someplace else

image sources: boy, church, sun, beach.

Friends, it's 104 degrees outside. That's way too hot. It may be time to take the family to a cooler place. Today, Przemek and I are dreaming of Montevideo. It's so beautiful, and the weather is always very mild. Besides, just imagine Tadzio dressed in their public school uniform. The impish fellow above looks a lot like him.

summer clothes

"Your summer clothes have a climate that ripens fruit."

One line from a poem. It's all I have to offer on this blistering hot July evening.

Stay cool in the shade of the trees. I'll be reading your poetry.

Image source

fun at the market

This morning we woke up and journeyed out to our area's largest Asian market. Przemek and Tadzio ate bao and admired the enormous paper dragons and live crabs while I desperately scanned the aisles for mirin, bonito flakes, and other ingredients.

To be honest, shopping at this market is always a bit tricky. I have to study the packaging and store labeling until I finally give in and accept that I can't identify the item that I'm holding, much less know how to cook it. Today it was the giant kelp that stumped me. I wandered all over the store looking for something giant and kelp-like, only to finally ask for help and be directed to a tiny package of small green threads labeled "konbu."

There is some comfort in having friends that have had the same problem in reverse. I used to love to tease my friend Fengxi about the time she returned from our local grocery store with jars of baby food for us to cook with dinner.

It's just difficult all around.

Images via flickr

take good care of yourself

We're in the part of summer when every July breeze seems to whisper of holidays at the coast. The heat quivers up from the ground and the days are almost without nights.

I struggle to find quiet during this time of year. People's general attitude seems to say, "I do my thing, you do your thing; I'm not here in the world to live up to your expectations... You are you, and I am me, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful; if not, it cannot be helped."

I dislike this. We're not separate, dumbshit. Open up your heart a little. At the least, I want you to take care of yourself, because if you take good care of yourself, I'll suffer less. I want you to cultivate the flower in you so that I will be beautiful and I will transform the garbage in me so that you don't have to suffer.

Also, it will stop both of us from arguing outside the windows at night when we've had too much to drink.

Photo via Open Your Heart

bonne nuit

Good night, you fortunate ones
Apples in red and green nestled in four seasons
No one told me. But I am fascinated
With your peaceful dreams. Good night

You horses swollen in the wind
You children who've sung and played all day
You timid, sentimental, eccentric
Sleepers and sleepwalkers

Good night, you toiling, suffering, grudging ones
Who, at nightfall, let out
Cries of terror! And you -
The proud bird who refuses to fly
The sky's vanished, death is yet to come

Good night, you
Mothers blossoming in golden rain
Good night, you not yet saddened beauty
Tomorrow is only superstition
While it's still dark, sleep a little more

Good night, the house inside my life
My luxurious paradise of flesh and blood
And the roses and books I placed within. Good Night
The clamoring soul is now tired
Fury climbs to the roof, wishing you all good night, again

-Zheng DanYi


Image courtesy of Audrey Hepburn Complex

Rilke

Rilke's writing is my salve for ill feelings toward humanity. I read The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge years ago, and no book since has been more important to me. I remember how sad and angry I was at the time, sitting alone smoking on the porch of my friend's house that I was sub-letting while he was in Antarctica. I had just finished college, and it seemed like the everything I knew and loved was slowly withdrawing to someplace remote and emotionally far away from me.

Why on earth was my friend in Antarctica, and why was I living in his empty house? How could I possibly survive the terrifying and lonely cube land existence I had entered into since finishing college and finding employment? Each sentence I read of the Notebooks seemed both foreign and as if I had know it my whole life. A salve.

As for Rilke himself - - magnificently peculiar, child-like, unremittingly bewitched - who is all breath and flutter. His is the voice you heard by your bedside when you were a child.

Twenty Thousand Saints

I love Fflur Dafyddid's Twenty Thousand Saints. It is a beautifully written book that is simultaneously funny and profound. Now I'm dreaming of living on Bardsey Island, if only for one summer. Imagine waking in a dark room with orange curtains. Aware of a force that shakes the room and makes the bed shudder. The fog horn rings on and on, and by the seventh time you hear it, it's become familiar, like the ticking of a clock. I'm here, you think, really here. On Bardsey Island.



We probably won't make it to Bardsey Island this summer, but I do think that Tadzio, Przemek and I will coast away in a canoe some morning very soon. Przemek and I will work out how to paddle together while Tadzio dips his fingers in the water.

Photo of Bardsey Island found here.

the dark circles around your eyes stay joyful

The moon is like a clean, fragrant body. Sound asleep, it gives off a seductive smell. A night is pressed on either side by two days. Between them all, the dark circles around your eyes stay joyful.

An exhausted summer thought. I hope you are enjoying your days and nights.

gardening

When you have a lot of understanding and compassion, you are no longer afraid of suffering. It is like being a good organic gardener, you are not afraid of the garbage, because you know how to transform the garbage. I get so caught up in my worries, in my despair, in my jealousy, and my fear, and I lose this insight.