Writing Round Silences
There’s a skylight ajar
Mirroring Heaven.
Brick and mortar stop embracing each other
Where no trace of tombstones remains.
Light pours in with the sun
And sliding on the rain dripping from God’s eye.
Fire tumbles down on rose petals
Floating on His Ghost on Pentecost.
All the holy spirits
Rejoice here in His Presence.
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55 words, Poem and photos memyselfandela/ Adela Galasiu 2017/2018
Italy, Rome, The Pantheon. On Pentecost rose petals are dropped through the Pantheon Oculus as a symbol of the fire of the Holy Ghost.
The Return to Innocence
Memory. One of the strongest muscles in our being. It can contract and ruin your life crushing you underneath or it can gently lift your soul in the light, no matter what life throws at you.
When I was a child my grandmother used to have in a corner of her garden a columbine that used to grow again and again every year. I remember how fascinated I used to be as a little girl by the filigree shape and the delicate yet robust structure of this flower. I could study it day after day when it bloomed or when it’s petals were falling. I used to be very caring with the flowers. And when I say flowers, I mean beings, living creatures that I respected deep in my child’s heart. It never ceased to amaze me and make me happy whenever I saw it, because only there, in that corner of the garden, hidden in shadow under a lilac tree one could have found my columbine. There were no others, it was unique and the neighbours had none. It’s incredible how simple things that adults don’t even notice can be such an awesome thing for a child.
Many years I grew up with the beautiful columbines, studying them as they opened their purple-blue flowers. Columbines meant holiday, freedom and childhood. Not in so many words, but with a warm cosy feeling deep within. Words meant nothing then, only the heart was full of feelings and of a light that an adult is losing somewhere on the way.
This year I was contemplating my bare garden, frozen and with no trace of life. Then suddenly an incredible invisible force, a singular touch of grace has awaken the life in the sleeping buds and wrinkled flowers that rose their heads and stretched their beings in the warm sunshine. Then mesmerised I have discovered hundreds of columbines.
Is it God’s message that life is beautiful and full of diversity on a multitude of layers at the same time? Or is it just a cosmic coincidence? No matter what it is, it has brought back to me that warm cosy feeling in the midst of a busy life full of stress. The morning when I saw the columbines bloom I felt how one must feel when they win the lottery. To others this means nothing. To me it means the return to innocence.
400 words, memyselfandela, June 1st 2015
Photo: Adela Galasiu, May 2015
Tea
She had not written for many days, weeks, months, it felt rather like eons. Struck by a fierce silence, she didn’t find the words any more. Painful silence, coming from deeper than the words can say. From deep within where thoughts do not have time or do not dare to descend in normal days that gallop worst than wild horses. Life seems to have stopped and unfolded in front of her eyes with a sort of cruelty that she did not know how to swallow. Cruelty or acute sarcasm. As if life itself would have smiled at her with half a face and smashed her badly with a slap coming from the opposite side.
Yes, life is sarcastic and unfair. Who told you that there are happy ending stories? There may be many fairy tales, but not many real happy endings. She did her best to make things happen but at some point she understood that she has no power over life itself, that life is a far bigger force than she can even understand with her mind and that all she can do is to accept with humiliation that in some ways she has lost the battles long before they have even begun.
Shredded often between her beautiful imagination and the cruel reality, she had learned that the most powerful thing one can do in this life is to survive. And the most crazy to dream. She has never dared to lay on paper all her thoughts, out of fear that if she would have done so, maybe the whole reality would have cracked over her. Yet in moments when nobody noticed her, she has dared to close her eyes and without a word to imagine a parallel world where everything was different than in this one.
There was in the end no lesson she could have cascaded on others. No great wisdom and no big prise. She had only learned that she knew nothing and as such, she stopped talking about life. She stopped complaining and equally she stopped rejoicing. She had reached a state of acceptance that was similar to the shell of a tortoise, trying to keep the very core of her far away, deeply hidden from any pain.
In an untold resilience her spirit has lost many other souls, even the ones she has loved the most. Their voice has faded just as sudden as it has made itself heard. Their presence has stopped shining a warmth of goodness and joy in her existence. Yet she was adamant she did not lose them completely and she will once again have the blessing of meeting them all. In her fantasy at least.
On the corner of a little table hidden in a tea room where nobody stopped today because of the horrible weather, she broke her silence, but allowed the secrets to remain in the deep hidden corners of her soul, brewing there, unknown to others, yet ready to emerge one day, truly full of magic.
500 words, memyselfandela, November 2014
BBC. Soul. Music. Peace.
Yesterday lovely Nicola Humphries, BBC producer and wonderful woman with a big heart, has given me the opportunity to tell a story.
It has all started with my beloved Rhapsody in Blue and Gershwin, but for me this represents the tip of my soul iceberg. I have dived very deep in my past to the times when I was a happy child. I have spoken about life in the Communism, oppression, the tragic death of my father which has coincided with the beginning of the Romanian Revolution on the 22 of December 1989. I have tried to describe life as it was, but time was short and words don’t come always easy. I have had moments when my mind has frozen and when I could not find my words as in the back of my eyes I have kept my tears, because I cannot get back in some moments in time without feeling again all that intense pain.
I am in love with music because it has always been for me a gate to freedom and a window of hope in the darkest moments. I have remembered the most intense moments that I have lived and witnessed, the blood on the streets of Sibiu, the fear when people were shot, the agony of not knowing what was happening with my father when he did not come back home, the death striking my family when we have least expected, the love and the absolute loss.
I may be different than other people given the intensity of situations that I have lived, things that could have made other people get insane. I have been through things that normally do not happen to other people. Those have been moments that have not destroyed me, but made me stronger. This is one of the reasons why I write and I have started my blog. I believe that despite all pain, beyond all loss, life is both a path and a fight. We can all create a better path and win our battle. I truly believe that none of us should give up, that we should all have peace of mind and hope in our heart for the day to come. I believe it because I have been myself on the edge of despair and I have looked into the abyss of depression many times in my life.
