tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62585613490249112312024-03-13T05:48:50.361+00:00house of happyLife adventures in prose and verse. Explorations of places, people and words. Stories and fun. emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.comBlogger230125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-71645860880792752622018-10-15T19:13:00.000+01:002018-10-15T19:27:21.794+01:00A Blunt Bike to Brexit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Portugal, October 2018, a sunny Tuesday.<br />
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Gavin and Helen go on a bike ride. They cycle along country roads, past vineyards and tired summer gardens. This, everyone who knows them will agree, is far too tame a pursuit for a male member of my family. So Gavin tries riding hands-free. </div>
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Helen is overwhelmed by such intense exhilaration that she simply must follow suit. Her hands lift right off the handlebars, high like wings, like Kate Winslet flying at the prow of the doomed Titanic.<br />
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Doomed being the key word yet again.</div>
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The front wheel goes into a violent wobble - veers left, then right, then locks entirely and the bike comes to a standstill. Helen keeps going. She takes a short flight, bending half of the handlebar to a right angle. The smooth, blunt brake lever achieves the impossible and breaks through her skin, sinking into her lower abdomen.</div>
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'I'm fine,' Helen cries from the green verge, where she's landed, 'I. Am. Fine.' Her dress is torn and bloody. She's turning pale from shock. Gavin's already speeding off, to get a car, to get Helen to a doctor.<br />
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*</div>
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It's 10 am, the sun already burning. I'm driving back from a plumbing supplier, having inspected the small sinks in stock, when I get Gavin's text: "Helen had a biking accident. It was pretty horrible. Taking her to the local clinic." I make a U-turn and head for the Centro de Saude.<br />
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In A&E. They ask for Helen's European Health Card and take down some details. She's already inside, getting her wound cleaned and inspected by a nurse, a doctor, a scan.<br />
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I'm ushered in, to translate. They can't help Helen here (the doctor is sympathetic; she shows me, between her thumb and index finger, the depth of Helen's abdominal puncture; a gesture I'm still trying to forget). Helen needs to go to the hospital in Viana do Castelo, about 40 miles away. An ambulance will take her there.<br />
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The ambulance is driven by a smiling EMT in red uniform. Her name is Beatriz. She looks around 14. In broken English, she urges Helen to let her know if there's any pain or nausea. A thumbs up, and off they go. We follow in the car.<br />
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In Viana, Helen is wheeled into A&E, and we wait. And we wait. If the hospital were a dolls' house, and a freckled kid was watching us from above, this is what she'd see:<br />
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Helen, being assessed, and having another scan. Gavin and I, trying to work out the coffee machine (it adds sugar to all coffee and tea, automatically).<br />
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Helen, anaesthetised before they close her wound - including some state-of-the-art internal stitching. Gavin perched on a concrete bollard outside, having a smoke. Me, waiting for the female toilet door to open (it never does. Eventually I use the men's loo).<br />
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Helen on a stretcher, kept on for post-op observation. Gavin and I going for a walk around the hospital compound. The sea twinkles in the distance. I play with a giant leaf shed by exotic-looking tree.<br />
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Helen having yet a final ultrasound scan. Gavin on the phone with the UK discussing a family matter, looking pale. Emergency coffee is called for - and while fumbling with the machine I discover the sugar button. Brief jubilation. We eat sandwiches and grapes, drink more coffee, watch other patients being wheeled into A&E.<br />
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Helen walks out, still in her torn and bloody dress, looking triumphant. 'I was so stupid,' she declares. We all laugh and reassure her. 'I was so happy,' she adds. 'Such a brilliant ride.' We eat more sandwiches and cakes, driving home, leaving the sea and sunset and hospital behind.<br />
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There are two more visits to the local clinic. An older nurse, immensely kind and full of smiles, changes Helen's dressing. Her name is Elisabete. She gives Helen a hug and kiss, and makes sympathetic noises when she sees Helen's bruise (red and purple and basketball-sized). Elisabete's English consists of the following words: "Hello Helen. How are you? Yes: shower. No: swimming. I wish you all the well. Bye bye."<br />
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After the second - and final - visit (Helen is flying home tomorrow), Elisabete directs us to the front desk, to pay for all the treatment. I blanch a little at the prospect, then try to reassure myself, can't be too bad, can it? She's got a Health Card. Gulp. We proceed to the counter.<br />
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The cashier adds up a list of procedures as long as my forearm then declares:<br />
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"9.30, se faz favor." Nine euros. Thirty cents.<br />
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I give a disbelieving bark of laughter. Helen looks worried until I tell her. Then we proceed to curse Brexit with renewed passion. How much would all this be without a European Health card?<br />
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We spend the evening toasting Europe, and Portugal in particular, which gave Helen both the euphoria that led her to take off and impale herself on a blunt bike; and first hand experience of an expert, inexpensive and pleasant health care system.<br />
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'To EUphoria,' Helen declaims.<br />
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'To a hasty rEUnion,' I agree.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-81223141180484421992018-04-10T12:55:00.001+01:002018-04-10T13:43:27.739+01:00The Park Poet<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sometimes you just set off on an errand; a simple A to B, and yet; you find yourself veering off. It took years (I used to be a very dutiful creature) but I have learnt to follow these loops, in search of the unexpected.<br />
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I walked by the park poet with a flicker of a glance; already marching up the Meadow Walk; a moment later marching back, just as resolutely. Don't ask me why.<br />
'How does it work?' I heard myself ask.<br />
'You tell me about the poem you want. We chat for a bit, then I write it.' Just as described on the notice at his feet - but he was too polite to point that out. A bright smile, hair everywhere, fingers typing on air as he talked.<br />
'Don't you get cold?'<br />
'I can barely feel my hands.'<br />
'What do people ask you to write?'<br />
'It's coming up to Valentine's day...' he shrugged, but not dismissively because he also blushed.<br />
'Are you tempted to type the same poem?'<br />
'Never,' he said, then added in a hush, '...sometimes I sprinkle a little advice. Depends what I see, what they tell me.'<br />
His confession seemed to ask for one in return, so I blurted out that I, too, wrote poems on occasion.<br />
'Hey, we could write a poem for each other,' said the park poet. So we made a pact, just as a neat, small man hurtled along on a bike and informed us that the word of God is the best poetry.<br />
May be why the park poet gave me a one-word topic: BLESSED.<br />
May also be why I wrote a poem that steered away from all religion, or any whiff of earnest wellbeing:<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>B</b></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">efore he left, he slipped a sprig of rosemary under my pillow. The scent, the shadow of his lips on mine.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">L</span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ater, lines of dawn etched a poem on the inside of my eyelids, urgent, bright.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">E</span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ventually I rose and wandered to the borders of my day,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">S</span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">carred</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">S</span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ummoning strength from a child’s unicorn in a gutter, </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">E</span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">very creature is hungry, the raven wrapped in disdainful black wings, even him, </span></i></span><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">D</span></b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">rawn to my door, tall, taut, dancing around my light like moths or angels, a sprig of rosemary at his lapel. </span></i><br />
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I forgot what topic I suggested for his poem; I may remember when he sends it. I'm still waiting. </div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-77221072346190991332017-07-07T20:27:00.002+01:002022-05-10T21:48:26.692+01:00Meeting Hope<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Stephanie, my mother-in-law, died on the 24th of June - we have had two weeks now, of learning what we already knew and hadn't entirely understood: how extraordinary she was, and how loved. Two weeks and I suspect it's only the beginning... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A few months back she told me she couldn't possibly write a book. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">'Not even an autobiography?' I asked. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">'Oooh!' she cried. 'I wouldn't have the faintest clue what to say, where to start...' </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I made a start for her. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">MEETING HOPE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>To Stephanie, with so much love…</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">1993. Summer, somewhere between islands, in the Adriatic sea:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">you lounge inside the boat, one hand trailing through the water. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The air thrums on white sun strings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The sea around us is an eye; long furrows of salt, born and blinked
away…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">And I - too young, too shy, too new to you -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Sit up straight, at the prow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVm9zlS_K4JgbmaGhIhmLYDTgR8fvjeBm2buNyylVoMbHFalATCJplc40z9K2ZZjjstr9jm7bOct58RV49MFlPJeyQkh8_3yCGEMYJa_c_qJ8CKdEfaJ6BVmemAwAH3e8DZjXB5ypRp4/s1600/steph+and+kira.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVm9zlS_K4JgbmaGhIhmLYDTgR8fvjeBm2buNyylVoMbHFalATCJplc40z9K2ZZjjstr9jm7bOct58RV49MFlPJeyQkh8_3yCGEMYJa_c_qJ8CKdEfaJ6BVmemAwAH3e8DZjXB5ypRp4/s400/steph+and+kira.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i>Steph and Kira</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i>Photo by Magnus Wolfe Murray (but not in Croatia, and not in 1993...) </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Next, you jump onto the rocks, and your skirt flares like poppies in
the breeze,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Such slender ankles, I think; and the trust, the flair…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Your scarf floats into the sea, you laugh and wrap it round your head.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Gypsy-style’ you declare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Next, we cross paths with a stern-looking woman. You smile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A lost cause, I can see, an effigy of ancient Balkan grief… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ Your cigarette, as you talk, leaves fleeting
lines of light in the air.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The stranger’s face: a sour map of wrinkles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You show her a feather you found on the beach, a photograph of new
grandchildren,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">She is determined not to quail… I watch her fail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Next, you're lifting the cambric cover from her basket</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; text-indent: 18pt;">peeking in, sniffing handfuls of basil, fawning over fresh fennel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Divno’ says the Croat and I translate, ‘divine’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I blink and see you now as she must do: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">exotic in your silk skirt, your gypsy scarf, your Spanish espadrilles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Curious as a bird, and kind, exuding your own summer…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The wrinkled face folds into a tentative smile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">as the woman points to herself, ‘Nada! Nada!’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You look confused: ‘Nothing? What nothing?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘It's her name,’ I say. ‘It means “hope”, around here…’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘How perfect’, you cry and offer your own name: ‘Stephanie... </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">...may also mean “hope” somewhere, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you know</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; text-indent: 18pt;">?…’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Nada nods, uncertain but charmed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Next, we're at Nada's house. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You’re walking round the garden, holding
