Found, Discovered, Loved ...

 

I believe in stories, in story-telling, because a story can answer a question without reducing that question to banality. ‘Who am I? is a huge question, and the answer develops, unfolds, reveals itself throughout the whole of our life. At birth, we are only the visible corner of a folded map. The geography of the self is best explored with a guide, and for me art is such a guide. I write fiction because I want to get nearer to the truth.

Jeanette Winterson, extract from an article titled Oranges.

I have been dipping in and out of Jeanette Winterson's writing, trying to be patient as infection then  antibiotics run their course.  The antibiotics are exhausting even though I know they're doing good work and so, I am living quietly, in-between hanging out 5 loads of laundry (unbelievable!) and working out how to cook duck ...

I have never cooked duck.  Not ever.  But I do rather enjoy it and find myself wondering why I wasn't raised on duck and rabbit, back in that country that had plenty of both.  And I have been making small inroads into my office space here, trying to make it more beautiful somehow ... but perhaps that simply involves sunshine coming in through the window.  Belgium isn't really doing sunshine this year.  It's grim.

I am reading and sleeping, and trying not to sleep more, and writing and reading ... and then there's the housework.  It's like that.

Interesting people and art found in recent days.

I loved this.  An article about my favourite bookshop in the world, so far. 

Then this seemed like an invitation to consider Bradley Manning's actions, asking what you might do if you saw what he saw and understood all it meant. 

And this, begun as a search for the writer who described how his book was born.  He talked of the stories here... They chose me. You know, they touched my shoulder or my back, saying, "Tell me. I am a wonderful story and deserve to be diffused by you, written by you. So, please, write me." And I said, "Well, I’m so busy. No." "No, that’s an alibi. You must write me," the story said. And so I began—I ended writing the stories, and later have a very hard process of selection, trying to say more with less. And after this process, the only surviving texts or stories are the ones I feel that are better than silence. It’s a difficult competition against silence, because silence is a perfect language, the only language which says with no words.

I hope to buy the book, Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History, as soon as is possible


And this.  Wait for the last question (there are only 3) David Gregory asks Glenn Greenwald.  An example of the best way to  reply to an increasingly biased or 'owned' media.

Lastly, I found Sophie Blackall and simply adore her work.  Another book for my books I would like to own list.  It's long.

So this is a little of what I have been doing in these days.

 

 

Mosquitoes and Paul Kelly, Virginia Woolf, Vita and a Little Bit of Marlena As Well

The bite of a mosquito or some other insect turned feral on Friday.  I woke with a small disaster on my ankle and by Friday afternoon, I was at my local pharmacy, asking if she had anything for it.

She told me she had seen a few like it recently, the mozzies are mean this late late Spring and suggested anti-histamine which I didn't quite feel was right.  She sold me some cortisone cream and suggested I draw around the edge of the redness.  If it continued to spread, I would need a doctor.  I knew that but had never thought of drawing around the edges of it. 

So I drew around it, applied the cream but by bedtime, it was a bit hotter and I wasn't enjoying the feeling of air on the skin there.  Saturday, preferring to ignore these things, I applied the cortisone cream and pottered about but in the back of my mind my experience with cellulitis.

Years ago I barely escaped an antibiotic IV and hospital which, in retrospect, may have been simpler that complete bedrest and 6 courses of antibiotics, 2 at a time. 

Retrospect ... everything is so much clearer then.

I decided not to be a baby (because this New Zealander is tougher than tough, in a chickenhearted kind of way sometimes) and went shopping with Gert in the afternoon, we had errands to run but my throbbing ankle made me take a look mid-shopping expedition.  The area was a bit too red.  Gert sent me out to the car and finished up, then we wandered over to the emergency doctor ... with me still humming and haawing about it all.  You really had to prove you were injured or sick when I was growing up.  That kind of thing sticks.  'Was I just being neurotic?'

The doctor took a look and reassured me that it wasn't cellulitis but that it did need some attention.  That I could ice it if I wanted to, should cover it, and must take antibiotics. 

Antibiotics and I have a history.  They often affect me worse than the thing they are fixing.  So I woke up this morning, the heat had gone out of the area round the wound and it has turned a big corner but, by crikey, I feel miserable.  18 doses of antibiotic to go ...

So I'm bed-resting and reading today and have some excellent books next to the bed.  Paul Kelly's How To Make Gravy is superb.  And I'm playing his A-Z soundtrack as I devour it... it's the music he writes his 100 chapters of book about.  I couldn't travel with this book, it's a monster but tightly written.  Nothing boring yet.  He's an old hero of mine.  His Midnight Rain is the song I have loved best for years.

I found a TED talk Paul gave about the book ... with a song too.  It might give you a sense of what I love about him and his music so I added it at the end of this post.

I'm also dipping in and out of The Letters of Vita Sackwille-West and Virginia Woolf, another huge book that is best read lying down.  And then, in those other moments, different mood, I'm reading the third in a favourite series of mine ... Marlena De Blasi's The Lady in the Palazzo.

It almost makes the stopping and resting thing okay.

Eduardo Galeano, Writer

Scientists say that human beings are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are also made of stories. And so, each one has something to tell that deserves to be heard.
Eduardo Galeano, extract from an interview about his new book Children of the Days.

I so very much believe this ... that everyone is a story, everyone is full of stories.  His interview is fascinating and made me think I should look for this book of his.

 

That Fern Photograph ...

Ferns were the object of my photographic desire when I reached home.  No explanation, I just found myself falling in love with them ...

This photograph, there was so much wrong with it but I love it.  I'm tempted to get it printed Huge. 

There's been a wee bit of blogging done by my self tonight.  I'm trying to turn my curious gaze away from all that is wrong in the world and find some kind of peace of mind. 

But wait ... there was something I almost forgot.  This article was out there this morning and I loved it.  It opens with, and yes, I added (or girl) ...

Date a boy (or girl) who travels. Date a boy who treasures experience over toys, a hand-woven bracelet over a Rolex. Date the boy who scoffs when he hears the words, "vacation," "all-inclusive" or "resort." Date a boy who travels because he's not blinded by a single goal but enlivened by many.

Lena Desmond, extract from Date a Boy Who Travels