Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
~Max Ehrmann © 1927
today's poem from the Writer's Almanac is one i like:
I carry your heart with me(i carry it in
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)
by E.E. Cummings from Complete Poems: 1904-1962.
© Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1994.
today's poem selection from The Writer's Almanac is apt for my big brother & Lynette...
My Daughter's MorningMy daughter's morning streams
over me like a gang of butterflies
as I, sour-mouthed and not ready
for the accidents I expectof my day, greet her early:
her sparkle is as the edge of new
ice on leafed pools, while I
am soggy, tepid; old toast.Yet I am the first version
of later princes; for all my blear
and bluish jowl I am welcomed
as though the plastic bottleI hold were a torch and
my robe not balding terry.
For her I bring the day; warm
milk, new diaper, escapades;she lowers all bridges and
sings to me most beautifully
in her own language while
I fumble with safety pins.I am not made young
by my daughter's mornings;
I age relentlessly.Yet I am made to marvel
at the durability of newness
and the beauty of my new one.
by David Swanger from Wayne's College of Beauty.
© BkMk Press, 2006.
tuesday's poem from The Writer's Almanac seems to echo the state of affairs... the long-anticipated snow did arrive... dumping its soft crystals all over and stalling traffic... the scenery is a mixture of magnificent white, muddy grey, and haze. ... and it continues to snow...
Snow-Flakes
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair.
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~
... i wonder if i might ski again before the whiteness disappears...
it finally snowed. what beauty in those individual white crystals that bring new dimensions to the cold wintry season. the mississippi is frozen and speckley with the white dusting... there's something really magical about snow...
i am trying to write up my thesis... and finish up bits of the data summary that you discover that you maybe should do while writing things up... generate scripts to plot figures... it's difficult... not least because i've never written something this complicated... and it should be substantial enough to warrant all the time you took... and because there's also a lot going through my mind... as well as a lot of question marks... Neruda sums it up eloquently for me... he often does.
"While I am writing, I am far away;
and when I come back, I've gone.
I would like to know if others
go through the same things that I do,
have as many selves as I have,
and see themselves similarly;
and when I have exhausted this problem,
I am going to study so hard
that when I explain myself,
I will be talking geography."from "We are many"; Pablo Neruda,
translated by Alastair Reid
i really like this stanza... its simplicity and truth... and am real glad to have discovered it. in the same collection "Extravagaria", lie many other beautiful, simple, profound verses... i'd like to be able to write poetry in that way... better still, to write a poetic thesis. but i am sure i'd be glad when it's all done, poetic or not.
i'ts nearly 6am and i am AWAKE! with my brown beady eyes... and contemplating what to have for breakfast... i just peeped out through the bedroom window... the moon is a smiling crescent and the chill lingers. it's freezing cold... nearly -20degC including the deathly wind-chill... and hardly any signs of snow... the forecasters think we might get some though, and i sure hope so! winter without snow is like summer without sun... i'd like to make snow-angles and some snow sheep... baaaaah.
Relearning Winter
"Hello Winter, hello flanneled
blanket of clouds, clouds
fueled by more clouds, hello again.Hello afternoons,
off to the west, that silver
of sunset, rust-colored
and gone too soon.And night (I admit to a short memory)
you climb back in with chilly fingers
and clocks, and there is no refusal:
ice cracks the water main, the garden hose
stiffens, the bladed leaves of the rhododendron
shine in the fog of a huge moon.And rain, street lacquer,
oily puddles and spinning rubber,
mist of angels on the head of a pin,
hello,and snow, upside-down cake of clouds,
white, freon scent, you build
even as you empty the world of texture
hello to this new relief,
this new solitude now upon us,
upon which we feed."by Mark Svenvold from Soul Data.
© University of North Texas Press.
the first seagull i got to know was Jonathan Livingston... that was nearly another lifetime ago... i've always liked the idea of learning to fly... not least it makes it seem easier getting from one place to another... and you don't have to subject yourself to the incessantly frustrating and rather dehumanizing experience of air-travel these days; btw, thanks to apparently new CIA security measures, travellers from many european countries and british colonies will have to have all their paw-pads scanned during customs & immigration come summer. maybe it would be easier if we all could fly like birds do (-- we might learn to carry less baggage! ha) ... but perhaps it would be much 'simpler' if we all trusted, respected, and loved each other... A LOT more than we currently do.
aeronautics and musings aside, the use of seagulls seems to be a recurring theme in literature... Anton Chekov wrote The Seagull in 1896, a play which speaks of the materialistic dreams that often cloud one's pursuit of happiness... and of breaking from tradition to find one's voice, to be. the protagonist of the play, Constantines, is the seagull who perishes because of individualistic idealism... a dramatic end, which starkly contrasts with those who live and (seemingly) readily/blindly accept the societal norms and vogue of the 'old' Zeitgeist...
if seagulls are the emblem for freedom, individualism and/or idealism... i sure have an affinity for them...
pondering seagulls; Aldinga Beach
... and i hope they will remain a reminder of hope and the fact that it is alright to be different.
it's been weeks after the fall of leaves, and yet, there's still no snow... and now, with Thanksgiving come and gone... we are still waiting.
it is a wet november day here... and i have Simon&Garfunkel's Kathy's Song lingering about my mind... it's awfully trying to get beyond this point in my programming... and while wandering in my restlessness, i am reminded by this poem selected by Garrison Keillor last tuesday... i am hoping that the snow might arrive...
Interlude
We are waiting for snow
the way we might wait for a train
to arrive with its cold cargo
it is late already, but surely
it will come.
We are waiting for snow
the way we might wait
for permission
to breathe again.
For only the snow
will release us, only the snow
will be a letting go, a blind falling
towards the body of earth
and towards each other.
And while we wait at this window
whose sheer transparency
is clouded already
with our mutual breath,
it is as if our whole lives depended
on the freezing color
of the sky, on the white
soon to be fractured
gaze of winter.
-- by Linda Pastan --
from Queen of a Rainy Country.
© W. W. Norton & Company.
i couldn't sleep last night after a few days of staying up real late -- or till real early -- funny how hard it is to get to sleep when you are so exhausted! oh well...
"Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep but it's not so bad
I don't worry and I don't weep. In fact I'm glad.
Because I get up off my pillow and I flip on the light.
I get down and get hip in the still of the night
I stretch and I yawn and then I breathe real deep
And dance myself to sleep.I hoof around my beddie just a-tappin' my toes
Before I know what's happened I'm a-ready to doze
Got some partners I can count on called the boogie-woogie sheep
I dance myself to sleep.--- Ernie"
from 'It's Not Easy Being Green And Other Things to Consider'
Jim Henson , The Muppets, and Friends
i woke up this morning... kinda sore in my back... i wonder what i ended up doing to myself, trying to get to sleep!
i read, watched, and listened in horror to some fragments of the terror that is being experienced in the middle-east... it is very distressing to watch a traumatized old man who's just lost his wife, home and hopes when the rockets/bombs fell... or to see families being separated in their attempts to escape... or civilians being injured, maimed, shredded...
it's just incomprehensible that everyone is relying on violence to get what they want... and they themselves are behaving like the terror they wish to curb.
all this madness... it will not end... it will not end... the pain... the pain...
Manjack home from the wars walked down the street ---
bent like a bow his body round its great scar ---
and held his head upright. I saw his eyes
flaring and fixed, a tiger or a dark star.
Pain, what ist it? The sycthe turned under the ribs,
the soft explosion in the belly that means death,
the hornet where were berries, the snake in flowers,
the ice about the heart, the lung that leaks its breath ---
that which drives out love, hunger, thirst or hate;
the trap that waits, the precipice past hope
upon whose edge we walk, how delicately ---
the loaded whip no shoulders can escape.
Pain, what is it? That which keeps alive
amoebae doubling from the acid; pain
that forces flesh to wisdom: hedge of swords
beside the road from protoplasm to man.
Pain that fierce darkness thrusting at all life
that drives it up to light; pain the black No
that knifes us in blind alleys; pain that can only say
You have chosen wrong; this is no way to go.
Manjack home from the wars walked down the street,
and in his flesh a fire that ate him lean.
Vision of famine, death with blazing eyes,
what shall we do to save ourselves from Pain?
