The Value Of Outward Appearance

I like the idea of a bookstore where books are wrapped in brown paper with short descriptions so no one will judge them by their covers. 

Now, how to apply this idea to people? 

Amnesia

Do you hold grudges or do you believe in forgive and forget?

Yes and No.

Yes I hold grudges when the offense is very personal, mean, premeditated, evil, repeatedly done without asking for forgiveness and the outcome is life changing and not for the best. 

I never forget. I am blessed/cursed with photographic memory and I am amazed to find out that after all these years words still have the power to hurt me.

Forgiving is depends upon the crime and how it is done. How can you forgive someone who says sorry for stepping on your toes but keep standing on them? How can You forgive people if they don’t ask forgiveness thinking it is their birthright to abuse you? How can you forgive someone when there is always something there to remind you of their cruel deed? How can you forgive your own blood for betraying you?

No. Some crimes don’t deserve forgiveness and some stay engraved in memory no matter how hard you try to forget them…

Seasons

Summer.

The barbecue tasted great. The potato salad too. We sat in the garden enjoying the wine, his hand intertwined with mine. We looked into each other eyes, communicating without words. He was happy. I was happy. So were the bees and other insects around us, they zoomed tirelessly between flowers, collecting nectar. I laid my head on his shoulder, he gathered me into his arms. Together, we watched how nature works. We stayed there until late listening to the birds.

Autumn.

I was looking at the fire pit watching the flame. I lighted it earlier and sat in the gazebo waiting for him. He uncharacteristically late today. So, unlike him. The dinner I prepared and laid on the table turned cold, the candles had burned out. He finally came at eight looking different, haggard and somewhat worried. He sat opposite me and said he wanted a divorce. He is in love with someone else. Outside it started raining. Good. I didn’t have to water the plants.

Winter.

He’s gone. Packed his bags and left. He said he was going to stay in a hotel. I found out later that he moved in with her. I watched him marched through the garden with his suitcase. He stepped on my rose bushes on the way to his car. He probably didn’t notice they were there under the blanket of snow. I closed the curtain and laid in the dark.

I stayed there for days. Sometimes weeks, lying in my bed without moving. Standing up just to get more wine. And smoke. I took up smoking again. I found out cigarettes were a good substitute for food. It filled my stomach and quieted my nerves. A good companion during those dark long lonely cold days and nights. I took the phone off the hook and disabled the doorbell. I didn’t want to hear or see anyone. I just wanted him to come back and say he made a mistake. I waited in vain.

Spring.

I went outside and found out that crocuses and snowdrops had pushed through the layers of snow. A little farther, cyclamens were also putting a good show. So was the grape hyacinths.  I lower myself to the ground and fingered them. Tough little flowers. Soon Dutch irises and narcissus will be joining their efforts and the garden will be alive again with a riot of colors. I smiled for the first time in months.

 

Itchy Feet

When I was growing up we moved a lot.

We never had a real home or time to settle and grow roots. My memories of home are vague snippets of strange places with different people sometimes I doubt if they are real or imagined.

I never want to go abroad. It was never my dream. I was happy where  I was.

When I was 17  I found myself in Europe. What a strange place. I can’t get used to the food and the weather. I came from the land of endless summer. Here, it is mostly cold, the trees bare and looking like Blair Witch Project.

For the first time I stayed longer in one place, twenty  years.

Eleven years ago, I moved again. This time in an apartment. After 3 years I moved once more to a terraced town house. I stayed there for another three years before I settled in a six bedroom Edwardian house in the country. It took me five years to move to a suburban villa where I am currently living.

Last week I started looking for houses. I have appointments to view some of them this weekend. Yesterday I saw two and was disappointed. 

I guess, I’m moving again.

Beam me up, Scotty

If you could split your time evenly between two places, and two places only, which would these be?

I will be between past and present correcting my previous mistakes savoring what I have missed and checking the outcome if the result is not so much life changing it will erase my two children away from me. Anything but that.

The Power Of Touch

Textures are everywhere: The rough edges of a stone wall. The smooth innocence of a baby’s cheek. The sense of touch brings back memories for us. What texture is particularly evocative to you?

Strange that I didn’t think about it before. But now that you asked, I know without a certain doubt that it’s anything under my feet. Let it be pebbles, sand, carpet, grass… anything.

I grew up in a place where most people still don’t wear footwear in the house and children are allowed to play barefooted outside. They even hike without wearing anything on their feet. Here where I live people are long forgotten their primal instincts and the use of their limbs for survival. I bet the average person here will have difficulties surviving in the wild. Or even a day in a culture where they have to rely on primitive tools and only themselves.

