Tomorrow is All Saint's Day, the day we remember our dearly departed, those who left this world to travel before us to the next. I remember my father, my grandparents, my aunties, Bill, Renata and Ante and other friends and family. I believe that although they are not here with me physically, they are embedded in my heart and soul and as such, are not really dead. In fact, they're immortal and will never die, at least for as long as I am alive. Then they and I will pass onto my children, my nieces, my cousins, my friends and the circle of life will go on.
Looking through my books of poetry, I came across this lovely poem by Stephen Spender and dedicate it to all those who left this world before us. Perhaps our own dearly departed were not truly great to the general population, but they were truly great to us personally. I have to admit that I especially like the second stanza. May we never allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great Stephen Spender
I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song. And who hoarded from the Spring branches The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.
What is precious is never to forget The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light Nor its grave evening demand for love. Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields See how these names are feted by the waving grass And by the streamers of white cloud And whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life Who wore at their hearts the fire's center. Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honor.
After my little walk down memory lane and rendezvous with my niece yesterday, I quickly popped into my favourite book shop, Algoritam, before French class to see if I would find anything that tickled my fancy. Now, this was a really stupid idea because something always tickles my fancy in that God damn book shop. It's either the latest cooking magazine or cook book or the biography of a favourite performer or artist or some poetry book or some origami paper or whatever. I always happen to come across something that has "Knitting Songbird, you just have to have this" written on it in large black print. And of course, I invariably give in and have it. Which is why I will never have enough money for a down payment on a house or apartment...
During my little saunter through the store yesterday, I turned the pages of a number of books and then, there it was, a book with a huge label on it, bigger than the rest of them. "Knitting Songbird, you reeeeally have to have this". So I gave in and now have it. Seinlanguage by Jerry Seinfeld.
Now, Seinfeld is a guy that you either love or hate. There's no middle ground. I happen to be on the I adore him side of the fence. To me, he's one of the best observational comedians around, up there with the greats like Bill Cosby, Billy Connolly, Dave Allen, Jay Leno, etc. Although I am not prone to watching television (don't have enough time and it can often be a real brain-drain), I watch Seinfeld religiously and am considering buying the complete series on DVD so I can always have them on hand in times of crises.
So I thought I would share a few quotes from the book with ya for a bit of a laugh. And BTW, a little piece of advice - don't read funny books lying down. While reading the book before taking a bit of a nap today (yeah, the headache persists...), I almost did a Jimi Hendrix and choked on my own spit laughing...so read this sitting up, that is, if you're into Seinfeld...
On the male code: A man is paralysed mentally by a beautiful woman, and advertisers really take advantage of this. Don't you love those ads where you see the woman in the bikini next to the 32-piece ratchet set? And we'll be looking at the girl in the bikini, then looking at the ratchet set, going, "All right, well if she's right next to the ratchet set, and I had that...I better just buy the ratchet set."
On phones and the phone machine: I love my phone machine. I wish I was a phone machine. I wish if I saw somebody on the street I didn't want to talk to I could just go, "Excuse me, I'm not here right now. If you just leave a message, I can walk away." I also have a cordless phone, but I don't like that much. Because you can't slam down a cordless phone. You get mad at somebody on a real phone, "You can't talk to me like that!" BANG, it's over. But a cordless phone - "You can't talk to me like that! All right now, let me just find that little thing to turn this off...Just hang on, I'm hanging up on you!"
On parking: The handicap parking spot is the mirage of the parking desert. You know the feeling. You see it in the distance, there it is. You can't believe your eyes, "It's too good to be true. A big, wide spot, and it's right by the entrance. Somehow everybody missed it." And then when you pull up, wait - it wasn't even there. There's nothing. It's like you were hallucinating. "I, I thought there was a spot there. I, I don't know what happened...I-" What is the handicap parking situation at the Special Olympics? They must have to just stack like a hundred cars into those two spots. How else can they do it?
On buying clothes: Buying closthes is always tricky. But when there's loud music playing, it really throws your judgment. You look at stuff like, "Hey, if there was a cool party and I was a cool guy, this might be a cool shirt." You get it home, there's no music, there's no party, and you're not a cool guy. You're the same chump, 75 bucks lighter.
On cooking shows: I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can't smell it. Can't eat it. Can't taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, "Well, here it is. You can't have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye."