~~~Judith Wright~~~
from Woman to Man, 1949, in Collected Poems
there is a saying... that what you avoid or let slip often returns in other forms of disguise as a reminder of what you had to face... or something like that... i am hopeless with words... clumsy... hmm... but that's not really what i want to blabber about... that, i am sure, is obvious from the various typos spewed on this blog...
sometimes, i wonder if my apparent seemless path from fresh-graduate to further (so-called) 'intellectual pursuits' that led to me doing a phd was a predestined journey to cultivate patience and what people might call, "Character Building"? ... not that i haven't been doing all that even before becoming rebellious... the enfant terrible, i am... funny how parents often crown you with glory in front of others, so that they might bask in it too... i will be the first to admit i am no perfect child and growing up, as i am still learning, is probably one of the most awkward experiences one has to live.
anyways.
sometimes there are so many things swimming about in my mind that i don't even know what i really want to express...
things like, i ran-jogged-walked 10km this scotching spring mid-day along the mississippi river and was joined by a beautiful black and orange butterfly for a short few minutes as it fluttered about as if it might be a reincarnation of a dead friend or relative... cheering me on in my run... a specie of birds that chirped as though they were the 80s computer game of some galactic missile warship... "Diiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuu...Diiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuu"... they went in their truly absurdly amusing way. the million(s)-dollar bungalows that line the east and west river parkways are all quite entertaining distractions, which kept me from wondering about how long the mississippi really is... some of them looked like the candie-cottage of the wicked witch in hensel and gretel... some of them are attempts in modern architectural designs... i wonder why americans love their bricks and rocks... other more able runners sped past and speed-walkers made you seem hopelessly SLOW... large-sized men with over-flowing spare 'love-handles' on harley-davidsons revved their engines to attract more attention... you wonder what the rest of the population is up to on this very day...
sometimes, i think there's so much going on in a single day, if one could only record every second of it... Proust did it, attempted to anyways... but he gave himself that job... and lived on it... not everyone has that calibre... or the inheritance!
did i ever mention to you how disconcerting i find the friendliness of americans at times?! i get them 'chatting' me up at supermarket cashiers, light-rail stations, bus-stops, and whatnots... people always seem to want to know about you... whether or not you are interested in talking to them... i am not used to this form of 'friendliness' and i think it's intrusive... and presumptious.
worse still, you get harrassed by phonecallers who are supposedly trying to do fund-raising... they ask you to donate over the phone for something you have not heard of, and they don't even care to send information and wouldn't accept NO for an answer... you tell them that you are on the "Do-Not-Call list" but they don't give a damn... the same person calls back fundraising for another organisation... it beats me why this isn't ILLEGAL?! i don't envy the caller but i think the whole thing is just WRONG. i get strange callers calling me 3 times in a row even when i tell them they've got the wrong number... i bet sometimes they are silly twats thinking it's fun to do prank calls... i was so upset one day i literally banged the darn phone receiver... and it's not the phone's fault! i hate how others bring the worst out of me. EVIL.
the climbing ivy on the red-bricked walls of the apartment building have extended their claws further than i have had time to notice... while scarring my view... they are providing lovely shade... i should maybe find some foldable chairs or a large picnic throw from IKEA so i could sit out in the lovely court-yard lawn... watch squirrels play catch... and the random fat hares prancing about... have a tea-party with the teddy-bears (?)... it is very green here in the twin-cities... i wish i could somehow fit a nice hilly range into its landscape and it might actually be quite splendid.
i got given many lovely things lately... a book of poems by Australian poet, Judith Wright, tiger-tee, CDs, peanut-butterscotch toffee treats, and David Mitchell's new book "BlackSwanGreen", which i am currently enjoying (although i cannot decide if i should have accepted the gift because under the 'social etiquette rules' in the employees 'code of conduct', which i cannot exactly remember, there are some clauses about gift-accepting and gift-giving between colleagues... hmm but a David Mitchell book should be allowed, no?! ) ... in any case, i very nearly bought "Ghostwritten" last summer when i was wandering in Waterstones, Edinburgh... but relocating always make me refrain from getting things... because you realise how much you already have! maybe i'll pick it up this summer... perhaps from the 1/2-priced bookstore round the corner from where i live!
it's a long weekend... but i should still get some work done... monday's memorial day... and i might actually get some driving practice on the RIGHT side in a colleague's car... i need to face my fears... this catch-22 business of driving is really not very helpful...
maybe life is an opportunity for us to fight our fears... like programming, driving, feeling trapped in a place or society (and therefore having to live as a nomad?)... and coping with awkward social situations... hmm.
yes, i should just finish up my ski-anecdotes.... i know!
'If just one person believes in you
Deep enough and strong enough
Believes in you hard enough and long enough
Before you knew it, someone else would think
''If he can do it, I can do it''
Making it two. Two whole people who believe in you.
And maybe even you can believe in you too.'
--Robin and the Muppet Gang
from 'It's Not Easy Being Green And Other Things to Consider'
Jim Henson , The Muppets, and Friends
the apartment
no longer
contains
two of us
no longer
buzzing with
conversations
no longer
listening to
the doubled
footsteps
no longer
anticipating
who might be
home first
no longer
now it's just me
leaving it empty...
returning,
to find it empty.
f left on thursday and left me to battle my research woes and an empty apartment to return to after staying till 9:30pm at work... there's no one to compete with for the bathroom... but f usually lets me win except on tuesday mornings when he has to be at the uni at 8am! now i have all the grape juice to myself... and all the corriander i want in my food...
i hate having to get used to having people and then not having people around...
sob.
why does everyone have to be so far away?!
W.S. has an aptitude in discribing life, the world, and humanity in a manner that makes me (and i am sure scores of others) love her poetry... i marvel at the way her deceptively simple words spells refreshing perspectives of seemingly unfathomable things, and oftentimes her lyrics give me reason to be a little more positive about life, even if i might need the more frequent than occasional reminding...
A Note
Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain
from everything it's not;
to squeeze inside events,
dwadle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.
An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;
and if only once
to stumble on a stone,
end up drenched in one downpour or another,
mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.
~Wisława Szymborska~
from "Monologue of A Dog" translated by Clare Cavanagh & Stanisław Barańczak
"Well, when the path is steep and stony and the night is all around
And the way that you must take is far away
When your heart is lost and lonely and the map cannot be found
Here's a simple little spell that you can say:
You've got to face facts, act fast on your own
Preparation, perspiration, dynamite determination
Pack snacks, make tracks all alone
Don't be cute. Time to scoot. Head out to your destination.
Chase the future, face the great unknown."
--Gobo Fraggle
from 'It's Not Easy Being Green And Other Things to Consider'
Jim Henson , The Muppets, and Friends
"Dance your cares away, worry's for another day.
Let the Music play down at Fraggle Rock.
Work your cares away, dancing's for another day.
Work your cares away down at Fraggle Rock."
-- The Fraggles --
i just needed wee bit of a cheer.... maybe this will perk you up too (if you remember them wee muppets and friends... or if you happen to grow up in the 80s)!
thanks to f for the link, you can download the song from this site... (warning: the german version is rather weird!)
I'm still asleep,
but meanwhile facts are taking place.
The window grows white,
darknesses turn gray,
the room works its way from hazy space,
pale, shaky stripes seek its support.
But turns, unhurried,
since this is a ceremony,
the planes of walls and ceiling dawn,
shapes separate,
one from the other,
left to right.
The distances between objects irradiate,
the first glints twitter
on the tumbler, the doorknob.
Whatever had been displaced yesterday,
had fallen to the floor,
been contained in picture frames,
is no longer simply happening, but is.
Only the details
have not yet entered the field of vision.
But look out, look out, look out,
all indicators point to returning colours
and even the smallest thing regains its own hue
along with a hint of shadow.
This rarely astounds me, but it should.
I usually wake up in the role of belated witness,
with the miracle already achieved,
the day defined
and dawning masterfully recast as morning.
