It was cold and rainy when we got inside of a restaurant and all I wanted was some hot food and a glass of wine. I wanted not to feel the cold. I wanted my hands to be warm again and to feel good. The friends came and we got the food and the wine. The food was not that good, the wine gave me a headache. My friend asked a lot of questions about my plans for this summer and about the kids and about my recent divorce. It was ok. Not the type of conversations I enjoy.

My son was tired and he was sitting on my lap with his head on my shoulder and it was really good to have him close. Every day I realize that I love my children slightly more than the day before. And then I feel like if I did not love them enough an hour ago. And I told my son that I loved him very much. He told me he loves me too and then asked when we were going to see fishes.

We went outside on the cold street. It was raining lightly. We drove to the Academy of Science. We have not been there for four years. We got inside and I remembered the smell of the place and every small detail of all the exhibits. We used to come here every week, normally every Tuesday when my daughter and my son were small. Then I had a feeling that even though I knew the place inside out I could not find my way. First I could not get the sense of it, then I realized I never used stairs in the museum. Funny. My mind mapped all the routes using elevators because with the kids being small we always had a stroller with us and using stairs was troublesome. Now we walked up and down the stairs and I felt suddenly very vulnerable and on the verge of crying. It was all real. I was real. My kids were real. And we had never used stairs here before. Past and present collided in a weird way. In the same space. Mapping different routes. I stood there and read a museum poster to the kids. And my voice became even again. And my heartbeat went back to normal, but my heart still hurt. Calm, serene, and heartbroken.

I smiled to myself. It was a space I loved so much. I loved the kids and my life now. Past was easy not to remember. I lived it, I accepted it, I went through its pain, then I detached myself from it. I moved forward. However when things like not having ever used stairs in the space I knew like the palm of my hand happened, I knew there was crack made in the hard shell I grew around my heart. Some of the pain was let out, some of the air was let in. It is a lengthy process of becoming real.

I enjoy as a kid the Academy of Science. I like watching fishes and butterflies and experiencing the earthquake and learning about the whales. All those things still take my breath away. I have never learnt how to be a grown up. I take kids to these places, because I still like them much better than hanging in a bar or chatting with my friends. We went to see it all today. Oh boy! What a day!

What a week! Feels like a life. A good life. On Monday I went to court to finalize my divorce paperwork. Then went to work. On Tuesday, after work had to go to the court again. Now all is done. Will be legally single again on October 2nd 2015. Single and fully responsible for my two children. On Tuesday my son got his yellow belt in MMA. One small step at a time. On Wednesday went to work. Then to my MMA class. On Thursday to work and to kickboxing. Had late dinner with a friend and the kids. On Friday kids had a day off. Took them to my work. We left to have a nice lunch and do something special for my daughter’s 8th birthday. (We did our nails 🙂 and bought lots of balloons!). All this time practicing violin, reading books, thinking about work and working. I love my work. I could not love more what I do. Not because it is peaceful. It is not. It is stressful. But it is also real. I am working with real people, helping somebody, building something. Not all the stretches in life are about growth. Some are about just living through a bad moment, making decisions, never losing faith in yourself and in others. I read the other day that in our life the connections we make with others are the most important thing we ever achieve in our lifespan, however we treat those connections as a passing thing, not as a final thing in itself. We focus on material things, not on connections. Connections are the most important part of life.

Once, years ago somebody asked me what was my goal in life. And I said “to be real”. I still have the same goal.  And today I felt a little bit more real. A little bit more beautiful. With the headache, and feeling cold, and having two amazing human beings next to me. My kids who I love every day a little bit more. And feeling lost in a museum I thought I knew so well. And thinking about the sounds that the ocean makes when a whale swims at 4,000 ft deep. And having the full responsibility over my kids, and knowing they will be amazing people. And enjoying it. And feeling like a kid myself.