Me,  I still do that once in a while. Walk barefooted around. There is a sense of freedom in doing it. Why don’t you try?

  

But How Can I forget You, When There Is Always Something Here To Remind Me

Today is my daughter Sarah’s birthday.

Every year for sixteen years around this time I can’t help but remember.

It was just an ordinary day. I woke up, took a bath, had breakfast went off to work with my motorbike.

At work it went as always: coffee break at ten. Lunch at twelve. Another coffee break at three and by five I’m done.

It was almost winter, it got customary dark after four; I’m used to that already. It didn’t bother me anymore.

Instead of going by the industrial terrain I have chosen to take the other route, the one that cut through the fields of giant corns. There were no houses around but I knew the place like the back of my hand. I always drive through there to go home especially during the summer to avoid the big trucks that populated the industrial zone. Last year, one of them drove me and my bike into the ditch leaving me with a broken arm.

Headlights appeared behind me. I moved over to the side to let the vehicle pass. It didn’t. Car door opened and before I knew what was happening I was pushed to the ground faced down. I felt a sharp object against my neck. My jeans was pulled round my knees. I couldn’t move. There was something heavy on my back.

I felt blinding pain. I must have passed out because I knew nothing of what happened next. When I woke up I was alone on that lonely, dark freezing road aching.

I took a long shower when I got home. I doubted my sanity for a while. I quit my job and moved away. I never told anyone.

Nine months later, my daughter Sarah was born.   

The Outsider

I’m always outside looking in

Or inside looking out

Always on the fence or around perimeter

But never allowed to take part 

I will always be a spectator but never a player… 

 

Daily Prompt

First Love Never Dies

I saw my first love again today. Nothing changes. He can still make me feel warm and tingling all over. My heart skipped a bit by the sight of him and I was perplexed, nailed to the ground, speechless.

It was just a normal shopping day, nothing special nothing unusual. I rounded a corner and bam! I saw him standing there, unassuming yet everything around him paled in comparison. I approached him with caution, looked around me if no one was paying attention; then I draped myself all over him salivating, caressing every inch of his hard body moaning in regret and ecstasy. I wanted to stay longer but I was scared that his owner will catch me molesting her property. I planted a quick kiss on his bonnet and sauntered away…

Bye, bye Mini Copper till we meet again.

My Name Is Bond, James Bond

I’m not fond of James Bond movies. Not then, not now not ever (or so I thought) From Sean Connery to Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton to Pierce Brosnan, I find them one by one over the top sexist cocky alpha males who could use some acting lessons.  And the plots are full of holes, the scenarios bordering on absurd and the stories paper thin. I know that I should not expect Shakespeare when it comes to this kind of movies and believe me I don’t, but for an all-time blockbuster hit, practically a legend in its genre I expect a little bit more.

I remember when I was young and forced to watch these movies with my mother I remember disliking it even then. I cannot connect the dots regarding the stories. Why James Bond has to sleep with every moving thing in a skirt is beyond me. I don’t like the way he treated Miss Moneypenny either. It reminds me of a dutiful dog and an overbearing master. There and then in an old cinema sitting with my so engrossed mother she had no idea how much I detested being there, I vowed not to see any James Bond film when I grow up.

But I underestimated the power of brainwashing, especially to a young mind because later on in life even though I promised to myself I will never see any film with James Bond in it, I can’t help checking out any new release from the same franchise. Call it curiosity but it is stronger than myself. I want to know if there are some changes or improvement regarding the stories, characters and if the hero himself becomes more human this time around.  I was disappointed. Although the action scenes improved a great deal thanks to modern technology the story itself remains paper thin and full of holes it resembles a piece of Swiss cheese. And James Bond is still acting like himself no matter who played him, there is nothing new there.

To be honest, I can’t help feeling smug and justified whenever I saw a bad release. Mind you, I will be lying if I say I saw them all, for aside from the earliest films with Sean Connery which I was forced to watch or otherwise I will not be given pocket money, I only saw a couple of movies for each actors playing James Bond.  All of them I dislike.

When they announced that Daniel Craig is going to be the new James Bond I was shocked! What? A redhead? Are they gone mad? Isn’t he too white, too fair, even the hair is too thin! They’re making a mistake! He will be the worst James Bond ever!  This time I didn’t even manage to check. I made the conclusion right from the start that I would hate it, point. Till I accidentally saw a rerun of Casino Royale last week on television then I was lost.

I didn’t even saw the first ten-fifteen minutes of it because I was zapping as usual but when I saw Daniel Craig on the screen running, something made me stop and look. There is something real about him, something human, something vulnerable. He is not a machine like his predecessors or one of those action heroes of the 80s. Here is an everyday guy who is forced to do what he could do in order to survive. No fancy over the top moves ala Matrix dodging bullets, no dizzying car chase of Mission Impossible, no jumping, leaping over buildings or guns that never run out of bullets; just an ordinary man trying not to get killed. Awesome!

