Today is November 23, the day before Thanksgiving, that great American holiday for giving thanks, for being with family, for cooking, baking and cleaning until your house sparkles. And exudes the smells of roast turkey, sweet potatoes, maple syrup…apple and pumpkin or mince pies and tarts…. whatever tasty morsels are steaming or boiling or roasting in your now gleaming palace of delights.
It’s cold. It is November after all. But just back in October it was almost 90 and the flowers were blooming and people were jogging by in shorts and tank tops. Today it is cold and frosty. I have not adjusted. My mind is on flowers and fragrance and dew on the grass and the pink clouds at 5:30 a.m. when I still was happy and the world felt new or like it might begin again. My sump pump is still churning out water from the rain storm last week, and now it flows down the driveway and onto the street, freezing into a narrow river in front of my house only. The river of water comes more and more often these days. It feels sometimes like it’s just going to take everything away.
I left all the chrysanthemums out in the garden last night. It was starting to be tiring to take them into the garage every evening so they would not freeze, and then bring them out again in the morning. The weather, once again, is so erratic so strange so like a schizophrenic human being. One does not know what to do what to wear what to think what to feel or how to breathe anymore.
So much I want to preserve these flowers, these colors, that sharp, elusive, slightly weird earthy scent, that sometimes still makes me feel alive and happy even when I’m freezing. Oh let it rain flowers! Let each and every petal live as long as possible before the winter comes. And that big pot of pink mums, that looks like a giant cloud about to float up into the stratosphere. Let it stay awhile.
There was ice on the streets but looking out the window early this morning, I see they made it. The flowers. A little duller in color, a little frozen, but now, in the strengthening sun they are almost perking up, almost brightening, almost coloring again.
I’m sitting here at the kitchen table. I had all these things to do today. But suddenly I can’t even move.
When I turned on the radio this morning the announcer said that Dmitri Hvorostovsky had died. In London at 3:20 a.m..
There are some people, when they die, whether you know them personally or not, when they die someone digs a deep hole in your heart. Makes you feel dizzy like all the blood just drained out, like all the evil vampires just got you. Makes you cold and frightened, uncertain of where your hands or feet or face are.
I’m glad I am not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year because I would just stop, as soon as I heard the news that Dmitri H died…. it would just stop. All the sweet potatoes, cranberries, gravies, pies, and tarts, all the flowers to be put in vases. All of it would stand there shock still in the pantry, on the counters, in the jars, and boxes and bags, all the food in the fridge would freeze even more until it turned into powdery dust. All the interesting recipes sitting on the table, to thrill my dinner guests, they too would shrivel up like winter flies on the windowsill and die.
I feel a great noise like an old rattling carriage plunging down a steep slope and the horses shrieking as they break free, and running wild over the rocky hills, and the old guy at the top falling onto the ground hitting his head on a big rock. My head is split open now and I am flat like a cartoon. I cannot pick up a fork or knife or spoon.
The big news headlines are about the highest paid models, the death of a serial killer, the latest sexual predator, another sitcom star is dead, the Victoria Secret models will soon be parading their stuff, the White House is still a circus and next year 100 earthquakes will come.
The sun is coming out and the chrysanthemums are turning deeper and bolder and it almost looks like a nice autumn day.
But Dmitri Hvorostovsky is dead at 55 of brain cancer. Placido Domingo said that he felt “anguish” at the announcement of his passing and that “The heavenly choir may add a marvelous voice and soul to her prestigious angels.” And Renee Fleming that ” … there have been many beautiful voices, but none in my opinion, more beautiful than Dmitri’s.”
I’m listening to him now as I sit here unbelievably bereaved for someone I did not know in the flesh. He was so beautiful. It’s hard to separate the beautiful man from the beautiful voice. That white hair flowing down like snow, like ice, sometimes like silver. I’ve been listening all morning to a recording of the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff romances and he’s singing “Oh! this is the eternally weeping ocean devoted to the silent shore.” And “Let me not hear you sing my beauty, you with your songs of sad Georgia; they remind me of another life and of a distant shore.” You have to hear them in his native Russian to know, really know what a true love song is, what a true broken heart is, what a truly desolate place the heart can be. How you wait and wait for someone who never comes home. Even if you do not understand Russian you will understand every word he sings.