~Wisława Szymborska~
from "Monologue of A Dog" translated by Clare Cavanagh & Stanisław Barańczak
a memoir like fictional Nitta Sayuri's is one which i wish i could have the talent to pen... it is utterly captivating... lyrical and heartfelt. ...little wonder that Arthur Golden has been critically praised for rendering this remarkable voice of the legendary Geisha, a skilled courtesan who entertains the men that frequent the tea-houses of pre-war Gion, in his debut novel. i am most intrigued by the myriad of life-complexities and rivalries hidden behind the glorious facade, the perfect demure smiles, graceful movements and social banter that these artisans carry in the presence of their patrons which Golden delicately exposes to the reader.
training to become a top-grade courtesan can be what seems like an arduous and tormentous journey... one is expected to become skilled in music, dance, social etiquette as well as the art of enticing and yet not jeopardizing your worth... this is particularly challenging if you are sold to a household so devoid of appreciation, encouragement and trust... and if you have in addition a tyrannical Hatsumomo (the top geisha of the Nitta household who is a reincarnation of a devil camouflaged beneath her inconceivably divine beauty) bent on crushing you, life is the epitome of misery...
young Chiyo, nonetheless, emerges to become the legendary Sayuri under the tutelage of the renowed Mameha and the generosity bestowed (unbeknownst to her) by the Chairman... whose kindness to the young girl one afternoon lingered in her memory for years since and inspired her to work towards her dream...
yet, i will probably never be able to fully appreciate the life of a geisha for the world in which a geisha lives seems really quite bizarre to me... or perhaps i should say that the kind of sexual muse and fantasies of (some?) men in japan and many places elsewhere are quite... warped?! and i wonder if Golden had the intention of making a mockery of this aspect of humanity in his novel...
in any case, what rings through in the spell-binding story is that if adversaries (as predominantly portrayed by Hatsumomo and the Nitta household and possibly even the archaic practices) could be overcomed, our dreams (life, love, freedom and perhaps even happiness) may not be totally out of reach... no body ever said that life isn't a struggle and the reward as you will discover at the end of the memoir is bittersweet.
i am certainly looking forward to the movie, which should be out for x'mas... the trailers are simply mesmerising... what with a cast of shinning stars, such exquisite kimonos... and the promise of beautiful music (by John Williams) and dance (performed by dance-graduates Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh)!
... gosh... i do wish i owned a pair of luminous grey-blue eyes...
while uploading my pics for an earlier entry... i found a naughty poem that might go with this picture i took during my visit to the como park conservatory...
BEAUTY BATHING
by: Anthony Munday (1553-1633)
BEAUTY sat bathing by a spring,
Where fairest shades did hide her;
The winds blew calm, the birds did sing,
The cool streams ran beside her.
My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye
To see what was forbidden:
But better memory said Fie;
So vain desire was chidden--
Hey nonny nonny O!
Hey nonny nonny!
Into a slumber then I fell,
And fond imagination
Seem?d to see, but could not tell,
Her feature or her fashion:
But ev'n as babes in dreams do smile,
And sometimes fall a-weeping,
So I awaked as wise that while
As when I fell a-sleeping.
.... oh! when will it be summer again...?!? a dipping in the lakes would be splendid in the scorching heat only a few weeks not so long ago... but not in this frozen season of snow and biting chill... sigh.
i don't know if many of you have already heard of Project Gutenburg but this is a really nifty site for literary works whose copyrights have expired and are therefore free for all to use...
since i have left or sent back many of my books home (except for a few things packed in 3 boxes at the dept. back in edinburgh and some bitsNbobs left with lucy) this spiffy site is a really nice way for me to read up old classics.
and guess what i was pointing my browser to?!
thanks to f who introduced this to me some time ago and then i forgot all about it until desperation set in... memory has a wonderful life of its own.
i've grown to adore Jane Austen's works since many years ago when we read Pride & Prejudice for literature in school, then we went to visit her home on a school-trip to England, then i found myself in that part of the world living and studying for quite some many years... then again, i am a sucker for period movies and everything quaint and british, medieval and ancient... good scenery, tasteful music and dramatic landscapes easily cause me to melt...
i sure hope this film-adaptation of the wonderful novel will not disappoint!
angst
thoughts turn
like leaves of Autumn
in the wind and sun.
they turn,
intermittent,
a disquieting still.
leaves fall,
they pile,
slowly, patching up the paths.
like bare branches
engulfed by the piercing chill,
emotions fend for themselves.
--- written for R, for this day a year ago ---
for the Edinburgh Book Festival this year... sob.
(the official webpage is here and here's another link about who's coming...)
"If it is true that it is what we run from that chases us, then The Color Purple (this color that is always a surprise but is everywhere in nature) is the book that ran me down while I sat with my back to it in a field." [Alice Walker, Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition]
i reached the last page of her novel this morning, still snuggled up under my duvet in the warmth of my bed... tears streaming down... i love it, every bit of it... the Open University Press publication of her novel i found for ?5 at Fopp (the cheap CD store that caters to those who know what they want but doesn't barr anyone who doesn't know what they want from entering also stocks stacks of books at reduced prices... i was browsing a picture book about Frank L. Wright's fascinating buildings the other day while ruth popped in to get a CD she wanted... discovered that many of his masterpieces are in Wisconsin... the state next to Minneapolis, after you cross the Mississippi ...) is dog-earred on some of the last pages... i do that to my books... "sacrilege" you might gasp but i think it's forgivable... (this is by no means disrespect... but i guess it's just me personalising them, i suppose... anyways i digress).
i don't always find myself captivated from the first instance when i pick up a book... but The Color Purple did it... it was shocking... very painful... and it was also disturbing because you feel like you are prying into someone's journal... now that's sacrilege. but it is really an amazing work, at least to me -- the na?ve, amateur literature appreciater... overwhelmed by awe actually... because there's so much in there that's not said but resonates... the language -- the 'black english' that Walker used, the growth of the epistolary diaries in form and in expressions and in length... you see some transition of the way the diaries were written (including the use of language) as you infer the changes that manifest in the characters, their ordeals, their acquired experiences and 'self-enlightenments'... it is also beautiful how, at the very crux of it, we are who we are because of others...
and so another year was added on sunday... i won't bore you all by recounting the past 26 years of my silly and rather nomadic existence... except to say, the journey goes on and the fossicking continues...
thank you all
for your kind thoughts and wishes
cards, flowers and phone calls
big hugs and kisses...
over the weekend, i had the privilege of enjoying the company of a few close friends (who were invited to a little evening of nibbilies and cocktail-like fun...) over a lovely sangria which i made for the first time...
[the sangria concoction: mix together in a large bowl or jug a bottle of fruity red wine with a packet of red grape juice; the juice of 3 oranges and add the pulp too; 5 tablespoons of brown sugar; chopped pieces of apples, pears and kiwi or whatever fruit that takes your fancy; include thin slices of a lime for a little more sprightliness... serve with some ice cubes and a slice of lime or a wee sprig of fresh mint as decoration etc...]
with some of us attempting to make sushi and cocktails or rather pinacoladas! 
we also had an 'ambient' acoustic waterfall --> which required us to save the flat from a persistent leak trickling from the kitchen ceiling on sunday morning...
before heading down to the botanical gardens where cheeky squirrels thrive and red poppies are just starting to open up their eyes
...at the garden cafe, f and i spent some time sipping tea with ruth and her grandparents and later, having dinner at her place near the sea...
"On my way home I walked along the wall with the dog behind me. My shoes were squeaking all the way. There were white salt marks where they were already beginning to dry. The sun was starting to come through the mist and it was not going to rain after all. I looked back and saw the sun coming out. The water was so white and so full of bouncing light that I could see nothing at all. It made me want to close my eyes and sneeze. When I looked into the shadows under the trees it was so dark that I could see nothing there either. When you're small you know nothing. I know the sea is like a piece of silver paper in the sun. I can see people walking along the seafront with ice-cream cones. I can hear the bells and I am not afraid of being German or Irish, or anywhere in between. Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit, full of books and films you've been to. I'm not afraid of being homesick and having no language to live in. I don't have to be like everyone else. I'm walking on the wall and nobody can stop me." (Hamilton, 2003:295, taken from "The Speckled People")
i know i've quoted this passage before... but i'm quoting it again... because it helps me feel a little less nomadic.
Riasg Buidhe
There are other lives we might lead, places we might get to know, skills we might acquire.
When we have put distance between ourselves and our intentions, the sensibility comes awake.
Every day should contain a pleasure as simple as walking on the machair or singing to the seals.
The ripples on the beach and the veins in the rocks on the mountain show the same signature.
When we climb high enough we can find patches of snow untouched by the sun, parts of the spirit still intact.
The grand landscapes impress us with their weight and scale but it is the anonymous places, a hidden glen or a stretch of water without a name, that steal the heart.
The mere sight of a meadow cransbill can open up a wound.
We live in an age so completely self-absorbed that the ability to simply look, to pour out the intelligence through the eyes, is an accomplishment.
You will require a tune for a country road, for hill walking a slow air.
When I climb down from the hill I carry strands of wool and fronds of bracken on my clothing, small barbs of quiet in my mind.
At dawn and again at dusk we feel most acutely the passing of time but at dawn the world is with us while at dusk we stand alone.
The farther we move from habitation, the larger are the stars.
There is a kind of bagpipe and fiddle music, practiced in a gale, which is full of distance and longing.
A common disease of sheep, the result of cobalt deficiency, is known as 'pine'.
