Matryoshka

We are all Russian dolls. We either spend our lives ignoring the layers of us that are in that doll, or we just hide them from others. Going in is never pleasant, even for a doll.

And then, something happens. Either we find the moment and person to allow us to peel off, or we see the sunset of days and want to know before the long sleep.

We are all Russian dolls. Intuitively we know that if we get to the smallest doll, the one that does not open to show yet another smaller doll, we have reached the a-tome of ourselves. And it is inside that unopenable diminutive doll, we know is the lotus of what we had hidden, ignored, covered, and kept for ourselves.

And that lotus can be radiant and delightfully teasing its fluid surroundings, or it can be riddled with scars, wrinkles and blemishes. In the first case it is indeed a matryosha, a matron in Russian, that we have been hiding and cherishing. In the second case it is a babushka, an older woman that has seen it all and that we have been hiding away or away from.

We are all Russian dolls, nesting inside our own layers. Yet, it is not the number of layers or inner dolls that makes us interesting, but the way our first layer is painted. That is what we exhibit, we propose, we bargain through. It is all in the lines, colours and shapes that we put in front of eyes, ours and those of others. Few see deeper than the paint, and even fewer through to the next nested doll. Often we ourselves stay at the surface of the first doll. All our lives.

But, when something happens, something that makes us openable, and  ignore the lines and colours of our surface paint, then we become comfortable.

Because it does not matter anymore. Because the fluid surroundings of our inner lotus have spilled over the many nested layers of us and we now enjoy bathing in that surrounding. In public.

And then, to matryosha or for babushka, we read a poem we wrote many nested dolls ago. A poem that we never forgot. Because it was not written in words.

December 27, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019