From friends

 

Life has unlimited transport network season ticket – Diana Popescu

Usually, we are annoyed or mad due to the interaction, through life, with other passengers. Nevertheless, Diana Popescu reminds us that life (just like public transportation) happens while we are busy making sure we don’t miss the next stop – according to the wishes and will of success of each of us, whether it’s health, money, that villa with that pool, and other complex wishes that make not the purpose of this post (and hence my mentioning only the mundane ones).

I imposed it on myself to go through the book patiently, a couple of chapters at a time. I enjoyed the recounted experiences that were classified by names of verbs in infinitive, which I felt as a recommendation to stop and pay more attention to things, generally.

I laughed, got mad, got sad or even emotional, but absolutely none of the stories left me indifferent. And hence the reading in slow motion.  

And as a means to recommend the book, here are some excerpts:

“…..

A very beautiful schoolgirl, with dark hair and wearing a ponytail so long that it reaches her waistline, gets on the bus together with a grumbling grandma.

‘Should I get my backpack off my back?’, asks the girl.

‘Leave it there’.

‘But I am hindering the other passengers…’

‘Don’t you worry!’

The bus is full. After the next stop, grandma becomes sulkier.

 ‘This fatty is really stepping on my nerves with his backpack!’

The girl asks again:

‘Should I get my backpack off?’

‘I have already told you to leave it there, why do you keep pestering me?!’

The girl gives up, perplexed. Sometimes one must educate oneself, in spite of the good family upbringing.

....

The truth is that it may be true, but it is still a lie!

Out of nowhere, we hear the voice of this man wearing a face mask as if a mustache. Utterly encouraged by his words, he continues, loud enough for anyone on the bus to hear:

‘Do you think that back in the days people did not get colds? Of course they did! And they would take it from each other, as well. And it did not end with that, even hens would get colds! Once a week, my mom would check the hens and see which one got the cold. And then she would kill it and boil it. The boiling cures everything!

...

”

I know I know nothing

 

Highlife

In 1930, Ghana became known for highlife, a music genre that was promoted by the trumpeter and saxophonist E.T. Mensah.

Below, you can find a music compilation that I am currently enjoying listening to.

Nature, whilst painting

 

The Return – Gabriela Dumitriu

Did I weave into this book, or is this book that has woven into me? It does not matter for we have become one.

I am always very proud to discover books of Romanian contemporary literature that make my soul soar. And this book, dear readers, is maybe the most valuable one in recent years.

Introspection, social, economic and relationship analysis, all these perspectives have been carefully considered by the author and wonderfully described so that anyone can understand them, but especially the author has done wonders by reaching meanings less or none at all explained before.

Like never before, I felt the urge to underline fragments from the book (but I hate doing that to books), and thus I stopped on time, otherwise I would have underlined the entire book. But then again, there are a couple of fragments that are remarkably written.

Here below, I will give just a tiny excerpt, to entice you:

‘…

And the sensation that all the people in this room are worried about her, not because they care but because they perceive her as a problem to be solved, presses down on her, making her feel buried underneath it.

….’

Texas

 

Wisdom

Nothing new with this – my sister and I were raised on proverbs.

Every time I speak on the phone with my folks, they proudly mention witty sayings from our folklore. I often laugh. But mostly, my heart fills with pride, for these sayings come to serve me as attire, masking reality when it seems to stubbornly display itself as ugly and unjust.

 

Don’t you worry, it will be warm in the summer.

I wait. And I hope, since my folks always taught us to be optimistic.

 

The ox has also a long tongue, but he only can utter moo!

Let nothing you dismay. What is big can be small in the eyes of others.

 

 

I just got lost

Every river that I tried to cross

Every door I ever tried was locked

Oh, and I'm just waiting 'til the shine wears off

 

You might be a big fish

In a little pond

Doesn't mean you've won

'Cause along may come a bigger one

And you'll be lost

Every river that you tried to cross

Every gun you ever held went off

Oh, and I'm just waiting 'til the firing stops

Oh, and I'm just waiting 'til the shine wears off

When

When I long for you, I sigh. What an ordinary gesture! And rather stupid. I unite this loss of you with boredom, when your existence was anything but boring.

When I long for you, I frown and I clench my lips, as if the air lost through them could erase you from my mind.

When I long for you, I have a heavy heart ‘cause all that it knows is to ask without listening to reason.

When I long for you, I am you. Absent/ present and sad/ cheerful. And I am embraced by that lovage and fresh stum smell, and I see that water glass that has brown circles on it (is this the reason why for years now I have surrounded myself with objects that have geometric shape patterns?!).

When I long for you, I cease to exist. This is the only way for me not to feel the loss. And I still haven’t got accustomed to losing. It’s only natural to lose, but I am stubbornly refusing to do so, and it hurts, it hurts too much this loss. And I’m longing. And this longing transforms itself into a blob of paint crushed by a brush onto a white canvas – I slowly spread onto the canvas, I cover it and lose myself into it, as well. I cover myself because it’s far simpler to lose yourself when you think about others.