The best amusement in rain is to sit and watch the clouds negotiate the mountain.
Long silences are as proper in good company as a song on a lonely road.
Let everything you do have the clean edge of water lapping in a bay.
In any prevailing wind there are small pockets of quiet: in a rock pool choked with duckweed, in the lee of a cairn, in the rib-cage of a sheep's carcase.
When my stick strikes a stone, it is a call to order.
The most satisfying product of culture is bread.
In a landscape of Torridonian sandstone and heather moor, green and gold lichens on the naked rock will ignite small explosions of sensation.
Whatever there is in a landscape emerges if we just sit still.
It is not from novelty but from an unbroken tradition that real human warmth can be obtained, like a peat fire that has been rekindled continuously for hundreds of years.
After days of walking on the moor, shoulders, spine and calves become as resilient as heather.
The hardest materials are those which display the most obvious signs of weathering.
We can carry a tent, food, clothing or the world on our shoulders, but how light we feel when we lay them down.
Just to look at a beach of grey pebbles can cool the forehead.
On a small island, the feeble purchase that the land obtains between the sea and the sky, the drifting of mist and the intensity of light, unsettles the intellect and opens the imagination to larger and more liquid configurations.
Although the days should extend in a graceful contour, the hours should not be accountable.
A book of poems in the rucksack -- that is the relation of art to life.
On a fine day, up on the heights, with the heat shimmering from the rocks, I can stretch out on my back and watch all the distances dance.
The duty of the traveller, wherever he finds himself, is always to keep faith with the air.
We should nurture our own loneliness like an Alpine blossom.
Solitude and affection go well together -- to work alone the whole day and then in the evening sit round a table with friends.
To meet another person on a walk is like coming to a river.
In the art of the great music, the drone is eternity, the tune tradition, the performance the life of the individual.
It is on bare necessity that lyricism flourishes best, like a cushion of moss campion on granite.
When the people are gone, and the house is a ruin, for long afterwards there may flourish a garden of daffodils.
The routines we accept can strangle us but the rituals we choose give renewed life.
When the lark sings and the air is still, I sometimes feel I could reach over and take the island in my hand like a stone.
--- Thomas A. Clark ---
from Distance & Proximity
monday's little parcel from down under appeared through the mail slot of the flat door... it was filled with lots of lovely thoughts, a pebble and seashell, dried flowers and a book entitled "How to Live with a Neurotic Cat" (i wonder if they'd read it when they had their 2 cats?!)... i love how auntie helena and uncle albert always, no matter how far away they are... manage to send their loving thoughts across the miles...
everytime i receive something from my special friends who are also very much like family... i am reminded of my happy 'beachcombing' fossicking along the beach only about 100m from their home...
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as the world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.
--- e.e. cummings ---
from Poems 1923-1954
i managed to get to the various airport terminals... getting to JFK from Manhattan isn't fun. after almost 45mins wait, the ride took another one and a half hours before the bus arrived at the airport... then you join the slowly slidering queue to get yourself checked in... there, at the counter, i was told i've only 10mins connection transfer time before boarding my next flight from Frankfurt... gasp.
but my sleepy feet managed to sprint from terminal A to B and i made it in time... in fact, had i been more awake and decisive i could have opted to fly 5 hours later from Frankfurt and get a 500euros voucher (or half cash/voucher option) compensation for the over-booked flight... but two others voulunteered much quicker than sleepy me... darn. 250euros is quite a lot of goodies... and potentially a free flight within the EU... alas. mayeeee!!!! arggh.
then, upon arriving in edinburgh the plane had to take off again just as it was descending... the control tower in Edinburgh Turnhouse airport was shut for repairs/construction work and partly because the skies were so overcast that the landing strip was not visible... so the pilot had to re-start the landing procedure and land without assistance (?! guessing?!)... but he did a great job in landing the aircraft smoothly... =c)
it took me a while before i started to wonder if my baggage made the transfer even though it had a "HOT" yellow tag added to it... and while waiting for my haversack near the carousel i recalled this poem by Vikram Seth:
Round and Round
After a long and wretched flight
That stretched from daylight into night,
Where babies wept and tempers shattered
And the plane lurched and whiskey splattered
Over my plastic food, I came
To claim my bags from Baggage Claim.
Around, the carousel went around.
The anxious travelers sought and found
Their bags, intact or gently battered,
But to my foolish eyes what mattered
Was a brave suitcase, red and small,
That circled round, not mine at all.
I knew that bag. It must be hers.
We hadn't met in seven years!
And as the steel plates squealed and clattered
My happy memories chimed and chattered.
An old man pulled it off the Claim.
My bags appeared: I did the same.
--- from All You Who Sleep Tonight.
Poems by Vikram Seth ---
i am growing to own a reputation for working late... even the security officers are beginning to recognise me as i slip out just before they lock-up the department every night. that's nothing worth being proud of. it means i have a sad life.
i spent the whole day yesterday working despite a splitting headache... yes, it's all the deadlines... and the frustrating dead ends that i had to travel to (with great reluctance) and now pressed for time to try the analyses in a different way; something which my supervisor wasn't keen on but which i wanted to do for eons, for good logical reasons -- at least i think so.
anyways... there are various ways that one can try to nurse a terrible headache... paracetamol works sometimes... a head massage from a gentle friend.... herbal tea... sleep...
the best alternative to the head massage is a warm bath. even better when i still have some lovely lavender bath oil from Isle of Arran's ArranAromatics which i found when i was there with f last autumn and lavender bath salts which i found at the local supermarket... (i am a sucker for lavender... i should visit provence one day... and lie in the acres and acres of lavender... and hope that the bees and wasps will not attack me!)
and i certainly felt better...
here's a bath-poem i found while googling:
She writes from her bath
Her body floating at half mast
One breast rising as a island
Erupting as a volcanic land mass
Suds adorning its lovely pink cap
Her thighs crest
Through soapy water
Smooth as wet glass
Her hands sponging legs
Too slippery to grasp
Candles align her flagship
Lights appearing through the fog
She writes stories in bubbles
Blown from her beautiful lips
Bursting into provocative print
by jack
Posted on LoveLandia
crocuses and some snow drops are already nosing their way above the soil... soon the daffodils will probably join in the display... spring is coming coming...
i can't wait for the colours and the sounds to reappear in full but the temporal aspect of their 'debut' is really something quite beautiful and exciting... this Chinese poem describes just how lovely it would be...
春风动春心，流目瞩山林。
山林多奇采，阳鸟吐清音。
--- 乐府民歌(子夜四时歌) ---
i can't quite translate this appropriately... and so this attempt might be quite futile: my joy in appreciating Spring's colours, sets free my gaze and render it to wander towards the forest on the hills... yonder, from the mysteriously spectacular foliage, the calls of migratory birds can be heard...
and to welcome Spring... we mark the start of the Spring Festival (or Lunar New Year) today! 松迎富贵福满门, 鹤舞吉祥春回地! Happy New Year to everyone out there!
i am such a pathetic reader... it's rather depressing sometimes... especially when there are more interesting things to add to the growing list... or stack of books i place next to my pillow on my bed (maybe tiger-ente and teddy amuse themselves when i am out?!) or pile on the carpeted floor...
have started a few... but i am not good with doing multi-readings...
-- Vehicles Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg (a xmas pressie from f which is something i'd wanted to get for a while... it is written by an emeritus prof. in the Max Planck Institute in T?bingen. the book consists of a collection of essays on thought experiments with pictures that describe how the nervous system might have developed to render us sensing and feeling and interacting like we do using hypothetical thought-creations call vehicles to help illustrate his points... i shouldn't take that long but each little chapter is doing my head in -- i feel terribly dumb...)
-- Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver (i rediscovered this gem when i went back to singapore... it was sleeping in my bookshelf... i'm catching up on some of the short stories i've read before or have skipped in the past... i like short stories... makes me feel good when i've finished one... because i am so slow! but imagine the delirium i'd feel finishing something bigger?!)
among the to-reads are:
-- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
-- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (monoceros has recommended this and i was rather taken by the brief browsing i did in Kinokuniya so i bought it but alas! i've not quite managed reading it properly...)