On sex: Seems to me the basic conflict between men and women, sexually, is that men are like firemen. To us, sex is an emergency, and no matter what we're doing we can be ready in two minutes. Women, on the other hand, are like fire. They're very exciting, but the conditions have to be exactly right for it to occur.
On the office: Frankly, I don't believe people think of their office as a workplace anyway. I think they think of it as a stationery store with Danish. You want to get your pastry, your envelopes, your supplies, your toilet paper, six cups of coffee, and you go home.
I'll leave you with someone's version of the 10 best moments of Seinfeld ever. Personally, the Soup Nazi episode is my fave ever. Have fun!
I again woke up this morning with the most excruciating headache. I've actually had a "morning" headache every day since Saturday. I have since realised that it's probably due to the south wind. The God damn south wind. Unlike the icy north wind, the fierce east wind or the stormy west wind, the south wind lulls us to the land of Wynken, Blynken and Nod. However, reality invariably gives us a wake up call. And it's this tug-of-war between slumber and wakefulness that wreaks havoc with my head. So, yet again, it was pulsing to the beat of good ol' Stravinsky...
So I was glad that today was Wednesday. Wednesday. My day. My day of freedom. To do what I wanna do and be who I wanna be. Yeah. So I left the house just after 5 and hopped on a tram to the city, knitting in hand and knapsack on back.
I was meeting my niece at the Kras chocolate cafe but arrived half an hour earlier than we had agreed on. So I thought, what the hell, I'll go for a walk to Gornji Grad or the Upper Town, Zagreb's historical centre of sorts. Hadn't been there in a while and it's my absolute favourite part of Zagreb. (If you want to find out more, here's something from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradec,_Zagreb)
So with my iPod switched on and earphones blaring Eva Cassidy, I made the rather steep hike up cobble stoned Radic street, turned at Kamenita Vrata or the Stone Gate with its shrine consecrated to the Virgin Mary, where many a humble pilgrim has whispered their secret desire to Our Lady, me included, went up towards the parliament building where politicians stood in their three-piece suits, BlackBerrys in hand, waiting for their chauffeurs and BMWs to whisk them off to God knows where, onto Strossmayer promenade, also known as lover's lane, where the chestnut trees and wooden benches have witnessed many an adolescent first kiss. I then went to the lookout gazing at the rooftops and (thankfully few) skyscrapers, wondering what everyone was doing at this moment in time, a bit like Amelie but not quite...
Now, I don't know if it's this God damn south wind or autumn or a mid-life crisis or whatnot, but yet again, walking around the Upper Town, looking at the chestnut trees losing their leaves and the wooden benches bedecked with young lovers, reminded me of a time that has long past, an age of innocence, where I too had a first kiss with a special someone who has since become a complete foreigner to me and barely asks me the time of day. And although I would never want to go back to that time, I would like to put a little of that old black magic that I once had in a jar so I can release the slightest whiff of it every so often and feel it again, even if for a moment. Might make the headaches go away too...
I'll leave ya with a lady who could weave that old black magic - Lady Ella:
A dear friend recently confided to me recently that she had love problems and whether I had any advice for her. My first reaction was, who am I to give anyone advice? I mean, I've only had a handful of serious relationships in my life, either because I was too shy and never told the guy how I felt or he was too shy and never told me how he felt or if he was bold enough and told me how he felt, I didn't feel the same way. So who am I to tell another person what to do? But I thought, I really wanna help this person, she's a really good person and deserves better. And then I took me mate Ross' lead and thought, why not write a post about it? He wrote a great post about controlling diabetes which was helpful advice to anyone, not just diabetes sufferers. Maybe someone else out there may find this post helpful, too, who knows? As he says, blogs are powerful stuff. So here goes...
..but before I start, like I said, I'm no bloody expert on these matters, far from it. This is really my gutt talking, how I personally feel about the whole situation, things I've derived from my own life experiences, other people's, books, my therapeutic singing classes and the like. Take it all with a good pinch of salt. They're not in any particular order, just me babbling...which reminds me, I promise to try not to babble on too much, which I am prone to do, being the granny that I am...