As I came out of the BBC I have entered the Church of All Souls. I believe nothing is accidental. I have been not given the chance to speak about me alone, but the chance to recall and mention my mother, my father, my love, my loss, my hope. Maybe it was a way of setting myself free and closing a deep pain of the past, a bleeding succession of losses that I have lived with for a long time.
I believe in God. We have all a lesson to learn. And I believe that at the end of the road we shall all find love and peace.
500 words, memyselfandela, February 2014
Photos: Adela Galasiu, February 2014
Many thanks to wonderful Nicola Humphries and BBC 4, Soul Music.
The Book of Eli
Most people don’t know that I used to be, many years ago, a movie devourer. And when I say this I mean it. My love for movies has started when my late father started to take me to the cinema. In a communist country one could not see much on TV, but what was extraordinary in those times was that people were getting tickets to the “Cinemateca”, a cinematographic phenomenon that has impregnated my memories from early childhood. I remember going with my parents and seeing many art movies, western movies and movies one could have never got to see on TV.
Many years later I have rediscovered the cinematography dream as the communism has died and the Romanians were able to get free access to any movie one could dream of. Throughout the years I must have watched hundreds of movies of all genres. Then life took it’s toll and I didn’t have the time for this passion till recently when I got back to my roots.
One of the movies I have seen not a long time ago (but long after being released) is “The Book of Eli”. And what I made of it is a very personal statement and very subjective thing.
It is a post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind. “The Book of Eli” is not a commercial movie. It has griped my attention throughout the story and it has thrown at me some surprise moments that have made everything in the entire movie more surreal.
Eli, a lone wanderer, has been walking west across the devastated landscape of America for 30 years, on his way to the sea. 30 years is a lifetime. 30 years is a metaphor. 3 is a sacred number, a divine number and 30 is almost the age a man should have had in order to be considered an adult in the Old Testament. This speaks to me of the path of a man in a hard life, of the sacrifices one needs to make just to find his way.
How does Eli know he’s walking the right way? “Faith,” he says. This simple reply takes on added resonance later in the film. But also speaks volumes to those that think that life is more than just a physical existence. If life has a greater purpose and we all have a destiny, the difficult and dry part of it is to actually find that purpose and fight for it.
Eli is indeed a great fighter as he needs to be in order to survive after witnessing the catastrophe that has wiped out most of the Earth’s population and left behind ruin, desolation, victimized humans and roaming motorcycle gangs of hijackers and thieves. The Hughes brothers, Albert and Allen, film this story in sunburned browns and pale blues, creating a dry and dusty world under a merciless sky. Water is treasure. There’s no exuberance in this world, only survival. There’s no great joy in Eli’s life, maybe only the solemn joy of reading his book and hearing music long forgotten by most others. This wasteland Eli treks at an implacable pace. Set upon in an ambush, he kills all his attackers. He’s got one of those swords that makes a unique noise all by itself, so you can consider him a one-man army.
Washington and the Hughes brothers do a good job of establishing this man and his world, and at first, “The Book of Eli” seems destined to be solemn. But then Eli arrives at a Western town ruled by Carnegie , who, like all the local bosses in Westerns and gangster movies, sits behind a big desk flanked by a tall bald guy and, of course, a short scruffy one. In this town, desperate and starving people live in rusty cars and in the streets. We meet Carnegie’s abused wife Claudia and her daughter Solara, a prostitute in Carnegie’s bar. He controls everybody by fear and manipulation.
Carnegie needs Eli because he has maybe the last remaining copy of a book believed to allow the expansion and rule over many more towns. “RELIGION IS POWER” Carnegie says, and this phrase makes it even more clear that we talk about the last Bible on the face of Earth and about the thirst of domination rising in the human mind.
The third act seems to be taken out of many Westerns in which the hero and the girl hole up and are surrounded. That allows countless beams of sunlight to shine in the dusty atmosphere and work as a metaphor. It can be the hope in the darkness of soul and mind. It can be breaking the rules and going beyond Eli’s limits to make a dream and life mission come true. The image of Eli walking numb by the side of the street after being shot reminds of the incredible resistance of the human spirit in the worst conditions.
Populated by a vivid imagery , the movie has a magnificent ending , unpredictable and almost implausible, breaking apart from the movie and having a life of its own. The human mind and soul can be the carrier of a dream. The dream of transmitting a message to another generation, the dream of a better world born out of ashes. If there’s a message at the end of this movie that can only be that hope never dies and one should never give up his dream.
930 words, memyselfandela, January 2014
A Cat Story
In a far away land lost in depths of time
Owning handwritten books was a golden mine.
In a far away castle on a God forgotten shore
Ruled a very cruel master who wanted ever more.
So he forced all his scribes to work hard day and night
Never caring if poor people might have even died
Asking them to decipher and to write from pain
With the ink and the feather and the blood in their vein.
Any minor mistake was so dreadfully punished
That in short term of time most his scribes simply vanished,
And when having all books he still asked for a last
Threatening all with cruel tortures from past.
As his time to die suddenly next day came
He just then understood that it was all in vein
With his last breath holding his most precious book
An incredible guest by surprise him just took
For no matter how strong he has been, he saw that
The last word was not his, but belonged to the cat.
memyselfandela, January 2014
Life on a platform
I live waiting on the platform for my destined train. Sometimes I overslept in the waiting room and missed it, but most of the times I was here on the platform when it arrived. I have travelled for a while, I have learned new things but when I got off the train I have realized it has brought me back to this station with a name that I am still trying to decipher.
