I learnt about the poems of Māra Kalmane at her memorial. She wished for all of her close relatives to come together on a warm Summer day at her niece's garden and celebrate her life. 

 

My grandmother Dina and her relatives handed me a book of poems and told me: “Read one of those out for us!” That is how I learnt this mysterious woman was a writer.

 

In my eyes Māra Kalmane was some sort of a legend. At first when I was a child, she held this title for me because she was the oldest relative I had. 

 

In her documents her birth year was 1931 but everyone told me: “That's just a paper, she is much older.” No one knows for sure but it is said that she was born 8 years earlier. She was a mystery to me.

 

My grandmother Dina would bring me to her over the years. I knew this woman as an old lady with a huge bookshelf filled with many, many books in various languages.

 

I thought Māra was a wise woman. Since I was a baby she always praised me, saying that it was good and important that I  was passionate about literature, music, languages.

 

 remember Māra telling me a story about how the knowledge of languages saved her life. When Soviet Russians were forcing Nazi Germans out of Latvia, she was injured in the midst of a battle. 

 

Russians did not want to help her, saying she was German. She answered in Russian: “I am one of you.”

 

Māra was almost like a second mother to my grandmother Dina. Māra's sister Anastasija. was forced to move to Siberia, Russia and my grandmother Dina was born there.

 

When my grandmother Dina was 11 years old, her  mother Anastasija sent Māra her last letter, saying she is dying and asked her to come get her daughter.

 

Māra travelled 2 weeks by train in hopes of seeing her sister Anastasija for the last time. She did not make it. She got her sister's child she had never met, and brought her back to the rest of the family. 

 

In 1966, Māra decided to leave her occupied home. The story I have heard is that Māra prepared for the long journey by collecting all of her most expensive pieces of jewelry she owned with her.

 

Her plan was to travel across all of Russia by train again, then cross the border of China and travel down to Australia where her oldest sister lived in exile since World War II.

 

It was not easy to make it out of the Soviet Union. After all, she was a woman travelling alone. Luckily, on the Trans-Siberian train she met a Russian officer who she presumably bribed to help her escape the USSR.

 

Māra lived in Australia for 32 years and returned to Latvia only when it had regained its independence from the USSR. Her four literary works came to life in Australia. She must have missed home a lot, I know I do.

 

She never stopped contacting her family at home even if the KGB were always watching, reading her letters. Now that she was in exile, she was an enemy of the USSR.  

 

Māra would mail packages home. My mother recalls that once Māra sent high heels to my grandmother Dina. My mother would sneak into  Dina's closet and try them on. It was an item of luxury.

 

Māra Kalmane died on my 20th birthday. I felt that then a link between us was created. When I was told to read one of her poems not knowing she was a poet, I felt that it was some kind of a message.

 

An idea swept over me. I had to do something with all of this material. So I picked Laikam līdzi that translates to the title of this project, then recorded my grandmother reading the poems and composed the music.

 

This album has two parts. First, Contemplating her Motherland, explores how Māra sees the land she was born in through memories and her emotions.

 

The second part is called Debess. This is the Latvian word for sky and heaven. In the last three tracks curated by me I take you on a journey through death.

 

My Love is the passing. For Those Who Stay is the farewell. The Return is the heavenly homecoming.

 

There are many unanswered questions I have for Māra. I regret not asking them when I could. However, even after her death I kept learning more about her. She will continue to be an unresolved mystery to me.

 

With that said, I wanted to have my last moment with Māra and share this experience with my grandmother Dina who loved her so much.

 

In return for all those years of her praising me for my first steps, words and piano notes, I wanted to give it back to her, to shine some light on her heroic acts, creative work, her pain. I hope she is proud of me!