He’s a baritone, but sounds sometimes, almost like a tenor. He can sound like a deep roaring ocean, and other times his voice is drenched with honey. Each Russian vowel and consonant perfectly enunciated and lengthened, widened until the whole language pours over you like. Like what? Music critics the world over have described his voice and all the shadings and nuances far better than I can. I can’t. It’s overwhelming. Words fail me in describing his voice. I only know how to describe the absence of he who was that voice. How desolate it feels that he’s gone.
I wish I had some drug to make this sad feeling go away. Like when my father died, and then my mother. You just want to get away from that aching heart. Actually a heart can’t ache, we call it an ache I suppose, but it is worse. It has no sharp, actual pain, no raw, excruciating, nerve ripping, torture. It’s just dull, endless, sightless, colorless, textureless, yet it’s there, the emptiness of emptiness. Beyond empty. When you can’t sit or stand or see or think or feel and you do it anyway but all you experience is emptiness, nonsense, meaninglessness, but still you have to wander, move around, and flee because sitting still is excruciating, but there’s nowhere to go. Emptiness is all around you. Waking up one day you go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you wonder. How many times have I brushed my teeth now and how many more times will I brush them… And, you might drop the toothbrush in the sink and leave it there.
It feels like all the beauty, all the really beautiful ones, all the good ones, all the gentle ones are falling off the face of the earth, slowly one by one and those of us left behind, well we are simply left behind and it feels sad, so sad that you don’t even know what sad is and you can’t even describe your own state of mind because words suddenly don’t even have a meaning and without meaning you are in a state of limbo.
He was so physically beautiful and I wonder if that’s it. He really did look like snow. He was like a whole snowy country! They called him a lion, the Elvis of opera, the “Siberian Express.” He was young. He was sexy. He was charismatic. Youth and sex always sell. Looking at him in some photos he’s so strong, muscular, almost bulging out of tea shirts in those early publicity photos. But listen to him sing and you can hear the love he had for his country, for his family, for beauty. You can almost see his Babushka.
Even when he was a very young singer, and sang about old age or death or sickness or war you believed everything he said. I see and hear my own parents when he sings. My grandparents and theirs. The country that I never knew but heard about whenever they were too sad or too happy or had too many drinks or listened to old Ukrainian songs on the radio or record player.
I’m wandering around the house now listening to the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff romances and don’t know what to do with myself. All I can think of is to go somewhere, a bar, a club, a Russian restaurant. And I want it to be filled with weeping Russians.
I want to run to that Russian tea house now and see Clara again and my mother and my father, my whole crazy family, especially the dead ones. The wild ones, the unruly ones, the weepy emotional ones, the distorted twisted ones, who felt all the rage and pain and emptiness of war and ravaged homelands. The ones who never found a place to be home again. Those are the only ones I want to see now. Because I think they are the only ones who would understand, now, how I feel.
I want to drink a dozen tall icy glasses of coriander vodka with all of them, and listen to Dmitri Hvorostovsky sing all night long about nightingales and lilacs and poplars in the moonlight. I want to sit with my drunken broken down father now and listen to him sing “Dark Night.” I want to hear Moscow nights over and over and over again .. “Oh it’s hard to speak and yet not speak of the longing in my heart….”
I researched all over the internet for the English lyrics to this song and there are dozens of versions and I scribbled them down and they’re all over my desk in bits and pieces and I can’t read them now, and then I would go back on the internet and listen to a YouTube recording of him at that concert in Moscow Square from 2014…. and it doesn’t matter really if I know the words or not anymore. It’s the way he sang each word, the way he put his hand on his heart repeatedly. He did that a lot, put his hand on his heart when he sang. When he received applause. He also blew kisses at his audiences and those kisses seemed so heartfelt and natural. I never saw anyone blow better kisses.
