blue

artwork by George Grie at neosurrealismart.com


blue is the name of my world
under a blue sun
a magnificent blue giant
in a blue sea I swim
invisible in my blue skin
except for the sweet blue fish
and the spicy blue jellyfish
my slippery companions
i am faraway
i am lost in the blue
throw me a white hook of words
cast me a green net of illusions
i am faraway
in the blue
yet still here
swimming
still here

Copyright © 2008 Vesper L. All rights reserved.

An EVIL Party

Come party with the Evil Editor (mwahahahahahaaaaaa - a very evil laugh indeed...) at the Church Lady's blog, of A Bench Press fame, on Thursday, January 24th.
The occasion: the release of "Novel Deviations 3".
More details from the Church Lady.

Don't be (too) afraid....

The Resolution, the Sin of Impatience, and the Aries

If impatience were a sin, then I would be a big time sinner.

When I want something, I usually want it NOW. It’s extremely difficult for me to wait for anything. I’m not talking about (buying) material things, although this could sometimes apply to certain books or films. I’m talking about doing things, or, worse, seeing them finished. I’ve been working on some discipline for the last few years (or maybe age has made me wiser?!?! – uh-uh, I don’t think so!)

Although I do not believe in astrology, there is an aspect of it that fascinates me and that is how well the descriptions for the various signs suit the people I know, including myself. So, can I blame this impatience on being an Aries? Maybe. Apparently, the prayer of an Aries sounds something like this: “Oh, God, please give me patience because I really need it. And I need it NOW!”

Now what about the resolution? Normally, I couldn’t and wouldn’t even talk about this, let alone write about it, for fear of jinxing it. I very seldom talk about my projects while I’m planning them or working on them. However, this time I thought that, by putting it in writing, it would act as a promise, that it would be binding, that I couldn’t hide from it, or even procrastinate.

Therefore, yes, here it is. I have decided to start writing a novel.

This year I will try to develop a story I love and find very interesting, one I’ve been living in on and off for about two and a half years now. I was trying to squeeze it into a short story, terrified by the incredibly low word count accepted by magazines, but it just doesn’t fit and I think that I have more to say on the topic.

So this is my Resolution for this year.

Also, here’s where my dreaded impatience comes to hard trial. Writing a novel, I believe, represents travelling on a long and tortuous way. It represents very hard work and lots of patience. I’ve been spending more than three years training myself to write short stories, and now I have to put all this knowledge somewhere on a back burner and start thinking “novel”, start remembering what I’ve been reading about that and start studying new things. First of all, start writing. (That I have started!) But, after all, I don’t mind it. I love a challenge. I’m an Aries.

A Few Awards

I dearly thank Absolute Vanilla for the “Colours of Friendship", "Bloggers of the World", and "Mwah!" badges. She is a wonderful friend, writer, and blogger, and I’m happy and honoured that she thought of me for these awards.

It is my pleasure to pass these awards on to others.

COLOURS OF FRIENDSHIP


This I would like to give to some of those who have given me their kindness, their warmth, their friendship, their encouragement, their trust over these few months of my (timidly) testing of the blogosphere:

Canterbury Soul
David (aka Good Thomas)
Jason
Jon
Minx
Taffiny


BLOGGERS OF THE WORLD


All of you who read and comment on my thoughts, and whose blogs I have linked to and I always read with much pleasure are indeed Bloggers of the World. Please take the badge and continue doing what you’re doing – you’re good at it!


MWAH!


Oh, I love the sound of this!

The reason for this award is:

(I will quote from Absolute Vanilla)

the desire to hand some of that love and kindness back around to those who have been so very, very, very good to me in this bloggy world. My hope is that those who receive this award will pass it on to those who have been very, very, very good to them as well. It's a big kiss, of the chaste platonic kind, from me to you with the underlying 'thanks' message implied. I really do appreciate your support and your friendship and yes, your comments. ... Mwah!

And so a big Mwah! from me to: (I swear it’s not sloppy!!!)

Aine
Bernita
The Church Lady
Ello
Ropi
The Struggling Writer
Szélsöfa

In my mind, the Colours of Friendship and the Mwah! awards stand for pretty much the same things so I’m glad I could double the number of recipients.

Please, do not keep them for yourselves…

Happy Blogging!

Somebody's Child

My courage eludes me,
my steps quicken with my heart.
Careslessly,
I discard my pain,
a dead leaf
no longer required,
almost embarassing
to my bourgeois
serenity.

If only I dared
linger,
I could read
yesterday’s news
on your
blankets -
yet another celebrity’s
antics
warming your
only home.

But I can only look into
your dog’s eyes,
seek
his dark love and acceptance -
and even that
only for a second
while I drop my clumsy offering,
and wonder if it will
ever
carry me
over my personal Styx.

THIS SIDE UP on the walls of your castle,
flickers at the edge of my vision,
in the shade of these canyons
of concrete and glass,
while,
sobbing inside,
for you
and for me,
I run back to my
unbelievable
good fortune,
forever knowing that
you too
are,
were,
somebody’s child.

Shirley Valentine

The other day I watched “Shirley Valentine”, a 1989 English movie about a 42-year-old Liverpool housewife who talks to the wall while preparing her husband’s chips’n’egg on a ‘steak day’ (what an outrage!), and all the while wonders what happened to her life. When her best friend wins a trip-for-two to Greece, she packs her bags and leaves on what will prove to be a transforming holiday.

It’s a good movie, based on a good play, but, although it’s considered a comedy, it didn’t feel much like a comedy to me. In fact, I found it quite sad. Certainly, I enjoyed the satire, the mockery it makes of certain male behaviour patterns, and of certain ideas of (British) superiority.

Valentine is her maiden name and it stands for the dreams of her youth, it symbolises what her life could’ve been if only she had followed those dreams.

But she hadn’t. This is what Shirley thinks while sitting at a table, next to a beautiful Greek beach, watching the sea:

“I’ve led such a little life and even that will be over pretty soon. I’ve allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there is so much more… And it’s all gone unused. And now it will never be.
Why do we get all this life if we don’t ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don’t ever use them?
That’s why Shirley Valentine disappeared. She got lost in all this unused life.”

For a good reason, her words struck a deep chord within my heart.

And then, while the thought of not returning home buds in her mind:

“Yeah… Because we don’t do what we want to do, do we? We do what we have to do and pretend this is what we want to do. What I want to do is to stay here and be Shirley Valentine. What I have to do is go back, back to being St. Joan of the kitchen sink.”

Don’t most of us who have reached a certain age have a Shirley Valentine tucked inside of us? I think we do, even if sometimes we don’t or don’t want to recognise it or admit it.

It’s true that she does stay behind when her friend returns to England, and she seems to be leading a more fulfilling life, but I wonder… Her features are still hardened in a quiet resignation if not plain sadness. She doesn’t look very happy to me. And if she returns to England with her husband, I’m afraid all will be back to “normal” in no time…

Let It Snow

Swimming through the snow…


This is my backyard under all the snow we’ve had since November, including the heavy snowfall on January 1st. It is a splendid sunny day, at -24 deg C (-11.2 deg F). Just beautiful! – and I’m not ironical at all when I say this. The air’s harsh caress on my lungs feels wonderful, even as my nose and fingertips are freezing. I would be perfectly content if I weren’t worrying about the poor squirrels and the little birds…


I imagine seeing a whole geological history in the two-foot wall of snow at the edge of my swimming pool. I daydream of long cylinders with ice samples from the Arctic, there where meteorites or maybe other …objects are sleeping under the weight of snow and time. Haven’t Agents Mulder and Scully once found something rather interesting in one of them?...