Vanilla Sky

Katya Romanova

[aeromanova]

We see the same full moon tonight. The same silver light kisses you at night that kisses me, but where on this planet are you? My other magnet half, my compass is spinning. I feel your pull but I don’t know which way to go. You were the first bloom of my heart, the first dew of my eye. The first flower of the spring of my life. You caught me right as I broke my way through the freezing earth that was my heart before your burning touch. The first anchor in this strange second life, the first soul to tell mine that it isn’t not alone after all. A reminder that new life can be made. Where are you, my love at first sight? My moon river. Come back and colour me in again. Rock me like a wave to sleep, kiss me like it does the shore as it washes away all that was before it. Wash it away, help me forget. Let me sink back into your sea and live on your waves again.

[aeromanova]

@aeromanova

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A post shared by Katya (@aeromanova) on Jul 5, 2020 at 4:00pm PDT

[aeromanova]

It is 2020 I am 25 today and it hit me like ice cold air in the lungs that in a month and a half I will have lived in Canada for 16 years. Six-teen years. A lifetime. A lifetime split into two. This number hurts to acknowledge as I had always grasped on to the idea that HALF of me lived there, that HALF of my life will always remain there. I always fear that each year my memories are becoming foggy and deluded. Today I am sitting in my mothers’ backyard in Canada and rubbing a blackcurrant leaf in my hand. The smell so distinctive it transports me all the way back to the latter half of the 90s.

“Do you remember mushroom picking at our old dacha?” Mama asks.

Of course I do. My earliest memories are my clearest. I knew the edible types from the poisonous types before I was five. I also knew how to find worms, and how to fish. I knew a lot about the simple things back then - the things that I grasp on to so dearly now. It is 2020 today and I am begging my friends to take me out of the dusty city for one weekend so that I can touch lake water and see a clear sky like I did everyday as a child. Sitting on the internet and saving every picture of an open field, or walking past someone fishing on lakeshore and my day is made again. Having that one friend who enjoys tea as much as you is worth the universe as somehow it brings my past life into my present and I don’t feel so alienated anymore.

How do you tie two half lives together? Perhaps by planting a blackcurrant bush in Canada, perhaps by never letting good memories go. Perhaps by making new memories in old places. I reread my thesis today and it soothed my soul. It reminded me that these objects of nostalgia serve as beacons of hope. Nostalgia works backwards the same way it works forwards. An anti-nostalgia is a foretaste of what is to come. Theodore Adorno said “To lose ones’ alienation is to lose one’s soul.”

So here is to another Russian soul and all the wholesome memories that serve it best.

[aeromanova]

My Happiest & Earliest Memory

The first few seconds I woke up in the dacha my dad built. I’d open my eyes and feel the warm rays from the window, and in that split second I realize where I am. I feel a rush of joy and relief. Far from the city, the anxiety of having to go to school, from having to wake up early. I’m maybe 3, maybe 4. Everyone is still together, safe, and so happy. Everything is golden and the house is warm form the sun rays in it’s wooden paneling. I can smell the sap now. The grass, the wind carrying a hint of burning wood from the distance. Close your eyes. You know the smell, it reminds you of summer and of being small and pure. The birches outside the window. The blue sky. My mom next to me and my dad watching cartoons in the other room. I don’t need anything. I’m complete because my world is too.

[aeromanova]

I find it harder to remember every day. It scares me knowing that each day of life I get is another day further from you. I don’t want to forget you. I don’t want to take anything for granted again.

[aeromanova]

Days are melting together. Time is standing still, and separation is only when you’re with me.

[aeromanova]

some things you can’t unsee, some feelings you can’t share, some things are yours to carry forever (at St. Petersburg, Russia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1xLTwiAKIf/?igshid=11xif9fwg1ly2

[aeromanova]

Katya Romanova @aeromanova by Sarina G

[aeromanova]

weekend (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/Byd-7anghNC/?igshid=styhbmifi1ig

[aeromanova]

🖤 (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/By-nntKAIbk/?igshid=j6m9nq5rhm11

[aeromanova]

fell in love like it’s easy, put to sleep without dreams (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtriDeIgrPT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1alyvfvfrdf2b

[aeromanova]

You left my life before the internet could keep you around. Before the algorithms could bring you back to me every day, before I could google your name, or hear your voice at the click of a mouse. You left before it all, leaving no trace for me to follow or check up on. It's like you knew had you waited a few years longer I would then spend the rest of my life looking up your name. My twin, my one and only sibling. I miss you so much today, on your birthday. It is on these days that my heart hurts the most from the absence of something that should so naturally be by my side my whole life. My perfect human being. You were a model son, husband, and brother. You were at the top of your class, the top of your company, and the top of the world as you brought us to this new, better world. You were everything they will never be. You were too good. You were too honest, too kind, too loving, too pure for this world. You just didn't have enough time to change it. I promise I will spend the rest of my life trying to do what you didn't have enough time to do.

[aeromanova]

the worst part about your death is i cant even stalk your leftovers

i cant even go on the internet and look at your facebook

or your instagram

or google your name 

youre just gone

[aeromanova]

Если б я знал, как это трудно - уснуть одному Если б я знал, что меня ждет, я бы вышел в окно А так - все идет, скучно в Москве и дождливо в Крыму И все хорошо, и эти двое уснули давно А так - все идет, скучно в Москве и дождливо в Крыму И все хорошо, и эти двое уснули давно

[winterfellis]

[aeromanova]

at West Hollywood, California https://www.instagram.com/p/BnFTEFEH9Yz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3qda5mnltk37

[aeromanova]

blood orange on film earlier this month (at Osheaga)