He received dozens and dozens of bouquets at his concerts, masses of them, from people in the audience who walked down the long aisles with their flowers and offered them to him. Often white roses, that when he picked them up and clutched them against his black satiny and jeweled lapels, and then against his hair… it was such a sight. At the end of concerts he often distributed all of his many bouquets to the women musicians in the orchestra. I saw him do that after a concert in October of last year while he was very ill, but where he sang beautifully, and powerfully. He must have been so tired, handing out all those flowers.
The vodka must be icy icy cold, the glass slightly frosted and the liquid clear and clean and fresh like water. Running through your mouth and trickling down your throat that is choking on tears. The coriander slightly bitter and bracing, slightly medicinal, slightly life-giving slightly fortifying to make you stronger so you can drink again and again and again and again.
I just sat all morning and listened to Dmitri Hvorostovsky on YouTube. Singing in Italian in Russian and in French. Singing opera, singing Russian and Ukrainian folk songs, singing French pop songs. Looking more and more handsome and more and more white-haired and more and more like winter. Did any one look better in black? Could anyone stand as ramrod straight and still look as supple as a reed?
He sang with the most beautiful women in the world– Anna Netrebko, Aida Garifullina, Elina Garanca and whenever they were on stage they were dazzling they were beautiful they sang gorgeously but you only saw him, the Snow Prince. They had eyes and lips and skin and arms and shoulders and hair and dazzling smiles. They wore dresses of silk and satin and brocade and diamonds. But he eclipsed them. He was the sun and the moon and the stars and the black night all in one.
He sang a song called “Toi et Moi” with someone called Lara Fabian. A beautiful woman as golden-haired as he was snowy white. And I noticed his skin and teeth, his glowing face, more soft and velvety smooth than any model on TV advertising miracle creams. Then he sang “Cranes” the song about Russian soldiers not coming home from bloody battles and turning into cranes. Beautiful white cranes flying home again to the skies and it sounded like he was singing about himself, soon to turn into a white crane and fly away.
He smiles a lot when he sings. Big, genuine, wide and sunny smiles with very strong white teeth. Everything about him looks strong. His face his arms his torso his legs. His face, if it were not so beautiful it could be somewhat brutish because of the large head set on a thick strong neck, but it’s that skin again, almost with a slight pinkish pearly sheen like a baby’s. But that smile, it’s almost shocking. It’s like the sun and the moon and the stars. Truly. I keep going back to the sun and the moon and the stars. Because those really are the most beautiful, the most enthralling, the most eternal things and no matter how often you see them you wonder, you gasp, you’re amazed that they exist and you are there staring up at them. His smile and dazzling looks had a little bit of all of them. Just be in a dark room and the door opens and he walks in.
His face sometimes looks like a baby and toddler and teenager and young man and young woman and almost old man but not an old woman. The older he gets the more beautiful he looks the better the hair looks. In his last concerts he had shadows under his eyes. A concert he gave about six months before he died. The shadows are dark and slightly purplish and make him look not sick and close to death but just more beautiful like the moon in a violet sky.
Oh what a sadly deafening street there is somewhere in London town oh what tear-stained children and wives and mother and father. Oh how that old Russian town must be weeping now at their white-haired lion gone, leaving them with dreamless sleep as he dreams peacefully on his own.
“Let me not hear you sing, my beauty, you with your songs of sad Georgia; they remind me of another life and of a distant shore,…”. One can say that of Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Let us not hear him sing again because at least for now it’s too sad too emotional too painful. Oh what songs he could have sang for twenty more years!
I came home late last night from a concert by Dhaka Braha the Ukrainian quartet from Kiev and was still full of the excitement of the evening. The music, the four strong voices, the beautiful harmonies, the gorgeous costumes, the high energy of the drummers… At the end of the concert they always unfurl a Ukrainian flag to riotous applause…It was a truly wonderful concert but through it all I thought about another singer the whole time.
