final exams

Making reference to the historical context, explain the following phrase from the Action Program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia: “Voluntary social organizations of the working people cannot replace dreaming, but the contrary is also true.”

The ancient Greeks believed that thoughts were facilitated by little men living inside the mind. Expand upon this statement: What was the lifespan of the little men? What happened to thoughts if the "men" died prematurely?


Examine the effect that the Moon has upon the tides. To what extent is it believed that the tides are thus affected out of love for the Moon?  Be sure to support any claims with both circumstantial and speculative evidence.

Exams creeping up, we stay awake until even the warming wind blows itself out and the world is silent and dark in the hour just before dawn, cramming our brains with information: What volume of water runs over a single river stone in the course of a day? How much does a star weigh just before it explodes? Why do parts of the body sometimes sicken and die? Knowledge learned for the sake of learning knowledge; formulas, proofs, quantifying, qualifying... and you are still the unexplained

your brother said your mother was a firefly you buried in the earth

I woke up to gray skies melting towards a glowing dusk, the day was already old. The warm wind wakes the frozen ground and calls me down; the sea is back in my hair and the air tastes of salt and storms to come. Warm skin smells like lily of the valley and I am clean clean clean once more
 

Spring is beginning to come round again, at least here by the sea, now that I'm out of the mountains for a while. I'm back home for a quick vacation, of the mind and of the heart- it's surprising how much coming home can mean; how much it brings back what once was.

don't dare wander

The darkness comes so much more quickly now.

That’s what separates summer from fall. The feeling of finality. Fatality. Limits. Deadlines creep up- we feel the stress of winter coming. Even though we long ago found ways around preparing for the winter, gathering food and wood to store, deep inside us we still feel the season’s urgency. Get Things Done, it says. Can’t put off till tomorrow anymore- by then the snows might be here. You can pull the blinds tight against the earlier dark, but it sneaks in around the cracks, tap tap tapping on shoulders, “Shouldn’t you have finished that by now? You know you’ll regret not doing it sooner.” You already regret not doing it sooner but somehow the reminder puts you off. You push away the feeling and leave it later and later. This is what the darkness does.

it started quietly

It's difficult to get used to the turning here, and I'm very sorry for the lack of posts, but I'm starting to settle in. Time is changeable, you know? But I get to see the sun rise over the valley each morning. Nevermind the early wakeup.

I like morning times because they are quiet.  Nights are loud and bright with possibility and silver and hope. But mornings are still, as if the world is still remembering how to fill the place with sound.  the world is bigger in the mornings- emptier. Nights are close, but in the morning the atmosphere is stretched out and clean. And if you have time to sit and watch it fill up with a cup of coffee while it cools enough for you to gulp down, well then. So much the better.

call to study

"and I plan to be forgotten when I'm gone, 'cause I'll be leavin in the fall"

I've gone away to school dears, far away to the mountains where Autumn kicks up her skirts early and whirls round and round with old man Winter until they two collapse in a pile indistinguishable. The twilight here feels, as if its always known you, and the buildings watch over us as they have for countless generations. Tradition is the most important thing you can have and the ghosts hold it tight. They creak through the abandoned mill across the river, faithfully blowing their mournful horns, a call to work, though no one answers but us anymore. We go to class with ghosts, go to sleep, eat with them, as many as the living here; the city even a ghost of its former self, struck down by the new age of computerization.

glass beads and old lace

Apologies about the absence. Been thinking about string and how it ties together, leads back to the start. I'm headed towards a new start as the year closes in on its final lap, wondering what needs to be left behind and if snow really does make a sound when it falls. Just when I'm supposed to be letting go, history holds on all the tighter- crumbling family albums and Grandfather so handsome in his uniform and navy cap, no wonder Grandmother waited. Bicycles and army tanks in Rome, and the gifts he brought back sit sentinel on the chest of drawers

turn the sky white

 

Spring is settling down at last, driven into the ground with the weight of the air and the heaviness of scent. Graduation was a beautiful affair and I find myself grown. When did that happen I wonder? My cap and tassel now hang with the construction paper star they gave us upon graduation from elementary school. Shall I show you what's been happening?

 I graduated

 

And had friends over for food afterward

Made a box out of a book

Made some friends

Hung the laundry out to dry

And took a leaf out of Siobhan's book playing with pearls and my camera

So the sun still burns and turns the Earth and there is no way of slowing the march but we dance on the way and though the sights flash by we smile and breathe in memory so that the next time it comes around we'll know what happiness smells like.

