at last

i love to dedicate my posts to different songs. this song i'm writing about today is like a warm blanket, or like a glass of baileys with three ice cubes, or like a smile on your favourite person's face, or like a hug. oh yes, this song is a warm hug.

everytime i listen to it, i can feel it. i can feel the goose bumps and my heart squeezes and skips a heartbeat. thank god such songs exist, which can reach your heart and emotions so deep as sometimes no person can.

after watching 'cadillac records', i can say for sure, that the cover version of 'at last' is as good as the original. etta james is great and beyonce makes this song sound even better.

changes

i envy people who are easy on changes. who love them and always look for new things, new places and new experiences. who can easily move out of one place and move in to another without having heart pricks. who can buy new suitcases and throw out old ones. who can throw coins into fountains without nostalgia and be sure about coming back soon. who can say goodbye to people, with whom they spent some time, without big amount of tears.

unfortunately, i'm very nostalgic. i miss my moscow home all the time, when i get there 1-2 times a year, i look through all the drawers, sit and read all my old notebooks, listen to old cd's and take out old clothes from the wardrobe. i instantly begin missing all my childhood years and student life. i get nostalgic even in a hotel, where i stayed for a week. when closing the door i try to make a snapshot of the room with my head and put it into my memories. i hate leaving places. i hate leaving things behind. i always have that weird feeling that those things can get upset that i have forgotten them. i hate forgetting.

i wish it could be easier for me. i wish i didn't take so many things so close to my heart. i wish i could learn to ignore and get less sentimental.

nice covers

i don't have much time on writing these days, just sharing with you beautiful covers of songs, which you may haven't heard until now. enjoy!

labelling love

we love labelling. we label everything. in some cases labelling is ok - it helps structure things and make life easier, but in other cases, instead of making it easier - it make everything worse.

and i'm specifically talking about labelling the relationships. when you love a person you're dating,  you learn more things about him, find out what he loves more, what makes him happy. but once the label  (husband/wife) comes on the attitude changes. a husband or wife can understand anything, he or she is a part of you and you don't need to spend as much time on researching him/her as you used to before. but imagine, you are dating different people, and you marry not the one you really married, but another one, that means that the life with the other person would be different, so this one unique label 'husband' or 'wife'  doesn't work uniquely for every person. moreover, it is somehow humiliating, it covers under one word so many people, so different from each other.

the same applies to all relationships. when we do something in respect to our friend, we tend to think, 'a friend would be ok with that, he would like or not like it', but why not try and address it without label? not a friend, but nino, elene, sali... because all of the people have their own points of view and their own feelings, even if they are all in the same 'friend' label category.

mom will understand, friend will forgive, husband will always be around - forget those thoughts. each person is unique, and by making labels and categories we forget that each person should be treated as such, according to his or her personality, with different attitude to everyone and without any labelling.

not sentimental georgians

those of you who know me, also know that i am a pseudo-georgian. i was born in tbilisi, but raised in moscow. so when i returned back to tbilisi, after 20 years of living in russia, i faced some differences between russians and georgians: there were huge differences even between georgians living in moscow and georgians living in tbilisi. in 2009 i dived into tbilisi life style. i won't lie, i like it here. i have never regretted my moving here. there are things that i miss - my friends in the first place, streets of moscow, its theatres and concerts, restaurants and all the great memories i have connected to this city.

but generally, i like it here in tbilisi - i like that you manage to do 20 things a day and there are no traffic jams, i like the kindness of people, warm climate and the views.

but there are some things that i have noticed in georgian people, which i want to share with you. In this post i will write about one specific character feature of georgians, that i have been observing since i came back. here in georgia, people are not sentimental. i have been to many weddings, cultural events, places - and noticed one common thing - georgians don't like to show when they are touched. nor do they ever express their feelings in public - it's a shame to show your true emotions. georgians prefer to address everything with humour. instead of running a tear after a very sentimental speech, they prefer to laugh away, instead of enjoying in-love condition of a newlywed friend - million of jokes is made of him/her. to me that is really unusual. on the other hand in some difficult situations, humour is probably the only thing that makes people's lives easier.

... some more of my cultural observations to follow in my future posts.

b is for breathing the music

if asked what is one of my biggest impossible dreams, it is the talent of singing. unfortunately, i can't sing and it won't change no matter how i try. one of my dearest friends, who had the same dream with the same scale of possibility, came up with his own solution - he married a very talented young singer from georgia, and is happily compensating his inability to sing with her super voice, super concerts and super performances.

i have a solution, for which i am thankful to god - i listen to music and i can hear it not only with my ears, but with my whole body. i have been to many concerts, listened to many artists, and today's concert at tbilisi jazz festival - of natalie cole inspired me to write this post while the emotions from it are still in my blood.

every song she sang i knew by heart, and i wanted to sing together with her because all the music she performs is the music of my soul. those are the songs i listen to regardless the mood, time of the day and place. everlasting melodies which are with me always. amazing thing is that i think her voice hasn't changed much, notwithstanding the fact that she is 63. she sounds like she used to sound on cd's some twenty/thirty years ago. as you know, every person has his favourite voice, for me personally, natalie's voice is the best woman's vocal of all times. i was sitting at the concert and the music she was performing from the stage was coming to me and into my lungs, i was breathing the music and that was an amazing feeling, which i don't get on every concert.

so yes, l is for the way you look at me and b is for breathing the music.