each other by the waist, like sisters,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">picking cherry tomatoes off the vine, rubbing lemon balm into your
fingers,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">you're telling Nada about your Scottish crops: ‘carrots,’ you count, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘...wild
rocket, and every kind of berry…’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Peppers’, Nada points, ‘doing great, and green beans, grapes in
August but peaches now, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">look, peaches… try one!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">She gives you five. ‘Divno,’ you say, and next to you, Nada cries:
‘divine!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Next, Nada’s son, the fisherman, walks up with a basket of
silver and salt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A frothing of fish within, bewildered still and trying to recognise,
around them, the sea<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Where there is none. Just sun and beds of rosemary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I sit on a stool, ferrying words between you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You and Nada, Stephanie and Hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">We eat fish soup, later<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">you discover you have sons born on the same day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The sea is full of fish, Nada notes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The world is full of sons, you laugh, mother to mother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You both agree a daughter would also have been nice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">And here you, Stephanie, turn to me, beaming, bright as two
summers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘This one will do,’ you whisper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I blink. My heart beats fast inside your echo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Possible daughter, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Owner of words, transient voice between you and Hope,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Curator of your silk skirts and smoke rings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Warden of your Spanish espadrilles…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Possible daughter…</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">So many things I take with me, from that day,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">One of them will stay,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In my basket of salt and silver,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 36.0pt 72.0pt 108.0pt 144.0pt 180.0pt 216.0pt; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘This one will
do,’ you whisper<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">And you beam,
bright as all summers.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyoTFtuwuEusvuGnzk8JmbecSTUoCSi5eMlVleeyAalCee7KMXI7PmsnAg1Is2_JH78kDXqtFtlmLsAzs0wMgS-JYa1O4RUDprw9SGJ3vxT1z3udg2RBpvK2SVGDmeEcnikP__MelbTfk/s1600/steph+at+the+gate.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="820" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyoTFtuwuEusvuGnzk8JmbecSTUoCSi5eMlVleeyAalCee7KMXI7PmsnAg1Is2_JH78kDXqtFtlmLsAzs0wMgS-JYa1O4RUDprw9SGJ3vxT1z3udg2RBpvK2SVGDmeEcnikP__MelbTfk/s320/steph+at+the+gate.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another journey. Steph, again, on her way. </span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Beautiful) photo by Gavin Wolfe Murray (I'd say...)</span></span></i></div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-63926507346665114092017-03-13T18:00:00.002+00:002017-03-13T18:10:28.209+00:00Geo Terror<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've tried all sorts of tricks and trivialities - even house work, unsuccessfully - in order to avoid a topic so closely linked to Nepal that there's no writing about one without mentioning the other. The country sits atop the geological equivalent of a pressure cooker; it straddles the line where the Indian tectonic plate is pushing Northwards, against and under the Eurasian plate, something quite common and necessary in geological terms, but rather ominous for the ants on top: us.<br />
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In the (unimaginable) past, this jostling of the earth crust created the Himalayas. Now, the Indian plate slides under the other 2 inches every year - but gets stuck for decades. Pressure builds up. I don't know how to say these words so that they may reflect the kind of pressure, or the forces at work. And I have no words for the terror I feel, writing this.<br />
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On 25 April 2015, there was a sudden release of this built up underground power; a sudden move, a thrust, an earthquake. It had more energy than 20 nuclear bombs - the equivalent of 200 years' of Northward movement of the Indian tectonic plate. It pushed the Himalayas southward, and lifted the Kathmandu valley, shifting it 3 meters to the South, like shaking a heavy carpet. It lowered Everest by an inch (to be measured more accurately this year...); I have all this data from a National Geographic documentary I forced myself to watch.<br />
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The earthquake - and its most severe aftershock, on 12 May - killed 10,000 people and injured 22,000. It triggered avalanches and landslides that obliterated whole communities, in the Langtang valley and around Everest. It displaced more than one million people, and destroyed invaluable cultural landmarks - temples, both Buddhist and Hindu; not just empty museums of a foregone age, but very much part of Nepalese daily life and spirituality.<br />
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Footage from the earthquake shows some of these buildings falling. It shows flocks of birds darting across the sky, and - like in a mirror - flocks of people underneath, rushing already to help the victims. Rescue teams, human chains, incredible survival stories.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiH4hUFPfe3qfb-uO69deiyKgic3fLIY-76LwM-F61PcvlUkk9mAGI57JfXNtOyTNJlqQkXK2jaeRJaUdfvW_FcvCRrzq8LGyTKM5Th0v3kGrrU4qbqW4P0m_3rCdOmJRvAqzcAe-z4wk/s1600/Kathmandu+house.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiH4hUFPfe3qfb-uO69deiyKgic3fLIY-76LwM-F61PcvlUkk9mAGI57JfXNtOyTNJlqQkXK2jaeRJaUdfvW_FcvCRrzq8LGyTKM5Th0v3kGrrU4qbqW4P0m_3rCdOmJRvAqzcAe-z4wk/s320/Kathmandu+house.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
Lives saved, lives lost, lives changed: we watch this from afar and wonder who makes the choice, who's doomed and who's spared. Two years later, it's still hard to see all the impacts and links, the full tapestry - but some shocking details stand out. How human traffickers moved fast, in the chaos after the earthquake and ensnared countless young girls for the Asian "markets" (filth that they are, both clients and suppliers, and may they please rot between tectonic plates for all eternity). How violence against women increased, and how single women found it harder to get help - food and shelter - after the earthquake. How their children - deprived of food at a crucial stage - are now stunted for life. How a whole generation of young Nepali men are still migrating to the building sites of the Persian Gulf - which makes the rebuilding of their own country more lengthy, tricky and costly. And as for this rebuilding of Nepal - how homeless people couldn't wait for their government to help and cobbled their houses back together, more unsafe than ever.<br />
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There is another narrative, the "could-have-been-worse" viewpoint, supported by some striking statistics: the earthquake happened at lunchtime, on a Saturday. Children were not at school, people were not indoors, but out and about. A year earlier, an earthquake forecast for Nepal had imagined as many as 40,000 dead; in April 2015, four times fewer people lost their lives. A report, after the event, declared at least 10,000 children saved by the fortuitous timing.<br />
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I cannot tell you how much I love this fact; it's more than the normal degree of joy, that things turned out well for these children. The truth is, I feel part of that tribe of children, saved. On 4 March 1977, a Friday night, I slept in my bed, sick with a fever. A nuisance: my parents had to cancel going to a dinner party. The earthquake woke me up: the room shook, lamps swayed and broke, the floor - or was it the earth itself? - groaned as if a giant was waking. The door batted open and shut like a wing, catching my mother's face as she ran in to grab me. The fridge - in the hallway outside - fell with a colossal thud. Above my head, the walls were splitting open, plaster rained on my bed and I rolled away from it, until I fell on the floor. A moment later I was in mama's arms, and then it was over.<br />
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At the other end of town, the building with the dinner party, and half of my family, were gone. Two tribes - the lost, the saved; and earthquakes blindly herding us into one or the other; and still we go back and trust the same buildings, the same earth crusts to hold us safe, and we accept forces and odds we can't begin to understand.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK8FnSG4FOMOu8t1ihqkwkXouhrTFxIPrPhvwtVY8t9nzXoIK56aphXLVKCqC_eGYh8_BezeA3ImcYG4PqKOsH-nm0uGGz966qMEHX-DkU0nZxGUb-SW25DWU-epjHBbnAzCVi8CVllS4/s1600/Nuwakot+tower.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK8FnSG4FOMOu8t1ihqkwkXouhrTFxIPrPhvwtVY8t9nzXoIK56aphXLVKCqC_eGYh8_BezeA3ImcYG4PqKOsH-nm0uGGz966qMEHX-DkU0nZxGUb-SW25DWU-epjHBbnAzCVi8CVllS4/s320/Nuwakot+tower.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Some say that the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal did not relieve the full stress amassed between tectonic plates, miles beneath Kathmandu. Ominous voices whisper, "there will be other earthquakes..." Sure, any infant could tell you that. But I must say, having watched people in Kathmandu go about their business, along those narrow roads, with those crumbling buildings overhead, and a sky full of dust from all the building sites; but witout a sign of anxiety or fear; and trusting the land with their children, their frail and ancient parents, their pregnant bellies; and always with those easy, wide smiles narrowing their eyes like too much sun: whatever it is - short-sightedness or wisdom - it's also a kind of resilience; these people know earthquakes and choose to have fun in between.<br />
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<i>If you got this far, maybe you'd consider leaving me a short message - it's lonely to keep writing without anyone stopping to say hi. </i></div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-74098568971507589842017-03-12T14:58:00.000+00:002017-03-12T16:28:13.412+00:00Geo Cache<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Two days ago I took my flu up the hill. Face chapped, throat dry and stinging, and my left eye never stopped streaming. A clown, in schoolgirl-navy coat and someone else's gloves. The only thing that made me recognisable at all was the notebook in my pocket, and the pen (walking is where I get <i>ideas</i> and <i>words, </i>both - I can say that now - a professional necessity. So I never walk as much as go scouting and reaping...)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbr8FTdmyhBVzmVTe8aSpy2kM5oZdpAnDXpHNlSesM9UhsL3-dMh5rlOZGxe1qAutmqdO3wGcj8ig1rn27aD8m2TmFfQrgQb84M6obUeulXsRcdm_Nj9Qg7UrHCFlh-LFfw8H6_KrvYEo/s1600/Arthur%2527s+Seat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbr8FTdmyhBVzmVTe8aSpy2kM5oZdpAnDXpHNlSesM9UhsL3-dMh5rlOZGxe1qAutmqdO3wGcj8ig1rn27aD8m2TmFfQrgQb84M6obUeulXsRcdm_Nj9Qg7UrHCFlh-LFfw8H6_KrvYEo/s640/Arthur%2527s+Seat.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Magnus Wolfe Murray, proving that January can look like June</td></tr>
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I sat down on a rock, with my pen and my notes (and my crying left eye and my snot). Despite these clear signs of plague, would I be left alone, eyes closed, chapped face turned to an equally pale sun (the kind we used to call "sharp-toothed"...)? Would there be a blog if I had? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Ehm, hello?" (strident voice). I jumped.</div>
<div>
"Sowy. Can you take pictuwe?" A man, Asian-looking, holding out his phone. </div>
</div>
<div>
"And one mowe?" after I took a baker's dozen.</div>
<div>
"Sure."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another couple, I should mention now, loitered on a grassy ledge. Did they want pictures taken too? No - they just stood hunched over their phone, then took three steps one way, consulted the phone again, changed direction, counted steps, asked the phone, and so on. They were just being weird. I resumed my meditation-on-the-rock (sometimes ideas wanted to be chased at a trot, other times, lured and trapped. Besides, closing my eyes stopped the one-sided tears, I had noticed, and the nose). </div>
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<br /></div>
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"Can we borrow your pen?" </div>
<div>
I jumped again. It was the young man of the loitering couple, an American. (Did one of them have dreadlocks? Was one of them bald? Did any wear jeans? Was there a backpack slung over a shoulder? I remember nothing. They credit writers with great observation skills. I repeat: I remember nothing. So depressing. Draw your conclusions. All I write, I make up.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Americans took my pen, unscrewed a muddy tube and extracted a rolled-up paper. While they scribbled, to pass the time, I asked:</div>
<div>
"Time capsule?"</div>
<div>
"Geo-caching" one of them (I don't remember who) replied. ("<i>Geo-catching" </i>they said to be precise, and I googled it and found that they had meant <i>cache, </i>definition: <i>hiding place</i>) Apparently it's what you do, these days, when you don't play Pokemon Go. Geo-caching involves a smart phone, an app, some coordinates, some clues, in other words a treasure hunt; when these two found their cache, they wrote their names, marked it on their phones as found, and hid it back. It was their first in Scotland, they said, but they had found 178 in the States (I don't remember the number; I made it up. I'm sure it was almost 200.)</div>