Thank you for bearing with me these past weeks, I promise to be back with more interesting things to say
Love

dream catching

Summer brings heat and rain and love. Long car rides windows down, the smell of salt in the air as we follow the path of the setting sun, speeding because we can't keep the joy in one spot. The air is fresh-washed, scrubbed clean by the downpour, sparkling clean for the sun and almost electric; it tingles when I breathe it into my lungs

This weekend was fleeting moments with old friends and realizing that the scariest thing of all is that we're growing up. Realizing that the tomorrow which seemed so far away when we dreamed as children has finally gotten here. We have become our dreams

(photos 1 & 2 from here , 3 by the talented ThankeeSai)

sunrise nights

Last night was glitter but not gold, but the air was warm and heavy with a smell from the tip of a memory that you could almost place
You had to keep an eye on the clock because it was feeling mischievous tonight: if you looked away it would skip ahead minutes and hours in the space of a single glance
With a toss of the head we said hang the consequences and the sun did indeed rise again this morning, imagine that...

flyaway

This could be the beginning of the end:

If we try to stay back we'll turn to stone, you've seen the garden of twisted figures standing like warnings. You know we can't stay here, and that makes the days we have left even sweeter.

Surely this must be only the end of the beginning, there is so much more left for us

 

wednesday was bittersweet

It seemed to me more bitter than sweet, the only thing that keeps me going through the winter is finally ended. It was my last, and now I'll never have that back. There were tears of course. And there was laughter, sweet as rain that melts away the snow. Smiles like sideways slashes, dragged down at one side from the sad and gone, but unable to be kept at bay and so the other side stretched up regardless. Hugs picked me up and squeezed me tight, even after they let go. Sure it was hard to speak, but a father-kiss on the forehead made me slash-smile again.

It was nice to be the oldest, the privileges, the responsibilities. That was the sweet. But the bitter was always in the corner trying to catch your eye and tell you its time to go.

-A Thought Like Light-
I can always come back.
Not to stay, but to visit.

I'll miss my winter family, but it will grow without me. I suppose it was mine for a while. They took me in out of the cold and chose to teach me instead. But four years went round and now it's time. They'll make a perfect family for the next winter misfit. Look, I've already patted down a soft place for you to fit. Here, take my spot.

allez allez printemps

lately I've been waking up and wanting to stay in bed with the moon. the moon is my friend these days- I go to sleep with her watching through the window in my room, and I wake up while she is still in the sky. I hardly ever see the sun because he can't find much time to stay these days and when he's about I am locked up inside the school.

spring should get here as fast as possible, oh I do wish it would, because I miss the sun as much as I love the moon. Here comes the part where I struggle to get out of winter- happens every year. Time move faster, will you, won't you? So we'll pretend it's spring and I'll go make some cake I think. This cake in fact (thanks to Darjeeling Dreams)

For the cake:
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp. grated lemon zest (I use Meyer lemons, which are great for zesting)
1/2 cup canola oil
For the glaze:
Juice from 1 lemon
2 tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan.
In a bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, and eggs, stirring until well blended.
Add the flour, baking powder, and zest, mixing to just combine.
Add the oil and stir to incorporate. Pour and scrape the batter into pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool cake for about 20 minutes. Then, remove the cake: place a plate over the pan;
hold the pan and the plate together, and flip quickly so that the cake is in the plate.
When the cake is thoroughly cooled, combine the lemon juice and powdered sugar in a small bowl
and brush it liberally onto the cake. The glaze should be thin
and should soak into the cake like a syrup

*eat it before it disappears into someone else!*

photo's from weheartit and flickr

blueberry love

I still remember that summer we met.
It was the time I first found a voice of my own.
You might have had something to do with it, or you might not have.
I'll never know. Do you remember me at all from those blueberry months?
I saw you on stage that first night-
I misheard your name- but you always stood out.

Did you see me? I'd show off in front of you.
Glance over and blush when you only walked by.
If I happened to sit near you by chance, by lucky accident,
I could feel you like electricity through the humid air.
Every part of me was aware of you sitting close enough to reach out and touch.
But I doubt if you ever saw me.

I was so so in love with you that summer we were 12 together.
And every summer after that. Each and every summer.
Did you ever know? I imagined you did and you'd come sweep me off my feet.
You never did, but did you know?

You beat me every bout, but did you ever see my face behind the wire mesh mask? I can still remember how it felt to want to speak with you so bad. Just to want your look. I think I became friends with everyone around you, your sisters, but never you. Funny how that worked out. Now we're the best of friends and miles away. I won't second guess things. I'll just wait until I can tell you. If that's another 5 summers, so be it. I'll be right there with blueberry stains on my knees.

(photos are mine from that summer)

easy as spotting

(photos)

I am sick again unfortunately, but the sickness is preferable to a double period of physics which I would have had today, so I don't hate it with all my heart (just the part that wants to dance)

you know who the dancers are because they may be too sick to go to school, but never too sick to go to class. Now the attempt will be to convince Maman that I do have my priorities straight after all...


Sitting in my bed, my sky is silver like an old man's hair- somber, not sad. The bare trees wait and if I look at the ivy, not the melting snow, I can almost convince myself that it's the end of March and I've made it through the coldest, darkest months.

It's a trick I have to play with my mind- a simple parlour illusion, like spotting a turn in ballet. I hang on to the dregs of autumn for as long as I can look back as the world spins, and then when I can reach no further- release- and snap my head around like an elastic, and there we are in spring.
With this I can trick time.

...it might just work...