killing me softly

Autumn yellowed the trees on Abakelia street. That was in 2002 when I first got the camera in my hands not for fun this but for something else that would later become a revelation to me...I was an outsider to Old Tbilisi until I looked at it through the lens of my camera. Then it's became mine… I smelled it, I heard it, I touched it and I felt it with all my heart...Yes, I am an outsider to the old city, I have no home there. But I've turned into a part of it. I’ve seen its scars, I’ve touched its wounds...It was old, abandoned and dirty, falling apart and got me - addicted..
Then it was winter 2004 in Leuven - me sketching with charcoal rows of old bricks, trying to put their damped smell and dirt on board... I missed nothing but this old chaotic fabric of my city. It has given me the strength and identity to portrait myself against an alien world, where I ventured out to find the wisdom.
Did I go back to Tbilisi? Oh, yes, I did… And I stayed for three years working, wondering, venturing, fighting, and trying to help and to fix this fabric... I swear I saw more shit in delicate conference rooms then in dumped cellars of old buildings. But did I do any good to you, my beloved city? Did I cure any of your wounds? Did I stop them crushing you down, my secret garden?!
It is autumn 2007, Dublin. I am exiled and exhausted. I betrayed you and ran away… I was not strong enough to win and I was not week enough to stay and give up. I run away and I don’t want to see you getting new artificial face, dressed up in false fashion and to hear you being pulled down behind the renewed façade brick after brick, stone after stone… Each of those houses and courtyards bear my memories, each of those bricks is part of my body. I am loosing my face, my history, my root, my love. I know soon I’ll have nowhere to go back - no place, no reason, no skin, so soul. I have no power to stop this. So should I just forget? Should I get a new face, new fashion myself?