-- In Search of Fatima by Ghada Karmi (this is a memoir by a Palestinian)
-- Persian Brides by Dorit Rabinyan (i found this at the Oxfam books section; it's by an award winning Israeli writer whom i am totally ignorant of -- was just intrigued by it)
----- a stack of books related to motor control/neuroscience, including those that CT-emeritus prof. helped me ordered with some 75% discount from OUP (he's so kind!)...
things i'd like to check out:
-- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (the novel is nominated for the James Tait Award)
-- Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
and of course... amazon.co.uk is sending me some new books i've just ordered... there is so much (it's uncountable to me) interesting writing out there... help.
sunday... i decided not to do any work for a change... and instead i went to visit ruth who's just returned from Bangladesh and Nepal... it's been nearly 2 months since we last bade each other farewell in a frenzy... i love going down to Portobello to visit ruth! it reminds me of going to Adelaide to visit Auntie Helena and Uncle Albert... the beach... and the artsy and peaceful environment where ruth and her current flatmate emily, live... i love their earthern and colourful stoneware crockery among other interesting things... and even the spread of food for lunch is typical of how Uncle Albert would have offered in Aldinga... terribly uncanny... i took along a packet of Cypriot Haloumi cheese i got the other day and some of what is left of mummy's incredible cake (more on that another day!) to share...
hummus, avocados, cheese galore, tomatoes, and nice bread and some amazing carrot-parsnip-apple-chilli soup prepared by emily gave us sufficient warmth before we headed out to the seafront...
[fundst?cke of the day]
2 beachcombers were busying themselves... i wonder what they were looking for... doggies pranced and skidded on the sand while their owners tried to call them back... we walked near the edge where the dissipating waves lose their momentum and gently caress the moist sand... sometimes looking out to the sea... sometimes listening to what each other had to say...
there are lots to fossick on the beach... seashells, cockles... pebbles... thoughts... calmness... fresh crispy air... skyscapes... the sea...
On Looking at the Sea
Walking down to the sea, with the hills behind me, with the miles inside me, what lies before me is immense, a glittering and shining expanse, both limit and release.
A slow curve of shell sand, sand of white silica, Torridonian sand or sand of grey basalt; these are the margins, tracts of delay and preparation.
If fate is the fruit of character, what does it mean to come down to the sea?
As bladder wrack will float a stone, contemplation of the horizon brings a perceptible lifting of the centre of gravity.
A stretch of sea can lie between hills like an acre of bluebells in sunshine.
No amount of looking will ever exhaust that which can be taken in at a glance.
Looking is an acknowledgement before any recognition.
A contour in the hills may contain the sea, as the body may be full of loneliness.
The complacent to looking is listening, to lie back in the marram grass with eyes closed, while oystercatcher, redshank and whimbrel call the distances.
Barnacles sing, tangle rots, the summer days are long and inconsequential.
For a brief season, a bewilderment of butterfiles, a broadcast of colours, ragwort, clover, tufted vetch, self-heal, eyebright, wild thyme, is steadied by the blue of the sea and sky.
Within the idiom of the tide, ripples in sand, or the edges of receding waves have the clarity of a statement.
Sand, shells, pebbles, boulders are graded in an order that is always open to revision.
After a gale, a snow or ash of sea-spume, a froth of spent rage, covers everything, a wounded guillemot drags itself over a litter of boulders, in the massive calm before a new front approaches.
There is a darkness in excess of light, a lull in the crash of thought, on a walk beside the flowering blackthorn of the wave.
Above the tideline, an old blue rope is entangled in a bramble bush.
What was looked for in the hills and in the recesses of the forest is found at least in the sea; the transformation of qualities into quantity.
Time lost looking at the sea is precisely lost of time.
On looking at the sea, it is not the sea but the looking that is redemptive.
On some mornings it will take all the blue of the sea to wash the sleep from your eyes.
Where waves were driven as spray over the dunes, a clear water stands in weed-held pools.
Whimbrel, redshank, oystercatcher; all the distances awake echoes.
Every inscription is erased, every direction countered, that it might be the sea, not current, tide or wave, that rests in the gaze that rests upon it.
Every distance has an internal duplicate which can be measured and sustained.
When we are far from the sea, within closed horizons, we can look again and again at its absence.
--- Thomas A. Clark ---
taken from Distance and Proximity
i am really enjoying the daily poetry selection of The Writer's Almanac which monoceros introduced us to. it gives snippets of interesting information about whose birthday it is everyday (e.g. today's also the birthday of Virginia Woolf) or what happened during each day in history. it's a great thing to hear a poem a day! and here's today's poem:
Bonie Doon
Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu o' care?
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause luve was true.
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate.
Aft hae I roved by bonie Doon
To see the wood-bine twine,
And ilka bird sand o' its luve,
And sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose
Frae aff its thorny tree;
And my fause luver staw my rose
But left the thorn wi' me.
--- Robert Burns ---
hmm... maybe i should have some Haggis and neeps and tatties tonight... or perhaps i could indulge in poetry reading instead... :C)
A Walk by Moonlight
As the last tinge of sunset fades and a flock of geese flies over, the moon rises unscathed from the branches of a hawthorn.
Into an economy of desires, the arrogance of the days, the compromises and complacencies, is introduced a silver light, a delicate stream of irony.
To come out of the house, to come out of yourself, to be subtle, clear, extensive, cold, is the moon's invitation.
You will find a clear path through the beech wood, scented with the leaves of wild garlic and lit by the wild garlic flowers.
Darkness is not closed but open.
The impatience with which we seek the confirmations of light is a flight from information brought by all the senses to the evidence of the eyes alone.
Those objects which by day presented hard surfaces to the light by the light of the moon take on their proper density.
In a yellow rectangle, in the black fa?ade of a house, a woman is laying a table.
Only when you forget the night, when you sleep through it or repress the memory of its distances, will the days appear to be an uninterrupted sequence.
By moonlight, in the far meadow of an old legend, oak trees dance and standing stones walk down to the river to drink.
The lines and limits, the defining edges, which the eye abstracts from a landscape, dissolve and merge by moonlight into masses and tones.
Everything we habitually recognise and dismiss, we are able to meet again.
Walls, trees and hills which all day have kept their distance, at night become presences that gather around.
You can walk out into the moonlight and hear a sonata for piano and oboe.
In ten paces you may come to ten places.
Since trepidation is only a step away from wonder, it is not wrong to hesitate.
When you see a new moon, uncover your head, turn over the penny in your pocket, and lay yourself open for inspection.
Anything that is secretly glad comes under the auspices of the moon.
Constant vigilance would be a parody of attention, a fullness without phases, an inability to put the self to sleep.
Who has the courage to go into the dark places where there is nothing but feeling?
--- Thomas A. Clark ---
from Distance & Proximity
some time ago... perhaps a year ago or more... i went to the Scottish Poetry Library with Hannah (my ex-flatmate from undergrad days who's currently the excited bride-to-be) and found this little pocketbook entitled "Distance & Proximity" by Thomas A Clark, which contains a collection of his prose-poetry that is complemented with some visually provocative photographs by Olwen Shone capturing subtle textures in our environment... i've really enjoyed it... and am quite fond of those prose-y stanzas that often seem more philosophical than rhythmical... hmm... i ought to pop into the library again... for they must have something i'd like sleeping on the shelves somewhere...
this is quite a nifty tool... let's see what character(s) we will be acquainted with tomorrow!
... soon, each of you (yes even you who happen to be just passing by) can write me a chinese poem! heee!
just about to leave for Changi Airport to fly back to Europe... haven't had time to share all the fun and no-work escapades and now i have to say goodbye... albeit briefly...
Goodbyes
Goodbye, goodbye, to one place or another,
to every mouth, to every sorrow,
to the insolent moon, to weeks
which wound in the days and disappeared,
goodbye to this voice and that one stained
with amaranth, and goodbye
to the usual bed and plate,
to the twilit setting of all goodbyes,
to the chair that is part of the same twilight,
to the way made by my shoes.
I spread myself, no question;
I turned over whole lives,
changed skin, lamps, and hates,
it was something I had to do,
not by law or whim,
more of a chain reaction;
each new journey enchained me;
I took pleasure in place, in all places.
And, newly arrived, I promptly said goodbye
with still newborn tenderness
as if the bread were to open and suddenly
flee from the world of the table.
So I left behind all languages,
repeated goodbyes like an old door,
changed cinemas, reasons, and tombs,
left everywhere for somewhere else;
I went on being, and being always
half undone with joy,
a bridegroom among sadnesses,
never knowing how or when,
ready to return, never returning.
It's well known that he who returns never left,
so I traced and retraced my life,
changing clothes and planets,
growing used to the company,
to the great whirl of exile,
to the great solitude of bells tolling.