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*</div>
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<br /></div>
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There was no peace for me that day, or pause from sniffing and sneezing, and no <i>cache</i> of ideas, or poetry, or Vora moments on the hill. But what if?.... </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And so I did: I took a page from my notebook and wrote down a little poem (a small silly one I had written in that very spot, 22 years ago); then I "poem-bombed" the American's cache; hiding, in other words, the poem in the tube.</div>
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I went back today, to check on it. I saw my poem as a kind of blogging-minus-the-internet; I imagined geo-cachers' surprise and pleasure; they would add words, make notes, draw. I would have an audience of weird big children with phones and dreadlocks and hiking boots. We would start a world-wide trend. </div>
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The muddy tube was there, minus my poem. Oh well. Some things go viral. Others just go missing. </div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-92193132106807202332017-03-11T11:35:00.002+00:002017-03-11T11:39:57.181+00:00White Turkey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It gradually becomes apparent that the <a href="http://monamurr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-famous-third.html">Famous Farm</a> has many other inhabitants; there are telltale sightings and smells. At some point we find ourselves aware of them, amused, finally fascinated.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw4AT2EvJWQ7SQHxU-1z3taCmdUwj2sjUzjpmSkVQxAJUNkKq9VubEIH3q81cuiVGmcGjPNhDb8NQkkLtX_CTGiWOigyuBTuNQSMdgwyYXFFB502RgwM5pKhO1nD8JleYMq_rbCX3gH-c/s1600/FF+animals.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw4AT2EvJWQ7SQHxU-1z3taCmdUwj2sjUzjpmSkVQxAJUNkKq9VubEIH3q81cuiVGmcGjPNhDb8NQkkLtX_CTGiWOigyuBTuNQSMdgwyYXFFB502RgwM5pKhO1nD8JleYMq_rbCX3gH-c/s320/FF+animals.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a holiday for some...<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fZuW6zhbP1I6CNnu9UZGULzA6r-QjYsdqFHSdoKM5g3OB1wuIwGjYOXNgUZbEmNzjSrNmHm3ZV75OdqCNtMyKXMn19urCC8lhGfoT2CHKjxEZ2nhmoTWv1t2TJ6wukUpIMzFXFExl9U/s1600/FF+Donkey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fZuW6zhbP1I6CNnu9UZGULzA6r-QjYsdqFHSdoKM5g3OB1wuIwGjYOXNgUZbEmNzjSrNmHm3ZV75OdqCNtMyKXMn19urCC8lhGfoT2CHKjxEZ2nhmoTWv1t2TJ6wukUpIMzFXFExl9U/s320/FF+Donkey.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...and labour camp for others.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And then the Incident happens. Black Dog and Brownish Dog spring into action - demented barks, bunched muscles, mad dash to a squat stone wall overlooking a lower terrace. I spill my lemonade. It is beyond me how anyone would fail to see the events that follow.<br />
<br />
Black Dog and Brownish Dog are chasing a white turkey. It speeds up along the wall until its body, being heavier than its stick-like legs, achieves more speed. Wings are employed at this point and a sudden change of direction. White Turkey flies off the wall and out of sight. The dogs take the stairs and hurtle onto the lower terrace, in hot pursuit. Sounds of a scuffle ensue, barks and squawks.<br />
<br />
'Gosh, did you see that turkey?'<br />
'Goose,' says M. who hadn't seen a thing.<br />
'It was a white turkey,' I declare, icily.<br />
'I think you are mistaken,' he says, 'it was a goose.'<br />
'I think you will find it was twice the size of a goose.'<br />
'Nonsense.'<br />
'And it had a bald head. With all those hanging skins...'<br />
'Gross.'<br />
'Come on!' I implore the universe. 'It was a TURKEY. Someone must have seen it!'<br />
'I saw it,' says Shane, but only mildly - whereas, everyone knows, you need fire and steely conviction, with M.<br />
'Yeah. It was a goose,' M. says now, as if by repeating it, he makes it true.<br />
'Trump tactic,' I accuse.<br />
'You can't prove it was a turkey...'<br />
<br />
And, just like that, I've got a turkey to prove.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<br />
On the lower terraces of the Famous Farm, I am investigating. I find a clump of white feathers, but no turkey and no dogs. I find some useless witnesses.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikGoCtrDsjxj971quzQg9wIOBzrCwiwwrV5Hn-NNiilF2us6BKrsGpRV0R1sO8Rga_oEdt6_OGZ_7fvTf7UdXH_4Yz6htCuRhQg6uEeCkY4j7ARHxMlRhWjXDy-QVToEFS-jZjov4H0O0/s1600/FF+billy+goat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikGoCtrDsjxj971quzQg9wIOBzrCwiwwrV5Hn-NNiilF2us6BKrsGpRV0R1sO8Rga_oEdt6_OGZ_7fvTf7UdXH_4Yz6htCuRhQg6uEeCkY4j7ARHxMlRhWjXDy-QVToEFS-jZjov4H0O0/s320/FF+billy+goat.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"No, madam, we're not hiding anyone. Namaste and see you later..."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I harrumph back into my chair. The manager brings more lemonade.<br />
'Have you got a white turkey.'<br />
'Aaah, yes, we had two... the male died a few months back...' (long story follows, about the death of the male turkey).<br />
'But you still have the female?' I ask. Whose is that shrill voice, I wonder. Mine? <i>Mais non...</i><br />
'Yes, she's very old, very old... at least twelve...'<br />
'But she's still here.'<br />
'Yes, madam...' he agrees.<br />
'SEE..?????' I shout, triumphant.<br />
And what does M. have to say?<br />
'Sure. It was a goose.'<br />
I need a bloody white turkey. Or any form of evidence, a picture, a drumstick, DNA...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<br />
On the morning of our departure, still nothing. Before I have finished my coffee (and that says something), I ask the manager:<br />
'Can I see your turkey? The white one? The female...'<br />
He takes a solemn stance:<br />
'Oh. I must regretfully inform you that the white turkey is deceased.'<br />
'What?'<br />
To my left, and just outside slapping range, M. is laughing.<br />
'Oh yes, madam. My employees have informed me this morning. It was a wild cat.'<br />
'A wild cat what?'<br />
'Got it, madam. A wild cat got the turkey.'<br />
I'm speechless. I seethe.<br />
'...it was a very old turkey,' the manager consoles.<br />
'Where's the body?' I hiss.<br />
'Who can tell?' he spreads his arms wide, to span the entire hazy valley and, in the distance, the Everest too.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Lesson? That I see white turkeys where the man sees geese? That we must agree to disagree? That sometimes the truth travels unseen, minced inside a wild cat? If I had time, I'd look for wild cat droppings because if that's the case, then that's what one must do.</div>
</div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-90607649305599429392017-03-10T17:44:00.002+00:002017-03-11T10:44:42.076+00:00The Famous Third<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yes, I know. I left one story out of the previous <a href="http://monamurr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/one-weekend-three-oases.html">blog</a>. It just seemed to come to an end, a bit like a sleepy child you can't keep awake, then you can't move or wake up again - so you must leave them crumpled on the restaurant chair, looking angelic.<br />
<br />
Besides, I remembered the camera during the next part of the trip - so this is more photo-journal than blog. I wonder if it means it will be 'read' more... (Sorry, couldn't resist that.)<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7RnwuxUIFHx7v1L7MYyeOIoHqtjGxU6Xin2TNIQXUtiV2C2NJ3EhKzqjLqCmYwFFEgHxWt9WC_HSiYdmbselwRdQWIj2oWs9XzLbNfYQQOx_EM76DT6rJMVHderOmRkIzPnnVGUU9Wt4/s1600/FF+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7RnwuxUIFHx7v1L7MYyeOIoHqtjGxU6Xin2TNIQXUtiV2C2NJ3EhKzqjLqCmYwFFEgHxWt9WC_HSiYdmbselwRdQWIj2oWs9XzLbNfYQQOx_EM76DT6rJMVHderOmRkIzPnnVGUU9Wt4/s320/FF+1.JPG" width="240" /></a>We're staying at a lovingly restored old farm in Nuwakot, the 'Famous Farm'. A two-hour journey if we take the Kakani road' M. says. Why doesn't that sound reassuring? 'What's wrong with the Kakani road?' I ask. 'A bit bumpy,' he says breezily. 'But the Pokhara road is sooooo busy... we'll be stuck there all day...'<br />
<br />
We end up on neither road, but a third, which seems to surprise all of us, including the driver. Enter the Tokha road, the unimaginable, gnasher of bones, destroyer of spirits. I haven't clutched M's hand so tight even when giving birth. The car seems to float between the ragged cliff above our heads and a shimmering line that seems to call like a mirage, even as it suggests an end to the horizontal ledge upon which we perch and a long, long fall until the next. I find that the best is to close my eyes.<br />
<br />
This is only the part that tests the nerves. Reaching a dusty valley, we discover the other. It's like driving over an ocean frozen mid-storm. The car takes off and crashes back, scrapes the road and shudders. We, the contents of the car, shake with it and fly and crumple back into our sweaty seats. We pass villages destroyed by the earthquake and slowly being put back together. We pass rice paddies, and drive along a thin river for a while. Every time M. moans a little I say the words "Pokhara road"and he recovers his fortitude. We get to the Famous Farm too late in the day to see it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gXmLoueIXCN5tSFUG2-85wKCHDIC8PF5GlGIiCdBsGWRWo7G1BbP8sgwoR05uZjDjpELwwWdS74g2Kr8uK8RzxXmSg1deQtNgBR2Xv0wp9phniKufluffEHKwKaLg_jxGXIIDgP60_E/s1600/FF+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gXmLoueIXCN5tSFUG2-85wKCHDIC8PF5GlGIiCdBsGWRWo7G1BbP8sgwoR05uZjDjpELwwWdS74g2Kr8uK8RzxXmSg1deQtNgBR2Xv0wp9phniKufluffEHKwKaLg_jxGXIIDgP60_E/s320/FF+2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
It's even more glorious in the morning. Traditional rooms with low windows and wooden shutters (no glass), flowers and balconies, dragon-guardians and breakfast in the garden. Nuwakot castle in the distance, and a faint outline of mountains.<br />
<br />
We're here with good friends, and here is the most glorious thing of all: the thought of the last weekend we spent together 11 years ago, most likely on Lohifushi, a small island in the Maldives where we all worked. And here we are and the kids are huge but we're the same.<br />
<br />
We walk to the castle, accompanied (the whole way) by a large black dog and (part-way) a drunken villager. The villager shouts, at times: 'My house! My land!' and we take up the chant. We get to a concrete tower - an ugly, unfinished structure at the top of the hill. I bound blithely up the stairs and freeze. Devastating vertigo. How the hell do I get back? It's too scary to contemplate. M. saves me the indignity of shuffling down the stairs on my bottom and thus gains instant pardon for yesterday's Tokha road.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3bp1u0fD6MPlMek9U_6WicYEF541N0cRCTpXSvGzsoSaqiBRA-nJEJLF6mwU6XCJkMDLY_m4BUWumRJlLS6cKVYpMP78bcZvcgouzIDjk0ZyBZCHODD1O4ai9agXAbaAEBh-Vzw_GgE/s1600/FF+Walk+companions.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3bp1u0fD6MPlMek9U_6WicYEF541N0cRCTpXSvGzsoSaqiBRA-nJEJLF6mwU6XCJkMDLY_m4BUWumRJlLS6cKVYpMP78bcZvcgouzIDjk0ZyBZCHODD1O4ai9agXAbaAEBh-Vzw_GgE/s320/FF+Walk+companions.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walk companions and terror tower<br />
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</tbody></table>
The dog meets his family - two almost-grown pups and a surly black bitch. He appears terrified, possibly on account of getting the lady pregnant about a year ago and flaking out.<br />
<br />
He's been sunning himself at the Famous Farm, fed on the finest thali, and providing no support, no weekends or holidays with the bambinos. Any surprise that they're all chasing his butt around the crumbling Nuwakot tower? <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV71BhGlhMSNDBKipt63poIikRVIGGJB85fBd3d_MOPV09O3Ok72-TZgXQ9vPtw_0VzMffzwtWRBBrew0xNQGE9j6cJSA2baToKe1ZjXTing9qsdOnA7RYMRplaeCwek6BtiIVa2I1JU8/s1600/black+dog+on+the+spot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV71BhGlhMSNDBKipt63poIikRVIGGJB85fBd3d_MOPV09O3Ok72-TZgXQ9vPtw_0VzMffzwtWRBBrew0xNQGE9j6cJSA2baToKe1ZjXTing9qsdOnA7RYMRplaeCwek6BtiIVa2I1JU8/s320/black+dog+on+the+spot.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black dog spotted...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDerog-CbeaO1qalVIUJJnyJPIEe89X-IvN5bPWf0nYNH_lEwTfwiQeUI_1lJrtc6fXP2V3u2QPoyZs63nS3WCcXS3glaksDq3XZevNs1v7pes3ieLkffYbD3ZxYlCVMo5GY4vuZc7rI8/s1600/black+dog+chased.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDerog-CbeaO1qalVIUJJnyJPIEe89X-IvN5bPWf0nYNH_lEwTfwiQeUI_1lJrtc6fXP2V3u2QPoyZs63nS3WCcXS3glaksDq3XZevNs1v7pes3ieLkffYbD3ZxYlCVMo5GY4vuZc7rI8/s320/black+dog+chased.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black dog chased.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But we all make it back to the Famous Farm, Black Dog leaving the wife and kids down in the village, with another hollow-ow-owww promise. Of course, he's soon back to his old ways:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHAkW7Is-eTly6_rao1J25a0xSRNqohZZS0DeV0OEXRlvSQuoKnPPtr1JdWmoiJ5ax842PlMj5cVrjP9IhE-73LeSA-lXiDSf_NwVJJ0V6I101phVtlhWNRr58t6gs6P73bNj1a1XgBfU/s1600/black+dog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHAkW7Is-eTly6_rao1J25a0xSRNqohZZS0DeV0OEXRlvSQuoKnPPtr1JdWmoiJ5ax842PlMj5cVrjP9IhE-73LeSA-lXiDSf_NwVJJ0V6I101phVtlhWNRr58t6gs6P73bNj1a1XgBfU/s320/black+dog.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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... while we dine (and Dixit), fuelled by moonlight and margaritas.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-41870164215574665552017-03-10T15:59:00.001+00:002017-03-10T15:59:07.975+00:00One Weekend, Three Oases<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Almost two weeks in Nepal, but only one weekend when I was more or less awake and functional, i.e. not jet lagged, dizzy, overwhelmed or lost.<br />
<br />
It started with a walk to Patan Dhoka. Dhoka means gate. It divides a warren of chaotic streets from more of the same. But there, in a noisy, nondescript corner, is the the First Oasis, a cafe in a walled garden. We discover it by chance (in the shape of Moona being nosy and pushing the metal door open). It reminds of Kuch Khaas in Islamabad - down to the lassi and pancakes they serve, and the newspapers we clutch. Only the articles are different. Obama was in the White House on those golden Sundays at Kuch Khaas, and we hadn't heard the word Brexit.<br />
<br />
