the wedding laughers

The couple are saying "I do", and I look down at my high-heeled boots and try not to sneer.

To be precise, I can't decide whether to sneer cynically or allow my eyes to well up from the beauty of a wedding. Weddings are not for me. Will never be for me. I would never do my wedding like this (Plan A: to elope, and later throw a highly informal, fun and boisterous garden/beach party for everyone; Plan B: to just elope). Sometimes I feel bitter about it. Sometimes I sigh with relief that it's not me, standing there at the altar. Sometimes (like now, watching the bride fighting tears) my heart just melts anyway.

This wedding turns out all right. ( My only complaint being that there is no wine and no dancing, but this is not unusual in my circles and I expected this. ) My best friends are there too and at the reception afterwards I get to sit with them at the very back of the room, where I can watch everything but still keep a distance, and we laugh very loudly and the food is excellent. We clandestinely and rebelliously rearranged the seating plan for our table before we sat down, because one of us happened to be seated next to a person she absolutely could not be seated next to, and we get a laugh out of this too. We pay attention to the program at times, and at other times quietly whisper secrets to each other, or coo at a baby, or try to steal each other's complimentary chocolates. As the evening meanders on, things get increasingly laid-back and slightly chaotic, with people slipping off to fetch more food or chat to someone at another table and children playing tag.

I and my like-minded friends constantly balance between  sarcasm  and ... what is its opposite? When a wedding guest's solemn speech veers off in a strange direction, are we allowed to giggle - soundlessly, unnoticed by outsiders but with knowing glances at each other - or should we be generous and kind and smile warmly at the speaker? I want to be generous. I do not want to be rude. But when you don't understand the world and other people and why you are so different from them, it is a comfort and a joy to turn it into a joke and have someone to share it with.

My boots are killing me but I walk home with a smile.

adventure in the aisle

I'm fairly sure that, in the history of mankind, not many people have written an essay on the topic of grocery stores.

I hereby proudly present mine! ( Don't ask me why I have one. )

If you visit a grocery store in a neighbouring country, no matter how closely that country's national character and habits match those of your own, there will be completely different goods on display. There will be the unavoidable Cokes and Heinekens and Rice Krispies on display, of course, but most of the staple foods are indigenous to that country - bread and milk and eggs are of brands that look altogether alien to foreign eyes. Putting them in your shopping basket makes you feel adventurous and you cannot help but think that the milk will have at least a slightly unfamiliar taste to it. You take forever to find the kind of bread that you like and choosing a chocolate bar is a delicious gamble ( at least if you're brave enough to avoid the Snickers and Mars ).

When you live in the same country for a long time, shopping for food gets boring. You pick the same stuff you've always bought, with few variations. In a new country, after the adventure of the first few weeks, you start to hone in on a few items that you've discovered and learnt to love, wonderfully different and delicious as they are, until you've done it for long enough and that country's food gets boring too. Coming back to a well-known country after you've been away for a while is heavenly in its own right, and you revel in buying all the well-known and much-missed food items you see on every shelf.

In  my present hometown, I have three grocery stores that I frequent. One is a supermarket, the one I feel I should go to as it has the lowest prices and I'm on a tight budget - but it's large and I get exhausted wandering around it when I'm already worn out from a day at work. It also has ridiculously long queues at the check-outs. I stand there waiting and remember fondly Tesco's in the UK where queues were simply not allowed to form - but then I find that I have there, in that queue, a rare moment of being able to just "stand and stare". And watch people.

Then there is the smaller grocery store - part of a chain, like all the others - which is quirky because it has all the hustle and bustle of a convenience store attached to a petrol station but is also on a street corner in the middle of the city. Because of its long opening hours, petrol and tiny café it attracts all kinds of people (and I do love places where there are precisely all kinds of people). It's on my way home from work so this is often where I end up buying my bread and eggs and bananas.