It’s just a normal train station like all others. With a huge clock, with huge windows, with many people carrying around small and big luggages and baggages stuffed with their own existence. Many run after trains they almost miss, others wait a bit restless for their journey, but the most rare kind of passengers are the ones that radiate happiness when they see their train arriving. Not many smile as they step in their train.
Above my head, on a wall, is scribbled Paler’s Decalogue, for some a blasphemy, for some food for thought:
“1.Wait, no matter how long.
2. Wait, no matter for what.
3. Don’t remember quite anything instead. The only good memories are the ones that allow you to live in the present.
4. Do not count the days.
5. Do not forget that any waiting time is temporary, even if it lasts for a lifetime.
6. Repeat yourself that there is no such thing as a desert. There is only our incapacity to fill the void in which we are living.
7. Do not put in the same pot both the prayer and God. Prayer is sometimes a form of hope of the one that does not dare to hope on his own.
8. If this thought helps, do not seek to admit that you hope because you don’t have something better to do or even in order to prevent the outcomes of doing nothing.
9. Bless the opportunity of completely belonging to yourself. Solitude is a whore that doesn’t blame you for being selfish.
10. Remember that Paradise was , most certainly, in a grotto.”
No days or nights are the same. They are all different and this is a blessing in itself.
Sometimes moths circle around the glowing beauty of a single light in the night, in a dance that fascinates me so much that I forget how much I still have to wait to see my train coming. Their mesmerizing dance takes me out of my world for a while.
Sometimes the dirty light reveals the faces of all the unknown people still waiting by my side, some worried, some cheerful, same frowning, some left with only few more drops of life.
Life goes on on the platform. The days grow, the nights slowly fade, the time sometimes pauses. The most beautiful light of all is the sunrise invading like molten gold the quiet platform, flowing between trains and passengers, flooding the huge waiting room in which some just enter and some still wait for an eternity to finally get born.
500 words, memyselfandela January 2014
Photo: Photobucket
Loving feeling
Blue jeans, white shirt… When he walked into the room with his loud friends her eyes turned his way. Sitting at the table next to them she could not help but hear the loud conversation they had about beer and kung-fu movies. She smiled. His eyes met her somewhere in the middle of the distance and stopped when seeing the strange passion in her eyes. That was where it all started.
*
Her cigarette continued to burn, just like her eyes used to burn once at the sight of him as he walked into the room that night. Smoke danced around in a quiet rhythm but as music joined the dance filling up the air the thick smoke lifted like a white ghost levitating above them in the night.
**
“You never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips.
And there’s no tenderness like before in your fingertips.
You’re trying hard not to show it baby
But baby, baby I know it…
You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling,
Whoa, that lovin’ feeling,
You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling,
Now it’s gone…gone…gone…”
***
He was distant yet she didn’t care any more, she had nothing left to lose. She boldly stepped towards him and quietly took his hand for a dance. Why they’ve never danced before she could not tell, maybe because he thought she wasn’t good enough for him. She didn’t know how, but even so she danced. She missed too much that spark she saw once in his eyes. It was gone, she felt it, yet she could not let go, not that night, not that moment. She danced entranced, her arms holding him, an avalanche of feelings invading her heart while looking at him. Her lips could not speak , his heart had long left her, he was gone, gone, gone…
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300 words, memyselfandela, December 2013
The Borough Market
Tic- tac. The clock marks the passing of another second. Tic- tac. People rush to work early in the morning. Tic- tac. The fight against the clock starts for many people. Some rushing to arrive to a certain place, but some striving to make the best out of their little space. Tic- tac. The Shard watches silent over the crowds that flood the city.
Not far away, on the narrow streets you can hear the Borough Market slowly waking up. Countless merchants begin to unpack their fresh goods. The chutney jar is neighbor to the boar sausage, the Levant lamb finds peacefully place next to the sea bass, while the simmering pot spreads around an incredible taste of cooked food. It smells like sweets, then as you go further like fish, like bread, like soup and fruits and jams. One can find a bazaar of everything and anything, from Turkish delight to Christmas chocolate, from cheese to olive oil, from veggies to fruits.
As the light pierces the darkness a tiny pub welcomes the first clients, and while they indulge in their hot coffee fruit juices await for their customers few steps further. Young students bake bread, young chefs cook the lunch, young drivers deliver food, young ladies sell candies, old ladies sell jam, old gentlemen sell game. Countless merchandises await to be taken in or carefully arranged on the stands.
It is impossible to step in this place and not feel the atmosphere. The selling atmosphere, the Christmas atmosphere but also the history. Crossing through the market I could not help but think how many generations have lived, sold, got born, died close to this market. It’s a place in the heart of London that has seen many people come and go, each one of them with another story.
Fur trees and decoration await for the holy night when everybody will be home enjoying Christmas. Fragile orchids and wrapped roses await in the cold of the morning for the warm hand that could carry them home.
I have always had a weakness for the open market, and I had to stop here today just to remember why. It’s because beyond all wrappings and fuss here one can see, smell and taste life itself. Thank you Borough Market for this new slice of life you have offered me today. There could never be a right price tag attached to it.
400 words, memyselfandela, December 2013
Photos: memyselfandela, December 2013
Mess
If I would have to tell you who I am now, I don’t from know where I would start. I was probably swinging too much between the light and the darkness, the good and the bad in me.
Long time ago I loved you. It was the time when all was beautiful and open and real and honest in every way.
Then things changed. A time came when I saw how you were looking at other women, how you were playing me, how you were inventing excuses just to gain time. But I still loved you. I was giving you my time and energy while you were leaning back. I was imagining our life together paddling on my own.
I did love you but then I hated you. Every time when you let me down. Every time when I felt forgotten and unloved. Every time when you rejected me or didn’t see me , every time when I suffered because others around had the happiness you have never bothered to make happen for us, you and me. I will always remember how I hungered for your embrace, but it never came. For a phone call from you, but the phone never rang. How you took me for granted, how I became a mess.
