Forbidden in the Baltics

When at sea, I like to station myself at the prow.  I like the way the word sounds, with all the shaping required by the lips. Not all words require such effort to utter, and this one also enjoys a bit of propulsion. It’s a word that sounds like what it is: moving through an element. Projecting. Cutting past, moving forward, leaving behind, going towards.  Effort. Lots and lots of effort. Moving within a state of friction and opposition. Finding the yes within the no.

The prow seems to me to say everything about YES. Yes, let’s go. Yes, let’s see what’s over there. Yes, let’s get out of here! But that’s only because we figured out how to make boats move. Before that, the ocean was a boundary that could not be traversed.

Relatively recently, I ferried across the Baltic Sea from Tallinn (Estonia) to Helsinki (Finland) en route to catching a Russian train to St. Petersburg. I sought out the prow immediately.

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: STANDING ON A HOT WATER BOTTLE AND POINTING IN A PROTO-FASCIST MANNER WHILST SPORTING AN ALARMING HAIRDO AND AN EXAGGERATED ASCOT.

On this ferry, I scouted out my customary spot on the prow, and discovered a scene of horror.  Instead of carved wooden mermaids, Vikings rampant on a wash of blood, and perhaps sea eagles screaming through the spray, I found a floating discotheque of scarlet and violet splattered astroturf, mirrored walls, and spotlit discoballs. A recipe for nausea at sea. It was just past dawn, and nobody was dancing. But there were hundreds of Russian mobsters – unhappy slabs in polyvinyl leather coats, meat-mouthed.

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: GESTICULATING WHILE WEIGHING THINGS ON A DELI SCALE AND CONTORTING THE MOUTH LIKE A CAN OPENER

I sat down at the one free table. Waiting for seagulls, I opened my sketchbook.

A red-faced Russian thug moved from his table to mine the way a sledgehammer approaches a canary.  He glared straight up from his gut, and slung me a xenophobic scowl.

Nyet, he said. No. He tapped at my open notebook, my pencil poised.

He lodged himself within the tiny turquoise cocktail chair, which vanished beneath him.  He slammed his hand down on the table overtop my notebook. Nyet!

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: COMMITTING A MERRY SUICIDE WHILE MARCHING OFF THE BRIM OF A ROBOT'S BOWLER HAT

The journey was the moment of conception for what has become a body of work about the Baltics.  I was a little egg, traveling the tubes of interstate, ferry route, train track. Later, I hoped, the zygote would begin mutating into something unwieldy that would preoccupy me for several years.

The Russian thug was the first kick of the infant. Niet, he said in a whisper, sinister, and slammed his cap down on my notebook. His head was larger than my suitcase. His cap was a ship of opposition.

Nyet.

Ambiguous. Brilliant. Inspired. So many implications, and no specifics. No what?

I never knew.

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: EXPRESSING EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR BY SNAPPING TREES IN HALF THROUGH THE HISTRIONIC USE OF OPERATIC GESTURE

In adolescent English classes, I developed a distaste for Emily Dickenson, only to spend the subsequent years discovering the depth and breadth of my ignorance – there was one line of hers that again and again drove the point home.  ”After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”

I think “pain” in this context is not necessarily suffering, but is perhaps sharply experienced points of opposition. We think it’s pain, because we’re scared of opposition. But opposition is something to push against. And that’s how the first ships moved through the sea.

Perhaps the NO is the same as the PROW.

Grief is a kind of opposition, a kind of friction that has to be moved through even though it resists. It is a kind of NO.

After moments of NO, a formal feeling comes. And then the act of creation.

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: LETTING YOUR LACK OF FEET DRIVE YOU TO DRINK, THEN BUYING A FUNERAL URN FOR YOUR LIQUOR BOTTLES, BUT LETTING YOUR GRIEF ABOUT THE EMPTY SHOES AND BOTTLES RUIN YOUR AIM.

At the time, I had no idea the number of Russians that would vehemently attack my every attempt at creation: do not look at that painting. Do not take that photograph of our curtain. Do not write words on that paper. No. No. No.

It wasn’t personal. It was just an irresistible opportunity to oppose something. To resist was irresistible. And why not, really, considering Russia.

No can be a joyous word. The right to no is a precious battle.

But this thug chorus of NO was the moment of dissonant harmony between me and the Baltics. At first devastating, and then like all devastation, the beauty was eventually revealed.

The beauty of being stubborn. How gorgeous.

No the point at which a mote appeared and matter began to coalesce around it. In the subsequent months, a new body of work has formed from that idea-zygote of no.

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: BELL-BOTTOM LEGS ON TOPLESS PREGNANT MEN WITH PARROT-MOUTHS WHO LIKE TO REST THEIR HANDS ON THEIR THONG-BOUND NAKED BUTTOCKS.

The warning signs of these lands offered much amusement. Perhaps that is the best way to respond to the no that opposes creation: with laughter at its folly.

FORBIDDEN IN THE BALTICS: ARGUING IN PUBLIC WITH YOUR SNOBBISH & ARISTOCRATIC ROCKING HORSE WHEN IT INSISTS UPON AN EASTWARD TRAJECTORY AND YOU ARE DETERMINED TO GO WEST BECAUSE YOU ARE WEARING YOUR VERY BEST SUIT AND ARE LATE FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE.

Nyet a formal ritual of the absurd.

Nyet a dance of the ridiculous.

Nyet a monument to dada.

Nyet a call to creation.

.

Tags: admit it russian thugs you love poetry, Ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki, Forbidden in the Baltics, Grief is a kind of friction, No is a call to creation, Nyet, orphan's mourner, russian train to St. Petersburg