And lastly, there is the other little corner shop, on a different street corner and slightly removed from the city centre, tiny and quiet. I never see anyone I know there. This is my guilty pleasure shop, the place where I go occasionally on rainy days when I sit at home watching DVDs and have a sudden urge for a bag of crisps, chocolate or a can of sweet cider. Then I walk there along the seafront, in old clothes and no make-up to indulge myself. And the girl at the check-out always smiles at me.

( And yes, I know I'm supposed to buy only locally produced, organic and dolphin-friendly food. But the people who tell me so have apparently never had to starve. )

where the lovelight gleams

Yes, family is precious. I am extremely blessed to have yet another Christmas with people who love me and belong to me.

To spend a night and a day with chatter over good food, presents being doled out, smiles (both genuine and strained), glittering tinsel, glossy lives being described to seldom-seen relatives, warm touches you didn't expect, warm feelings among the faked ones, too much chocolate. I have not been looking forward to this but I know I will treasure the memories some day.

But tonight, the relief of being alone with only a borrowed (but well-loved) dog for company, in my own home. Of sitting on my kitchen floor and chewing on a carrot and receiving  wet canine kisses,  and giggling. Merry Christmas, everyone!

christmas, but

Christmas Eve. Twilight is setting in. People are gathering for traditional family Christmas dinners.

I'm painting my nails and having a little wine to postpone the inevitable: dinner with my own family.

Grateful for my family; absolutely. But.

darling books: howling in Montana

  They found the signals right away, clucking clear in the crystal air, and they knew the wolves were very close. In the beam of the flashlight, they found tracks no more than minutes old.
  Helen turned off the light and they stood quite still and listened. The only sound was the soft thud of snow falling, now and then, from a tree.
  'Howl,' she whispered.
  He had heard her do it several times, without success, but had never yet attempted a howl himself. He shook his head.
  'Try,' she said softly.
  'I c-can't. It w-wouldn't...'
  He made a little gesture with his fingers toward his mouth and she realized that he was afraid his voice might not come, that it would betray him, and leave him mute and embarrassed as so often it did.
  'It's only me, Luke.'
  For a long moment he looked at her. And she saw in his sad eyes what she already knew he felt for her. She took off her glove and reached out and touched his cold face and smiled. She felt him tremble a little at her touch. And as she lowered her hand, he put his head back and opened his mouth and howled, long and plaintively, into the night.
  And before the note had time to die, from across the snow-tipped trees of the canyon, the wolves replied.

Nicholas Evans: The Loop (picture from dooyou.co.uk). Wolves, wolf-hating ranchers and a heartbroken biologist in the Montana mountains - can it get any better?

darling books: the one that ruined me

  'Look,' we said, 'what is it that draws two people into closeness and love? Of course there's the mystery of physical attraction, but beyond that, it's the things they share. We both love strawberries and ships and collies and poems and all beauty, and all those things bind us together. Those sharings just happened to be; but what we must do now is share everything. Everything! If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it - and the other one must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together. Then we shall be so close that it would be impossible - unthinkable - for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such closeness with anyone else. And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings - a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable.' 

Sheldon Vanauken: A Severe Mercy (picture from eden.co.uk). A lot of interesting things in this little true story: the love of beauty and freedom and literature, C.S.Lewis, finding a faith, Oxford in the fifties.

This is also the book that ruined my love life, possibly. For how could an impressionable teenager read a true story of such an incredible love between two people and ever settle for anything less in her own life?

Even now, as a jaded cynic, re-reading it makes something in my heart tremble. And against all logic, the same resolve re-establishes itself in me: I will not - cannot - settle for anything less.

the pink fairies of poverty

Came home from work with a string of pink fairy lights. Pink. Well, when you buy all your stuff in thrift shops you can't afford to be picky.

A framed print also followed me home. It's of a painting featuring a cow, a sheep, a horse and a rooster. When you buy all your stuff in thrift shops you can afford to bring home and try out something you're not sure about, and then throw out (read: give back to thrift shops) the things you're tired of.

There is  great freedom  in being poor. I say this with no sarcasm whatsoever.