I did love you and then I hated you. And then it didn’t matter anymore. And that day all was over.
If I would have to tell you who I am now, I don’t know from where I would start.
I am no longer light, I am no longer darkness. I am the quiet above. I don’t need you anymore, I’m fine without you. I was a mess, I confess. And now I am only the dream of a love that should finally be meant to simply be.
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300 words, memyselfandela, November 2013
Power Story
Once upon a time there was a very cruel prince of the sea, a manta ray that had no feelings at all. Even his parents were mortified by the thought that he was such an insensitive creature. 
He had no mercy at all for other sea creatures, not even for his own family, he was only interested in power and himself. Never in his life he gave a second thought about killing another or about showing some feelings and this was the only life he has ever known. All known about him was the countless number of his murders and all were afraid of the day when he was to become a king.
After many years of waiting in line for the throne his dream has finally come true when his father was killed. And so he became king and nobody dared to get close to him, everybody obeyed him in fear.
One night, while chasing a female he liked in the blue shining waters lit by the full moon, the king saw from a distance a skinny creature. 
It was a human being swimming. It was an old man diving there in the hope to find the shipwreck of a boat that sank long time ago, hiding in the watery tomb the bones of his beloved father.
As the old man was frenetically searching on the bottom of the sea using his special torch, he was concentrating only on the pieces scattered on the bottom of the sea. He was much too absorbed by the search to still be able to observe the huge shadow approaching him. 
Nobody could have seen but the old man had the eyes full of tears as he finally found what seemed to be the remains of the long lost boat. And he was crying as he missed his father and he wanted to say goodbye, because only a child knows the longing and emptiness caused by the disappearance of a beloved parent.
Angry that the human dared to pass his way and venture in his kingdom, especially in that special night when he was mating, the manta ray got close to the old man. He was so very close that he could feel the energy of the old man’s beating heart. Understanding that this was the core that was keeping the frail human alive, the manta ray stung him straight in the heart with his 10 inches long barb in a split of a second filled with rage. The sharp dagger has found its path in the heart of the man that didn’t see what hit him from behind.
The seconds that followed were filled with silence. The manta was angry that his world has been disturbed by a filthy human. The old man turned and finally understood what had happened. Knowing that these were his final moments he wished the manta ray to live also without what he loved the most. As the waters turned red around the dying man, he fell on the bottom of the sea, his last glimpse at the found boat, his heart filled with sadness for not being able to embrace his father one last time. His eyes slowly closed on this life as a cloud gloomily covered the full moon.
The very next day, as the king swam serene, a huge fishing net caught him and there was no more escape. He fought his way out but the net was too strong for him to be able to break it. Sharing the same fear like many other sea creatures, the manta ray found himself laying powerless on the dirty deck of an old fishing ship surrounded by a loud crowd of men, all laughing and making bets on what will be sold for a better price. Other mantas were captive too, and of all the king tried the most to kill again, but the hand of a human with a knife as sharp of a sword has cut his barb and left him hopeless.
Many stories ran through his mind. Old stories of humans being afraid of the sea monsters, of their quiet approach, of their majestic presence. Old stories heard from his father and from the father of his father. Old stories telling how stupid humans were, how weak and vulnerable in the depths of the endless sea. Laying on the sand in the dying light of the day, the manta ray king faced the same death like others, butchered into pieces and sold to a leather handler who made the best out of his skin.
Every little piece was wisely prepared just to be sold on the market for luxury materials.
And so the king’s skin was cut into 10 pieces, as many as the years when the old man has been searching for the boat of his father. One piece was sold to a tattoo artist, who used it to cover his tools with a special skin. 
Other two pieces were sold to a designer who created a belt and a purse for the same cinema star, a gorgeous blonde famous not only for her movies, but also for her love affair with a president. 
Two pieces were sold to an Arabian shah who asked his people to make a sheath and cover the handle of his favorite dagger. 
Three pieces have become three famous wallets given as a present to the three finalists of a Formula 1 contest after sharing with the public a champagne bath.
And the last two pieces, the very best, were sold to an exclusive shoe designer who cut them into shape and transformed them into a unique pair of custom made shoes for a modern king, ruling over an empire where the sun never sets. 
And so, the manta ray king got what he wished for, he was closer to power than ever before. So insanely close, but as it has been wished by the sad dying man, never having the chance to ever embrace it himself again.
1000 words, memyselfandela, November 2013
Journey
Childhood. Life seemed to be the easiest thing,with endless possibilities like the countless shades of color trapped in his iris that curiously expanded at the sight of all the marvels around him. Time had millions of tunes, millions of facets, millions of open doors for the brave heart of a young boy seeking for answers and treasures that he suspected all kept intentionally away from him. Roaming through the immensity surrounding him the days were unveiling more and more mysteries created just to fill up his thirsty mind. Life was his, life was beautiful and full of hope and wonder.
Maturity. Many of his old childish questions have been answered, yet this did not manage to satisfy his mind and soul. He was convinced that life is more and that asking the right question might bring him the answer that owned the whole universe. In the middle of his existence time meant more, as he realized that he had already wasted too much of it. Life was carved according to his own choices and hesitations and remained a force he was still fighting with while holding on to the few impossible crazy dreams he never gave up on his way.
Old age. As it conquered his being he felt how he had lost most of the battles. He felt alone and misunderstood for years till one morning when, while sipping his coffee, he had the epiphany of his own fleeting existence. With wide open eyes and with life still flowing through his veins he understood that he meant nothing on his own but an instant, a little wheel in a huge mechanism, a second in which the whole universe was glimpsing at his own image trying to photograph the experience lived in a form of life not yet tried before.
