Wednesday, September 23, 2009

seven more sleeps...

"Your greatest self has been waiting your whole life.
Don't make it wait any longer."
- Steve Maraboli -

an older photograph.
once. taken.
but a photograph, that will always mean a lot.
seven more sleeps.

and then i’m finally away. on my holiday.

france. the provence.

and i like to think i can feel it. taste it. smell it.

already.


and tonight is the first night

that i realised, i don’t hear the crickets outside anymore.


maybe they already left last night,

or maybe the night before.

all i know is that suddenly i’m aware of the quiet i hear.

the change. of coming. and of going.

cycles and circles. these motions in constant flow.

and as much as there’s a gentle inner warmth of an autumn evening,

there’s that nostalgic sentiment of time that’s let itself be carried on.


there’s been much going on the past days. even the past weeks.

and again, i’ve wanted to write and share all those things here.

of the good things. of little wonders as i like to call them.

and of subtle moments that maybe don’t have much relevance.

but if you hold those moments, or the reflections of them

in your hand,

you see things in a different light.

and suddenly there is a relevance.

understandings. or simply pieces that fall into place.

and as always,

it’s the simple things, those subtle things

that usually have more strength or power

than we can possibly imagine ourselves.

desiderata. yes. desiderata.

and those little things

are like the pebbles and stones we cast into a pond,

playfully rippling their echoes.

and knowingly or not,

changing things.

somedays I feel like i’ve been casting pebbles.

and somedays i feel like i’ve been the pebble cast.

but most of these days,

i feel like i’m simply in the magical ripple and echoe of it all.


last night I went to ute dahmen’s reading of her book

aenne burda. wunder sind machbar.

a biography on the life of an amazing, an interesting

and a unique woman. a powerful woman.

the title of the book is based on one of aenne’s quotes.

“Ich werde zeigen, dass Wunder machbar sind”

which means,

“I will show, that wonders can be made“

and that’s what i like about that thought.

not waiting for wonders to simply happen themselves,

or “wondering” why they are or aren’t happening.

but rather making the wonders happen.

and maybe what she also meant in between those lines,

is in simply being the wonder yourself.


and i believe, the book just might be one of the books

that i’m taking along with me on my holiday.

although I have to also admit,

there are a few books that are piling themselves up

waiting and wanting to be read.


and that leaves me wondering,

what are the books that are lying on your bedside table?

or on your kitchen table and your living room floor?


i like it when books don’t always dutifully oblige

to simply being orderly kept on their shelves.

i have my books here and there and everywhere in the house.

yes. on shelves and in shelves.

but also on the floor. or on the window sill.

sometimes it’s almost as though I create places for my books,

as though to make them feel at home.

or an invitation of waiting and wanting to be discovered.

it’s as though books need open spaces. they need to breath.

to become a part of what’s surrounds us.

and sometimes I like to think that books also speak stories

aside from those written within and along their pages.


i like finding books at flea markets.

books i simply instinctively stumble upon.

sometimes it’s the cover of the book that lures and lulls me

(although it’s been said again and again,

never to judge a book by its cover…)

and sometimes yes, it’s simply the instinct.

and you open it up and read a line on an unknown page,

finding a sense of curiousity. or a familiarity.

and of all the pages,

that’s the one you turned to. that’s the one you found.

and usually it’s a lovely surprise.

it simply fits. it simply belongs.

one line in the middle of a story. and yet it’s complete.


and whenever i travel, there’s almost always a book

that travels back home with me too.

even if in a language i don’t speak nor understand,

but there’s almost always a book.

something, that simply lured me. and lulled me.


new books. old books. sometimes forgotten books.

and that reminds me of a thought I wrote a while ago.



on a scrap piece of paper that i slipped

into my own handwritten book.

i’ll have to see if i can find those words again.

maybe. later.


but for now,

i’m simply going to slip outside

my blanket, a glass of wine. and maybe a cigarette.

because peaking a glance out the window,

it looks like there’s a beautiful autumn sky

and a glorious heaven of stars.


tonight is the first night

that i realised, i don’t hear the crickets outside anymore.


and so maybe tonight is just the right night

in this different kind of quiet,

to say hello. and to say good bye.

to the change. of coming. and of going.

cycles and circles.

these motions in constant flow.

3 comments:

jana said...

Oh, I loved this! I'm on the final day of a magical adventure vacation to New England and I'm having so much fun! I brought some books to read along the way and have added a few from local bookstores (like the book of Mary Oliver poetry that I had to have while I was walking her favorite places on Cape Cod last week). Cheers to finding books in magical places while traveling!!

susanna said...

I hope you are having a wonderful time on your vacation, Angela. Your writing is always such a pleasure to read and this post in particular is as warm as a night in, under a wool blanket, with a favourite book in hand, on a cool Autumn evening.

Books tend to wander throughout my apartment, too. Right now The Fauves and Italian Portraits from the Renaissance are sitting together in the living room, Susanna Moodie is in the bedroom complaining about life in the Canadian bush back in the 1830's, and a healthy cookbook is feeling completely ignored in the kitchen.

Susan Schwake said...

oh angie, oh angie, how was it?
grace has 18 days off in April while she is in Rennes and I told her to go see you. xo talk soon susan