--- Pablo Neruda ---
from Fully Empowered translated by Alastair Reid
they know i am foreign... or at least a non-regular resident.
they smell me, sense how i move, detect the unusual motion in their all-familiar environment...
silently but swiftly they take their piercing straw and draw
the delicious juice to sustain their existence a little while more..
they tease you... leave irresistible love bites
and rejoice in their feasty flights
while i try with all my sanity to contain my desire to ease that lingering itch
and focus on nursing and soothing the scratched bits
i've not been sleeping well lately... it's probably the pillow... i miss my pillow which i left behind in Edinburgh... and the ones i had here are now replaced by others which aren't quite right... hmmm
by 8:30pm last night i was dozing in bed intending to read myself to slumberland... only to discover i was already alseep when my big brother John knocked to say they (he and Lyn) were getting ready to leave... they came to visit, Lyn practiced her piano pieces, and we had some simple dinner which i prepared (stir-fried Gailan with mushrooms and some rice-noodley thingy called BeeTaiBak with an assortment of toufu and fishpaste ingredients known collectively as Yong Toufu)...
by 3:30am i was gaining consciousness and tossing about.... it is past 4am... and i am reminded of a poem:
Four a.m.
The hour between night and day.
The hour between toss and turn.
The hour of thirty-year-olds.
The hour swept clean for rooster's crowing.
The hour when the earth takes back its warm embrace.
The hour of cool drafts from extinguished stars.
The hour of do-we-vanish-too-without-a-trace.
Empty hour.
Hollow. Vain.
Rock bottom of all the other hours.
No one feels fine at four a.m.
If ants feel fine at four a.m.,
we're happy for the ants. And let five a.m. come
if we've got to go on living.
----- Wisława Szymborska -----
(trans. by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
ahh... i guess ... now it's past 5am... i'll go on living!
papa managed to find a copy of "Only a Sandpiper. Appreciating Classical Chinese Poetry" by Li Lienfung, a book that DsD was reading a while ago... i love poetry and though i don't know alot about it, i like to be able to appreciate reading poetry as much as i can, especially Chinese poetry which we were never really introduced to in school. mum used to make us recite some poems e.g. 清明时节雨纷纷... about the day of Qing Ming -- Remembrance Day (of the Dead) but i never fully appreciated what all the nice rhyme and rhythm and words meant... until it was distilled for me by the author. (generalisation:) the thing about how Chinese people seem to learn is they like to memorise things and then they believe that the meanings will eventually come to you... i can't learn like that... i simply can't and it's sad that people don't always appreciate different learning strategies/styles... anyways... the description and explanation of reading between the few little words give so much more depth and meaning to the poem... why we never studied Chinese poetry and literature in school is a mystery and (methinks) something really wrong in the education system.
Chinese poems have a few distinctive forms as Li Lienfung explained and to appreciate poetry better we are introduced to the "building blocks" known as dui lian (对联) or couplets -- a pair of sentences or phrases that share the same syntactical structure but differing slightly in their message. it reminds me a little of Haikus in that there is always a contrast between the few lines with which they are made up. couplets are commonly found in royal places, temples, homes, and sent to friends on special occasions (e.g. Lunar New Year or otherwise known as the Spring Festival)... for whatever reason and for whoever it is intended, the couplet needs to embody the appropriate words that befit the circumstance and personality of the receiver. here is a couplet i quite cottoned to that is said to have hung in the abode of the scholar-poet of the Ming dynasty, Xu Wenchang (许文长, 1521-1593):
半间东歪西到屋,
一个南腔北调人.
this couplet describes that within half a house that is inclined eastward and westward sloping, lives a person who speaks with a southern accent and northern flavours. beyond the literal meanings of the words and the wonderful contrasts, lies something else... the old crumbling house which may also suggest an adaptable philosophy, is home to a well-travelled person (Li, 2003). Lienfung also highlighted the self-deprecation which i find humbling; that although described as being in a pitiful situation, the person is able to find himself at ease and laugh at himself.
this is one couplet i would love to hang in my wee abode someday... perhaps in my littly study... perhaps someone with great poetic skills could write me something akin to that... *dreams*....
i wish there were more books about poetry and literature like this little gem. Li Lienfung's "Only A Sandpiper. Appreciating Classical Chinese Poetry", The Bamboo Green Collection, is published by SNP International in 2003 (ISBN: 981 248 0080) and can be purchased from Select Books in Tanglin Shopping Center, Singapore.
i got up rather late for the 2nd part of the LATEX course yesterday but made it nonetheless, albeit a wee bit late... cycling is ace. i don't know what i'll do without my lovely 3-gear-back-pedal-brake bicycle that i flew over from T?bingen. it's probably not pampered enough...
we learnt how to add figures, cross-references and bibliographies into the practice documents but my queries about incorporating references from bibtex went unanswered; it is afterall a starters' course. i suppose some of you out there might know -- if you do please let me know! (click on the "say hello!" to the right to get in touch... thanks in advance). i might have to download Miktex sometime... hmmm.
anyways after some 3hours and a wee tea/coffee biscuity break in between, i dashed off cycling back to the department to park my bike and ran all the way to the train station to catch a train to Glasgow. i had to be at the Home Office before 3pm and the travelling time to get there is approximately an hour... i arrived in time to board the train but security didn't let me through without a ticket... i had only 3 mins to get one and i did just in the nick... thanks to the new ticket machines, then quickly sprinted through the crowd and jumped from the platform into the departing train. i felt invincible for 5 secs. then thought to myself: this is all so unnecessary... grrr. glad i made it though... i didn't stop running in Glasgow... i ran to the tube station and from Cessnock i ran to the HO dept. and made it only just... at 3pm. they were expecting my visit after my phonecall... in fact, the whole dept probably knew... hmm.
the usual security checks were done to get through and while i waited for some 30mins i got myself a cuppa from the vending machine and tried to clam my lungs down from all that gasping of the piercingly cold air. the center was sparsely decorated. it was rather empty too. i overheard a couple who was also there with regards to visa issues. they were quite perplexed by the sudden charge of application fees... finally, i got my new visa and the old one scrawled with some official stamp as a form of cancellation. the new details appeared correct and although i inquired about the raise of fees, all the head of the office who dealt with my case, seemed to say was that there's nothing they could do and i'll have to speak to my local MP about it. he also mentioned that it is unlikely that the fees will drop and so the proposed raise will be likely to be implemented in April 2005... resorting to the reasoning that the UK is the last of the EU countries to implement fees so they could be catching up on supposed lost-finances... crap. that's all i can say. crap.
i had some time to kill before taking the train back (my discounted ticket meant that i could only travel on off-peak trains)... the last time i went, i searched for this quirky and lovely Tea House called Tchai'Ovna near Kelvinbridge that nick recommended... it was pouring that day and hiding in a teahouse was a brilliant idea... it is a lovely place tucked behind a street of secondhand bookstores and LP recordstores... with a variety of wholesome vegetarian dishes and teas to choose from you are spoilt for choices. i requested to try a pot of "the golden flower of healing" -- which is a lovely blend of lavender, camomile and green tea... it was just what i needed to nurse my headache... and i left the place with a bag of lavender tea... just in case i might need a quick fix again! i must go back again but perhaps with some company next time...
however, it was sunny yesterday... and i thought i'd rather stay close to the train station. i've not been to Glasgow much (but i've seen a few museums though)... and i thought i might as well try to find a pair of warmer trousers for the freezing cold days since there are more stores there... i wandered into some stores and tried to look for warm trousers or happy shoes. i found 2 pairs of trousers in the end... which is quite remarkable!
on the way back, i read another short story from "Elephant and other short stories" by Raymond Carver, an author (and poet) i am beginning to grow quite fond of... perhaps i will share my thoughts on them someday... but i am no expert on such things and i can't string clever and eloquent sentences to make a brilliant critique...hmm...
it's incredible that i got up early today, made oats-porridge for breakfast, cycled 25 minutes through the morning-school-run and traffic to the Science/Natural Science campus at Kings Buildings to attend the first part of the LATEX course. i don't know why but i guess i should learn how to present manuscripts in a professional way and not bother with fighting with Word to suppress its inbuilt desire to do what it thinks i should rather than what i want... we'll see if i manage... it's a little like HTML scripts from the wee bit i have dappled with in both sprache. i know too little of either but enough to get by i suppose. another session tomorrow!
oh... my back hurts from carying too much stuff... i often wish we could have extendable arms.... for the purpose of self-massages... won't it be great?!
in the evening, i met up with ruth and her amazing friends who work for various NGOs and grassroots for Nepali dinner and chatted over refugees and asylum seekers' plight' and the rifts in perceptions between the 'victims' and law-enforcers etc., about scientific dependence on animal organs and animal research, etc. catching up and getting to know a few more unfamilar faces.
when i got back from the lovely meal, i found my new Driver's License with the updated new Address and a package from the Poetry Society in London... lots of poems in the quarterly review.... yeay... here's one i like which is perhaps apt for the apparent chill that has suddenly arrived:
Winter Interior
Sheep in smirr
Without shadow now, the snow,
the straw strewn by her.
