Inga Abele - High Tide

“Man is a curious creation. I’ve observed a close connection between my mood and the wind. Today, with a fresh trade wind blowing, everything in my body rejoices.”

Across the Atlantic with Dju —yaha! Where does one find a trade wind in Latvia?

Write me!

— Ieva

* * *

Hello, my dear brother!

Life is horribly complicated, or else horrible and complicated. I’ve suddenly realized — everything is happening to me and it’s awful. I can’t avoid it anymore, I’m not as flexible as I was as a kid or a teenager, I’m stiff as a pole, and each splash of mud lands right onto my soul. I must be destined to live the life of a lightning rod. Right now I’m just one big compromise. In my mind I want to boss everyone around. Let them call me mentally incompetent! Out of the box and without boundaries. But on the surface I’m so quiet…

. . the meek will be spit out…

Oh but I know, I know already! But I can’t let loose, because I’m not alone anymore.

. . if my life was just mine and mine alone…

My boyfriend is a gloomy person with an entirely wrecked world outlook and with a cruel relationship — scores to settle — with this life. And I don’t understand why this life has chosen him for me. And I agree with him on everything because I don’t have the heart to hurt him (“E tu, Brute?”), I stand silently by him and hope for peace, but… I at least learned one thing during my short time in Stockholm — always look at everything from both sides. A shitty trait! It’ll never let me just be.

. . he who comes first, to him I shall belong, and adorn him with chrysanthemums…

. . a lone crane flies among the clouds, completely alone, without friends it lets out a strange and fearful cry…

Brother, I want to see you so badly! Please, please!

When will you be back in Latvia?

I’ll call you.

— Ieva

* * *

Hello, brother!

I’ve finally worked up the energy to write to you. I got everything you sent — even that lovely little note. I knew I’d write back to you, because I really want to see you, but threshing time ruined a few of my plans. True — you sometimes only need a minute to write a letter, but for me to write to you, I also need to be in the mood.

I don’t know what’s going on! Sometimes I’ve been in the kind of mood where I can’t stay put somewhere for more than three days. Now it’s the same, but with the one big difference being that I’m tied down, can’t get anywhere and feel a huge sense of discomfort.

It’s morning, I’m eating dried plums, looking through the Sudmaliņas journal, and I want to cry. I want Riga and I want Sudmaliņas , I want it to feel like the Baltica-88 folklore festival. I don’t really know, but I suppose you’re having a good time right now. Things in my life have changed, but we’ll talk about that when we see each other.

I am as ever — your Ieva

P.S. I’ll call you all next week in the evening until I get a hold of you.

So I can’t wait, I have to tell you — I’m going to the General Register Office today to register. July 9th. Good God! I’m eighteen years old.

So alright, I’ll just lay it all out: I’m going to have a baby in the fall.

* * *

Hey, brother!

Thank you so much for your letter, which I only got once I was at the Zari house. That’s why I’m writing back late.

I haven’t written anything about myself all fall because the season seemed to stretch on for a lifetime for me. Getting used to a new life is the same as trying on new clothes. The fit is a bit tight in places, and loose in others. No joke, just up until a little while ago my eyes were still wide in surprise — is it really still fall?

As a result of all of it, I’m at the Zari house with Andrejs. We had a hell of a time with the repairs. We’re not that far from Gran, but the wildlife is totally different. Black sand in the forest, grass to your armpits. When there’s a storm the sea doesn’t blow in through the windows, but instead crashes far beyond the wet fields. Gran cried when I left. Roberts has just been crying non-stop. He’s survived the war and Siberia, and still can’t wrap his head around the fact that Latvians once again have their own, independent state. He either cries, or sits with his buddies at the store and discusses Virza’s Straumēni. Roberts gave me a cow for my dowry — Salna. She’s a blue seaside cow, one of Zīlīte’s calves. We put a string around her neck and led her all the way here along the roads through the pine forest. We made it without any problems. Now I have my own cow among Andrejs’s brown cows, I can wrap my arms around Salna’s neck and cry when I miss my old life.

I have to do my own cooking, draw my own water from the well and carry it, light my own stove with damp firewood.

The old collective farm stable is just beyond the orchard. There are still a lot of horses in it. The pastures stretch on until our vegetable patch. Sometimes voices can be heard coming from the old manor, but other than that we’re completely alone.

At first I really missed home. I’d think of Gran and my friends, then go into the woods to cry. But then Monta was born and I didn’t have much time for crying. My daughter is beautiful and healthy, born on the first day of frost. I looked at her, and only when I saw her little face did I understand what a child was. First and foremost — a huge responsibility. A person who will be by my side my entire life. That’s for certain. As is the fact that one day she’ll see me die. But I’m not thinking about that just yet. Old age is the last thing on my mind.

It’s all work, work, work, and then it’s already time for bed. So we can be up by 5 a.m. the next morning.

Alright, it’s already 22:22, pretty late, time for me to go to bed. I’m exhausted.

Write to me, I really need it. Please!

— Ieva

* * *

Brother!

Each letter I get from you is a reason to celebrate. My reply probably won’t be the same for you.

I’m shattered into a hundred tiny pieces, glass shards. The bottom of the pot, black from soot, sometimes seems sweet and white to me, while a glass of milk sometimes pours red as blood. This letter is going to be that same kind of mosaic.

I suppose you’re experiencing some breakage right now, too. I’ll give you one piece of advice, though — don’t drop out of school! Like the sun needs the moon, like a plant needs its roots, like a leg needs a foot, like a star needs its shine, so does every thing and every being need a foundation. Education will give you the foundation you need to stand tall. Once you finish, you can be a romantic, an anarchist, an artist, a mathematician — whatever your destiny may be. But for now, build your foundation and don’t, don’t drop out!

I’ll admit that my hair stands on end when it suddenly hits me that right now I live in a harsh, base, and simple world in which Andrejs and I constantly ask ourselves questions, but don’t bother trying to answer them or even hear them. And there’s no joy in the mirror, in the birds, in nature, they’re all a bunch of lies. The word “joy” itself is a lie.

People like us fall in love with unrealistic people who have a strange glow about them. Because I came to the conclusion — the only reason I like my husband is because he’s my star with his own shine, some kind of special (maybe dark) internal shine. A person isn’t yours, no, it’s their glow or their shine — that’s what’s yours. The soul, not the body! You wrote — how can you like him, you don’t even know what he’s like! Yes and that’s the thing, I don’t know him — maybe that’s why there won’t be any disappointment?

Even if there are others, even if I’m with them, he’ll still be my ideal. And to be with him together in life — it’s the most I could ask for. See, I have nothing to give to the world if I have nothing to give to love.