I love me, I love me not
Before you can have a successful relationship with someone else, you have to have a successful relationship with yourself. You have to feel good about yourself, feel at ease with yourself, love yourself, feel that you deserve a loving relationship. And then magically, others will feel the same. Humans are quite instinctive creatures, it's just that in this mechanical age, we've lost most of our instincts and given them up to logic. But there's still a little insticnt left in all of us (just ask our sympathetic nerves!), so what you feel on the inside, others will also sense and give what you feel about yourself right back to you. How to acheive this? There's no simple answer to that question. I know that personally, as I have been trying to give up the materialistic and be closer to nature, I feel better about myself. How to acheive it will be different for each individual.
Analyse this
When a person has had a string of bad relationships, they should sit down and ask themselves, "what went wrong?" and analyse the situation. Why do you choose the people you choose? See what similar "bad" traits were in the people you had relationships with and perhaps try to avoid having relationships with people with these traits in future. I'm currently reading a wonderful book called "the Tao of Equus" about therapy with horses (which I'll do a separate post or two about 'cause it's just great). In it is a story about a woman who had a string of bad relationships. When she was talking about her present bad relationship while grooming a horse, the horse started to get the jitters and bucked. Even though the woman hadn't picked up on it, her body was actually sending out "jittery", fight or flight messages, despite the fact that she was talking about saving the relationship with the guy. The message here is - trust your instincts and try avoiding people with bad traits you've gleaned from the past.
Shout to the top
I'm gonna let the author of one of my favourite books "The hidden messages in water" do the talking on this one: No matter what your intentions, announcing them is an important step. I can say this with confidence based on many years of experience in business. From the time when I was a child, I was always telling people what I was thinking and what I wanted to do, and I was constantly being told that I talked too much. But the simple act of saying something is a way to gather energy towards you. Especially when you say something to other people, energy flows in your direction and helps you achieve your aims. If you express your intentions, the realisation of those intentions will follow. The message being - tell the universe that you want a loving, successful relationship and the universe will do its best to send one your way.
Picture this
Now, a lot of you may laugh at what I'm about to say but...sometimes it's a good idea to actually visualise the thing you want, be it a new career or a new relationship. This is something that I've learnt at my therapeutic singing classes - you imagine the note is being sung by someone else, goes to your throat and then leaves through your chest, like you're not singing at all. Try to sit down, close your eyes and visualise your goal. It's really just a visual instead of vocal way of telling the universe what you want.
Birds of a feather...
...well, you know the rest. I have to say that I've made a lot of wonderful friendships at my choir and French classes. And if I had wanted to, something even deeper. Want to learn a new language? Learn how to do the foxtrot? Play the guitar? Go out and do it and who knows what happens? Besides learning something new and "working" on yourself, you may just meet a bird of a feather.
A bird in the hand...
...again, you know the rest. Sometimes we overlook the people in our inner circle and don't realise what wonderful relationships are looking at us right in the nose. A work colleague, a friend, a friend of a friend, a friend's brother or sister...these are people that know us pretty well and who we know pretty well too. Why not give them a chance? Who knows what a wonderful relationship awaits just around the corner - or cubicle.
Tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes
That's what Celine Dion says and who am I to disagree with her? And I can tell ya, this is definitely a mistake that I have made in the past. How I wish I had told certain guys how I felt about them. I think that when we're young, we're too shy or too chicken to tell the other person how we truly feel about them (that's how I was anyway). But then you get to a certain age (like me now) and think, it's now or never, we might never get this chance again, fuck it, let's do it. So if you do have feelings for someone, let them know. You might get a pleasant surprise. And if you don't, it's not the end of the world, believe me.
Come fly with me
I think that a change of scene and atmosphere is a wonderful way to forget the past, work on yourself, have new experiences and meet new people. So take a trip somewhere nice with a friend or by yourself and discover a whole new world. My recommendation is - Paris. Nowhere have men tried to "pick me up", big butt and all, as in Paris. Guess it must be the bold French spirit. And even if you don't take up any offers, a little flattery never did anyone any harm.
I don't know if this advice has or will help anyone. Even if it doesn't, I hope from the bottom of my heart that a loving, caring, successful relationship comes your way - ok universe, you heard it here - because everyone deserves it.
I'll leave ya with a lovely song by my favourite singer of all time, Eva Cassidy - True Colours. Let your true colours shine, dear friend, because they are beautiful like a rainbow and I know that there is someone out there who will appreciate them.