She reads indoors.
Words grow smaller.
The kettle on the stool waits with her
through winter.
--- Gillian Allnutt ---
from "A Shepherd's Life: Paintings of Jenny Armstrong by Victoria Crowe"
in Sojourner
my poor ankles
you suffer because of my negligence and carelessness
you endure my tired uncertain steps
over the crevices and cracks
of the badly laid pavements, footpaths,
the weathered cobbled stones,
oh the overlooked sunken potholes,
and the occasional displaced gravel...
my poor ankles
your tendons have been torn too often
they have been weakened by weariness
by all the journeys i've coaxed you to carry me through
and through all the leaps and dances we've performed...
my poor ankles
lowering you gently into this warm lavender bath
is my desperate attempt to rekindle your sprightliness
to relax your tensed muscles
to calm the aching sore within the stressed ligaments
to help me feel a little less miserable about your sorry state...
R, we remember you in service today, but you are in our hearts always.
here is a poem by R's favourite poet (one whom i am rather fond of too, and one whom when everyone gets acquainted with, will also come to love) that was given to us at the end of the funeral service... which i thought was a lovely and appropriate gesture.
KEEPING QUIET
Now we will count twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
-- Pablo Neruda --
今天我和大提琴聊天
他诰诉我他这几天来好闷喔
我和他说了好多无聊话,
也跟他吐露了心中的烦恼
他一句也没言,
只是把我所讲的全部翻成音声
虽然音声不是特别的美
我们还是一起奏了点儿BACH
尽管楼下或隔壁的邻居听见了
我们还是继续合作弄音声...
几个星期没聊天的我们
彼此承受了寂寞的时刻
我们应该多聊天吗!
for a pseudo-translation
today i chatted with [the] Cello
i chatted with ugly duckling today
he told me that he's been feeling rather bored lately
i shared with him lots of nonsensical news
and even confided in him my frustrations.
he didn't utter a word
merely translated my words into musical sounds
even though the sounds weren't brilliant
we played a little BACH together
even if the neighbours below or next door were eavesdropping,
we continued to play on and on...
having not spoken for weeks,
we've each endured our own lonely moments
we should've chatted more often...
"亲爱的花木马：
心情好与不好时，我都喜欢走路。
我走在一条荒芜的公路上，来来回回好几回，天空是玫瑰色的，旷野是海蓝色的，一只紫色的兔子在路的尽头微笑。
我向前奔去，却永远到不了尽头，疲累地回头，还是一条走不完的路，紫兔子总是在路的底端神秘地看着我，不跑也不跳。
我想起了一部希腊电影，剧中的小女孩带着弟弟沿着一条公路去找爸爸，一路上发生了许多悲惨的事，结局也是哀伤的。现在回想，仿佛也该有一只巨大的紫兔子用凄凉的眼神，注视着她们。
总觉得人生时时刻刻，都被一双看不见的眼睛窥伺着？是天使的眼睛吗？还是魔鬼？或许真的是一只巨大的紫兔子喔！
心情不好时，你都在干什么？
爱迪达
十二月八日"
几米 作品精选集: "我只能为你画一张小卡片" 第81页
for a translation
[my amateurish translation -- had to work on this a few times; the funny thing about Chinese is it doesn't have conjugation/suffixes for tenses and i keep forgetting which tense i ought to be using...]
?My dearest Hobbyhorse,
Whenever I am feeling happy or sad, I?d always go for a walk.
I was walking along a public road, overgrown with weeds, following it to and fro, over a few times. The sky was rose pink, and the wilderness was sea-blue, at the very far end, a purple hare was smiling.
I raced forward, but could never reach the end, exhausted, I turned back, but it?s still a never-ending road. The purple hare kept looking at me mysteriously from the bottom of the hill, neither running nor hopping.
I recalled a Greek film I once saw: the protagonist, a little girl, took her younger brother following a road in search of their father... Lots of terrible things happened on their way, and the ending was equally depressing. Now, thinking about it, it seems as though there ought to be the presence of a gigantic purple hare gazing at them with miserable forlornness.
I keep feeling that every minute of one?s life is subjected to the scrutiny of a pair of invisible eyes. Do they belong to the Guardian Angle? Or are they those of the Devil? Or perhaps they really belong to a huge purple hare!
What do you usually do when your spirits are low?
AlwaysWantingToArrive
(not terribly certain of this bit of translation)
8th of December?
taken from Jimmy Liao?s ?Love in The Cards? page 81
i received a lovely letter-card from auntie helena and uncle albert earlier this week (or was it last week?) . they have just returned from their adventures in the ancient north-western coast of Australia, the Kimberley. included in their correspondence is a poem that i'd like to share...
Life to me
in the Kimberley
is here and now
- a passing shower
- a tree
- a flower
destined to bloom
for one brief hour
and then, make room
for others
But some
with clearer eyes can see
- the passing shower
- the flower
- the tree
in the panorama of eternity
-- Neroli Roberts --
i'd like to explore more beautiful and ancient parts of the world before they are all gone...
月亮忘记了 -- 作者：畿米; author: Jimmy Liao
"看见的，看不见了。
夏风轻轻吹过，在瞬间消失无影，
记住的，遗忘了。
只留下一地微微晃动的米离树影"
What was once visible, is now invisible.
Summer's gentle breeze disappeared in a twinkling moment,
Once remembered, now forgotten.
Silent, mysterious and hazy moving shadows of the distant trees are all that is left behind.
"看不见的，是不是就等于不存在？
也许只是被农运遮住，
也许刚巧风沙飞入眼帘，
我看不见你，却依然感到温暖。"
Does invisibility suggest non-existence?
Perhaps t'was just the shielding by thick puffy clouds,
Perhaps t'was coincidental that sand (wind) was blown into one's eyes,
I can't see you, yet, I still feel the warmth.
"记得的，是不是永远不会消失？
我守护如泡沫般脆弱的梦境，
快乐才刚开始，悲伤却早已潜伏而来。"
Does what is remembered mean that it will never-ever vanish?
I watch over the bubbly-foam-like fragile dream-mirror,
Happiness has only just appeared, yet sorrow has long crept in and is now beginning to surface.
"看不见的，看见了。
夏风轻轻吹过，草丛树叶翻舞飞扬。
遗忘的，记住了。
乌云渐渐散去，一道柔和的月光洒落在窗前。"
Whatever that was invisible, is now visible.
Summer's breeze gently brushes by, swaying meadow grass-blades and tree-leaves into a wind-dance.
All that is long forgotten is now remembered.
Rain clouds dissipate with time, revealing a soft luminance of the moon before the window
These quotes (please excuse my amateurish english translations) are taken from the beautiful picture book "Then The Moon Forgot", by the Taiwanese author, Jimmy Liao. D very kindly introduced me to his beautifully illustrated pictures and website some time ago. in the book, Jimmy cajoles us into appreciating everyday happenings, which we often grow to take for granted and gradually see them as being mundane?.e.g. like the rising of the moon?it?s being there in the night?that children have interesting experiences worth noticing but adults often overlook their need to share their experiences and resort to telling them to behave and listen to them instead? etc. beginning with a rather bizarre pictorial introduction with a guy falling over his balcony as the moon fell from the sky and then through a little boy?s discovery of the fallen moon, who has apparently forgotten about its identity, and the boy?s loving care of his new friend and the friendship between them, Jimmy described different worlds through his series of pictures? which are dotted by a few contemplative poetic lines. among the different ?realities?, was one of the adult world? which was ruled by an apparent ?rigid?, man-made conformity, while the little boy?s world was one full of innocence, discovery, dreams and imagination? the moon seems to bear some symbolism of a friend, a confidant(e), or perhaps even dreams? in a way? the dream ends as the moon awakes from re-discovering its identity, and likewise, as the adult person awakes from his head-injury-coma (?!), and re-finds the moon back in the night sky? that meditative and forlorn look towards the moon before his accident is suggestive of escapism? of some dream? or perhaps some aspiration of far away possibilities etc. yet his gentle smile as he gazed towards the moon, reappearing anew, might be a portrayal of a relieved yet bewildered sense of ?enlightenment??.perhaps of the realisation that the boundaries between dreams and reality might actually be quite hazy and grey?!