Cafe Cheeno is M's way to ease me gently into the weekend whirlwind he's planned. Friday in a place called Shivapuri on the northern rim of the Kathmandu valley, a brisk hike, inspecting a pottery place and some more driving around before the 'real drive' tomorrow to another place in Nuwakot (read: much further and along a way more perilous road). I'm contemplating this (while my stomach contemplates the lassi) when we're almost run over by two cyclists. They're friends of ours (and clearly mad: they cycle in this city!), we chat, they make a suggestion: "why don't you stay the night in Shivapuri, instead of drive back here?"<br />
<br />
And there we find it: the second oasis. M. sends an email to a guesthouse called Chandra Ban. Yes, they'll give us a bed for the night. Instructions are sent, quoting a temple of the sleeping Vishnu, a village school, a 20-minute walk. Some time later and somewhat bedraggled we arrive - met by a memorable St Bernard, Tsering (St. Bernard size, puppy heart) and three memorable words from the landlady:<br />
<br />
"You're my cousins."<br />
<br />
What? The implications (and the plate-sized paws on our shoulders) threaten to topple us.<br />
<br />
"What?" M. manages.<br />
"There's no doubt. There can't be many with your name. Besides, you came to my wedding. I'm Camilla," the lady adds. Their mothers are first cousins, it turns out. She smiles, and I see the resemblance with my mother in law. M. remembers the wedding, in Venice. He's been in Nepal for over a year and had no idea Camilla was here. And she has been here for about two decades. I'm trying to feel superior, but then I remember I myself have no clue what my second cousins are up to, except in the vaguest terms, and I doubt I'd recognise them in the street.<br />
<br />
Camilla and Luca are charming, and so is Chandra Ban. It feels like home, instantly. We walk (M. sprints, I huff) half-way to a nuns' monastery. A ginger dog walks in front, a Nepali man with a radio a few steps behind. The radio emits flute melodies of such loveliness that the forest around (a sparse, stoic side of hill) seems to vibrate. In contrast, the man looks like a prison guard - squat and unsmiling. Eventually my fitness level dictates that the prison guard should overtake. When he gets on a level with us (M. sprightly, me the shade of a nicely ripening aubergine) he bursts into a blinding smile and insists on showing us the way (the path we're on, i.e. the only path). The flute trills and fades in the steep distance. In turn, we pass the ginger dog, who's having a nap.<br />
<br />
Back at Chandra Ban, Tsering is not having a nap, no sir: he wants to play - so sweet and funny that I forget he weighs half a ton. Some time later, and with creaking lumbar discs, we dine and restore two decades to the family history. Lower in the valley, the city throbs with noise, fumes, the temporary madness of the Shivaratri festival, strangers, strangeness. Here is family. I don't want to go away.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-90707197363315282032017-03-10T12:27:00.001+00:002017-03-10T13:31:20.278+00:00Roads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Every journey reveals more of the meaning of courage, grit and sacrifice. </i><br />
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Good quote? I've just made it up. It doesn't refer to life journeys, goals, self-discovery; but venturing around Kathmandu, even the shortest errand. Meeting friends for lunch is a heroic dash. The thought of seeing any tourist sights beyond the immediate neighbourhood is exhausting - even the ongoing Shivaratri festival, somewhere on the outskirts, with all the promised sightings of Sadhus smoking piles of hasheesh. We talk often, but never make it, to the improbably named 'Garden of Dreams' - it's not far, but remains beyond our energy levels.<br />
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I would compare any such journey to wrapping a foam noodle around your waist and jumping in the wildest river you can picture, with rapids, frothing water, jutting rocks; and letting it take you wherever it desires, with only a vague but fervent hope that it would spit you out eventually.<br />
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In fact, if you like that mental image, you might as well replace water with dust. Dust, as I said before, is ubiquitous. A friendly taxi driver explains "it's just Melamchi". Melamchi, on enquiry, turns out to be a vast urban water project that has been going on for the past 27 years. There is a final push to finish it this year (and here the taxi driver laughs and laughs). But this burst of activity means that they've dug deep ditches besides the relevant roads, making them narrower, letting loose all the dust. Add all the construction work - rebuilding after the earthquake - and we have the perfect storm in the Kathmandu valley.<br />
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Survival in the dust bowl demands my whole attention; but when I have the chance to look beyond these ferocious streets, I find a gentle, beautiful city. Not just buildings and temples - the people strike me as friendly and kind. There's poverty, but hardly any beggars. Against all odds, they seem upbeat and stoical. Weddings, it appears, involve a brass band marching along the streets, with the guests in tow. It's loud and festive, everyone dancing and shouting, resplendent in their bright clothes. Several times I found myself dashing down four floors just to see these processions, having heard them from the roof terrace. 'What am I doing?' I would ask myself, running down the stairs, but joy is infectious and here was a chance of seeing Kathmandu at its best, without braving the traffic.<br />
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One taxi driver pointed to the royal palace - tall fence, somber building - and a friend told me later that I could have gone in. "You can see the bullet holes", he said, referring of course to the last 'party' at the palace, on 1 June 2001, when the Crown Prince killed his parents, the King and Queen of Nepal, his sister and younger brother, a handful of other relatives, and himself. Forget bullet holes. Fine dust hung and hovered over the gardens of the palace. You could almost see the royal spectres gliding around.<br />
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Outside the city, traffic gets marginally better, roads get exponentially worse. We make two journeys into the countryside; along short stretches of tarmac - so narrow and pitted with deep holes they might as well scrape them clean and start again; the rest, earth and dust and bumpy enough to scramble your internal organs to a haggis.<br />
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Oh, and these roads are usually carved into the edge of one or other chasm. Turning each hairpin corner, there's an eerie whistle of wind and eternity. I still hear it as I write this sentence, on a rainy day in Edinburgh. I'm so glad to be sitting here, writing this sentence.<br />
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So glad to be writing the next: that, if you have the grit to brave those country roads, and the courage to open your eyes, and if the haze allows, you see the mountains. The real ones, the ones they see from space. How lucky and how wondrous is that?</div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-3413740556758209592017-03-09T18:25:00.002+00:002017-03-09T18:25:29.916+00:00Kathmandu at Work<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Monday morning. M. gets ready for work. This involves cereals for breakfast - an interesting concoction of everything-he-can-think-of, with milk. Coffee, an article of the New York Times, delivered daily (in three copies for some reason) to inspire (triple) fear. There's a new protocol, with newspapers, I realise. We unfold them, scanning already for horrors, Brexit, US, the T-word. What's he done now? What more, worse, cringing and scandalous could he have come up with - to plumb the latrines of history?<br />
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M. leaves for work. I have a sleep on the roof terrace, in the sun. I wake up to find three workers eyeing me from the top of the neighbouring building. This they are in the process of expanding upwards. Two new floors have been added already. 'Bye-bye view', I heard M. say earlier - although the only view is a milky, unhealthy-looking haze.<br />
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I watch the builders - they're very young, and in no hurry. They carry armfuls of rebar and secure it in place, very slowly; one does, to be precise, and the other two, on their haunches, watch. They hardly speak to each other. The active one places a rebar collar over the other bars, presumably to keep them in place. Then, very slowly, another, before crouching next to his mates. Together, they regard the work. After a few minutes, another worker gets up and begins again, more collars over the same bunch of bars, at a sloth's pace. Satisfied that this will take a while, I get up and make myself another coffee.<br />
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We're staying in an old house, four floors, many windows - each protected with thick wooden shutters. Our bedroom is dark, pierced by one ray of light, where the sun has found, for a few minutes, a hole in the shutters. A shaft of blinding gold - as if the Lady of the Lake has risen to hand it over, for a yet unclear mission (and rises daily around 9.15). Fine, I accept! I lie on the bed and shuffle about until my face lines up with this single ray. I wait for it to warm up my eyelid. What shall I do today, I wonder.<br />
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Dust motes dance inside the straw-thin burst of light. Dust fills the house, the street, the valley. If I dived off the roof, I almost feel that dust would carry me like surf, for all the sight-seeing I set myself today. But first, I have another mini-sleep.<br />
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I'm out finally. Ten seconds later, I can say with certainty that I have escaped death at least a dozen times. The streets are barely wider than a train compartment, and shared somehow by cars, mopeds, bicycles, building materials, school children, fruit carts, temples, mounds of roasted peanuts, cows. Motorised vehicles appear to have the same MO: move silently until they're level with a person, and then and only then expel a blast of noise. The honking and trumpeting never stop. I jump out of my skin so often, I am more out than in.<br />
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People seem to exist, work, walk, wed, and generally keep their sanity in this mayhem. Older people sit on stone steps with all appearance of relaxation. A calf is having a siesta. A young woman paints, outside a craft shop. Dogs lead rich dog-days, dog families, a whole dog city; I see a group of about seven big puppies, dusty and boisterous, playing and rolling about through the spokes of bikes, past exhaust pipes and car doors, how do they survive?<br />
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It doesn't look likely that I will. The wind knots my hair and lifts my skirt, yet another moped brushes my shoulder, with a deafening beep. I sit down on a stone bollard (possibly a little dragon) and make an emergency call. I only need to survive another 20 steps, M. assures me on the phone. We have a lunch date at a street stall (always the romantic, that man, and prone to luxury). We sit on stools and eat from banana leaf plates. <i>Momos</i> - my favourite kind of dumplings - and an odd pancake, onto which we pile some greasy veg. The food is so spicy that I'm beginning to think the dust of the city is part-turmeric, part-chili, straight from our breath. Three schoolgirls are eating next to us. I weep with the fire of the spices, unable to stop eating, it's so good. The girls laugh. M. repeats a word he hears from the cook, the girls laugh again. 'That is dirty word,' one of them explains. We all laugh. The air is thick with dust and noise, the city gathers itself to a crescendo, a roar, a daily storm. How on earth am I going to get home through this?<br />
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Back on the roof terrace, the builders are gone. I try, again, to see the big mountains - the Everest is somewhere that way - but there's only fog, smog, white cloud and dust. Another short sleep is required, I think. Eyes closing, I remember what the writer Thomas Wolfe said to his editor, Max Perkins, in his final letter. Wolfe talked about a moment he would always remember, when they went to the top of a tall building "and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life and of the city was below."<br />
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He may as well have been talking about Kathmandu, today.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-7836947153718744432017-03-08T16:14:00.000+00:002017-03-10T09:40:33.520+00:00Just Write<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A short break in the flow of those travel stories from Nepal - for something I know I won't post if I don't post now.<br />
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When I was pregnant, I noticed every pregnant woman waddling across the street. </div>
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When I was a student, I saw every notebook and studious face per urban acre, square or park.</div>
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Equally, when sad myself, I became a collector of tears. </div>
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And as a guitar player, I spotted calloused fingers and guitars called to me wherever they were - bagged, left behind the furniture, strapped to hippy backs.</div>
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These days I find every writing instrument - pen, pencil, crayon or eyeliner - dropped in the street. I know full well they must have dripped from handbags, pockets, backpacks, fingers. But I imagine something grander: that the universe puts them in my path as a none too subtle reminder to write. </div>
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I have even developed - or decoded - a spectrum of subtleties in the message:</div>
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A good quality pen, in working order, tells me to stop at once what I am doing and work on the latest Vora (novel series in progress). </div>
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A pencil, sharp, not gnawed at the end: <i>plan Vora, outline, backstory, define the world, work on those characters. </i></div>
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A broken pen (like the one I found on a street in Nepal, which looked good but was hopeless): <i>no way can you write here / today / just now; don't even try. </i></div>