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300 words, memyselfandela, September 2013
Beautiful
It was flowing, vivid, all over my back. Warm. Dribbling. Unceasingly. Waking me up from the tiredness. Waking me up from my own death. Lingering on my spine. Giving me the shivers. Flowing , caressing my skin, and from my skin penetrating inside my tired bones, and from my bones penetrating like an echo in my very soul, echo lingering between the end and beginning of me and between the walls of my solitude… The shower revived me, but it was a fading reminder of your hand. Your hand, lingering in my soul. Your hand, touching decaying flesh but ending in the core of what I used to remember as being me.
Life is a flow. It has been a lot of emotion flooding. It has been a lot of tears drowning me. It has been a lot of paddling alone on a sea of solitude. From the moment I opened my eyes without worries in this world to the point where I was scattered in million painful pieces wondering each if they still belong together or if they should stay forever apart. Life is a flow, just like the time. The time in the sand glass has ended. I have turned it. Now all flows backwards, now my heart fills up with the touch of your longing hand.
In the dark corner of a lost pub we are listening to seagulls screaming on the quay. The waves kiss passionately roaring behind metal bars imagined to keep us safe. An old couple eats supper while we share the taste of light and color. It smells like chocolate brownies and vanilla ice cream. It tastes like heaven and rain, like beads of sweat on your upper lip melted by my lips kissing your very soul. It smells like heaven and you smile beautiful like a rainbow.
300 words, memyselfandela, August 2013
Thursday Challenge – PLAY
Dear friends,
Feel free to join the challenge. Write a maximum 100 words as a comment or a ping back to your blog starting from the image below.
I wish you all a fabulous day and you are all welcome to PLAY. 🙂
Ela.
Blue skies and storms, blowing wind and birds chirping, joy and drama.
Sweetness and curiosity, patience and restlessness, surprise and disappointment, longing and oblivion.
We have all different stories, yet we are all alike. We wear all different wrappings, different bodies, different clothes, different losses and dreams and feelings, yet we are all humans.
Life brings us together sometimes, just the way cupcakes freshly made meet for a while in the showcase of a store before they go each to a different destination.
Maybe life will make us meet again. Till then be happy and love with all your heart.
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100 words, memyselfandela, 2013
Thursday Challenge – WRITE
Dear friends,
Feel free to join the challenge. Here is the picture, write what you think, express what it makes you feel. Write a maximum 100 words as a comment or a ping back to your blog starting from the image below.
I wish you all a fabulous day and you are all welcome to WRITE.
Ela.
He was long gone from the room, yet in her deep fear Lucy could still hear him.
His liquid diet fueled anger was screaming at her mom now, her frail voice begging him to stop while he smashed another glass against the kitchen floor. Though Lucy knew that not even calling the police helped, as last time when she called them her mom lied that nothing happened while covering her bruised wrists, just because she still loved him.
He was not her father. No more lullabies in her soul as she prayed God to simply take him away one day.
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100 words, memyselfandela
300
Her arms open like the wings of a butterfly as she draws colors nobody has ever lived. People pass her by, but stop for a moment to see the shade of sadness hidden in her broken gypsy smile. People come and go while she imagines universes turning round and round like ticking clocks spinning in the tip of her lost apostle finger, while she tries to recreate out of color and dust the lost paradise. Lost like her thoughts, lost on an island that she never reached, a place where her heart would find finally a breath of rest.
Her dress, her black dress, she hated it so. She hated how it made her feel. She hated how he made her feel. She hated all she tried to be for him. She hated that she loved him. She hated to see him write about that dress, using her presence as an inspiration for his stories and phantasies, while she was bleeding inside. She hated him and all the women he was talking to, she hated him with the same passion she has once loved him. Her dress was black that night, mourning for her broken heart and wasted love.
I have died one night. I have only died so I can learn how to fly. And my greatest dream was to fly over the sea to you. On the beach, where you lay your body and shadow, I rest my head next to you. I try to feel the warmth of your bare feet but I can’t anymore. I try to lay my body next to you, but you don’t even see me there. Yet I look at you, breathing and gazing far away, and the light that fills up your soul flows through me too. And I smile.
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300 words, memyselfandela – August 2013
The Oak Tree and The Ivy
Once upon a time there was a love story between a simple man and an ordinary woman. Little matters how they got to know each other, maybe it was at one of the same social events that they were both attending. It was love at first sight, he used to say that he fell in love with her inner light, but in her humility she didn’t even know that she had it. She loved his spirit and wisdom and everything about him. He was like no other, and the love shining in his eyes was incredible.
Happy days they have lived together, yet they knew that he will need to leave one day for a while, for a final battle. He was determined to make peace with his past, to solve his problems, so that no bad memories could ever again threaten their happiness. But nevertheless, they were happy and they were one heart, so problems didn’t seem to matter.
They have spent time reading and dreaming and sharing the beauty of life in a way that nobody ever did. And for a spell they were completely lost in their universe of absolute love.
One day as they went on the beach he built for her a wonderful sand castle and he decided to close it under a glass cover so that she could have it always close to her in her house until he was back. It’s not an ordinary castle, it was their castle.
“Wait for me , hide your soul inside the castle, and in no time I’ll be back to you my Love”.
The day before he left she took him in the woods. A beautiful light was shining there and there were flowers everywhere as the spring was bursting with joy and color. Walking on paths known only by her they found a quiet place and stood under an old oak tree. And she took a picture of him as he was smiling leaning against that tree. As he saw the tree he said:
“It’s a most extraordinary tree, but I can’t understand why.”
And she told him that it was so because the tree was not alone, but loved and surrounded by the most beautiful green ivy. “The tree has many scars, yet he is covered by the ivy that gives him his strength. They are one, and this is love, they never let go of each other”.
He smiled. Yes, NEVER LET GO. Of course it made sense. And as he got inside the train that took him away from her he fell asleep smiling thinking of her love and the beautiful tree and the ivy…
Days have passed and day by day he forgot her more. The eyes you don’t get to see you forget, they say. She was writing him every day but he hardly found any time to answer her. His problems were solved, his life was secure , everything was all right yet no matter how much she loved him, he failed to hear her anymore.