'twas the night before apocalypse when all through the house...

Small. Sad. Lost. Separated from myself.

Out of comfort food (why, oh why did I not pick up Ben & Jerry's on the way home?), shivering with cold, adding to my headache with sour white wine, feeling near death because of a beginning toothache, unable to escape reality but trying desperately, pathetic, indifferent to my friends' attempts to reach out, worrying in advance about the cold weather coming and my car which will refuse to start. Hello, Christmas. How do other people sort out their lives?

Maybe I won't have to, if the world really ends tomorrow. I will be spending the last day of the earth at work, wrapping presents and trying to smile at customers while being annoyed by the fact that the apocalypse will be ruining my holidays. In the evening, the end-of-the-world movie 2012 is on the telly. I will be watching it, or the real thing.

darling books: God made you a painter

  'Gabriel? What troubles you?'
  Gabriel swallowed; his distress was becoming clearer with every passing moment. He spoke to Father Teo. 'Father, I was made for ... for pleasure. You would say for sin. I do not think that God would receive me.' 
  Leonardo let out a single oath; Father Teo raised a hand to silence him. His mouth had hardened into a thin line but Serafina understood that it was not Gabriel he was angry with. 
  He said, 'Gabriel, my son, God does not care what men have made you.' The anger dissolving, he smiled a little and bent over Gabriel to take both his hands up into his own, and examine the thin fingers with the paint stains ingrained around the fingernails. 'God does not care what men have made you,' he repeated, 'for He made you a painter.'
  Serafina saw Gabriel's hands convulsively return the priest's clasp. His eyes widened in sudden wonder. He whispered, 'Truly?'
  'Truly.'

Cherith Baldry: The Reliquary Ring (picture from Amazon). I'm not sure why I love this obscure little fantasy novel about an alternative, medieval Venice where genetically engineered people are held in slavery. It's a bit weird. But it tugs on my heart strings.

I remember reading it in one sitting, the first time. The sitting being on the floor of a train, because I couldn't find a seat, in the draughty little hallway between passenger cars. A long journey from London to Cornwall. I paid no attention to the discomfort or the disappointing fact that I couldn't see the lovely landscapes I was travelling through. I was lost in my book.

impulse and a beanie

I took myself out for a run. I do this very irregularly, acting on a random impulse. Stuffing my cold-sensitive ears with cotton, pulling on a beanie and gloves, I set out along snow-covered back streets. Snow was piled high everywhere, there were Christmas lights in every window, and the lighted path along the shore looked like winter wonderland.

Cold and dark, with enough pretty lights to guide me. And the satisfaction of knowing that soon I will be back home in a cosy chair with a hot cup of tea. I decided to have this random impulse more often in the future.

darling books: wine of a hot bright scent

  But Jay was not listening. He lifted the glass to his face.
  The scent hit him again, the dim cidery scent of Joe's house, with the incense burning and the tomato plants ripening in the kitchen window. For a moment thought he heard something, a clatter and glitzy confusion of glass, like a chandelier falling onto a laid table. He took a mouthful.
  'Cheers.'
  It tasted as dreadful as it did when he was a boy. There was no grape in this brew, simply a sweetish ferment of flavours, like a whiff of garbage. It smelt like the canal in summer and the derelict railway sidings. It had a acrid taste, like smoke and burning rubber, and yet it was evocative, catching at his throat and his memory, drawing out images he thought were lost for ever. He clenched his fists as the images assailed him, feeling suddenly light-headed.
  'Are you OK?' It was Kerry's voice, resonant, as if in a dream. She sounded irritated, though there was an anxious edge to her voice. 'Jay, I told you not to drink that stuff, are you all right?'
  He swallowed with an effort.