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I have become obsessed with pens found in the street. Walking with friends I spotted one on the North Bridge one evening - we were walking fast, talking, I stepped past unable to pick it up, equally unable to leave it. The conversation became a blur, my head began to pound. I had sent excerpts of the first Vora novel to agents, I had no reply. A white pen on the North Bridge. <i>Don't give up hope. Write, write. </i>I faked a phone call, broke from the group, ran back and picked it up. The next day, a literary agent wrote to say she had loved Vora. </div>
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I found a board marker today, in good order; the wipe-clean kind. For notes? Blogs? Frivolous figments that they are, things easily forgotten, things that remain largely unread, even by myself? Words wiped clean and covered with more words? Just like these. </div>
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One last confession: a dream of finding a fountain pen one day - the unicorn of writing gifts from the city tarmac, or the universe.... When it arrives it will say <i>here, to sign your book. </i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Art by Nikita</span></i> </div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-69672561800920017662017-03-07T18:59:00.000+00:002017-03-07T18:59:44.306+00:00Eddie and Jill<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On Saturday morning, in Kathmandu, I'm walking, sight-seeing, glued to buildings, legs shaking just a tad. My head feels unstuck; it swivels and wobbles entirely on its own volition, like one of those toy-dogs in the back windows of cars. Up it goes: watching out for electrical wires (hanging in garlands and knots overhead); checking for loose bricks; scanning for escape routes from mopeds, cars, dogs, rubble, souvenirs.<br />
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And those old windows. There's something wondrous about windows in Kathmandu. Dark wooden frames, elaborately carved and elevating naked brick walls to a state of art. It's as if somewhere along the way builders said to themselves "Hey lads. Let's forget ring beams, posts, all that structural namby pamby: windows! That's what makes a building last."<br />
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M. pulls me inside a house, and I discover another secret of structural strength: dragons with curved rams' horns, standing in each corner of the room.<br />
'Why?' I whisper.<br />
'Shh...' he bats me back.<br />
'But why?'<br />
'We're going now.'<br />
'And what were all the dragons doing when the earthquake...'<br />
But we're already out in the street and my head is swivelling for survival, and the words disperse in the beeping and the bells and the dust of the day.<br />
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Bells, here's another thing - temples are equipped with bells on strings. People pull bells when they pray, presumably to alert the gods that a greeting / request / reminder / final demand is on its way. This happens at any time of the day, or night. Bells everywhere, clinkety clink, bells, bells. The gods must be deaf, otherwise they'd be gathering brimstone in cloud-shaped baskets by now, their eyes narrowed to blades. Or bugging humans for some paracetamol.<br />
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Improbably, we're going to an Eddie Izzard show. Even more improbably, we find a taxi and it takes us there without killing a thing along the way. Eddie's great, but the real event is seeing my friends Jill and Shane after 11 years. Even now, they might not make it. They've spent the day in hospital with a severe sprain - which should be mine, incidentally, after my first encounter with the streets of Kathmandu - but instead adorns their son's ankle after a more memorable encounter with his trampoline.<br />
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They're here! They look exactly the same. Something scratchy behind my eyes, something warm. Hug Shane. What do you say, after 11 years? "Eeerrr, hello..." Hug Jill. The hug goes on and on and on. I think people are staring. "11 years..." I hear someone say, a friend of Jill's I think. "11 years?" Jill whispers. "Don't ever do that to me again." My head has stopped wobbling; now it's my chin. I'd like to find one of those temples, one of those bells and pull, "eeerr, hello? Just calling to say thanks. And here's some paracetamol, from the UK..."</div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-31229155087409236162017-03-07T14:05:00.000+00:002017-11-09T09:48:28.538+00:00Sky Gate to Nepal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Turkish Airlines night flight from Istanbul to Kathmandu. There are far fewer blue-eyed travellers on this flight, and hardly any <a href="http://monamurr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/transit.html">foam ruffs</a>. It's cold, but the guy next to me smells of sweat. Maybe he had to run to his gate. He's friends with the guy on my other side, they chat above my head in a language that sounds like an arty fusion of Urdu and Mandarin. Urdarin?<br />
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They both smile widely - another sign, perhaps, that we've left Europe. They also smile at me, when I happen to catch their eye. But I can't dwell on that; I'm too busy with a more alarming sight.<br />
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A tall man is making his way down the aisle. Long kurta, skullcap, beard; and a grim, grim expression frozen on his face. I read determination, menace, hatred even and I know beyond a doubt that as we eat our curry and start our second film, he will detonate his luggage and we will all die.<br />
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How do I stop that?<br />
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I fidget, without taking my eyes off the Islamic fellow. If he looks in my direction, he will at least know that I know. I notice there's a willowy woman in his tow. What an elaborate deception. She seems to float through the knot of passengers heaving bags, dropping coats and generally standing in each other's way. Mr. Grim and Ms. Serene inch closer, but there's a final obstacle in the shape of a toddler throwing a tantrum in the aisle. Maybe that will push him over the edge?<br />
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The kid appears impossible to drag away or pacify. Oh go on, I'm beginning to think, push that button already and save us all from this hell. And that's when it happens: I catch his eye. Unfortunately the steely expression on my face, the steam coming out of my ears are more to do with the toddler's squeals than the world threat he, the Arab, represents. And I know that he knows it - because he smiles. His face crinkles in mirth and his clear hazel eyes roll up ever so discreetly.<br />
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So he's not gonna blow up the plane.<br />
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How could I think that? What sort of a monster am I? Made-by-the-media, I think, and shrink in my seat, and exhale just as discreetly, the thinnest stream of air that goes on for a long, long time.) I should know better, having lived in not one, not two, but three - or was it four? - Islamic nations, and all truly gentle and peaceful and kind. Maybe I should get up and apologise to the man (... the toddler still thrashing and trumpeting in the aisle complicates matters somewhat - and when I look up the couple have vanished in their seats. How many toddlers have thwarted noble intentions in the course of history? Someone should look into that... )<br />
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This is when I note that my two neighbours are saying something in English, to me. We chat. They are ridiculously friendly: a businessman / restaurateur from Pokhara (dream: to grow and export blueberries) and a student who left uni in order to start his business ("like Western Union, but better". Dreams: freedom; the World). In a short time, they've told me all I need to know about Nepal. When to visit (not now), where (not Kathmandu). People to see, religions and foods to sample. Journeys to take, even the plane to catch, that would take me buzzing around Everest, a scary but worthwhile ride.<br />
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They also tell me what to write on my landing card, since I have no clue where Moona lives. After consulting briefly in their sing-song Urdarin, my two guides inform me that during my stay in Nepal I shall reside in a place named Thamel.<br />
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We're now circling the somewhat scary skies above Kathmandu. Peaks surround the valley and smog fills it. Light is thick and golden, like chicken broth. Is it even possible to land in this?<br />
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We do; and some indescribable chaos later, I emerge and there's Moona, waiting before a throng of waiting Nepalese. I'm not sure if hugging is allowed. It is, it turns out.<br />
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P.S. Oh and he doesn't live in Thamel.</div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-27944650178994934992017-03-07T13:08:00.000+00:002017-03-07T13:08:21.802+00:00Transit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is a series of blogs cold-pressed from a short journey to Nepal. <div>
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Let me say first that, no matter how short the journey, the pre-journey stress and faff only tend to get longer. I know that mail I have been waiting for will arrive the moment I leave. I know that people will need my help, there will be bills to pay, contracts to sign, the school will schedule the parents' meeting, the doctor will make that appointment I've been waiting for for months - all while I'm away. I don't know yet, but I will receive my first hand-written letter of the year while I'm away. I will miss choir and flamenco. I'll be late returning library books, and get a fine. How tied up we are to a place - a thought too alarming to explore, especially now, from the departure lounge. </div>
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We're meeting the MS's at the airport, off on their short skiing trip. They are immensely friendly and sweet - and whisk Kira away with them, with a vague promise (or hope) of no broken bones on the slopes in the weekend to come. More hugs, then they're off to their gate. I wave, Kira doesn't look back. </div>
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Nothing left to do but stagger to my gate. I'm really going to Nepal. </div>
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I have to wait for two planes - once in Edinburgh, once in Istanbul. In Edinburgh: surrounded by happy travellers, no emigrants, immigrants, labourers, refugees. These are people with laptops and donut pillows around their necks (a bizarre airport fashion trend, a bit like a revival of mediaeval ruffs). The lack of smiles says they're very important, and on very important missions. And because I'm not all that important and I'm really, really going to Nepal, I smile inanely (or insanely) at random faces, random donut ruffs. </div>
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Then Istanbul, at midnight: a waiting lounge that fills with more and more people in transit. And what people: bright blue turbans, white djellabas and long beards; a child trying to sleep suspended on his father's back (the mother is petite, in jeans and house slippers); two men stride into the small cafe, straight from Turkmenistan (or Game of Thrones) - long coats, high furry hats. I look for curved daggers at their belts, and find instead boxes of Turkish delight from the tax-free. </div>
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Someone's praying in a corner. Half past midnight. </div>
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Someone's filming the chaos on a smartphone. </div>
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The flight to Bucharest leaves from the gate next to mine. A virtual choice: go home? Or somewhere new and alien and far away? The flight to Kathmandu is boarding. </div>
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Long flights equal films, curry meals, and lack of sleep. Watched The Queen of Katwe. Watched Genius. Both about big dreams and watched in the hope of finding out what to do with mine. </div>
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It's morning now. I see mountains. </div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-81603137864333576452016-06-16T00:09:00.002+01:002016-06-16T16:34:51.937+01:00Destination L<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Bored while something's cooking. Tum-dee-dum. The TV comes on and moments later I am watching young, loud people with fake tans in their choreographed pursuit of, what else? Love.<br />
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Now, even I have come to realise that numerous TV channels offer their formats of flirting shows. <i>Take me out. Dine with me. Sex pod. Love Island.</i> And I read on the bus that even <i>Big Brother</i> has gotten quite raunchy recently. These are all TV programmes in which young people - candidates, I'd like to call them - put themselves through mortifying tests in front of the nation; they ask and answer questions, expose their bodies and their past, bat their lashes, cook fancy meals, dance, kiss and touch total strangers and generally pretend to be someone cooler than, alas, they are. Someone worthy of affection or worthy, at least, of a mini-break in the tropical sun.<br />
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I won't go into motives or consequences, nor the cringe-fest that is <i>de rigueur</i>. But here is the snippet I catch on TV, while in my kitchen a handful of lentils are unsure about the miracle of soup.<br />
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This is a show where a young man is presented to 30 (yes, thirty) young women and, a few minutes later, we have a couple going on a dream date. The man, you may think, has all the choice... Not so. He can be rejected by the girls at any stage in the game: they don't like how he looks? Beep: red light, they withdraw from this round (i.e. this man). He doesn't say what they like to hear? Beep, he is struck off. His talents not impressive enough? You get the idea.<br />
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Now, as my lentils labour in the pot, the candidate is introduced: a tall, good-looking man, with dreadlocks, lovely eyes, bright smile. He's wearing a vest and large Thai fisherman's trousers. At least ten girls dismiss him on account of that. He talks a bit about his dreadlocks. Beep-beep-beep.<br />