Getting out of the cab the night took my breath away. The sky was dark violet and there were immense whole mountains of pink clouds that looked like they were raked into a huge V shape and in between the clouds tiny stars twinkled.. the moon was a perfect crescent, blazing yellow, almost cartoon like and it was so far away from this earth so far and yet so close. I stood there not wanting to go inside just stood there in the silence with those tiny stars flickering in and out of the pink clouds. The air was fresh and cold.
Renee Fleming said that there were many beautiful voices but in her opinion none more beautiful than Dmitri’s. None more deep, more sorrowful, more glorious, and soaring like some eagle to the forgotten skies, none more lush and velvety. None more missed then now looking up at the violet and pink and inky sky with that moon so bright, so sharp like a scythe. I wanted it to stab me so I could have some peace.
The voice as it soars then falls like the softest flake of snow and then even softer and silkier as it melts into a puddle of our tears “Only those who long to see someone know how I have suffered……” he sings as only a Russian can sing and weeps as only a Russian weeps. I never thought I would say that as a Ukrainian, knowing all the sad and violent history of our two countries. But he transcended all that and it was that voice and that longing for truth and beauty and love that he sang about that matters most. Oh how he sings in Russian. I never wanted to learn Russian more then when I hear him sing. So I can understand every single word every little smile every little tear every little frown every little hand gesture to his heart.
I’m living in a world where a top news story is who the highest paid model in the world is. More important than the ending of wars. More important than the hunger and torture and death of thousands. Someone’s sexual misconduct more important than life than beauty than art.. more important than the death of one of the most beautiful voices we have known.
I hardly have any heart left and I feel cold, old, and alone, as wintry as it gets in what we call our soul.
I am glad I am not cooking a big fat turkey this year and scrubbing and cleaning and dusting and fussing with flowers and placements and maple souffle’s and madeira gravies. And trying to make brussels sprouts more interesting by shaving them and mixing them with crushed hazelnuts and topping them with pomegranate seeds…..
I am going to sit here instead and listen to Dmitri and I may go out and buy a big bottle of real Vodka like they make in Sweden or Russia or Poland or Ukraine, and I might put it in a freezer for awhile until it is so cold it is almost hot. Icy icy cold like my heart feels now.
And I will pour it into my most beautiful most precious vodka glass and I will drink the entire bottle and listen to Dmitri sing of broken hearts and ice and snow and empty shores and Kings and Queens of gladness Kings and Queens of madness.
I feel so sad I can smell the ink in my pen as I write this down. I smell the ink like sweat and tears and shrieking drops of some liquid coming from some dying little broken down animal… some wailing thing that is still eeking out small sighs thin as a thread, like in “A Hundred Years of Solitude”… the little girl, it comes out of her poor chest as she walks down the road with the rattling bones of her dead parents…
Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Look at him. Look at that face wide as some Siberian landscape. Endlessly beautiful endlessly fascinating and that white hair, yes that white hair that was white and silver and it was the whitest and most beautiful hair anyone had, that could make someone so beautiful even more beautiful. He was both young and old simultaneously. He was winter fall and summer simultaneously. Sometimes walking across the stage in his long and elegant, slightly sparkly tuxedos, when the hair was longer, it swayed just a little, sashayed like a new kind of fabric, looked like moonbeams walking by, probably smelled like a thousand Siberian winters…
His voice can rip your very heart in two and he had a face and breathtaking smile to match… Let it rip. It feels good to have it ripped in two, to have it ripped out completely from your breast so it won’t ache anymore.
whennothingworks 
Oh my goodness O, words fail me! Whenever I read your work I find myself thinking: she must be a celebrated writer who has become a recluse. You also make me feel jealous of your powers of observation, your ability to articulate your thoughts and your use of language. I love this – your descriptions, your passion, your quirky character.
Yet again, here is another post I can use as a sample template to help me improve my writing but deep in my heart I don’t believe I could ever produce anything that is even a 1/4 of your standard. Thank you for sharing your precious gift. And please don’t stop writing.