I'm feeling a bit lazy today. Nah, I'm lying. I gave the kids a bath and put them to bed about an hour ago, just put out the rubbish, am in the process of making bread (it's still rising at the moment), just finishing making creme brulee (I'm gonna take it out of the oven as soon as I finish this post), prepared tomorrow's lunch (honey chicken wings with fried rice) and am waiting for a load of washing to finish so I can put it up. So I don't think I could call what I'm feeling lazy. Beat would be a better description. I try to fit in about 20 minutes of nap time or siesta during the day, but just didn't have the time today. Like many days before. But what can you do? As el diablo would say, nada, hasta la vista, baybee.
But I couldn't leave my little legion of readers high and dry, now could I? Love ya all too much for that. So I'll post a song for y'all. I've said on a number occasions to various friends that if I were a man and could sing like anyone I wanted, I'd choose to sing like Freddie Mercury. Love the guy. Adore him. Frankie's my number one guy but if I could sing like anyone it would have to be Freddie. Freddie basically kicks ass. There's no middle road with him, no half ways, it's either all the way or no way. The emotion he exhudes may be a bit too much for some, a bit OTT, often crass, but not for me. I've said in previous posts that I just don't go for singers who don't give at least 100% to their singing. Freddie gave 500%.
So as an ode to all the God damn housework I do on a daily basis, here's one of Freddie's and Dave's finest, "Under pressure", 'cause that's exactly how I feel about it all sometimes :
I had the most horrid headache this morning, as I do most days, but thankfully not all mornings. They usually happen late in the afternoon when I'm so worn out by the day's activities that I need to just lie down a bit, for twenty minutes or so, and get my thoughts together in a noise-free atmosphere. But today I woke up with one, which is one of the most excruciating feelings the world. Took a Panadol, but to no avail. Didn't help a bit, my head just kept right on throbbing to the beat of Stravinsky's "Sacrificial Dance" from his "Rite of Spring". So I told hubby to pack up the kids and let's all go to Maksimir Park and the zoo. So we did. And boy, did it do the trick.
Just looking at the trees turning shades of red, gold, brown and a myriad of other colours, with their foliage falling slowly, silently through the air onto the ground and into the lake like flakes of snow, and the ducks and swans witnesses to it all, put my soul, and my head, at rest. It was as if I had become one with Mother Nature for a moment, and she sent me a message that she felt at one with me too when she delivered a falling leaf right into my hand.
Here are a few photos of Maksimir Park that I took today:
Looking at the marvel of it all made me think about my life. You know, whether I like it or not, I'm not young anymore, I'm way past 30 which is the point that I consider to be the "end" of youth. I'm not old either. I can't really define old, I'll let you know when I feel it. I guess you could call the point I am at at the moment as in between. Not in the spring of my life, that's for sure. I'm not sure whether summer's up but if it isn't, it is definitely late summer. Perhaps this is the autumn of my life, my chance to really glow like the leaves, fervent and ablaze with colour. Because honestly, although I am still prone to bouts of depression here and there, I have never really felt better about myself. I don't care that I haven't had a haircut since Christmas, that my butt looks like the back of a bus, that I don't dress hip and trendy. I've finally come to realise that really, it doesn't matter one iota in the grand scheme of things. Not one, God damn iota. Like my little prince said, "What is essential is invisible to the eyes". It's what's on the inside that counts in the grand scheme of things.
I recently bought myself a book of poetry. It was on sale so I thought, oh, what the hell. It's simply called "Penguin's Poems for Life". Appropriate, as it takes the reader from the cradle to the grave. And while reading it, I came across a poignant poem that really defines this moment that I feel that I'm at, this autumn of sorts. It was written by Alison Fell and it's called "Pushing forty":
Just before winter we see the trees show their true colours: the mad yellow of chestnuts two maples like blood sisters the orange beech braver than lipstick
Pushing forty, we vow that when the time comes rahter than wither ladylike and white we will henna our hair like Colette, we too will be gold and red and go out in a last wild blaze
Now I'll leave ya with my 3rd favourite autumn song (the 1st being "Les Feuilles Mortes", bien sur, the 2nd being "September Song", but I'll leave that one for another post. Can't stick a Kurt Weill song just any old place, on the side, by the way. Deserves a bit more space than that...), sung by Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board himself, Mr. Frank Sinatra. Enjoy...
I am speechless, overtaken with grief, remorse, anger, total rage. The mob have struck the streets of Zagreb again, this time taking out the editor of the Croatian magazine "Nacional".
We hear your message, mob bosses, we hear it loud and clear. But we, the people, are gonna overcome, not you guys, God damn you all!
