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For the Person Who Wants to Love Me Properly.
Through the relationships I have had so far, I have learned a lot about how I love, what I need, what I give, and what I sometimes tolerate for longer than I should. I am still a work in progress, but I wanted to put some of it into words and leave it here. I…
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Goodbye, Henry: Let’s Celebrate the Endings.
I am sitting in one of my favourite places, waiting for the food I have ordered, a restaurant dish involving some rather fancy mushrooms. Work is finished, and after a lovely little chat with the person behind the bar, I have settled into my usual corner to write. I love this place. I know everybody…
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What The Urge to Leave is Trying to Say.
This piece is unlike my other essays because it is not one essay but two. The first explores a question I have carried for years: when intimacy makes me want to escape, am I recognising that I need to leave, or am I asking for enough room to breathe without losing myself? The second contains…
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What Is So Non-Traditional About Them?
In the country where I was born, consensual sexual relations between two adult men remain a criminal offence. A conviction can result in up to three years in prison. The United Nations has repeatedly called for the law to be repealed. Human rights organisations have documented extortion, arbitrary arrest, forced medical examinations, torture and sexual…
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Somebody Was Watching Me.
This afternoon, I cycled to the small park beside my home with my laptop, a silk picnic rug, my speaker and a copy of Why Sex Is Better Under Socialism by Kristen Ghodsee. The plan was simple: find somewhere beside the lake, see how much work I could get done outdoors and enjoy a few…
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Vienna Waits for You.
This blog will make a little more sense if you listen to Vienna by Billy Joel first, or while you are reading it. Consider this my invitation to you rather than a request. Find a comfortable chair, make yourself a cup of coffee(or any other beverage of your choice) if you have the time, and…
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The Stranger on the High Street.
This morning, I went for a walk. London appears to have forgotten that it is London. At thirty-seven degrees, it feels more like southern Europe than East London, and I have realised that my wardrobe is far better prepared for drizzle than for sunshine. I had bought a fan the day before, was enjoying working…
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A Stubborn Woman and Her Dutch Bicycle.
My bicycle broke today. To be fair, it did not come as a complete surprise. The bicycle and I had been having the same argument for months. It would develop a new problem. I would fix it. It would develop another one. I would convince myself that it was not serious. The bicycle would disagree.…
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Thoughts Dancing Reggae.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if we could see inside each other’s minds. Not the version of ourselves that we present to the world, but the actual thoughts moving through our heads at any given moment. We spend so much time judging people by what we can see: the woman rushing through a train…
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The Girls’ Trip.
I have travelled with friends before. One friend at a time. A weekend away here, a city break there. But until this weekend, I had never been on a proper girls’ trip. I am not entirely sure why. Perhaps life simply got in the way. Work, children, family responsibilities, relationships and the endless list of…
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How London Became Mine.
I did not fall in love with London when I first arrived. People often speak about cities as though they are love at first sight. Paris dazzles them. Rome seduces them. New York overwhelms them. London did none of those things to me. When I first arrived, I was simply trying to survive. Everything felt…
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Waiting to Be Chosen.
One of the questions I am asked most often is surprisingly simple: “Why are you still single?” It is usually asked by relatives, family friends or well-meaning acquaintances. Sometimes there is concern behind it, sometimes curiosity and occasionally genuine confusion. The question itself does not bother me. What fascinates me is the contradiction that often…
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The Rusty Fork and Other Things We Leave Behind.
Several of my previous blogs have touched on life after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I have written about uncertainty, about freedom, about discovering music, ideas and possibilities that had previously felt out of reach. But independence was not only about new opportunities. It was also about identity. When an empire collapses, people do…
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The Soundtrack of a Life.
Music has always been important to me. I listen to almost everything: hip hop, R&B, jazz, soul, electronic music, Afrobeat, classical music, pop, folk music from countries I have never visited and songs in languages I do not speak. Part of that comes from growing up in the post-Soviet era. People often assume that when…
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We Inherited Different Stories.
For much of my life, I believed that people who grew up on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain belonged to different worlds. The more years I spend reflecting on my own life, the less certain I am that this is true. We inherited different stories. That much is undeniable. Those of us who grew…
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What Does It Feel Like to Be Born in a Country That Disappears?
When I was growing up, history was not something we simply studied. It was something that was happening around us. I was born in one of the Soviet republics in Central Asia during the final years of the Soviet Union. By the time I started school, the country in which I had been born no…
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Coming Home: The Story Behind Unlearning Silence.
Before I tell you about this blog, I should probably tell you something about home. I was born in a country that no longer exists. My birth certificate bears the name of a nation that disappeared before I was old enough to understand what a nation was. Like millions of others born around the same…
UnlearningSilence.blog 