The tide is coming in...

...and you will dance on top of the waves.

You're closer than you think. Speak faith into your heart. Don't give up on your dreams. The tide will come back to you, my love.

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остальное в мире: Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын (Dec 11, 1918 - Aug 3, 2008)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, after he was released from the Gulag, 1953

“Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”

And my grandfather V.'s favorites from his dog-eared copy of The Gulag Archipelago :

Live with a steady superiority over life–don't be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same–the bitter doesn't last forever and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.

Rub your eyes and purify your heart–and prize above all else in the world those who love you and wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part with them in anger; after all, you simply do not know, it may be your last act.

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Il Mare

Positano, Italy

"In time," he whispered, coiling her hair around his fist. "I will be everything to you."

Even our sanctuaries can become prisons

How deeply and softly the colors of the evening have spread
At the end of the day the fragrance of fragile blooms rises along my path
In the first watch of night
Your voice awakens me, sometimes in a clap
Sometimes in a murmur
And the earth appears more lucid than the moon.

Whose footstep, whose shadow
Enters here?
Who gives me thorns
To decorate my palms
To change the lines of my fate?
Am I to live wounded with flowers ?


May the impertinence of my eyes be forgiven
May they look on you just a little
What my lips couldn't say, my gaze says for me.

Where did you walk off,
Where did I?
I kept roaming thus,
I didn't find what I was looking for
But on this bluff I beheld the world.


What is this place
Where I have no rule over joy
No power over sorrow?

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