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Then he says - and here I abandon my lentils completely - that he works for Greenpeace and environmental causes. This triggers a red-light carnival - only two women, out of thirty, are left in the game, then only one. Why, the presenter asks the twenty-nine who opted out, why did you reject him? I turn the sound up and the soup down.<br />
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Because I'm really curious now: why would environmental activism be such a turn off for modern humans? 'You are one of those people I avoid like the plague on my way to work...' says one girl and that, despite not answering my question, turns out to be the most coherent answer on the show. Not hard, when the others are: 'Because I use hair spray' and 'because I work with lots of paper...'<br />
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The one girl that is left in the running declares - with a giggle - that she wasn't attracted by the guy or his environmental causes, but felt that they had <i>a connection:</i> she had also done some 'fundraising' in the past. In effect, he had not been chosen because he tied himself to coal trains or hung from the roof of the parliament with this dreadlocks and green flag flapping in hurricane-sized gusts of wind. No. He had been chosen because she had mistakenly pictured him shaking a can in the main street, to cover Greenpeace's admin costs.<br />
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Note to self (and to my 27 readers): television feeds fears (and probably melts ice caps too). There is a special, unseen kind of narrowness, a paralysis spreading through our veins, and wider still, across the land. Its one symptom: instead of fighting, fighting <i>it</i>, we sit and watch. The more we watch the less we see. The less we look around. So really, when it comes to watching, faced with a choice, it's better, ultimately, to watch your lentils boil than any kind of reality on TV.<br />
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As for our love candidates, and the title of this blog: forget 'destination Love' and start looking instead for destination Louispharailda (minor planet no. 3211) because Earth will be no better than my soup by the time we're done with it. </div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-59062861032460774722016-06-13T00:14:00.000+01:002016-06-13T16:49:29.430+01:00Weekend <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Friday: a blur.<br />
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Saturday, first thought of the day: 'Where am I?' Because I'm not in my bed.<br />
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Now, I would be both scandalised and flattered if your pulse jumped a (tiny) notch when you read the sentence <i>'I'm not in my bed'</i>, now stop it. I'm not in my bed because my bed has no mattress. My mattress has been dragged into the living room and four teenage girls are sleeping on it like cannelloni in a tray. Sleepover in progress.<br />
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Four teenage girls sleeping late on Saturday morning equals uninterrupted, unparalleled bliss: coffee, sunshine, books, news, imaginary news (in the invented land of Vora), some scribbling, more coffee.<br />
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Once we are all up, the day becomes a blur.<br />
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Liberating thought of the day: Brexit is irrelevant here. Scotland is not leaving the European Union. With or without England, Scotland is staying in Europe.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-GQEzKVdjtiMMnMfnKmIumFAVh48Fyt1trp83K0pdwEeqBUIGpoVNhV095QLnERsvxRcT0JtlQVktlz3G_SLvM_6cPHckr90XISiDUMHR9kyZWWHeCedUHs0FJS_jEEvXpExUC2zR0L4/s1600/Alba+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-GQEzKVdjtiMMnMfnKmIumFAVh48Fyt1trp83K0pdwEeqBUIGpoVNhV095QLnERsvxRcT0JtlQVktlz3G_SLvM_6cPHckr90XISiDUMHR9kyZWWHeCedUHs0FJS_jEEvXpExUC2zR0L4/s400/Alba+1.JPG" width="223" /></a>Happy hour: flamenco show at Alba Flamenca (my dance school!) Beautiful dancers and musicians perform with exuberant joy to a public of about 23 people (it's a very small room). I'm not even going to talk about the rhythms and the passion, and the sensual grace of the dancers - those arched backs, the strength, the infernal steps. It seems for a moment too exotic and otherworldly for the austere audience, well-meaning though they may be, clutching their riojas, overwhelmed.<br />
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The funny thing is I used to look at such dancers and think <i>Oh yeah, flamenco, prance about, arms gracefully arched, flowers, optional castanets, </i><i>easy peasy</i><i style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: small;">So, despite my own regrettable two-left-feet status, I </span><span style="font-family: "times";">blithely</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: small;"> enrolled in flamenco classes. A <span style="font-family: inherit;">few months later I know, blister by blister, how hard each step is and </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times";">don't</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: small;"> even get me started about the arms. So t</span></span><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">o me, tonight's </span>flamenco show is</span> a bit like the clouds parting and the peak of K2 glinting in the far distance.</span> That's how much ground I'd need to cover, the precise difference between my stamping and flapping and these dancers' ease and perfection. The only thing we have in common is the standard flamenco shoe and the fact that our ancestors shouted <i>ol<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">é</span></i> or something similar (the Romanian <i>aoleu </i>comes to mind) - at angry livestock.<br />
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Sunday: what, it's gone? </div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-11043454504714073672016-06-01T14:34:00.000+01:002016-06-01T14:39:13.239+01:00Secret Garden<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have a new office.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv_Qy9ErE7KjRiUX_9ezqW23q9_EUATkMNVGHcaEdk42wOvlTQmo2MIZdYxwPGjZwGIhfAJlT7B5gIa93KFiX-mgT8tyYQDJFSB-tthM8Lub9xI2a9BcxS3LYMqX6QbyA35cGWtkEVkvM/s1600/Dunbar+bench.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv_Qy9ErE7KjRiUX_9ezqW23q9_EUATkMNVGHcaEdk42wOvlTQmo2MIZdYxwPGjZwGIhfAJlT7B5gIa93KFiX-mgT8tyYQDJFSB-tthM8Lub9xI2a9BcxS3LYMqX6QbyA35cGWtkEVkvM/s400/Dunbar+bench.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I found it in a tourist brochure - it's a small public garden, in the centre of Edinburgh. And, because I am researching the city (things to see, things to do); and because I have to write a poem - a ghazal no less - for a character in a story; and because it's sunny and I have no inspiration and no coffee in the house: I go scouting in the Old Town.<br />
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I find the garden. I sit down with my notebook to apply myself to the verse of an imaginary man I don't know very well because I've just invented him.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRXjPX1MqlSGKql7IKVx-MTzEi0m2hrkJaq8uibqrRTjV9n4hxA5HYuy-XskeNRiWxUAsi00QcItCP0t7UJwbANr4uW4DG0CWdG-jNJsROVccvhRCFCGxuYJBlIntW26iCE-QfAUn8jBc/s1600/Dunbar+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRXjPX1MqlSGKql7IKVx-MTzEi0m2hrkJaq8uibqrRTjV9n4hxA5HYuy-XskeNRiWxUAsi00QcItCP0t7UJwbANr4uW4DG0CWdG-jNJsROVccvhRCFCGxuYJBlIntW26iCE-QfAUn8jBc/s320/Dunbar+2.JPG" width="180" /></a>In the meantime, it turns out lots of people have read the same brochure. The little garden is positively teeming. Some visitors are quiet and walk around as if there wasn't a pebble path under their feet, but a frozen lake very late in spring.<br />
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Others are loud and the loud things they say are not wise at all, or lyrical, or even necessary. They appear to be in love with their own voice. As a result they can't hear the secret garden. I can't hear my poet's ghazal. I wince, along with any passing ghost of the Old Town, and the advance midge brigade.<br />
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Nine French teenagers gallop in. They scream. They sit on the cobbles, as if terribly exhausted. They hang from the branches of trees. The tree nearest to my bench provides optimal branch height and thickness: boys with muscular legs - in the way sausages can be defined as muscular - try to impress the girls with their acrobatics. Mostly, these acrobatics consist of hanging from a branch while talking nonsense very loudly.<br />
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In their turn, the girls try to impress by how cool they can remain and, when forced to speak, how long they can roll their arrrs while sending the resulting rattle exclusively through their nostrils.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOR9aybHSXUmZNcSRNzkWqJVv8ulKbbFNzE7jzllMgL-dC27owxdtTBn6L411QY0qtYfBXyIoq-v8lsTK5_ZyunxWvpYKoOdDBgZA8mlup0QY9YTtvS288TqdFSxj6LSzUmXj-rprw2kc/s1600/Dunbar+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOR9aybHSXUmZNcSRNzkWqJVv8ulKbbFNzE7jzllMgL-dC27owxdtTBn6L411QY0qtYfBXyIoq-v8lsTK5_ZyunxWvpYKoOdDBgZA8mlup0QY9YTtvS288TqdFSxj6LSzUmXj-rprw2kc/s320/Dunbar+1.JPG" width="180" /></a>I am there long enough to formulate a rule: Scottish visitors are the quietest. In contrast, the English and Europeans so loud that you'd think they are sending vocal distress calls home. By this rule, Americans should be the loudest. But no: they surprise by being the quietest of the lot. A couple of them are sitting on a nearby bench, talking in whispers and sign language. Either they know they have no chance to reach Texas on the strength of their larynx alone; or they're hiding their American-ness on account of Donald Trump.<br />
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There is a mediaeval fair in the Borders today, but I can't go. I think about it for a while. In mediaeval terms, this garden could be the cloisters of a very strict monastery, judging by the neat geometry and scrupulous care. They would have locked wives in here, to weave and chant away their hours.<br />
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At this point, the ghazal appears out of nowhere. It charges from head to hand to notebook. paying no attention to me along the way. I have a suspicion it is using me. I wish they all did.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-24929014806988764942016-05-23T02:17:00.003+01:002016-05-28T10:31:01.628+01:00Choose a Rainbow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Walking up Arthur's Seat today, I spot the red bus. A double-decker, old style - with those fancy spiral stairs, dark wood and polished brass.<br />
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Now, what is this beauty doing parked on the one-way road around the hills? As I amble up towards it, the reason becomes evident - a fuzzy-white meringue tottering down the hill. On satin shoes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdH0n2Hv5C5MyhqdF4H8Mqw1ht0U-Bant_3c1-4eFWPL6gOvdlFjJSOcgCZqtoreU6qXHvXK02op6vkYb1wZOlztgAcwyXNUqUCpfrfnPGbfPE4k5IZmC1hesmnenjyVw0ONr5RY8aoOI/s1600/bud.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdH0n2Hv5C5MyhqdF4H8Mqw1ht0U-Bant_3c1-4eFWPL6gOvdlFjJSOcgCZqtoreU6qXHvXK02op6vkYb1wZOlztgAcwyXNUqUCpfrfnPGbfPE4k5IZmC1hesmnenjyVw0ONr5RY8aoOI/s200/bud.JPG" width="112" /></a>A bride. Flanked, not surprisingly, by a stick figure in a tuxedo. The happy couple appear to be taking a stroll up Arthur's Seat, while the bus lingers at the curb, filled with relatives and guests.<br />
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Eventually, the newlyweds run out of reasons to gambol in the grass and rejoin the wedding party. With a fashionable purr the red bus rolls down the hill carrying all the fine people to their champagne and sausage rolls. Carrying the new husband and wife to a lifetime - or a few years - in each other's company.<br />
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When I finally reach and re-trace their romantic promenade it seems hard to believe that they were here at all - except for a white rose bud in the grass.<br />
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The British - I think in wonder - and their red public accessories. Red buses, post boxes, telephone boxes, Royal Mail trucks... when I was 21, I spotted one of these parked on a side street in Northern Romania. I vaguely knew the driver (I've been with him for 25 years now), and here was the dilemma: he was unknown, yet unforgettable: should I walk on? Should I stop and say hello?<br />
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As I walk up Arthur's Seat today - with a white rose inside a glove - I realise that was the moment when I chose my rainbow.<br />
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<i>Edinburgh, 22 May 2016</i></div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-52581468129504847392016-04-23T17:58:00.000+01:002016-04-23T17:58:01.700+01:00Flying Backwards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Was it 1997? February for sure, a day that looked, felt and probably tasted too, of lead. We trudged on, taking turns to push the pram through sticky-brown slush. We were lost in a park in Northern Bosnia, Tuzla to be precise - where you lived with your fiancee, where I was visiting from Sarajevo. I didn't know you very well. </div>
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We didn't need to be in that abject park at all, we could have stayed at home and cooked bean stew and watched Pingu. But we went anyway, out of a misplaced sense of duty - to take the kid out, to have some exercise, get to know each other better, find the old zoo, make a memory. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOdJkFAbOT3otHPqNWHg-SSxivhp532iUJBjLS5pcjlotfAm3BVMhMnUYflfDM4zWcK7WNOdwy2too1FkSWnyUA8r3ca0_i-jXlaaTzESuPRCxsea57lpo17IEFsoa-rOtvKJzmsUyNE/s1600/alina+and+pram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOdJkFAbOT3otHPqNWHg-SSxivhp532iUJBjLS5pcjlotfAm3BVMhMnUYflfDM4zWcK7WNOdwy2too1FkSWnyUA8r3ca0_i-jXlaaTzESuPRCxsea57lpo17IEFsoa-rOtvKJzmsUyNE/s320/alina+and+pram.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The pram got stuck in a gummy puddle and we sank to our ankles in mud, trying to get it going again. In the end, we lifted it out, carried it to a frosty bank. The kid sat like an emperor in his gilded litter, waving to a dog. Not just a dog, a huge dog, brown and shabby, half-asleep in a cage. </div>
