"Experience is not what happens to a man. It's what a man does with what happens to him."

Aldus Huxley

in his words

The writer John Updike died today at age 76...... I started looking through some of the words that he shared with the world, and these few felt rather poignant today.




"Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."


"A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens."



"We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one."

j o h n u p d i k e

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in."

v i r g i n i a w o o l f

old words ring new

I didn’t intend on disappearing for so long, but seems I got swept away for a while. Spent the first day of the year with two good friends, even better conversation, bookstores and coffee...if that’s any indication for the new year, I just might keep turning the pages after all.


***

I’ve been reading old Arabic poetry with the Algerian, it’s really good stuff, the kind that rings as true today as it did when the words were first written around the year 800, ever relevant no matter where we find ourselves in this moment and the next. This one in particular I find an interesting thought for the new year...

Let not your tongue mention the shame of another
For you yourself are covered in shame and all men have tongues.
If your eye falls upon the sins of your brother
Shield them and say: 'O my eye! All men have eyes!'
لسانك لا تذكر به عورة امرئ *** فكلّـك عورات وللناس ألسـن
وعينك إن أبدت إليك معايباً *** فدعها وقل : يا عين للناس أعينُ

i m a m a s h – s h a f i ' i


more to come......
bonne année 2009 ♥ c

"The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope."

Walter Benjamin

I know they always say it, but quand même, all the world’s a stage. I used to love acting, until I finally realized I wasn’t very good at it, and I felt that I encountered personalities that so often overwhelmed me. I did like the feeling of becoming someone else, of living a different life for a while, of perhaps assuming more strength, less fear, of having a defined place and purpose, I was even told what to think, the words were written for me.

I’ve always written. I just never gave it much thought; it was so natural. But lately, it’s practically the only place where I feel welcome; I come to simultaneously lose myself and find myself. And it’s still like I’m on stage, I assume this voice that’s created somewhere between my head, my heart and my hands. And as I sit here, I’m overwhelmed, it falls from my finger tips before my very eyes, and again I feel I’m someone else though this time, the feelings are mine, they’re honest, or at least, what I sincerely want to believe are within my reach, so honest, in fact, that when I look back at what I’ve written it’s as though I’m reading the words, experiencing the sentiment, for the first time, still determining the character, learning through her perspective.

It’s also a distraction from this outside world that constantly seems to push me away despite honest attempt, genuine desire. It makes me wait. Holds things in front of me that I try to grasp; holds things in front of me that disappear. But this, writing, has remained, through it all, I’ve discovered in words a loyal companion, dependable and true, especially in these hours when I can’t sleep, and I can’t wake up; just when I feel like I’m living, when I take a breath and acknowledge what’s really in my heart, I look up, and find it’s gone, and yet in its absence, I feel it was here, and with my words, thankfully, I’ve marked its presence, clenched its memory, and grasped what I truly believed, was its potential.

canim!

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, and how, how rare and strange it is, to find in a life composed so much of odds and ends… to find a friend who has these qualities, who has, and gives those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you -without these friendships - life, what cauchemar!”

t. s. e l i o t

((canim new photos from Selma tesekkur ederim my seker lokum :))))

i have measured out my life with coffee spoons...

"For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room."


t. s. e l i o t

((new photos from selma tesekkur ederim my seker lokum :))))

edged with mist

I’ve been experiencing sometimes debilitating, chronic, nearly daily headaches for the past two years. Like for instance, in this moment, 4h30 in the morning and unable to sleep because the headache is so great. But if I lay in bed trying to sleep, the pain is all the more apparent. I need distraction. So I’m sitting in the dark, my computer screen is at its dimmest, and I have my big, dark Tom Ford sunglasses on... (so I look gooood, haha just kidding ) often writing takes some of my attention from the pounding in my head. Sometimes I’m able to just sleep...but tonight, I’m bored, restless. As always I walk around the house in my sunglasses, put a sweatshirt hood over my head, listen to my migraine play list, and take two Fioricet every five hours.