And his absolute love crumbled like a handful of sand flowing between his fingers. He had a stable life yet his soul was empty and he was not happy , never happy as he used to be by her side. But maybe he was scared that he could not make her happy or maybe he forgot all the happy days. Sometimes in his dream he used to see her smile and hear her calling his name, he felt her kiss on his lips and her forehead leaning against his. And he kept telling himself again and again:“I need a bit more time, but one day, soon, I will go see her, and I will make things right and one day we’ll be happy.” And today became tomorrow , and that became one day soon, and then this became someday, and the day never came and his heart left her more and more.
She felt him far away and it pained her just as the blood draining from one’s heart must hurt. And she felt cursed and abandoned yet she was true to her love. “NEVER LET GO”. And she thought to herself that maybe something horrible happened to him and so he can’t make it back to her yet. And she waited, and wrote him how she missed him and how much she loved him. Yet no more answers…
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Not many years have passed and the news of her death arrived to his ears. It was only in that moment that he remembered her eyes and smile. A veil was suddenly lifted from his eyes and he realized that even though he took her love for granted she was now no longer there. And he saw the piles of letters in a corner of his library, abandoned, forgotten and never answered…
He got scared and felt sick and desperate. As he felt the pain creep in his heart he decided to attend the funeral so he went to at least see her a last time.
In her house, that now was unchanged, he saw on the wall the picture she took of him. “Never let go” he remembered, as his heart crashed in pain… And he realized that he got so lost in his own idiocy and crazy life that he let go the only soul that ever truly loved him. Willing to see her again he entered the room where the wake was being held. God, he hated wakes, but he wanted to see her, touch her, maybe it wasn’t true… maybe he still had a chance…
As he entered there he saw a simple closed coffin, a red rose fading on it and on a side table, under a glass cover, a crumbled sand castle…
“Oh how I love you… “ he mumbled, his tears flowing as rivers all over his face… “My Love, how could I have been such an idiot as to leave you?”
His knees couldn’t sustain his weight anymore and he was helped by few people to have a sit next to the coffin. As he touched the cold surface he leaned his forehead on it just as she used to lean her forehead on his years ago and he screamed:
“Oh my God, please, please make a miracle, please take me instead. My Love, please forgive me for what I’ve done, please forgive me, I would do anything to turn time back, I would do anything to make you happy…Anything, anything… Please forgive me”…
As he cried so badly he felt a ghostly light hand touching his shivering shoulder. The room turned around him and all turned black. Then, feeling his heartbeat in the temples and ears…
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…. he finally opened his eyes and saw her loving eyes crying in front of him…
At first he could not believe what happened and he looked around. They were again in that wonderful forest where they have been years before. He was leaning against the oak tree and a wonderful light was shining over them.
“Love, how come you are here, where are we?” he mumbled.
“The day you left you’ve had the most horrible stroke my Love , and you’ve been caught in a nightmare for many years. And when I saw you dying I was in such a pain that I asked God to have mercy on me and take me also. I think I died of a heart attack. But I know that God smiled and decided I deserve to be here with you, so He turned back the time…”
Suddenly his heart exploded with joy and as he held her in his arms and kissed her he whispered:
“We really have a second chance Love?”
“Yes my Love. Just remember, NEVER LET GO.”
1300 words, memyselfandela, 2013
Photos of the forest: memyselfandela, 2013
Today
Lazy morning, no big worries, just a plan to go to the city. A day that might start like any other, that could be dull or beautiful. Is it the destiny to decide? Or is it my choice?
Before I go out of the door I want to taste something I had in my fridge, but that I was keeping for “better days”. Yet you know, as I sit here I realise that when we only think in terms of “better days”, “tomorrow”, “soon” or “later”, nothing happens, and often that postponed happiness never comes. It’s like never having the guts to just LIVE and BE HAPPY.
So TODAY I decide that there’s no tomorrow. TODAY is the only day that I have, maybe the last day of my life, maybe the first of the rest of it. So TODAY is the creme brulee day.
When I crack the crust of my creme brulee millions of memories invade my brain and soul. This treat used to be a Sunday treat in the family of my mother, in times when we, children, used to gather in my grandmother’s house and get around the table with an unspoken desire to taste the heavenly sweetness of what my aunt or grandmother had prepared. Only the sight of this steaming beauty used to make me smile at that time.
I remember how it used to be prepared, with fresh eggs from our courtyard hens, fresh milk and care and love, but mostly with a patience that me, the child of that time, did not posess, as for my restless soul the only wish was to taste the result.
Now with my adult mind I remember all that. But I also remember things found out much later. Like the unhappy marriage of my aunt, like the way her husband was beating and abusing her and how she decided to suffer and accept it all for the love of her children, children that also did not treat her right when they were always naughty and mean towards her, copying the ugly attitude of their father towards this woman that in my eyes was nothing but love and patience, just like a saint. She did suffer it all till the last day of her sad painful life because her mother, my grandmother, tought her that “it’s such a shame to divorce, and people talk”.
Now she moved to heaven, life has continued without her battered hands and hard working spirit, without her patience. Maybe now her children regret her, now that their life has no more love and guidance. Now the son that was laughing at his mother hates his father, but that is another story.
When I taste creme brulee I remember life itself. But mostly I remember innocence and childhood. I remember the garden and the columbines I used to pick and how amazed I used to be by all that beauty of free summer days, like a child without worries and with little dreams in the heart, small dreams, full of light, light like the fluffs of dandelions flying around… The age of innocence when every feeling felt so intense, as the feelings were bigger than my tiny heart and they were bursting me with sadness or joy…
And as I sit here and remember all these images coming out of my memories, with sounds, tastes, colours, laughter and tears, I realise what a fragile thing life is, how much a moment can mean and how profound it can be to just sit and remember. I remember all the departed, in an absolute love and gratitude. As I know that they watch over me and all the others left in my family. They are our shining stars , not lost, but living in a dimension connected to ours, and waiting for us to get back to them in memories, to hold them and cherish them until oneday we will meet again.