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Cage? Did this mean we'd found the zoo? Not that we dwelled too much on this detail, because the pushchair was still stuck. We prodded and puzzled, found something wedged around a wheel. It looked like a thick elastic band the colour of old chocolate. You pulled at it with all your might while I pulled the pram the other way. I pictured you flying backwards, if the gooey rope snapped. I never thought once that I - and the the pram - would be flying backwards too.</div>
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In the same instant, we realised that the snag in the wheel was an old pair of tights and the dog in the cage was a bear. Your voice petered out. My face felt numb. We walked in silence through the icy sludge, to another wasteland in the distance - the same mud, a few rusty swings, some weeds that will endure, I swear, through blizzard or apocalypse.</div>
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Freed from the pushchair, the kid flew to the swing. Squeeeak - it swung twice, sluggish, and the kid was bored. He tottered to a slide - a toddler's slide, you remember, no taller than the bear. The kid climbed fast and stopped on the thin platform at the top. We chatted and waited for him to sit, slide down, repeat. </div>
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Two things happened instead. You vanished from my side. And the kid fell. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVPuDo89gnboM6R71wfQfmdyem_Pmng2ZaCHKd739FUxL5oaMOPMZ6cHuW5Vv79lPCU2vmAeBPmh7ORhQx1G8JP51rfby-9aJQWw1sNuuyUNfraa97zI3xXiCrncZgF4ojzCYIda8MDeM/s1600/skate+cheeta+full.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVPuDo89gnboM6R71wfQfmdyem_Pmng2ZaCHKd739FUxL5oaMOPMZ6cHuW5Vv79lPCU2vmAeBPmh7ORhQx1G8JP51rfby-9aJQWw1sNuuyUNfraa97zI3xXiCrncZgF4ojzCYIda8MDeM/s320/skate+cheeta+full.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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No. Neither of these statements is correct (nor is the picture). The kid didn't just fall - he raised his arms and dived backwards, straight as a plank. And you didn't just vanish - you sensed what the kid was about to do, and sprinted to the slide, to catch him. No one could have got there in time. He fell on his back - splat! - in the thick mud. I, the mother, hadn't even moved an inch. You got to his side and raised your face to me, stricken. My mouth was hanging open, one irrelevant word frozen half-in, half-out, half-said. </div>
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In the dreadful silence, we both heard the kid chuckle. He was ecstatic, this was the Life! He got up and planted a muddy paw on your face, before trying to replay his new trick - climb the seven steps, stand with his arms to the side, fly backwards, splat. </div>
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To this day I wonder how you got there so quickly. How you didn't even know us very well and still you sprung to save us; how you've been there to catch us ever since. Now it's my turn to fly backwards: to recapture this memory we made and send it to you - almost twenty years later, but with the same wonder and gratitude. Happy birthday, Alina. </div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-84146417776639542442016-04-21T17:48:00.001+01:002016-04-21T18:03:05.515+01:00Meadows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Why is it that every time I walk across the Meadows and it's sunny I think 'fine, I'll write a blog per week, a Vora scene - two to two thousand words - per day, as well as a letter by hand to someone I love. Also, I will walk up Arthur's Seat and eat less of everything, but more turmeric because it's really good for you. And berries, for no reason. I will not lose my focus, not this time, but I will lose 200 to 400 grams per day. Then we're set for the summer.'<br />
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And on and on. These thoughts are something like a major midge attack. But only when the sun shines. In the rain, all I've got is a neat needlework of steps and silence.<br />
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Please blame this blog to springtime in the Meadows. The people I pass are far, far worse than me: they speak aloud, into the air. They wear very thin, very tiny summer clothes - which is how come I eventually notice the spaghetti flowing out of their ears. Ah. At last I understand: they're speaking into invisible phones. This opens up another possibility: that I too stick a cable into my ears and dictate - dictate! - this and many other blogs and stories, instead of sitting here trying to remember everything, while already drunk with sunshine.<br />
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Buds, is that what you call them? Ear buds? Buds are in fact everywhere, and a curious smell of new green. A young woman in a jean jacket (finally, someone wearing sleeves!) appears to have forgotten her skirt. Below the denim there is a hint of underwear and nothing else - over a blinding, long expanse of thigh. She walks unperturbed - or faking nonchalance. Everyone does, in fact, no one says hey look, here's the empress without a dress.<br />
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I don't either. Not just because I am a mouse or a philosopher (who can say my own trousers are actually <i>there</i>?) but because I am busy making up stories about her naked lower half. How she has just escaped from a serial killer in a basement. How the moment her legs are touched-by-textile, they explode / grow purple pustules / start a third world war of zombie proportions / go to sleep.<br />
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These scenarios - and the midge-thoughts thankfully - are batted away by a beautiful busker with white socks and a top knot. 'Fare Thee Well', he croons in a charming Irish accent, and then the song about Vincent. I know because I sit down to listen, look for coins and also take some notes for later, for now, for this blog.<br />
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Expression, that's the thing, see? Everyone in Meadows is expressing something - kids tearing across the grass to the inevitable stumble-and-slam; nannies going 'now, now Nigel, it's OK, you're fine, which you know they've said a million times already, today'; the guy who's doing hand stands, the Irish busker, the guitar nuts three benches down; the girl with half-clothes, the jugglers and the rugby players, the office workers with the cappuccino cups. All with their midge-thoughts, spaghetti phones, computers, tablets and, in my case, a tattered notebook, a pen, and a storm inside my head. One pound donated for two songs, I move on, wondering where I've last seen real turmeric, and how my tongue will turn bright orange when I find turmeric again.<br />
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Phew. At least I wrote this down.<br />
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P.S. There may be another blog next week, if it stays sunny. And who knows, maybe that one will actually go somewhere... </div>
emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-69184895974699931492016-01-17T14:00:00.003+00:002016-01-17T16:57:42.853+00:00Growing Up with Snow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I wish I had grown up with the Aurora. To be one of those annoying people who glance out of the window - dazzling curtains of green, blue and white flaring across the night sky - and go 'mnnah', then back to watch two fat, tattooed women fight it out, on a TV chat show.<br />
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It snowed in Edinburgh last night. We squeezed ourselves into snow boots, hats and mittens; walked out, stiff and ponderous, like stepping out of the space capsule onto the third moon of Aakshi. I looked up, just for the feel of snowflakes melting on my lips; just to be blinded by white flurries, in the dark.<br />
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We jumped up and down because that's what you do, in first-snow. We regarded our footprints, and immediately tried to make them more fancy. Then we walked back inside and I heard myself: mnnaah, you call this 'snow'? I turned into that annoying person whose stories start with 'where I come from', and never end.<br />
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We used to get really snowed in, where I come from - give it one blizzard, just one day and night, and snow was up to the lintel, we had to tunnel out of houses and carve a path to the woodshed. I remember dazzling mornings, trudging to school behind lines of strangers in heavy coats and Russian hare hats. Left and right, walls of snow. A staggering silence made my temples thrum. Some days I walked with a faint clink and crackle - but only after my fringe froze. 'So this is what ants are about...' I thought, lumbering on, while toes and fingers turned to ice.<br />
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I went to a girls' school that was now accepting boys. Very few such aliens had in fact enrolled, but they all waited with snowballs at the gate; their noses were dark-purple, their faces glistened with that purposeful glee of petty evil; nothing scared me more, not even Santa Claus. These urchins shrugged off alarming stages of frostbite to give each girl a personalised, commensurate reception: beauties and nerds fared worst.<br />
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We reached the classrooms with snow up our nostrils, icicles woven in our braids. We would then spend the day hunched at our desks, thawing very slowly, still in our coats and gloves. They never had enough logs to heat the school. Our breath hung in the air, between Latin conjugations, like the ghosts of Roman cohorts keeping watch over the grammar of their long-vanquished colony.<br />
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One day I shall see the Aurora but for now I remain one of those annoying people who grew up with snow.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-62073300390603163442015-12-31T21:09:00.000+00:002019-10-15T13:02:31.679+01:00Absentees, Avatars, Angels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She has nine guests on New Year’s Eve: three absent, four imagined, two from behind the Veil. Hers is the only beating heart in this room, and - it does follow - in that heart she carries them all. She sets the table for ten. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But first she cleans the house, she wouldn't like mum to find the usual mess. The hoover seems sluggish; for the first time this year, she checks the bag: it’s full, so full that she swallows a small cloud of dust, trying to empty it. Also, it breaks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">So she walks out in search of bags for the hoover and strawberries for margaritas. She finds such clear air, such a perfect amber-shard of this, the last day of the year, that she forgets the shops and walks into the park. </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Two magpies sit on a bald branch, then four, then six, then seven. She murmurs the rhyme: two for joy, four - a boy, six, ummm, gold, seven: a secret never told. What can she make of that? A rich lover, a great new seam of secrets and surprise, stories under the skin? Breathe in, breathe out. Each breath: pure sunshine. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">She stumbles to the shops eventually. Finds </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">a set of hoover bags that might fit, buys strawberries and raspberries - for margaritas, the best-ever drink for weirdos. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">There is also champagne in the fridge. Dad loves to see people going silly with the joy of it, that rush of hope, and the pop and the fizz, the fireworks that announce the new year.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What will it be then? Champagne or margaritas? Both? Isn't it too much? How much do absentees, avatars and angels drink? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">She spots a cafe and sits down to write this story, about her party. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">(She can write it down already, write it and then simply follow the script: open the door and walk into dad's all-enveloping hug. Make them smile and chat with ease - despite how different they all are. Make Moona outrageously romantic, fingertips tracing shivers down her back. Make Zefira shy and quiet (although perhaps that is too much to ask: would never work). Ensure that Amar leaves his dark blue gloves in the hallway, that Zinzi sings along with dad. She can make the food delicious, on page, even if she's too lazy to cook, when it comes to it, tonight.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She gets home eventually and the hoover bags fit. She tidies and cleans and carries the recycling out. A robin is now sitting on the magpies' red branch, beyond the fence. A red tablecloth would be nice. She gets back in, gets the tablecloth, sets the table for ten.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Her absentees, her avatars and her angels arrive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">‘Hmm,’ mum says after a long, searching glance about, ‘the place looks acceptable. What did you cook?’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Lamb.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">‘Mmmm, smells good,', says dad, then chants, 'I-can-not-wait!’. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘What about Moona, and what about them?’ mum spots the one hitch in the plan: possible vegetarians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Moona will eat organic, free-range lamb, and as for them’, she points to her imaginary people, ‘I can make them carnivore, if I want.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘And did you?’ mum won't drop it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Yep, just did: they all hunt, and they eat what they kill.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'So... they hunted a lamb?' she hears Cheeta. She had no clue that he'd been listening.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">'Well, I thought it was clear', she says pointing to the oven, 'that I am the hunter tonight.' </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘But more to the point,' Moona intervenes, 'why are you alone tonight?’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Look who's talking' she snaps. They turn to watch, with mild interest - so she enlightens them. She waves her arms at Moona, 'you, YOU! All the way from South Sudan!'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘But he's right: why?’ mum persists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘I’m not alone’, she protests, ‘I’m with you.