ceo beo: wishes are white

my first sight of the world from my morning window made me think that i still slept. living so far from the ground is itself a dream–and i woke up inside a cloud, white and impenetrable.

since i'd worked all day yesterday, i did not go to NB this morning. instead of doing just the usual run along the murky river (oh, Johann, you were wrong—or, perhaps, only , i allowed myself to get a little lost. in the process, the sun emerged and burned off most of the encapsulating fog—so by the time i'd gone back up to the apartment, i had the usual clear-ish view.

went straight to Tijana's house, discovering that it takes about as long to get there from Novi Beograd as it does from NB, which is decidedly in the city. ridiculous. thus, i wasn't late today, even though i was coming from much farther. also had time to buy some grapes as a small contribution to the usual coffee and edibles that her mother always makes us since we've been meeting at her house. in fact, Tijana's family is great. her father takes a nap every afternoon, so he's always sprawled out, snoring, on the couch when i leave. today, Tijana's sister was over there when i arrived. she's a journalist with Danas and was getting some literary help from her sister. for my part, i was all excited because Danas was made quite famous during the 1990s as an anti-Milošević paper. the Misha Glenny book i'd read before coming here mentioned the and various daring reporters in its minions; the meeting of something greater and external to myself (history, literature) over thick coffee made me starry-eyed.

somewhere in the midst of reviewing the accusative case, Tijana and i got into a discussion about the peculiarity of a life (in language) bounded by what is possible—and what is desired. i nearly startled, as it was she who termed it such. this was after i'd written the first piece which actually evokes any sort of satisfaction. by which i mean it did not even *allude* to my family and their birthdays, my daily schedule and the furnitures i use during it, or vacations (summer or otherwise). on the other hand, as a weird and speculative story with no proper names, it was somewhat beyond the scope of my abilities in this new language of mine and, thus, i was fumbling all over the place. it's so frustrating for me to partially know ("come on, come on: give me a bunch of words and i will slap you back a sentence...") so much about grammar—but then be held back by a lack of vocabulary ("...but i'll not know if it's funny, with its nouns in their accuracy"). anyway, after labouriously going over the text, explaining what i wanted to say, we got into the discussion about capacity and desire. turns out that Tijana does exactly the same thing: writes these completely nonsensical, reaching tumults that are way beyond what she knows (or is "supposed to know"). meanwhile, i don't understand how anyone could, really, do otherwise. it isn't as though stretching beyond the rules of grammar (these, that one could be awoken in the dead of night to recite) constitutes going beyond knowledge; knowledge is whatever one embarks upon, even badly. regurgitating phrases and patterns "safely" and perfectly is not knowledge.

in short, though, i am completely relieved and grateful to have Tijana as a language teacher. i think about whatever-his-name-was, my instructor in Brno, and how he simply did not get me—what a disaster it became as i slaved over a hot stove to produce these sprawling essays about love and theft, joy and sorrow (and, of course, the authors thereof—my Dylan, my Bohumil), of which he, for all his pitiful, clammy sweating, could not make heads or tails. "disaster," i say, but of course mean "delirious joy of a semi-scandalous nature." i'll never know whether my abominable grammar was the real cause of the problems, or whether what became a justification for even further wild ranting was, in a modified form, called for—as i struggled to live beyond my means, to say what i wished rather than what i could.