iris

"i have seen them in italy," she said. "in all colours. they grow there, wild."

"they will open soon now. and then be gone in two weeks," i explained, once again wishing they would stay longer.

"that's how they are."

it's one of the things that keeps irriating me: the way they take a whole month to develop those exquisite petals, how they open all of them at once, in a spectacle of sheer abundance - and how they then turn to plain green again for the rest of the year. all this effort, for such a short while.

i shook my head. "like fireworks - sparkling in colours, then gone."

"just like us, when it comes to it," she concluded, and smiled.

sichuan, here

life is so fragile, and the ground underneath our feet, as solid as it might feel, is holding its own tensions, carrying our world while moving with the powers to destroy it.

what a painful week. the pictures of Sichuan, when i first saw them, i could hardly connect them to reality. something terrible had happened on the other side of the world, in a region i couldn't even place. the impact of the news reached me later, deep in the night, in the safety of my bed, in a dream.

i am inside a house, in a living room, one that feels like a mix of my parent's home, and the home i live in now. there are wooden floors, a woven carpet, and a table with flowers on it, surrounded by chairs. all is peaceful – and then everything starts to shake. i am terrified, frozen in shock.
when the shaking ends, i don’t know what to do – and finally make myself step forwards, towards the window. outside is a piece of green land, and on it, a collapsed hut. the wall and roof lay scattered on the ground. has someone been inside? i can't tell.

that’s when i woke, still shaking and disoriented, thinking there was a quake here, while i slept. i got up and then finally realized that it wasn't even 5. so i went to bed again, and could sleep a bit, but the dream remained with me, under my skin, all day.

i tried to avoid getting back to the terrible pictures of people buried under buildings, schools collapsing. and then Burma, and the taifun. and the US, with all those tornados. what a time of dreadful disasters.

that was Tuesday. and then yesterday, there was this oddity that the electricity was turned off for 3 hours, for some major maintenance in this part of the city. they sent a letter last week, announcing it, and it went off and then on again 3 hours later, just like predicted. still it felt strange – it made me realize how many things are connected to electricity: the lights, the computer, the tv, the oven, the water heater, the washing machine.. so many elements of the day.

later, when the electricity was back, i browsed literary blogs, and came across a link to a blog from china. it’s from the magazine Time, with several posters, some from Sechuan region. here the link: time-blog.com/china

one of the posts – "In the disaster zone"- really touched me. i still try to avoid reading much about the quake, after i had this terrible dream Monday night, but this blog has another, more personal approach.

typing this out now, and looking at the dream again, makes me think that what i am really trying to avoid is not the news and the pictures, but the deeper truth they carry: that our life can collapse in a moment. just like that.

lost, found & stolen

BluePrintReview Issue #16 - LOST, FOUND & STOLEN

the new issue of BluePrintReview is online!

a thief's trilogy and a discovered entry in a blog induced the theme for this issue this time - an issue that developed like a journey, went On Some Road, where it met Nomads Like Us, circled in a spot of Black and White, got Lost at Sea, went through bitter days, and eventually was Learning to Swim.

now it reached the point of completion, and is out there in space, its open pages waiting to be found. as so often, the process of putting the issue together revealed unexpected connections between the submitted texts and images - the same shapes in different photos, counterparting paragraphs in different texts. returning themes: the loss, not of things, but of one's way. the slow speed of time, ashen and sunfilled. the bolting spin of days.

it's always a bit of an adventure, to see how an issue turns out - you can't really plan it, and that's the beauty of it.

here the link: BluePrintReview #16 - Lost, Found & Stolen.

enjoy the read ~~

(& an additional note - the issue had another cover image first, a sky/cloud moment. like so often, when the issue came to finalization, it seemed to call for another cover, leaving it to me to find the fitting picture. which this time was found... almost right in front of the doorstep, where the tulips stood in bloom. bright pure yellow, they all were. apart from one. which carried a swift red mark on its petal. as if touched by the brush of evolution.

they are whithered now, the tulips. here a group photo of them, taken at dawn, their petals still closed and sprinkled with dew. they return every year, but never before had there been one with a red mark.)

at the bay

the sand of spain is still in my shoes. to be at the ocean.. i wished there was a coast close to here. a beach to drive to for a day. there's something deeply energizing about being so close to such a huge body of water. to see the sun rise over waves. to see so many colours, in the course from dawn to dusk.

but i just been there again - in pictures. putting together this little mosaic. the place i been to: it's the bay of pollensa, at the north coast of mallorca island. not far from it, there's pollensa ville - a favourite place for artists. the painter miro has lived there for a while. here a link: puerto pollensa.

another link i meant to post: an e-zine i came across in February: qarrtsiluni. they are featuring theme issues that are hosted by guest editors, and are going online gradually. their last theme was "nature in the cracks". the issue is still running, developing since February in words and images. i sent an image to them, too - and it went online just while i was in mallorca. which was double fitting, as that's where i took it, a year before, right there at the bay of pollensa. here the link: "Reclaim."

and i just saw: the theme for qarrtsiluni's upcoming issue is "water". of all themes. how very neat.

reach out

earth water seed
sun flower sprout

above its leaves
a ray hovering
whispering

grow,
grow towards
the light

reach out
for the sun

(this sunflower-to-be: i just hope
the hedgehog doesn't step on it
during his nocturnal hunt)

every day, try something new

the moments journeys bring upon. walking along the shore, i day-dreamed of former journeys. and remembered this line i once picked up, and even had pinned to my pinboard:

every day, try something new.

i had it pinned up so long that i didn't even notice it any more in the end. that's when i thought i had learned it by heart. sitting there, at the shore, i realized that i had forgotten about it.

funny how we forget what we wanted to remember, while we remember what we wanted to forget.

the new thing i tried today is skipping the morning news, and instead browsing my favourite blogs. it might make for a different start of the day. a more personal one, and today, a funnier one - taking me right into the death star canteen.

which now leads to new try #2 of this friday: including a you-tube-video into blogger. now how does this work? .. click .. click .. click .... ... .. click.. ah, there. "embed". simple as that, once you found the right clue.

enjoy ~