Mesmerizing Things and Places

Moments of Timelessness

Jun 13, 2025

There are things and places that distinctly mark themselves in your life. I call them mesmerizing because time stops running when I approach these objects and places. I don’t know if the feelings are possible to share. Probably not. But they are closest to the state that Ludwig W. described as timelessness.

In death the world does not change, but ceases.
Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.
If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is very subjective and personal, of course. But I’m writing for myself, first of all.

Starry Nights

When I was a kid, I used to visit my grandparents in the summer. They lived in the south of Russia, in a small village. Late at night, when all the lights were off for miles (or kilometers) around, I would step out of the house into the cool air and watch the huge starry sky, myriads of stars, steadily moving satellites and blinking airplanes, the white wake of the Milky Way, and silently flying bats around me.

I live now in a place heavily polluted by lights, and I miss those days a lot.

Mallorca at Summer

I love the Mediterranean heat. Small villages like Colonia de Sant Jordi, with an acceptable level of tourists, late Spanish dinners, empty sandy beaches, the white noise of cicadas, and the distant Gothic beauties of Palma de Mallorca. You sit on a tiled patio in the shade and drink very affordable, cold local cava.

My kids call this place a pirate bay. A gem of Mallorca. Cala Mondragó

Books of Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Bestiary. The Selected Stories. You know? These are the books you should read right at the beach.

Watching Ocean Waves

I find waves extremely mesmerizing.

Nazaré, Portugal

Rotating Objects

Can’t explain this.

Portugal, Açores, São Miguel island

Açores is a little paradise. Terra Nostra Garden Hotel in Furnas (@BensaudeHotels) is a great place to stay, though quite expensive in season. Still, you can visit the Azores any month, the weather is roughly the same year-round.

Garden is the key word. It’s a mystery to me how they manage to find and keep so many highly trained, almost impeccable waitresses and other service attendants, given that Furnas is practically a village. Amazing.

Terra Nostra Garden Hotel has an outdoor pool fed by volcanic springs (temperature around 38°C), open for guests 24/7, and a huge garden, you can wander there for hours.