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Dear Ladycee,
Well, I am now speechless. Truly. That you once again take the time to carefully read another person’s work, and give such a generous review. I can’t put it into words. Responding to your generosity of spirit fails me…. Thank you. This “writer” does not feel like a writer lately….
O
On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 12:07 AM, whennothingworks wrote:
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I can understand O. I have seasons like that. I am only responding as my heart moves me to the beauty of your writing style.
I’m sorry to hear you are not feeling A-ok! I will put you in my diary so I do not forget to pray for you for the rest of this month.
Be at peace and reflect on that old cliché – Jesus loves you! Your problems won’t necessarily go away but re-focusing your thoughts on someone who has done so much for you will hopefully change your perspective on them.
With Best wishes.
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Dear Ladycee,
Thank you for your words of wisdom! And, I do hope that you continue to use the very precious gifts of writing that you have. I often think of you and what an amazingly warm and generous heart you have. And how well balanced and steadfast you seem to be in your faith.
O
On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 11:41 AM, whennothingworks wrote:
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Dear O,
Thank you for your kind comment. I love to write and will continue to use my gift to encourage others and glorify God to the best of my ability.
May the Lord continue to watch over you, may he grant you peace that transcends natural understanding and may he open doors to miraculous provision.
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Dear Ladycee,
I cannot top that. Thank you so much for truly blessing my day! I do have to say that you always seem to contact me at exactly the right time….it is uncanny.. I have been kept up lately by a Psalmody that is sung at the church I try to attend especially now during Lent:
“Let my prayer rise up like incense before you, the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you….” It is based on Psalm 141 of David. It has been for me transcendent. Everytime I hear it…. I sing it to myself all day long lately…. May others appreciate the gift that you are.
O
On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 1:27 PM, whennothingworks wrote:
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Thank you dear O. May God bring more appreciative people like you across my pathway. I believe it must be the Lord why I seem to contact you at the right time, which shows how much he cares for and wants to encourage you. Honoured that he should use me to be a blessing to you O.
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Dear Ladycee,
Whatever the reason, you are indeed a blessing! Talked about you in church last night
and we all gave a prayer of thanksgiving for you and your many kindnesses….
O
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Wow! Thank you so much. That is the most precious thing anyone can give – your prayers. I am touched and encouraged.
Bless you dear O. 😃
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You are welcome!
Sent from my iPhone
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😃
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Dear O – I am new to your blog, and I found it only by chance, as I was searching for something else; whatever that was I immediately forgot, when I started to read your text with an increasing shiver down my spine. So…, so…, so sincere and raw and breathtakingly lovingly beautiful and vulnerable and strong. I posted a link to your text in a Facebook-group I’m a member of. Its name is Florence&Dmitri Hvorostovsky Journal (a public group) – and as I don’t know your name, I do not know if you are a member, too. I sure wish you were! Now I want to invite you at least to come and look how much your lament means to many of our members, from all over the globe. Thank you so much for giving the words from your heart, soul, experience to your readers, you are a very courageous and sensitive lady, and I am deeply impressed!
Doris
Please visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DmitriHvorostovsky/1883648368370764/?comment_id=1883673061701628&reply_comment_id=1883921515010116¬if_id=1543906724178289¬if_t=group_comment_mention
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Dear Doris,
You caught me during a very dark and sad week. And have taken me completely by surprise. Your incredibly kind and very very nice note has rendered me almost speechless. I can barely drink my coffee…. I don’t know how to thank you really. You have lifted my spirits so much! And, your generosity in sharing my blog post on the magnificent Dmitri Hvorostovsky… that … I truly don’t know what to say. My hand is shaking… Thank you so very much. O
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Please, please, take a look at the group-page. You need not be a member. People are so deeply moved by your words – you should know. You lifted us up and released something – a wave of warmth has swept through our community! Thanks to you!
Doris
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Dear Doris,
Thank you so much. As I wrote to you earlier, this has been a very very dark week…..I really do not know what to say but thank you for your kindness, your readership, your heart.