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘With us? Look at us,’ mum becomes belligerent, daring her to see them for what they are, angels, avatars, absentees, and to see herself too, with her lights and lonely, laden table: she is plainly mad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘What’s wrong with us?’ asks dad. She cracks up. He always sees the best in everyone and all. He always knows how to bring that smile back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Quite,’ she agrees. She’s been using the word ‘quite’ far too often, lately. Such an old-fashioned, English thing to say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘What’s wrong? mum roars. ‘We’re not…’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">‘Shhh’, says Andhu. He isn't always sure how to behave or what to say, but he knows very well what mustn't, mustn't ever, be said. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Hey, we’re fun anyway,’ says Zefira.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘We’re the only ones she's invited’, says Zinzi, because that is, like her, logical and kind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘That's because we're around,’ says Kiwi.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'And because she likes us,' adds Moona.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Likes? Or loves?' Cheeta wants to know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘Either way, I love her. That's all that matters,’ booms dad across the room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And Amar says, out of the blue:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘This is the best party ever.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And she says, a little choked up:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> 'Well, happy new year, you lot.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And they shimmer and leap, like flames, and stay with her till dawn. </span><br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-14779385595643050812015-12-11T14:00:00.002+00:002015-12-11T23:25:03.187+00:00Lucky-in-Letters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5baJGpKjLOtqMVZs1VUY9CMOL2D9nKdy5cMkZZwbYVwWTKhGal1CURW5Z-N-TxBEgnYZ78kaVg39F3yBngbTsvH_j7nZP34XVWzoYt15-De16Vam0wNwSRIXTqX41px16VEE5sstM-Y/s1600/letter+Moona.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5baJGpKjLOtqMVZs1VUY9CMOL2D9nKdy5cMkZZwbYVwWTKhGal1CURW5Z-N-TxBEgnYZ78kaVg39F3yBngbTsvH_j7nZP34XVWzoYt15-De16Vam0wNwSRIXTqX41px16VEE5sstM-Y/s200/letter+Moona.jpg" width="200" /></a>I consider myself ‘lucky-in-letters’. A few months ago M. sent a loving note scribbled on an (unused) airplane vomit bag. A more recent one, hand-delivered, was written on the back of a xeroxed map. How remarkable, I thought, that someone should be thinking of me while passing through places like Futh Dengain, Waat Malwal, Limkwanchek, Lung, Riyr and Thol. </div>
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But apart from these romantic field-dispatches, all I get these days is bills, forms, publicity and the bin collection schedule.</div>
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When did we stop writing letters to each other? Please don’t say the words ‘email’ or ‘internet’; and if I hear ‘social media’ I might have to find you and chase you with a wooden spoon. It’s not what I’m talking about and it is. Not. The same.<br />
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Also, we may have stopped writing letters, but I suspect that we have never stopped longing to receive them.</div>
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A letter -paper and ink, buy a stamp, walk to the post box, wait weeks for a reply- in fact says: ‘I am giving you a portion of my day. While I am writing this, you have all my attention, my best stories and my love.’</div>
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I remember a friend drawing -instead of buying- stamps on the backs of envelopes, in black ink. ‘National Pelican Day’, these fakes proclaimed, and ‘Long Live Comrade Saul’. The letters arrived without fail. </div>
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I remember a few letters written in such small script, they looked like a convention of leggy, microscopic bugs. I see fantastic drawings weaving between words. And I still have a handful of old telegrams daring to describe the world in a dozen words.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigG5x7DJ-2Y8KHw__1S_xJHCop-QwzG7RLtOm2DrNS5gAWRE4zhHqVgRRNf-17dLu8VvoEQycLvNKD1ujfH_YLImBjqYzqrA_hwybzbLEyM_DWPONj08CIhWm7mZM-jkcO7zDyI9oJ8z4/s1600/letter+tata+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigG5x7DJ-2Y8KHw__1S_xJHCop-QwzG7RLtOm2DrNS5gAWRE4zhHqVgRRNf-17dLu8VvoEQycLvNKD1ujfH_YLImBjqYzqrA_hwybzbLEyM_DWPONj08CIhWm7mZM-jkcO7zDyI9oJ8z4/s200/letter+tata+2.jpg" width="163" /></a>I have all my letters from home, in dad's beautiful hand-writing. I see him sit down at his desk, to write to me, I see him smile. His smile still there, on every line he wrote. Never stingy, my dad, with his time or words, stamps or smiles. Best friends with the entire post-office personnel. The postman would have taken his letters to the moon. </div>
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After that there were typed letters stuffed in envelopes, personalised perhaps by a picture or a dried daffodil. </div>
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Then we started typing and - clever us! - faxing our missives. We hoped that the right person was standing there, by the machine, and patted ourselves on the back because look, there was no wait. </div>
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You know what came next. Instead of whinging about it, I think I'll pick up the pen and write some real letters. </div>
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7<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span> of December - National Letter-Writing Day - found me writing (purple ink on a Pakistani postcard) to the woman who changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t buy our house after all. This late and severe case of cold feet translates all sorts of stress and loss: time, money, tears, efforts and possibilities - and yet, surprisingly, the letter was all I was not that evening: understanding, warm, wise. Only one way to explain the paradox: like Sunday clothes, the written letter forced me to put on paper only the best of myself...<br />
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Today I am writing another letter, although no postal service can reach that destination. Still, as in the case of the painted stamps, I believe my message will be received and read. With that smile I know so well.</div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-84644623160155561772015-11-26T19:40:00.002+00:002018-02-04T09:08:08.599+00:00Pause, pleasure, pain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have written six blogs this year. If blogs were my sole source of income I would be living in a cardboard box, on two calories a day [see end note 1]. <br />
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Time to have a look at this. What have I been writing in this blog? The honest answer is: small stories - details and crumbs of life - anything that gives me pause, pleasure or pain [see end note 2].<br />
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I want to write more, I do - and this is what's been stopping me: the big stuff. THE BIG STUFF: world dramas and disasters, global warming, war - the multitude of tragedies around. What could I possibly add, explain, reveal or change, about all that?<br />
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Then yesterday I was walking to the Scottish Storytelling Centre, with a detour through the park. In front of me, a couple - both very young, very thin, possibly Korean (skin like marble, clear features, shiny black hair). I had absolutely no clue what they were saying to each other, although I stalked them for a while, got closer, took off my hat (to hear better), you know, tried my best.<br />
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It went like this: they walked side by side like two well-behaved school children. Then he turned towards her with an impish smile and chirped something, pulling at the hem of her coat. She squeaked and hopped a little, slapping him. They both laughed their heads off. Walked a few more steps. Then he got a new idea, turned with an impish smile, chirped, etc etc. At some point he made a grab at her hand and didn't let go. They lost the squeaks and manic energy. Slowed down and got into step - very quiet now - as their heads moved closer together.<br />
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I didn't expect this and almost walked into them. I murmured a lame excuse in Romanian (see end note 3) and overtook them, missing the kiss.<br />
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That's it. What did this blog tell you? Pauper walks through park, loses hat, misses kiss.<br />
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See? What I write will not change the world.<br />
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Still, imagine this little walk; weighted down by all the horrors of the past few weeks - Beirut, Paris, Bucharest; El Nino and a whole alphabet of storms; resistance to antibiotics and the decline of bees - the list goes on and on... Notice that somehow:<br />
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people still have time for the silliness of their first love (and second, and third, and each);<br />
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there are sunny days in November and a hill in the middle of this city;<br />
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and, hint-hint, there is a Storytelling Centre at the end of my walk.<br />
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There is probably room for small stories too. What I write will not change the world - but, on a good day, it might make me write better, which will make me happy, which might change me (and you?) into people who can change the world.<br />
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End note 1: yes, I admit it: I was tempted to say something about 'selling my body'; I didn't because, apart from the huge (and not in a good way) cliche, it would mean burning my two calories a day only to be a different kind of loser.<br />
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End note 2: this probably explains my blog stats.<br />
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End note 3: why in Romanian? Three answers: a) why not? b) for revenge - after all, I had no idea what <i>they </i>were saying; c) it's where I take refuge when surprised, scared or in any way touched.<br />
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6258561349024911231.post-71600544624200410372015-10-25T11:17:00.001+00:002016-09-16T12:05:47.940+01:00Planet-Like<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">This blog, I am telling you in advance, will not attempt to save the world. It won't say anything deep or very interesting. Instead, it will reveal a troubled recess of my mind, most likely shaped by a childhood of petty bourgeois values and pointless poetic training (and behind the Iron Curtain too, where no one trusts anyone and drafts kill.)</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So be it, if it avoids a life of crime. To explain: I am writing this instead of hurling a heavy bag of groceries (cans of beans, olive oil, red wine) at the head of a beauty-on-the-bus (let’s call her Bob). Bob's head is glued to a silver phone. Words tumble out, merry and sharp like atoms of asbestos from a crumbling wall:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>"I was like 'why would you, like, even do that?...' </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>And she was like, 'what?'</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>"Yeah. Can you believe it? It's like, unreal... </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>And she got millions of ‘likes’ for that crap…</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Naah, exactly, that’s, like, IT: he didn’t, like, see it!</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>So I was like 'aren't you gonna, like, tell him'?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>and she was like 'none of your business biatch. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Yeah-like! Fuckin' YEAH."</i></span></div>
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</i>Bob is in full blast. She curls a strand of hair around a finger. There’s a skull painted on her fingernail. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>"Like, who does she think she is? Dude... </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>No, nooo - how can I, like, tell him? </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>'Cause, like, every time he sees me he's like, 'what’s up, babe? You wanna, like, hang out?'...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>It's like, Oh my Gawd!"</i></span></div>
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</i>I am banging my head against the glass, softly at first, then harder, faster. If it rained kittens, that's the sound they would make. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">People don’t ‘say’ things to each other; they don’t whisper or shout or murmur or mutter or roar. They can only ‘be like: blah-blah’. Talking robots would sound more riveting - and do you know why? Because at least they would be saying "X", not saying 'something-like-X". They would be clanging their little iron fingers together in a hand shake, or even pouring olive oil into each other’s rusty joints, instead of ‘like, hangin’ out’ - which is only pretending to do something extremely vague at best. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I get it: 'Like' is in fact a lens - it keeps you safe from both extremes - less misery (‘he’s was like, see ya’ later’ instead of ‘he left me’) and smaller ecstasy (‘I, like, dig you’ instead of ‘I’m burning with love’). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It keeps the world ticking too. When you say ‘polar bears are, like, dying’, perhaps there isn’t any death involved. Things can never get too bad (or too good). Words that can hurt are padded up and put away. You live in the narrow tundra of your beloved planet Like. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As for the fact that life itself depends on daily foraging for Facebook ‘likes’? Dislike, dislike. My bag of groceries is already swinging alarmingly high.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Wake up, Bob(s). Resist, fight back. The word 'like' is a grey blotch flooding your rainbow.</span></div>
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emwolfemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12025388975455281259noreply@blogger.com1