Joanne Harris: Blackberry Wine (picture from Wikipedia). While Harris' later novels are too dark for me, this one makes me want to buy a derelict house in France, fall in love, make peace with my childhood memories, and yes, drink homemade, magic wine. This book is evocative, like its wine. It has "a breeze of other places - a scent of apples, a lullaby of passing trains and distant machinery and the radio playing."

the classics and the seducers

I'm a book snob. I don't know how people can be bothered to read chick lit, for example. I generally find crime fiction boring. But here's the weirdness: I don't know why people read  the old classics  of literature either. I try, every now and then, and am reminded of what I realised already at university, as I was studying literature:

Most of these classics are great, on a theoretical level. They are fun to analyse because they have so many levels. And I love to be familiar with them because they are an integral part of our culture. But they don't speak to me emotionally. They fail to pull me in, because they were written for people of another time and another mindset. Another generation.

Perhaps I'm unimaginative, dull, even a bit thick in the head, since I can't get into that other mindset and identify with anything that is too far removed from my own time and culture. But I can't get rid of my stupidly romantic notion that reading should be fun AND challenging, a book should sweep me off my feet.

Reading should be like one of those whirlwind romances that leave you flabbergasted, heartbroken and feeling like you have lived an entire lifetime and in three alternate universes at once.

afternoon in the Balkans

Sitting in an unassuming little kebab joint that has rapidly evolved into the city's most popular restaurant. Its recipe for success is lots of kebab for a modest price, served by charming men from the Balkans. As usual on a Sunday afternoon, all the tables are taken and people are queueing for takeout.

I just got out of bed and one of my friends comments on my wild hair. I chew on my pita kebab and listen to the others debating whether schools are taking a lazier path in educating children. "The teacher said, 'what's the point in teaching children how many pups in a guinea pig litter when they can just google the information if they need it?'"

Afterwards, we walk down the street, snow crunching underneath our boots and the cold biting our faces. The sun, pinkish and low in the sky, makes a rare appearance and you can almost see people's spirits soaring. "Time for coffee!" I say, and my friends eagerly agree. And all is well in the world.

a nocturnal warning

Going to a Christmas concert today. Not sure I really want to. But in a dream last night, I had missed the concert and was weeping with rage and disappointment.

Guess I'd better go then.

goats, clouds and the missing view

When you take yourself up onto a tall mountain ridge in Switzerland, you expect a spectacular view. At least I did.

When I arrived at the last stop of the little mountain railway, at an elevation of 3,400 metres in the Jungfraujoch pass, all there was to see was fog. Thick fog, embracing you on every side. The only things visible were the quaint little train station building and various hiking trails leading off in different directions on grassy slopes.

To say I was pissed off is like saying hell's furies are mildly annoyed. I had been in the country for three weeks, volunteering for a nonprofit organisation, and had so far been a bit disappointed by the fact that Switzerland is not all dizzying heights and deep valleys. During my last week, I had been travelling through the country on a railway pass and had finally got to see the Alps. Actually going up to the highest train station in Europe was supposed to be the highlight, satisfying my desire to be IN the mountains, ON the mountains, at the "Top of Europe". Now I was here, and had to go back on the next train down, and could not see a thing.

Dejected, I walked up one of the slopes ( taking care not to lose sight of the trail ) and sat down in the grass. I opened my picnic bag and got started on my sandwiches. And suddenly found myself surrounded by a pack of hungry mountain goats hoping to get a taste of the picnic. As I was shoving one particularly bold billy-goat away, I realised that the fog was actually clouds, shifting and moving, and that a "window" had opened between them. I glimpsed a breathtakingly beautiful, snow-capped mountain through that window.

I was so struck by this sight that I nearly lost my sandwich to the billy-goat.

In a few minutes, more and more "windows" opened and closed, and opened again with a slightly altered perspective. I glimpsed a mountain summit here, part of a valley far, far below there. Twenty minutes later, the clouds had dispersed and the late August sun was shining. All around me were the majestic Alps, except on the side that provided the spectacular view of the valley below.

It was jaw-dropping, especially since it was presented in such tantalising pieces at first. I was almost dancing with joy. The sandwich was forgotten - the goat probably made off with it.