Your second email came to me this morning when I was waiting for a bus home. Standing on a bridge overlooking a very dark and cold river, on a very cold day. Then I read your email and the cold was less biting the river less sad…. Thank you. It is always such a rather strange surprise to me how often, a total stranger comes into ones life, seemingly out of nowhere… and one has to pay attention again…
Thank you.
O
On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 10:37 AM whennothingworks wrote:
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Dear O – it seems to me that connecting with readers can mean so much to you, that I truly hope you have taken a look at the warm and grateful reactions in the Facebook-group “Florence&Dmitri Hvorostovsky Journal”. Please do not hesitate, there are only kind and appreciative reactions from everywhere on the globe. For example from author and opera director Lillian Groag who writes of your tribute: “Perhaps the most beautiful and moving of them all. I’d like to keep it!” You need not participate or reveal your identity, just come and look. And please, give me some peace of mind by telling here if you have managed to check these responses, or say a word about why not. And then I will not pester you with this request anymore! We are dozens who have read your text closely and will never forget it! Loving greetings!
Doris
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Dear Doris,
I did indeed take a look today after receiving your email this morning to do so. I am overwhelmed that people took the time to read it, it is a rather long piece, and then I was very moved and grateful for their responses. And, I am especially overwhelmed by the fact that you contacted me this morning, of all mornings. You do not know… it may have been divine providence as you mentioned in one response… it really may have been…. And, I could go on and on, I was so amazed that you took the time not only to attach a link to this post to your site but then wrote a very kind and lovely introduction, and last but not least, that you encouraged people to keep with it and read it to the end…. this was very important to me.. because I do go on and on and the post certainly did…. I can’t tell you I really cannot articulate my gratitude.
Doris, I was about to shut down my blog and have been thinking about it for a while now. The only reason I have not shut it down is that I have not managed to copy the posts and file them away..You brought me more readers in one day than I received in the almost last five years… that is the gift that you gave me.and….the hope to keep writing. one of the gifts… the other I can’t even begin to utter.
Again I really do not know how to express my gratitude to you. You may be an angel and don’t know it yet.
O
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Dear unknown “O”,
I have also read your beautiful blog and felt extremely moved by it, perhaps because you managed to express and reflect what many of us felt and still feel but could not express it in such an eloquent and moving way as you did, and for that, many thanks!
Alicia Moguilevsky
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I think we all need from time to time for someone to listen to us, to read us and into us, to see who we are, really are; to share deep felt emotions which otherwise become unleashed tsunamis inside our deepest corners of body & mind… Your blog touched very special chords perhaps still very raw in people also connected to DH by appreciation & respect for such a talented human being and thus is why it was felt so much… thank you for accepting my comments and for replying so promptly
alicia
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Oh my, I do not know, yet, how to make the “like-button” work without causing me to have to begin blogging, too! 😉 But my dear ladies, I love your comments above. You too are kindred spirits in my eyes as a reader, and I am happy to read you on the same page!
Sometimes I believe in “everything happens for a reason” and sometimes I am sure it doesn’t, and I am still absolutely protesting against, that there would be a reason for Dmitri catching that deadly blow to his head, the morbid cancer! There was every reason for him to live, live, live!
If you knew all my limitations and faults, dear O – the word ‘angel’ would not pop up in your mind! 😀
But I hope I am a fellow human being for somebody once in a while, especially when I am given a surprising gift – as was your blog, and of course many acts of kindness and good heartfelt words that have come my way – and they came sometimes when most needed and most surprisingly.
I love to think that you will keep writing. Writing could be your true path or the way to it!
I want to add some music – do links work here in this blog-world? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1HDfhvBRk notice the blessings to the тропинка! Cheers, all the best! ❤
PS the romance is called 'Благославляю вас, леса…' if the link fails to direct to the video. A huge favourite of mine!
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Dear Doris,
Whatever it was and however you think of yourself I will always think of it as divine intervention. And thank you very much for the link. I will be sure to listen to it.