"...and he could be intolerable, he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this." Mrs. Dalloway

My doctor says it’s been medically proven that thinking of happy moments and memories will help lessen the pain (of the headache, au moins) and so I search for instances where I’ve truly felt happy, warm, hopeful even, a thought, perhaps, with a strength that can take me away..and often you come to mind.. and for a breath or two, I find some level of peace within my grasp.

"...when we sit close we melt into each other with phrases... we are edged with mist." The Waves

As a consolation through this, I happened to discover that Virginia Woolf also suffered debilitating headaches. I sincerely believe her work is brilliant, genius down to the last word she wrote. Every sentence she crafted means something to me, each and every word, even out of context, brings me pleasure, inspiration, admiration; speaking to me, with eloquence and sentiment from another place and time, the very thoughts that clutter my mind; the precision with which her words casually flow off the page lulls me into another world, and gives me hope in the prospects of my continued pursuit of writing.

“...in a sunset mood of benignant reminiscence, which it would have been hard to disturb had there been need.” Night and Day

And in the end, she did fill her pockets with rocks and walk into the river to rid herself and her loved ones of the burden they all endured (she suffered from more than headaches). A meditated relief from the struggle. I’m looking to write a different ending for myself, but I suppose we must wait and see where life takes us. Until then I relish her words and with them I find my escape. Modestly I wish to one day, possess even one hundredth of her talent in expression, her agility and tenderness, her subtle ability to weave words into phrases that run together by accident and calculation, creating moments of elevated meaning and discovering the compliments and contradictions amongst which such words were destined to wander.

"...for they might be parted for hundreds of years, but suddenly it would come over her, if he were here with me now, what would he say? Some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James park on a fine morning." Mrs. Dalloway

accidental moments become perfection

I love juxtaposition. Juxtaposition, contradiction, accidental moments become perfection. Traces of lives, shattered views, details, that, together, say more about the world than one view could ever convey. Thoughts, memories, photos from friends and words in any language, voices of the past and those from the very present, mingle with languages, cultures, music and glimpses of the world we subtly discover are woven throughout today. When certain things appear with others the resulting message, the context that is created by such arrangement, can be perfect, or shocking, or extraordinarily not what was expected but exactly what was desired. So many instances in life find us walking too fast, failing to stop and look at the things we never thought of mixing together, but when we look again, and realize the message that their union has created, something in the world seems more complete.

The beautiful scenic pictures on here called ‘Selma’s pictures’ are images I fell completely in love with when my Turkish friend Selma sent me pictures from her trip to Cappadocia. Selma and I like to trade stories from our current locations (Istanbul and California) and the mundane for me, is exciting for her, and likewise, her daily routine in Istanbul, has become one of the highest priorities on my dying-to-do list.

I guess I could make an excuse for not writing the past few days, but every time I came to this page to do so, I wasn’t sure how to follow these words spoken by Barack Obama the other night. “And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world — our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared.” This one phrase, more than anything, spoke to me, as I truly believe and have lived it, our destiny is shared. The people I have met from all corners of the world, whom I have the fortune of calling my friends, have touched something deep within me, sparked a curiosity, and changed how I see the world, and what I plan to do while I’m here. And the picture of Selma, standing free above the breathtaking views of the ancient land of Cappadocia, complimented Obama's eloquent words, from another corner in the world, and somehow made it all seem more possible.

The richness that can be discovered from all corners of the world, when the mundane mingles with the extraordinary...

Consequently, the photo here is of a bridge that I came across (but didn't cross) after taking a wrong turn with my Norwegian and Irish/Basque friends high up in the mountains of Rjukan Norway.

Come to think of it, I’ve yet to tell Selma about my blog!

((canim Selmacim baby cok optum, you know I love your photos!))

At this defining moment

"And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world — our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared..."

President-Elect Barack Obama
4 Nov 2008

on joking...from Hemingway

“They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life, the seeds are covered with better soil.”

Hemingway a moveable feast

Four Quartets T.S. Eliot

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

Four Quartets T.S. Eliot