An Award and a Meme

K. Lawson Gilbert from Old Mossy Moon has graciously given me the Sisterhood Award. Thank you, Kaye, from the bottom of my heart! These vibes of sisterhood, I feel them deeply when we interact in the blogosphere.
I’ve never had siblings – although I always dreamt of an older brother – but over the years I have had a few fantastic girlfriends who were to me, by choice, more than any sister, by nature, would’ve been. Physical distance keeps us apart now, but the feeling is still there, that feeling of solidarity, of belonging, of shared secrets, of complicity, if you want.

Much of the same warms my heart now when we exchange thoughts and feelings on our blogs. I’m very grateful for it. And so I’m glad for the opportunity to show a little of my appreciation by giving the award to (unfortunately only) a few of my… sisters:

Absolute Vanilla & Attilah
L.A. Mitchell
Lisa
Miladysa
Sarah Hina

Now for the meme…

Sarah has tagged me with a list of the twenty-five authors who have influenced my writing. Hmmm… It wasn't easy to assemble it, but in the end I realised there were several other writers that I would've liked to add to the list and couldn't.

This is my list, in alphabetical order:


1) Greg Bear (for “Eon”, “Eternity”, “The Forge of God”, and “Anvil of Stars”)
2) Jorge Luis Borges
3) Edgar Rice Burroughs
4) Raymond Chandler
5) Agatha Christie
6) Willkie Collins
7) Michael Crichton
8) Arthur Conan Doyle
9) Alexandre Dumas
10) Thomas Hardy
11) E.T.A. Hoffman (the German Romantic author)
12) Stephen King
13) H. P. Lovecraft
14) Thomas Mann (the German author of “Buddenbrooks”)
15) Daphne du Maurier
16) Margaret Mitchell
17) Edgar Allan Poe
18) Jean Ray (the Belgian master of the fantastic, author of “Malpertuis”)
19) William Shakespeare
20) Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
21) Robert Silverberg
22) Dan Simmons (the “Hyperion” series)
23) Bram Stoker
24) Jules Verne
25) Emile Zola

I think that Sarah has said a very wise and true thing, and I couldn’t agree more with her. I have learned tremendously from my fellow bloggers over my almost two years among them and, for this, I am very grateful.

It’s my turn now to invite Bernard, L.A. Mitchell, and Miladysa to play along.

Soon

On the old porch we jumped
to the rhythm of water drops,
the tap dance played by Sun’s fingers
on the ancient snow of the roof.

Tip-tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-tip

Two empty jam containers-
red like the strawberries
they once held-
caught it,
one for “tip”, one for “tap”.

And the smell of dried wood
in the almost spring wind,
and the happy twirls of squirrels,
and even the poor snowman,
its smile somewhere at its feet,
all twined their magic notes
into this concert of our hearts.

Tip-tap-tip-tip-tap-tip-tip

Soon the Sun will loose its instrument,
soon it’ll be spring.

A Bit of Trivia

As someone who is utterly obsessed with time, I can’t help seeing in the ever increasing signs of impending spring not just a reason for rejoice at nature’s rebirth but also a cause of reflection and melancholy at life’s passing. For, you see, the flowers, and the birds, and the bees that bring joy to our hearts are not the same, although they might appear to be, and we certainly are not – we are one winter older… Oh, how I wish I could regain, if only for a singular moment, a pair of child’s eyes through which to see the world.



Paradoxically, I feel at the same time paralysed and restless, and thus I’m not able to do much, if anything. If I write at one of my stories, I can’t master any discipline and jump from one scene to another in an almost random manner. If I read blogs, I often don’t have the patience to write a comment. Please, bear with me… I’m still here.

*

Among other books (I always read several at a time), I’m reading one, which I will not name, that amazes me with the negligence of the writing. It’s too bad because the idea of the story is very interesting and it could’ve been a good book. How is it, I wonder, that such books are published to the detriment of other, much better works?

*

I’m quite worried about my older daughter who, more than a month after the gastro-intestinal virus that had hit all of us, is still accusing permanent nausea and stomach pain. The doctors have still to find a cause and a remedy for this. But the nervous energy involved is tremendous and debilitating.

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On a lighter note, about three weeks ago, my younger daughter and I found a domestic rabbit in the parking lot of her day care. A white California baby bunny who we only noticed because it hopped around among the huge snow mounds. I was very worried about it and wanted to catch it and take it home, only hesitating at the thought of an even more worried owner looking for it. I alerted the good people at the day care and they too showed a lot of concern, the directress especially, a very nice and caring woman. So they caught it the next day (the poor thing had spent the night outside in the freezing cold) and somebody from the day care took it home for a few days. They put ads everywhere hoping they would find the owner but no one came.

My daughter and I wanted her very much and the directress also wanted her very much (it turns out it’s a girl), but after those few days we took her home because that’s how it was decided in the beginning. (Children are so bizarre or so wise… Next to my older daughter’s school, there is a cemetery, hardly noticeable among the lush park-like vegetation. I had no idea my youngest knew what the place was until she told me, with complete serenity, “When the rabbit dies, we’ll bury her here.” I was speechless, I, who don’t want pets because I’m afraid of the pain at their loss, I who cried when a fish died, or a water snail...)

What a sweet, sweet, sweet bunny! We couldn’t keep her. I wish we could’ve kept her! We’ve only had her for three days and I already missed her when we gave her to the directress. Unfortunately, we don’t have a room at home that we could dedicate to her, and to supervise her continuously while she was out of her cage would have meant the end of my already diminutive spare time. But the directress and her daughter wanted to get a rabbit anyway so this one came to them just in time.

She’s doing very well and we are being given updates on her well-being and on her exploits, and very cute pictures, of which I share this one with you…

On That Warm Night

oh, how you held me on that warm night,
in the gardens with the ancient trees
draped in Spanish moss,
until I knew no more what held me
your arms or the darkness

oh, how you spoke the dark words of your love
your mouth against the hollow of my neck
that spot of sweetness where life pulses,
eager and frightened,
beneath the elegant florals of my perfume
(Valentino, forever, my darling)

how I cradled your head in between
the captive bird in my chest and my bare arms,
white swan necks,
and how I loved your warmth,
underneath your exquisite dinner jacket,
and let you breathe me,
and offered myself to be breathed in

photo by Philip Gould/CORBIS

(noises reached us from the terrace as if
from an entirely different world
of strangers,
well-dressed men and women,
with their champagne and their music)

how our fingers entwined
against the rough bark of the oak tree
like roots of Spanish moss
hoping for an illusory shelter

how our lips sought the very essence
of the universe,
wildly, gently until
it was not in the galactic abysses
that we found it
but in our blood

oh, how we trembled,
how we laughed,
how we died

how impetuous we were