i think i am beginning to become addicted to Jimmy?s creation although i have yet managed to subscribe to his website! i shall have to soon!? i have also managed to read ?向左走，向右走?(?turn left, turn right?) and watched it?s movie (vcd) adaptation? which i quite enjoyed despite the various apparent differences from the original story (about 2 people meeting by chance and falling for each other. Yet, despite being literally separated by the wall, they do not seem to bump into each other? they pass each other?s lives so ?subliminally?, because each has a tendency to turn in one direction as s/he leaves her/his place?. they are always so close, yet so far?)?. yet the original story-line is not totally explicit and allows for individual interpretations? which is probably what makes the story linger about in your head?. hey D! i do think that the two protagonists did meet again even in the book!.? try looking for them on the page with the picture of everybody celebrating the arrival of a new year --- it?s a ?where oh where?s Wally?? game! thanks for sharing the works of Jimmy Liao with me D! it?s lovely that i could brush up on my deteriorating Mandarin, and also reflect on various things?. which is wonderful!
now, i shall have to try to continue with my good intentions of brushing up my Chinese with another wee picture-book: ?我只能为你画一张小卡片? (?Love in the cards?, although literally translated, it is: i could only draw you a wee postcard), also by Jimmy, which i picked up on monday. it should be fun? although it will take me longer to suss it out when mum isn?t around for the occasional help with foreign-looking characters, which i ought to know? and the lack of regular use in the last 9 years? has drastically lowered my fluency in Mandarin. sob?. 我一定要努力用心把中文搞好 (i must really make a big effort to improve my Mandarin)！
it began to pour and thunder sometime at 6 am this morning (or did it start earlier?!).... and my heart sank.... the trip to Pulau Ubin would most likely be cancelled, i told my sleepy self... and sure it eventually did... and now it has stopped raining....but it's still all cloudy
Cloudy
Cloudy
The sky is gray and white and cloudy,
Sometimes I think it's hanging down on me.
And it's a hitchhike a hundred miles.
I'm a rag-a-muffin child.
Pointed finger-painted smile.
I left my shadow waiting down the road for me a while.
Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy,
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell.
Down from Berkeley to Carmel.
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill.
Hey sunshine
I haven't seen you in a long time.
Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?
These clouds stick to the sky
Like floating questions, why?
And they linger there to die.
They don't know where they are going, and, my friend, neither do I.
Cloudy,
Cloudy.
Simon & Garfunkle
today's the longest day of the year and today many centuries back, medieval and folk practices abound rejoicing the start of summer... today, i finished reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code", which mentioned some of the ideas of pagan rituals i have sometimes encountered or heard people talk about, that somehow became closely linked to Christianity. captivated within the 500-600 pages of cleverly crafted Crimi, absorbing interesting details i have never before known or interpretated as they have been meticulously woven (if they are true at all?! some apparently are), and my crazy imagination gone slightly over-loaded... i felt as though i have re-lived some bits of my life;...been into the Louvre (saw some of the world's amazing art pieces... admiring those pyramids), into Westminister Abbey (home to the graves of many dignitaries) and to the surroundings of Roslin... quite spooky. just yesterday, i watched Harry and Hermione (is that how her name is spelt?) re-living their adventures in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"... i wonder what i will feel when i eventually enter the Roslin Chapel... i have seen how intricate the exterior stone walls looked 2 saturdays ago... i have seen gargoyles of sorts before (e.g. in oxford, and in Gaudi's barcelona etc.)... i wonder what this special place has in store. many questions pertaining to bits mentioned in the book and related to religion whirr and swim in my head; many of them have always been there. is Dan Brown trying to hint at us not to take everything at face value and read between their lines? i can't wait to re-visit those mentioned places again... no i can't wait. these 3 places are very much linked to my experiences in bizarre ways: i first visited Westminister Abbey when i was about 14, with the school (DSD was also there! we were travel partners!); the Louvre entered my life journey during my inter-rail travels across europe with Sabine after finishing our IB -- i had been really excited about the pyramids; Roslin, of course, has been mentioned to me a few times whilst i have been in Edinburgh, but it is not until my supervisor - a nature lover, Dave, mentioned how beautiful the area is and the hype of Dan's book, did i go searching for it....these 3 little parts of my life seem to share some form of commonality... and i am not sure if i will see many things in the same light as i did. this world seems to be filled with hidded mysteries. .. and humans have a penchant for knowing.... and giving meaning to the inexplicable.
BBC4's Nature programme talked about the "Squirrels Wars" on Monday...and coincidentally, i found this poem by Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940) that is rather sardonic...yet very cleverly expressing the hipocricsy of some (i don't think it refers to all Christians) with a 'living' metaphor
The Grey Squirrel
Like a small grey
coffee-pot,
sits the squirrel.
He is not
all he should be,
kills by dozens
trees, and eats
his red-brown cousins.
The keeper on the
other hand,
who shot him, is
a Christian, and
loves his enemies,
which shows
the squirrel was not
one of those.
tap tap ti-per-ti-ta-per-ti-ti-per-ti tap
tap tap toc,
ti-per-ti tip tip
drip toc,
tap
drip drip toc, ti-per-ti
tap tap ti-per-ti-ta-per-ti fall the rain on the window pane
like soft muffled drumming of fingers on the wooden picture frame
the faces enclosed i could not name
the features scarcely remained the same
drip
drip
tip-tip toc
it?s like the rain doing a wash-out
erasing all evidence of pompous and stout
iper-ti-taper-ti tap
tap tap
rain-speckled shadows on ones face
transient blemishes leave no trace
drip ip-ter-ti drip
drip
drip
gently sway the candle?s flame
the wick burns in the wax?s game
tip tap
tip tap
what once was is something else
smoke, dust, bagatelles?
drip
drip toc
drip
tap
drip
tip
just a time-passing rain-full of bagatelles
tic tac , ti-per-ti ti-per-ti toc,
tap tap tap
tic tic toc,
ti-per-ti-ti-per-ti tip tip
tap toc,
tap tap ti-per-ti toc
ti-per-ti-ta-per-ti fall the rain should actually look like this ....(i just don't know the trickery to do so directly in this entry...not yet at least...& oops you need an acrobat or pdf reader for the link)
Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
[I'm] twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.
The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.
Vikram Seth
from "All You Who Sleep Tonight"
i'm going to have a picnic... i think! ...erm... sketchily planned (never really know what to do about such days!).... but it'd be lovely to see some friends and enjoy abit of sun either on the Crags or in the Meadows.... all invited!
i have a tendency to discover great gems when i least expect to... e.g. at the bookstore, a wee shop with odds and ends etc. (yes i am really quite random!) i have almost forgotten about this special gem of an inspiration i happen to chance upon in the summer of 1999.... thanks to DimSumDolly's recent blog entry i am happily reminded of this fossicking joy!
i remember being in london that summer in 1999, visiting some old friends and found my way towards Foyles -- possibly one of the largest and well-stocked bookstores in the UK.... having then got more interested in poetry... i wandered into the section which shelved a selection of works from poets i vaguely knew and never-before heard of.... there... whilst pulling a few titles out and prying into their contents, then returning them to their safe hideouts, i caught a glimpse of a hard-back book's cover. it read "Wisława Szymborska Poems New and Collected 1957-1997". i had no idea who this person might be... her name simply cajoled a "pull me out!"... quite unsure of what i was to discover, i gently pulled it out of its location and was to later appreciate that what i was holding in my hands was a treasure.... i recalled pondering and enjoying THE THREE ODDEST WORDS, CLOUDS, PARTING WITH A VIEW, and CLASSIFIEDS; poems that have since become a few of my favourites.
but most precious of all, at least to little nobody me, ... is her thoughts expressed in her Nobel Lecture, translated to English from Polish, which i read with gratitude. and i am glad to be drawn back to it again. while 'Future', 'Silence', and 'Nothing' may be 'The Three Oddest Words', "i don't know" might plausibly be the most potent phrase when those little words are strung together... quoting Szymborska, "[This little phrase]'s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include spaces within us as well as the outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended. " (1996:xiv)....because "The World - .... is astonishing." (xvi) and Wisława offers her views further: "But "astonishing" is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We're astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness to which we've grown accustomed. But the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se, and it isn't based on a comparison with something else." (ibid)
i am glad to be acquainted with some of Szymborska's works, poems and thoughts.... because a lot of it is provocative, enlightening and a joy to grasp. last summer i discovered her "non-required reading" whilst fossicking for