighty pillars of Atlas that held the second story up.    And maybe by the time I was dragged through those 1,000 rooms maybe I was so exhausted, so worn thin that I just gave up and married that grotesque general.

Which makes complete sense to me, this whole past I’ve made up.  It’s never just easy with me, there’s always bound to be a “no, I won’t, you can’t make me” resistance.   

And even without all the drama from the last time I was here Russia doesn’t feel completely safe to me.  Maybe it’s the hesitation, a hunger for more.  It’s crumbling walls and dirty streets and tired worn people.  Even the friendly and kind behind their smiles their souls seem worn thin.  But I’ve barely had enough time to know for sure. 

 L’Hermitage has 1,000 rooms and they say if you were to give every object in the museum 1 minute’s worth of attention it would take you 11 years to get through all of the exhibits. 

I need more time.    I’m sure there’s more than what is merely on the surface.  

&#8220;I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.&#8221; Vladimir Nabokov Only really because I love the quote so very much an auroch at the Copenhagen National Museum.

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”

Vladimir Nabokov

Only really because I love the quote so very much an auroch at the Copenhagen National Museum.

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