( Picture from Wikipedia. )

from Russia with robots

I was thrilled to notice that my blog seemed to be hugely popular in Russia for a while, judging by the number of hits according to the statistics. My heart swelled with pride, thinking that something in my writings must be speaking directly to the complicated Russian soul.

That is, until I noticed I was being flooded with spam comments.

That will teach me to be polite ( read: a smartass ) and answer back to spammers.

Now I've put in word verification for comments. And I find it absolutely enchanting, the request Blogger has of every potential commentator ( I can safely say I have never been asked to prove my humanity before ): "Please prove that you're not a robot."

how to spend a happy day in Ireland

* Go to a seaside town, preferable one huddled in the  Mourne Mountains.  Make sure you pick a time outside of the tourist season. Bring a friend.
* Walk on the beach in the sunshine.
* Find a pub of the genuine kind, with flagstone floors, a pregnant waitress and a fire roaring in the fireplace.
* Order the seafood platter and be prepared to go to gastronomic heaven.
* Have a nice drink to round it off.
* Walk back along the seafront and gasp at the starry skies stretching from horizon to horizon.
* Crawl under the duvet in a comfortable bed, in your B&B room overlooking the bay and the lighthouse that is lulling you to sleep with its calm, rhythmic pattern of light flashing across the dark sea.

the Irish saga began with a Bulmer's

The first experience of a genuine Irish pub - far out in the Irish countryside, in a valley where the gorse was blooming in shocking yellow and the air smelled of spring leaves and turf fires.

The pub was dark, as it should be, the ancient wooden paneling infused with centuries of smoke and alcohol and human emotions. There were locals there, people who through my foreigner's eyes looked like stereotypical Irish farmers, but my company - and myself - were the new breed of Irish, the immigrants who were flooding Ireland, loving Ireland and becoming a part of it. Young Canadians, Swedes and Spaniards chatted around me, full of plans for adventure in this magical country.

I felt very far from home, surrounded by unfamiliar things. The pub itself - I had never been much of a drinker - the people, the language which was clumsy in my mouth, the smells and sounds. There was a pang of homesickness. There was also that dizzying, exhilarating feeling you get when a rollercoaster is about to go into free fall. It was a chilly May night and my first night in Ireland.

Someone put a pint glass of Bulmer's Irish cider in front of me and I felt my new life beginning.

hell, grasshoppers and Horatio

Lazy autumn Sunday, browzing Wikipedia over a cup of coffee. Random facts learned and reflections made:

* A Pennsylvania town is home to seven gates that lead directly to hell.
* The Beginning of the End could not begin until 200 grasshoppers had been sexed.
* If you have to be killed by a cyclone, wouldn't it be nice if it had an unintentionally poetic name like Tropical Depression Eleven-E?
* Jalan Jerangau Barat, Federal route, is a federal road in Terengganu, Malaysia.
* The male features of high cheekbones, a strong jaw and chin are an attractive physical trait. (Actually, I knew that already.)

In response to all this, I have to quote the Bard again:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

Jaw-dropping, the amount of information available on my laptop. When I grew up, an encyclopedia was a huge book that was slightly outdated even when it was new but you never questioned the facts in it.

Nowadays, if you want to quote Shakespeare but can't remember the words, you only have to google "heaven horatio" and the quote pops up in 0.2 seconds.

I have also become an expert on questioning and doubting facts. But I still love Wikipedia.

unauthorized use of the superlative

I like using bizarre words. Not incomprehensible, made-up ones, just unusual ones. ( Like bizarre. )

Perhaps because I have a somewhat weak vocabulary and try to compensate by showing off.

I'm trawling the Internet for an application that picks out the bizarrest words in my blog and lists them.

The language police just informed me that "bizarrest" is not a word. Why couldn't they just let me be happy.

never-ending squabble

I'm thinking: friends or New York.

What is more valuable? Why do I have to choose?

"My heart wants roots
My mind wants wings
I cannot bear
Their bickerings"
(E.Y. Harburg)

I think I'll just settle for a while.