Kaunas

I find a great peace and comfort in this Lithuanian city. Here, Ingrida and I work all day long in the amber trade among darting minds and gracious beaders. Exhausted at night, we throw ourselves into the harmony of the city and the setting sun as its last lights illuminate the pedestrian avenue. We always stay in the same old giant Soviet hotel, only partially remade, that sits on the walk way.

The amber work of the day, the selection and size of beads, the many discussions, and the paper and pencil of design, always exhausts us. At the end of work we are tired and emptied out. Tired and empty we walk down the long tree lined avenue facing into the sun and quietly, among the gracious others that surround us, friends walking arm in arm, lovers around small tables, women in linen going home, we renew our strength and relax into a simple celebration of life.

The hotel is a certain smell that stays with one through the long odd passages that lead to painted doors and narrow dark wooden beds, two in our room that by their size won’t allow us to sleep together. White sheets, comforters even in summer, are piled on the darkness of the mattresses. The bathrooms are always odd and not quite working. But the rooms are always reasonable and familiar, whole in their own way, leading one outward to the sweetness of the Lithuanian streets.

Out of my last 3 birthdays, I have spent two here, and I count myself lucky. Extremely lucky. For here is a gracious civility built upon simple human interaction with a high regard for a depth of intellectual thought. Here lovers should come, to be lovers in the whole. Here thinkers should come to be thinkers in the whole. Here mystics would find that they are mystics in the whole. For each is embraced and offered that wonderful right of way that marks a city that is confident of itself, small enough to be known, and complete.