TODAY is a day for creme brulee. TODAY I can dive in my childhood, TODAY I am alive, TODAY I embrace life and through life all around. TODAY, even if the sun might not shine outside, it radiates out of my beating heart.
700 words, memyselfandela, June 2013
LOVE IS.
When she talked about love it was almost like talking about life itself. It has been a lifelong quest and mystery. Yet with her adult mind she could finally get close to what love was and what love wasn’t.
When she was young she imagined love must be a sort of peaceful place, very much like her home used to be when mom and dad didn’t argue violently because he drank too much or because something went terribly wrong. She knew things were not right with mom and dad, yet they were her only image of love.
And then , after dad was gone, her love image started to fade. Love was for her a place far away from that heartbreak and sadness and tension she used to feel floating in the air of that tiny place she used to call home. Home felt no longer like home…Love was the escape from that sad prison, was a pair of arms to hold her with no word instead of constantly blaming her for not being the perfect child. Love was a sunny day far far away…
Years have passed and she had grown. She had no idea how other women were like, she only knew that in her childish way of feeling life and the world she will one day find out what love is. She gave her best to the men in her life. Yet none of them ever came close to make her feel loved. She got so used to see them preoccupied only by themselves and their needs and wants, by their rules and pleasures, never looking at what she feels, never trying to ever make her smile, never caring… In the end they were for her a list of people, each one with other huge qualities and flaws, each one turning his back in their sleep instead of holding her near, each one thinking only about their damn control and desires, never about the beauty of love and life together… At that point she accepted that probably she was never to find the love. She was tired. Tired of always giving it all and seeing the man in her life only take and never care about filling up her soul with something too. Tired of feeding his soul with trust, strength, hope, tired of putting a shoulder to forever solve his problems and never getting to live a day when he was finally done with those problems and looked at her. Tired of being robbed of ideas and feelings, of giving all her love just to receive sometimes a friendly kiss… Tired of treating all like kings when they treated her like a pauper that needs to wait and forever be understanding and patient for one day, one day love will be possible. And that one day never came.
Some called her muse, some good friend, some empath, some angel, and funny thing, they all said they loved her even if they didn’t because they were too busy loving themselves. They have all regreted her when she left. But she knew that none had really loved her. They were in love with how good she made them feel about themselves, not in love with her.
One day she knew that the change was there. She was tired of being alone. She was tired of giving love to people that could not love. She knew that she doesn’t need to proove anyone anything, because she was beautiful and that was all. She was, just because. She knew that she doesn’t need any man to tell her how golden she is. That she doesn’t care anymore if they ever had or made time for her. That it didn’t pain her anymore, for she had all the time in the world now, and she was no longer exclusively anyones but belonged only to herself. That was the day when she realised that SHE WAS THE LOVE. That she was healed of the lack of confidence and of all that cursed lifelong pain.
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Love is patient, love is kind, love is childlike. Love does not feed the ego, but cares about the soul. Love IS. With no excuses, postponing, selfishness… It simply IS.
Do not think it, live it. In private, behind a closed door or in the open, regardless of the way how others judge you.
Love, true love, the capital “L” love, doesn’t need legal papers, money, it’s not a choice, it’s your number one priority, for if it’s true love, it fills up your soul so much that you can’t see anything and anyone else. And if you don’t feel it there, if you have to ask for it, beg for it, if you are the constant giver, if you forever need to wait for it to work, or if that love needs pretexts to be able to even start, then dear friend, keep going.
Trust me, one day you will understand what LOVE IS.
memyselfandela, 2013
Red Fox
They call me Red Fox. Why on Earth is that? Hmmm… For many reasons. Part because of my red hair, part because of the spark in the look in my eyes. When the transceiver goes on that’s what you hear: “Red Fox, Red Fox, do you hear me?” Oh yes, I hear them all. With my ears but mostly with my mind and soul.
I’ve been very tolerant all my life, that is a fact. I’ve been patient since I was a kid, and when I hardly found around any kids like me to play with I’ve learned instead how to play word games with the adults in my family or how to voraciously go through all the books I could lay my hands on. Some of the best were absolutely hated by others that had simply no sense of imagination. But what a beauty they have missed…So I didn’t give a damn. I was such a curious kid that there’s a long list of family fables I have unwillingly created. Yes, I’ve done many silly things too. But also if you had a shit situation I was the one to turn it into a luck.
But then I was so naive in my young years that I was fascinated by any living creature encountered. I have studied in a complete amazement all, just like a little fox…
Of course in this process I have learned a lot but I have also met all my natural predators. They looked pretty nice on the outside, but none had any problems with trying to take advantage of me in any possible way. None had any remorse after using my energy or resources, none had any regret after breaking my heart or while dumping me completely dizzy on the edge of whatever ditch was convenient.
Yet I must thank them all. For some reason beyond my understanding none of them was allowed to give me the last blow. And so from fragile I became strong, from strong even stronger and from silly, wiser. And life goes on.
Now when you meet me you have no idea that you meet the Red Fox. This young specimen has made at some point in her life a choice: rather then bite herself the enemies heads off, to simply allow another force to do it’s part. And this works just beautifully.
I will come as close to you as to allow you to show me your true character. I might become your friend forever if you don’t betray me. I will get as close as to hear your heartbeat and see your pupils dilate. Yet, you won’t even know when I’m gone if you dare to try to hurt me…You won’t see my traces, you won’t ever find me again. I will hide forever to heal my wounds if you cut through my heart, but remember, I don’t ever need to worry about you again, Kharma knows your location so much better than me.
