tsvetoslav shalev

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.

– Richard Dawkins

I am an unhurried walker. From my sheer bulk to my scoliotic posture to the way my feet shuffle and drag with reluctance – I look like an alien who, on the best of days, had a single briefing on bipedalism before climbing into a human body. Those of us who spend most of our workday sitting know all too well the intense gravitational pull of the office chair. Despite the ill side-effects of prolonged immobility, we’re dependent on the solid yet comfortable presence of a cushioned seat and a backrest to catch our fall.

Whenever I gaze toward my Alexa home assistant, an LED clock stares right back at me with a dim indifference. Time piles up, layer on layer. Indecision and self-validating excuses swirl around to the tune of unsettling angst. Lifting this curtain of silence is no easy task. Unless you spend some of your precious life force and attack the keyboard, a month will have come and gone. And with it, a million and one thoughts internalized, never to see the light of day on a printed or a digital page, crashing against the jagged shores of our being; forever lost to everyone who isn’t privy to the contents of our minds (or is incapable of reading it). Speaking of things irrecoverable, I write to you from my hometown of Tutrakan, Bulgaria. With twelve hours to go before my flight back, I finally mustered the courage to complete this writ. Not a cloud in the sky, azure and impossibly wide. The tips of my fingers feel alien to me and I cannot really tell if I still have my toes. A coldness I couldn’t shake off the entire week, my blood like a jaded tourist who refuses to travel anywhere but along the equator. The air carries with it notes typical of places unlived in for a very long time, but also of wood smoke and freshly sliced watermelon. Don’t mistake cleanliness for comfort. Spotless, yet unused, things lack in warmth, although not in appeal. I digress. In order to write, one needs to read. Having a pulse is also desirable, but I am still searching for mine. So, expect more from me and this space, free of advertisements and… well, content, given the long, unannounced breaks I’ve been taking.

If you’ve found a home, congratulations – one existential conundrum less to confuse and to perturb. For those of us in search of one, I say good luck. As for everyone else, we can probably find a way to relate, but I am not entirely clear on the touching points at this very moment. Oh, and I am in an especially long-distance relationship, yet again. While I cannot tell you exactly when it all started, I will most certainly keep you updated on when it falls apart. I always do.