May be I have never matured. I have never lived to a point where I felt secure and taken care of fully. My heart never knew what it is to feel safe. So I made my own life. I built a shell over my heart so that I am not hurt and I can care for myself and my children. And when this shell has a crack, I feel more real than ever. May be I am one thousand years old and I never grew up. I will live forever and I will always be a kid. May be I will meet another kid someday. Somebody like me, responsible, caring, but who still remains a kid. Then we will explore the world together. I have faith we will smile a lot.

We all hold some magic powers. Sometimes we are aware of it and sometimes we are not. Some of us can play music or play chess or run amazingly well. Some of us can write poems, some can speak various languages, some can write code really well. The combination of these magic powers makes us truly strong. We should always try to develop new ones and to deepen the ones we already own. Our abilities are endless. It is all about trade-offs. If I do music I do not have time to learn dancing. If I decide to take on knitting I do not have time to do kickboxing. And so on. I have a few. My kids are learning a few.

One thing that makes us less powerful is attitude. Attitude is the absence of strength. It is this trench coat that you wear on top of your clothing to hide your real body and to straighten your look. Attitude shows up when we do not know how to respond to a situation. When we feel powerless. When we feel weak. Attitude makes us lose ourselves. It also makes us lose our truest friends.

I feel sad because I have lost a friend. But then I think of the lines from the Little Prince “To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures.” And then I do not feel that sad. Because I am not planning to forget him. True love and friendship live in our hearts. And nobody except ourselves has power over our hearts. I am never powerless. And I will never be. Love is the strongest of our magic powers. Love is not a feeling. It is a power.

I do not look back. The life is like an open field in front of me. Beautiful, endless field of golden rye. I feel like a child on vacations at my grandma’s place in a small village in Russia. I see the blue sky, the sun is bright, I have all the field to run. And I run.

At nights I look at the stars and I remember that I have had a friend.

I went running on the beach today.

This morning after taking my son to his MMA class and after doing kickboxing I felt like I wanted to run. On the beach. To run fast. I almost never went running before. I could never handle running even for two minutes. I got out of breath right away and I generally felt like I wanted to fall down and die right there.

This morning was different. I went with the kids to the beach and I went running. Just along the beach, barefoot. Exactly at the line where the water goes over the sand. The sand is hard there and perfect for running. It was cold and cloudy. The beach was empty. I run fast. After the first minute I got out of breath, but I did not stop. I remembered how my MMA coach told us “Your mind is your general, your body is your army. If your mind tells your body to fight, the body will fight. If your mind tells your body give up, your body will give up.” My mind was clear. It was empty. It was full only of the things I saw around. The water, the sky, the sand. It was empty of emotions or feelings or thoughts. And I told myself to run. To run technically, emotionless, detached. And my body run perfectly well. No sign of tiredness. My breath returned to normal, like if I was running on the beach all my life. I just run and felt nothing except the movement of my body. The movement and the desire to roll. The sand was as hard as the fighting mat, and I can roll really well on those. I like rolling.

I run until I was so far away that I could not see the parking lot and the kids. Then I run back. The ocean water was cold. The sand was perfect for running. My body kept the rythm. No desire to stop. No emotions. Passion.

We are most passionate when we have no emotions. Passion is depth. Emotions are the foam on the surface. Passion is silent. Passion is harsh. Passion is technical. Passion is powerful. Passion is the strength of our minds.

I run towards the kids. The sand was dry and warm where they played. The air was like the sky. Weightless and endless. The sky was everywhere. I looked up; at the ocean, at the clouds, and at the hills. I felt the muscles of my back, of my arms, of my legs. My hands and feet on the warm fine sand.

I knew we could do anything we put our minds to.

At the first sound of the violin my heart changes. When the bow goes up and down the strings and produces this soft and intense and deep sound my heart becomes softer. It changes its shape and its consistency. I can feel more air inside of my body, as if I suddenly allow it to enter; and nothing stops the softness of the voice inside of me.

When I play violin I become a different person. And I love myself. I no longer fight, I no longer prove anything, I no longer say a word. Violin sound emerges like your voice, from within.