Over and out.
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500 words, memyselfandela, 2013
Art – Culpeo Fox
Love or Loss ?
There are many things one can say about love. We read many, we are told few by our parents, we witness some. Maybe the best and worst lessons are the ones we learn on our own. I have had in my life many people around and I have learned from them a lot. And one of the reasons why I have opened my blog a year ago was to share my feelings, thoughts and experience, I offer the world my blog so that maybe others can have an advice or a spark of motivation in their life in moments when they have none.
I’ve learned how one can live a lifetime with a bad partner only for the sake of the children. Poisonous combination that makes unhappy children. The poor parents think that they save their children, but never think how the poison and unhappiness inside that life together gets deep in their children’s souls. They have no idea how a child hears the most silent fights or senses the lack of love. I’ve seen only two types of children resulting from such unhappy marriages: either very selfish ones, or too sensitive.
I’ve learned how one can look for love in a multitude of affairs because there’s no love at home. And yet that person never finds that love and the void in their heart grows more and more till it swallows them whole in an endless misery. Because when we only live for ourselves or our satisfaction we can never be happy.
I’ve learned how children that have received love in their childhood were capable of loving with all their heart while other children that grew up in a violent home without love were not able to love, but gave others the same mess they received. I’ve met both, the kind ones were my friends in school, the bad ones have been the ones that have bullied me and others.
I’ve learned how love can sacrifice so very much just to save someone. I’ve lived and seen this very often, for out of love simple or great things have happened many times around me in this life. From a door opened for a stranger to a path to healing given to a sick person or to shelter given when least expected in life.
I’ve learned how people can give up their happiness for the sake of their children. The greatest example is my mother, who has never thought of remarrying after the loss of my father and shared her whole life with me, her only child. That makes my mother in my eyes a saint, and maybe nobody has loved more their mother than I love mine. Yet I must say, I absolutely regret that she gave up her happiness, she would have deserved more than so many others to have a man that loves her and supports her in her tough life.
On my skin I’ve learned some lessons I don’t wish to anyone to learn. I’ve learned how much I could love someone that wanted to use me, abuse me, tried to change me or left me. It’s ironic how the kindest people seem to meet the worst, I’ve seen this often in life happening to good people. I have put all of my heart in every love that I shared, but the most painful moment has always been the one when I have lost my trust. When I looked that person in their eyes and tried to live with what they had said or done and could not understand how someone I loved so much could hurt me so and be so selfish and inconsiderate. That moment when your heart shatters, when you feel breathless with pain and betrayed is unspeakable.
How do you know if you’re truly loved? If they find reasons to keep you there but are never there for you, they don’t love you, they only love themselves. If they find pretexts for not doing the right things in that love or never keep their promisses they don’t love you. If they humiliate you, they don’t love you. If they never support you they don’t love you. If they need to put you down just to feel better about themselves they don’t love you. If you draw a line and all you see is pain in that love, you should turn around and go. Have a good look at the way that person makes you feel like. And you will know the answer.
When it comes to love I have found only two conclusions.
* Regardless of all the complications life can have , whoever loves you will climb any mountain, break himself in pieces , sacrifice himself or find the most unexpected solutions to be there for you . They will make you the center of their life and you will feel loved and even if they are not strong or perfect they will still do their best to become better.
If you’re sick, they will try to fix you. If you’re lonely, they will be there for you. If you need time they will give you time and patience. If you cannot trust they will make you trust again.
* Nobody, absolutely nobody deserves your tears. If they make you cry or can stand the simple thought of making you cry they are unworthy of your love.
This goes for the ladies:
“You deserve a man that ruins your lipstick, not your mascara. The one that deserves your tears will not make you cry.”
Much love to you all,
Ela.
New Life
Copyright-Janet Webb
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The car stopped on the narrow road, in front of the old house.
He could not believe the shape in which the house ended after those years when he was far away. Now that she was sick he thought of the old family house for a quiet life. He must find a cure, he must find a way to save her, he must…
Oh darling, look at it, we’ll have to repair, paint and clean it all… My God, so much work…. she sighed looking at him with love.
No, darling, don’t you worry. I’ll build you a new life.
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100 words, memyselfandela 2013, Friday Fictioneers
Listening
She is the only one listening
They might call her a simple cat
But she is her only true friend,
More faithful than any human
Her extra pair of eyes,
Smarter than a dog,
Faster than a jackal.
The old lady and the cat
One can see them everywhere
Never apart.
After a long painful day
She is the only one that sees
The effort it takes to simply walk.
In the end I think
They are not a cat and an old lady
But two angelic souls
Taking care of each other
Trapped in this concentrationary dimension
Called life.
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100 words
memyselfandela, 2013
Photo Source: Black and White
Angel
Family. She was tought that this is all that matters. And it was because she was born in South America, in a family of strong characters, that Maria dedicated her whole life to her family. It was not easy to grow up in their rich family with their strong father and extremely religious mother.
Maria was the best in everythng, better than her brothers. Now a doctor, mother of two, wife and daugther she was facing her own drama: the cancer only left her few months to live.
It was only now, after a lifetime’s sacrifice, that her family forgot all the rigour of rules and discipline and supported her. Countless drugs and treatments were tried, countless clinics contacted, a cortege of specialists came straingt to the family villa to see Maria and find a cure. Even the old mother, Lucia, swore crying on her knees, in front of Saint Anthony, that if her daughter will regain her life she will live like a nun for the rest of her life.
Yet, all money and prayers served for nothing. And all regrets could not make good this drama. Maria closed her eyes in a Sunday morning as the shining sun made her face look like an angel.
Tears in her eyes
Lucia regrets the days
when she gave no love.
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220 words
memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for: Līgo Haībun Challenge
memyselfandela 