As for why things happen that is a lifelong mystery as so many things are in this life. If only we knew.
But I do know that you turned a very dark week into a much brighter one. Thank you.
O
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I’ve signed up for your blog, mysterious “O,” because of your fine words and thoughts about Dima. And, thank you Doris for pointing us to O’s blog. All of these connections make the world just a little smaller, and just a little nicer.
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My heartfelt thanks to you for your kind words and for
taking the time to read. Each time a person, a stranger at that, somewhere in that vast
universe… when they take the time to read a person’s thoughts whatever they may be, that is really one of the greatest and most enduring gifts one could ask for. And yes, things do become smaller, and one is not alone in
what seems so often, like endless grief…
Thank you.
O
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Dear O – Thanks to you we have had one of the conversations in the Facebook-group that in my opinion has been one of the most rewarding in a long time. I so wish that you as a reward will have a much better period ahead, you sure have deserved it!
I don’t know if you have ever met the Moomins? Anyway, their creator, author and artist Tove Jansson, has said:
– When you feel the inspiration stir in you: don’t wait, run /and get started/!
Hope that’s what you do, but no pressure intended! There’s nothing as creative as playfulness, so even when sorrow and pain loom large, a little break to just connect with the child within, should be what that little girl or boy is entitled to. (I hope my intuition didn’t go totally wrong here!)
Have brighter day inside!
Let’s play: https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/the-coolest-personality-test-which-moomin-character-are-you/
Cheers,
D
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Dear Doris,
I have been so uplifted by you and and the people with whom you shared my post on Dmitri H. And I thank you so much. And even this morning I hear from you on the darkest day. I am trying to prepare for two funerals…I feel like that person in the Bible who feels like their bones are melting like wax……..
But please know you have my gratitude, you and your friends who have shared with me their sorrows…
O
On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 12:30 AM whennothingworks wrote:
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Dear O
Funerals are heavy. You will be in my thoughts today. I am sure you will take a beautiful farewell and be of great support for others, because you might say something that is connecting all of you who share the sorrow. I hope you will rely on that you will have the needed strength and confidence. What you have will be enough!
For you I will listen to Dmitri’s concert for the heart and soul today! I am very sorry for trying to strike a light tone to cheer you up – really bad timing! I have no talent for telepathy, I know. In no way I want to be a distraction.
Grateful greetings!
D
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Dear Doris,
No, your timing was not bad at all and actually helped me to make a very difficult decision. I am the one whose timing is most always off…… But yes, please keep me in your thoughts or prayers this week, selfishly I ask that of you. And listening to Dmitri H that will be the Balm of Gilead…. so signing off now for awhile and hope that you have a peaceful and calm month, the end of 2018.
Thank you!
O
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Of course you will be in my thoughts and my kind of prayers. You impressed me so much it would be difficult not to think of and feel for you. Send me a message anytime – I get a notification to my e-mail when you have written here!
I understand that you’ve checked the Facebook group (it is not mine, but I am a member since 2 years) and the responses to the link to your blog – you refer to the Balm of Gilead. So nice!
Keep finding what you need, what makes you thrive – maybe you need to be a little “self-ish” in a healthy sense and stay one caring anyway?
Looking forward to what you might write when the time is ready!
Warm greeting and all the best for the coming season in spite of all!
Doris
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Dear O!
I’ve read your text accidentally as a member of Florence & Dmitri Hvorostovsky Journal. It was only three months since I’d first heard the voice of Dmitri Alexandrovič. The rest is history. I just want to tell you that I have read your words countless times and know them almost by heart. Why? Simple because they are exactly what my heart, soul, and mouth are not capable to profess. Thank you infinitely for your words, which are the echo of my heart and soul.
Sometimes I post a few comments on the FB’s Journal page and I would like to ask you for permission to ever quote your words.
