How The Stars Were Shining For Us
The stars of youth shine more brightly…
The flowers of youth smell more strongly. The grass is greener, the sky bluer, water weter, salt saltier.
The friends of youth are more faithful. And they remain being that forever.
How young we were, how sincerely we loved, how strongly believed in ourselves…
My youth remained there where in winter, severe frost fetters rivers with silverish cracking ice, and in summer, milky fog swaddles lakes in morning dewy coolness, where in fall, shivering wind bemoans short summer with gray interminable rains. There, in the country named White Ruś – Belarus. There did my friend remain who were supposed to be faithful forever.
Destiny didn’t deprive me only of friends…
Here we are – young athletes-kayakers whose boat prows rip up waves, winds, fogs, rains, ices…– the teammates of the Kayak National Team.
We were very close. Not otherwise could it be. We were away of our homes for 20 days (sometimes more) of every month. Three girls, who lived together in hotels (I’m a bit lying. They often were just some kind of shelters) and did everything together: worked, relaxed, shared things and money. Sometimes quarreled. And fell in love with boys, sometimes even together with the same one.
A strange, amusing company – we were young, cheerful and merry, finding fun any time anywhere. We were pretty artistic and witty and always improvised making our teammates laugh. Our inventive skills were endless and our coaches were often confused by our jokes and tricks.
We were united. And (but) we sometimes dreamed about our future and tried to imagine our children and husbands and even ourselves in the new millennium. We seemed quite old for ourselves.
Tania (Tatiana) wasn’t in our crazy group. But she loved being in touch with us. We were ‘scandalous’, but she couldn’t stand any quarrels and always reconciled us like an older sister. We named her ‘Seagull’. I don’t know why. She was the nicest person I have ever known. She was cheerful and romantic. She knew the hundred poems and recited them to us at evenings, reminding us spring was coming (one idiot named kayaking a ‘summer sport’!). She had a good voice and sang us quiet, fine songs (about love, of course) and we forgave her all her ‘faults’ for her songs.
She had a dream. She wanted to coach girls after graduating from her university. She named it “to raise the national woman kayaking”. It was pretty crazy idea: all our coaches were men. But still… she was passionate.
She became very close and intimate just with me. A few evenings of talking and girl’s confessions – and we understood how close our souls were. It wasn’t necessary to explain anything to her: she understood my feelings and thoughts, even when I was silent. I was happy and proud that she had a friendship just with me and our lovely girlfriends were slightly ‘jealous’ of it.
Tania wrote verses and wrote down a few poems in her letters to me (she lived in another town). I, stupid (actually, I can be pretty slow), understood this poem was dedicated to me only after 20 years:
“And stars?..
How the stars were shining for us!
They were so full of joy and sadness.
The joy was there,
Because we were together – you and I.
But sadness –
that the evening was the last
in Life."
Tania died, when she was 22.
I said goodbye to her, seeing her off, when she was leaving for that practice-period without me. I wished her a ‘light water’ and didn’t meet her again… Suddenly, a windstorm began and she couldn’t control her boat. She was let down by her ‘romantic’ habit to be alone and go practicing off her team.
…I remember the day and the time, when she – her spirit – came to me and remained in me. Ten years, I performed her dream. It wasn’t … (I don’t know…). It was my passion. My life.
Who can explain it to me?
Dialectic materialism, that I studied for such a long while?..
Toronto, 2002