And what do you know, he could act as well. The scene where he was sitting on a chair naked and the antagonist was hitting him literally below the belt and he was hysterically laughing saying: “A little more to the left, to the left! Yes, that’s good, perfect. Now you can tell all your friends that you die scratching my b*lls.” will be forever engraved in my memory. The action scenes were sublime, the story fantastic, and Daniel Craig proved to be the best James Bond ever. Yes, including Sean Connery himself.

I’m sold!

Let’s see what the others have said about the film and I quote:

“I consider Daniel Craig to be the most effective and appealing of the six actors who have played 007, and that includes even Sean Connery.”

“CASINO ROYALE is the best James Bond movie to date. Not only that, but it is also one of the best action movies ever made. And now, has become one of my favourite films. This is a classic.”

“Craig is also the best Bond in the franchise’s history.”

“Daniel Craig is a fair-haired, bare-knuckle antidote to Pierce Brosnan. On the action-adventure level, it hits the bulls-eye.”

“Let’s say straight off that Craig is very good indeed: everything about his performance shows cunning and grace.”

“Daniel Craig brings originality James Bond, playing the super spy as ruthless, arrogant and cocky, but also bringing much more depth and emotion than any other actor before him.”

I can’t help but agree with the critics though other people might have other ideas about the film. Tastes do differ and we welcome diversity of opinion wherever whatever. Like someone said:

“When you strip the 007 films down for action and “realism,” you lose the soul of those old beloved Bond movies.”

Well, to each his own. All I know is one of these days I might try to see a rerun of Skyfall. They say the maker reinvented Miss MoneyPenny in this sequel, giving her a backstory and a first name. She even shot and wounded James Bond. Accident or no accident, for that alone I would definitely try……

Monday Thoughts

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.”

― Jim Morrison

If

I don’t want to go to a coffee shop. It’s not my thing.

And even if I want to, I can’t. It’s 2:47 in the morning here.

I know, there is always tomorrow. But it will not make any difference. The answer will be the same. 

I can’t tell you any place or type of setting where I like to meet and socialize with friends or loved ones. I don’t socialize. My loved ones are not fond of socializing either. At least, not with me. My friends don’t exist. I don’t miss them. How can you miss something that is never there.

I don’t hate coffee. I drink it once in a while. Black. No milk, no sugar. Real men drink their coffee black. That’s what my ex used to say. But I’m not a man. I wish I am. Privileged creatures. I left my ex. He told me I have nothing to offer to a man. I just lie there dead he said. I told him It will take a real man to make me moan in bed. 

Remember the time we were told to let the scene write itself? Well, this scene is doing that right now; writing itself.

I didn’t even want to do this assignment today because I did it already before and I was not feeling particularly inspired so, I watch Robert Pattinson doing some hard work trying to act instead of just being there looking good. To me, he failed on both.

Standing over the sink munching the left over of baguette and some olives with garlic, suddenly I get the idea for this prompt. I thought: why not just follow my thoughts. So, here we are. I’m updating you with my mouth full.

What can I say? 

Nothing actually. Nothing that might interest you.

I can tell you that this week, I survived by the skin of my teeth. No details. I can tell you that the treatment did not work and I cancelled all my medical appointments. I have enough of hospitals and doctors and needles and vague specialists that don’t tell me anything concrete. I will cure myself. As always.

What else? I can tell you that I’m sad about Paris. Who isn’t?

I can tell you about how funny it is how humans can wrap their minds around things and fit them into their own version of reality. I can tell you nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. I can tell you how hard is getting up in the mornings and wishing sleeping was not something temporary. Or not knowing why you do what you do and keep on doing it. Or looking at yourself in the mirror and don’t feel like it is you.

I can tell you how hard it is to eventually, don’t feeling anything all day and just feel anguish when you realized the day has passed and you have feel absolutely nothing.

But it isn’t me. It’s those snippets of thoughts  I collected because they speak my language. I wonder sometimes if that’s the reality. 

How much more you want to hear before you bail out? 

People don’t want to hear or read depressing thoughts. They like to pretend that everything is A-okay. Nobody really wants to know the truth when they ask how you are. They are just being polite. Don’t rock the boat, don’t call attention to yourself, go with the flow follow the herd.

Fuck all that.

None is so blind than those who refuse to see.

You heard enough. 

If you’re brave enough to have a second date, let me know. But I will not hold my breath.

Schedule

No calendar. Each day passes I tear it up in little pieces and flush it down.