And I stay in front of the dark window and become myself. I have never felt so much as a woman as I do now; now when I look at my fingers pressing the strings and when my cheek rests on the soft wood, and when I still have to stay upright and just listen.

There is a plant that is slowly dying in the corner of my apartment. I never cared much for plants. My daughter buys them and they slowly die, because I am too busy to remember to water them. My grandma used to say that plants only live in the houses where there is love and music. As I play violin I see the plant on the top of the bookshelf. And I realize that I want to play for this plant and to give it space in my life, in my house. Something I have never done before. I probably treat people in the same way.

What is love worth if I do not give people space? What is love at all if it is not space? Love is probably space where you care. It is caring for somebody and giving them space in your life, in your thoughts, in your way of doing things, in your house. It is just giving them space where they are safe.

There is a street in Potrero Hill with couple of small restaurants. I remember once I was there when it started to rain. And now, still pressing the violin strings with my left hand, all I want is to stay on that street and cry. And not be ashamed of it.

Alone. The more people there are around me the lonelier it feels. The more I go out the more I want to just close my eyes and stay still. The more I laugh the more I want to cry. And I cry. Sometimes. Often. The more I feel the love of friends the stronger is the pain of being alone. Deep inside there is a voice that has been silenced. Absolutely no one around.

I have been extremely lucky all my life. The luckier I feel with the mundane things the greater is the feeling of emptiness. I am grateful. I take nothing for granted. I am grateful every time we eat. Because we have food on the table. I am grateful every time I pay at the supermarket. I am grateful we have everything we need. I am grateful to have so many friends. To have so many people that love me. I am grateful for being healthy. I am grateful for having strong and healthy kids. I am grateful for every act of kindness towards me and my family.

Surrounded by all this love. And I feel alone. The pain of being alone is like heartburn. It is this little flame that burns inside. Staying in the wind in a field of golden wheat. Like a little child. From my childhood in Russia. And the wind blows my hair over my face. And it is starting to rain. My clothes get wet. And I am alone. I want to run, but I do not move. I want to scream and ask for help, but I am silent. And the rain feels like tears on my face. And I am crying.

But the world is big. The world is beautiful. Flowers are simple to gather.

Random thoughts about the kids… Yesterday they hang on the arm of a friend who came to visit us and called him “daddy”. They miss their father. It is natural and they have to go through this. There are a lot of things that my kids have to go through that other kids will never have to.

Every day they do what they do best. They play, learn and enjoy people and things around them. This is the secret sauce for the rest of their lives, they just have to do things that they do best. They are also growing to be strong; strong means not needing or desiring anything. Not being slaves to their desires and wants, and walking away easily from people and things they love is what I am trying to give them. My daughter showed it to me when she was 3 y.o.  but I was not open enough to really learn it then. I remember that at her school (at Bing at Stanford) her teacher used to say that when she would like to play with another kid and that kid would say “no”, she would just walk away and play by herself what she wanted. Truly enjoying it. This is what kids do naturally, but we as adults forget it.

Sometimes my kids ask for a reward for behaving well or for doing something. And I tell them that there are no prizes, and we agree that it is fine. What I do not tell them is that by living the life they live, by learning to not desire anything, by focusing on doing what they do best (play and learn), and by learning to walk away easily from what they love, they are becoming the prize.

They are too young to tell them this in words and convey the true meaning. They should never live for a prize or expect any reward, and later on they will know that by being who they are they are the prize. They are the prize to any person dealing or knowing them. And to me too.

If I have to write in bullet-points what I am giving my kids, here is the list

• Focus on doing what you do best.
• Do not want, desire or ask for anything.
• Be ready to walk away easily from people or games, even if you love them.
• Never work for a prize. Live by the three points above and know that you are the prize.

Nothing is simple or perfect. Raising two kids is no exception. But it is not difficult either, mostly because I believe in what I give them, more than that, I am passionate about it.

Yesterday night I found a note next to my laptop. Handwritten in pencil by Lorena’s hand . It said, “You are my best friend.”