Last Night in Pasaka

July 17, 2009

I went to pee and it was light outside.  It was 4:30 in the morning.  The sun had only set at 11:15.  I think I finally get how you can be Jason Deuchler.  When the party ends for you around 6, the choice between an hour and ½ of sleep and hiking to the beach to drink your last beer a top a German WWII bunker on the shore of the perfectly still Baltic becomes clear.

And it is PERFECTLY still.  She is making some noise at the shoreline to let you know she is alive, but the sea looks like bathwater.  I am contemplating using it as such, but it is cold and I’ve already been in the Baltic since I last slept. 

The sunset was beautiful, but now I am on the wrong side of the world for any morning warmth-yet I am still thinking about swimming.  And while the sea is more beautiful than I have ever seen (she is still and she is my own)-the beach is uglier.  When napping on the beach in the afternoon, I notice the waves.  I always liked this bunker. I thought it was an ironic piece of history amidst a beautiful seascape.  But in the morning light from this height, I see at least 3 concrete circles that used to support life sized machine guns.  The dunes behind me are more full of history than  I ever noticed.  Maybe they died waiting for the US too.  Machine gun, bunker, bunker, lookout, bunker, cannon, machine gun, bunker.  In the distance, a runner’s club is warming up, but all I can really see is concrete.  If I force myself to look forward it is beautiful.  If I allow myself to look back, it hurts.

I have to pee, again.  The obvious choice is to go inside the bunker, but I am a little bit afraid of the ghosts.  It is graffiti laden and half full of beer cans and cigarette butts, but there is light coming in from some missing bricks seaside.  I have nothing to look for in the Baltic except a moment of understanding.  The Germans were looking for something else.  I still do not have enough history to explain why this Soviet invaded land has a shore full of rotting German war defenses.  They are fading, but have centuries of ruin left to remind.