This world is so wide that, even if you flitted around and around it, you would never reach the end of it. This blog is a collage of more or less literary and humorous, outlandish or sometimes even serious glimpses at this great wide world.
cannot be called extreme by any means (compared to Kazakhstan, for example, where they have -40 °C, I've heard), but we have had one of the biggest snow falls in this city I can remember, and it feels extremely cold even though it's only slightly below freezing.
I certainly would wish for more induration on my part.
Time to go out, do some dutiful shoveling and perhaps take a picture.*
Note: There appears to be some truth to this – generally, the women that appeal to me are similar to my mother, usually in several respects: difficult, negative, depressive, coy, vain, capricious, gifted, always late. You may get a vague picture. I feel trapped.
Hoy vuelvo a la frontera
Otra vez he de atravesar
Es el viento que me manda
Que me empuja a la frontera
Y que borra el camino
Que detrás desaparece
Que detrás desaparece
Me arrastro bajo el cielo
Y las nubes del invierno
Es el viento que las manda
Y no hay nadie que las pare
A veces combate despiadado
A veces baile
Y a veces…nada
A veces baile
Y a veces…nada
Hoy cruzo la frontera
Bajo el cielo
Bajo el cielo
Es el viento que me manda
Bajo el cielo de acero
Soy el punto negro que anda
A las orillas de la suerte
A las orillas de la suerte
(Lhasa de Sela, from the album The Living Road, 2004)
The border
Today I’m returning to the border
I have to cross once again
It’s the wind that’s sending me
That’s pushing me to the border
And effacing the road
That disappears behind me
That disappears behind me
I wear on underneath the sky
And the winter clouds
It’s the wind that’s calling them
And there’s no-one to stop them
Sometimes it battles mercilessly
Sometimes it dances
And sometimes...nothing
Sometimes it dances
And sometimes...nothing
Today I’m crossing the border
Underneath the sky
Underneath the sky
The wind is telling me to do it
Under the steely sky
I’m the black dot that’s walking
Towards the shores of fate
Towards the shores of fate
Much belated note As I found out years later, Lhasa de Sela had passed away on January 1, 2010 at the age of 37, about one month before I published this translation here.
Like a trapeze artist without a backup net, I dared to break off a relationship with a woman who was in love with me (at least she told me so, and it looked like it to me). Why? I did not love her the same way. I was in love with her briefly, but the initial infatuation faded within a few weeks, to be replaced by thoughts of the woman I was really in love with, had loved for close to a year and had attempted to forget by starting a relationship with another.
Alas, my beloved one told me in very clear words that she did not reciprocate (on one occasion) and that she saw no future for us (on another occasion).
Still, I dared to follow my heart and received, in the course of this year, ups and downs galore, a few days of happiness with my beloved and other days of piercing pain.
All in all I often feel like I'm living in two worlds (similar to J. Nash in A Beautiful Mind) that are both cohesive in themselves ... but of which only one is real. Yes, you guessed it, it's the one with the piercing pain.
Hopefully it's all good for something. Some learning experience perhaps.
Daring or idiocy? That is the question.
- Leonard "Truth or Dare" Blumfeld
Written upon inspiration by Sunday Scribblings. Many of the ups and downs mentioned are recorded in this blog in more or less subtly encrypted form.
"Something grave happened today!"
"What do you mean?"
"Your lithe body is no longer lithe. Did someone offend you? Did I offend you?"
She cried on my shoulder.
"You would never offend me. You couldn't possibly."
"You never know. – But tell me what happened."
"It's silly. I'm sure I'm exaggerating. Except that I can't help but feeling down like this."
"Tell me."
"My daughter loathes me, and I got my income tax statement back today. I owe them money and I don't have any! How can this be?"
"Now, now. We'll look at this one at a time. First off, why do you think your daughter loathes you?"
She told me about both troubles, and some of her litheness returned as she was doing so and we were thinking of ways for her to come out of the fog – familial and financial.