Thanks and regards,
Si
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Dear Regina Si,
I seem to be having trouble with my computer this morning. I fear I was
greatly distracted by my walk in the garden and the computer is doing
what it wants, instead of me..Though without it I would not hear from sensitive, passionate
souls like you and thus my day would not be as good or kind or bright. Because
of my state of mind you may have received a few of these comments in reply to your
email, as my fingers are flying over the keys and not keeping up with my mind. What’s left of it.
You and the other members of the Dmitri and Florence group have sent me the most
precious comments always, and for a very uncanny reason they have come at times
of great sadness. Thank you! O
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Thank dear O for your answer.
Yesterday, in the group of admirers of Dmitri Aleksandrovich, the question “WHY you love and admire Dmitry?” WHAT exactly does his voice emanate in your hearts? WHY does his voice have such an enormous effect on your souls? ” was raised. My spontaneous answer was: does the author want me to write a novel? In this form, I might somehow be able to express myself, in only a few sentences – impossible. Such an unique creature (I hardly say human being – because his impact on us is more than a human being is capable of) deserves much more than some banal sentences. However, I did try and even published my irrational attempt. I just wanted to be equal to everyone else. When I saw it, I realized that I could not, and I completely deleted everything. My emotions are too deep, too complex and complicated for people to understand. Actually, they never do. Sometimes, when my heart and soul are overflowing, I write in quotations to hide my real emotions behind other’s words. I sometimes quote your words – here and there in a sentence. Above all, the quoted words are safe from curious eyes, since no one usually thinks so deep, that someone is standing behind them, who may simply express his emotions in that way. Praise for this human superficiality. Be good, dear O and let your fingers go their own way – just like my own today. And forgive me, my English is sometimes a little “strange”, because it is not my native language, but I try my best. My best regards to you. Si
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Regina Si
Thank you for your comment. Writing is extremely difficult. Someone once said, I forget his name at the moment,
: “The easiest thing in the world is not to write”. I think it was the
screenwriter of “The Marathon Man” a very great film. It is completely possible
to express oneself but you may have to try one thousand times….or more. And someone somewhere in the vast universe of human beings will understand you… at least a little and that is something….
I appreciate your readership, and your comments, but please if you use something from my posts, please credit it to the author and use quotation marks. Thank you. O
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dear ladies, thank you for giving the written word a chance. it is amazing how it sometimes can work. in my heart I connect with you today!
blessings!
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Dear Doris,
I recognize here a warm, passionate and very kind voice from the past. Hoping you are well… summer is upon us…
O
On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 7:27 AM whennothingworks wrote:
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I sure hope you are well and inundated by your living garden. in my case it is a bit “neither-nor” – because shoulder-surgery just one hand to do things with – tiresome but not life-threatening. hope writing-inspirations comes and sits on your shoulder as a butterfly!
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I am so sorry! I would not be so calm about it. It is very difficult to have just the use of one hand.. I once injured my right hand and wore a cast and found it difficult to do anything. It would make gardening quite impossible. The garden is one of the most calming and restorative things in my life right now. But you are right, it is not life-threatening and that is a great blessing. Wishing you a very speedy recovery. And thank you so much for reading.
O
On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 2:21 PM whennothingworks wrote:
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Dear O!
Thanks for your kind permission. Whenever I quote your words I always use quotation marks and as the source “an anonymus bloger” since I don’t know your name. Those who follow your blog, know whose quotation I use, because I see a few familiar names here. Alicia, Doris. I just would like to add, that I merged all my powers, to public smth (I was talking about the other day), just because it was expected so. A bunch of philosophicaI stupidities, far from my real feelings. God bless them, if they “ate” them. I hope your garden is doing you well and works beautifully for you. Mine is this year a sad place. To much rain. And my secret, so loved seat under the lime tree is lonely and abandoned. How I need it smtm! – to tell her (my tree is “she”) all the secrets of my soul, about all my sights of my heavy heart, to cry out loud all my pain and all my love. So it remains in me, threatened to rip me apart. But I’m all smiles. Sorry dear O, I was carried away. I wish you a peaceful evening and every particular day in advance. Si
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