Rest. Rewind. Resilience
Thought of the day: Regardless of what you believe deep inside, that you can make it or not, YOU ARE RIGHT!
There’s a time for work, for words and definitely for thoughts in between. After my year off to explore life, I am now back with more energy than ever and hopefully with more wisdom as well. Having taken some time to rest and rewind, the consequence was a greater resilience but also the epiphany that life is much simpler than we think it to be. We are the authors of the complications and we are the blind paying for it too.
It finally feels like spring. An even though there are battles to be won and tasks to be accomplished, it all starts with a grain of hope. Or a grain of trust in our own ability to make it.
There are many people out there who work very hard, yet who (captive in their own existence) cannot see the wood for the trees. They never understand how important they are for others and this is because nobody has ever told them what a great job they do or what incredible abilities they have to make this world a better place with their efforts, every day.
This thought goes out to all those quiet awesome people who do not know how great they are because they are humble. Who may not even appreciate how hard they work because nobody gives them a kind word. They may not trust themselves because nobody else trusts them.
If you know any of those people, do a great thing today: Tell them a big THANK YOU for being themselves. Tell them to carry on because they make such a difference. And tell them to believe they will make it. And it will happen.
300 words and Photos: Memyselfandela/ Adela Galasiu, April 2018
Soul Garden
Amazing thing
this human soul
million foes ambush it
thousand adversity winters wash it off
yet it rises from hell
blooming again.
22 words & photo- memyselfandela/ adela galasiu , July 2017
Loner
Don’t be scared of life, of the cold anonymous world.
Cut the wires that feed your fears.
Live today as if it would be the last day left on the face of Earth
Even if everything may crumble around you.
Don’t listen to your clutched fists
Don’t hear the bad words flying around you.
Don’t hide from your dark side.
You have yourself and your gentle thought rising above your eyebrows.
Join your heart for a ride deep inside yourself,
Turn your arms towards who you really are and embrace your soul.
When you will be your own friend
You will never feel empty again in your silent corner of the loner.
111 words, Memyselfandela, November 2013
Photos: Pinterest
Life
I have looked death in the eyes few times. For others but also for myself. I have been often told that there’s no God and no afterlife, but folllowing my encounters with death I guess I am too convinced of the contrary to listen to those sceptic voices. I do respect what other people think, but respecting others will never reduce my beliefs to nothing, on the contrary.
Most of the people have an absolutely disgusted look on their face when they hear about death. Some venerate it. Some fear it to the extent that they don’t even want to think about it. We’re all aware it exists. Most of us cannot understand it. But the same death that means decay, foulness, nothingness and still, is part of us just as much as it has been part of our ancestors too.
People turn their face away from death because they are scared or because they have been taught that it can bring disease or that it is unclean. Or because they prefer to concentrate on the life, rather than see the whole process, black and white, doing and undoing, life, death and new life again. For the immediate you and me, what matters is today, what we do, what we have, what we eat, where we go. But we live in a society that is equally one of death as much of one of life, isn’t it? Or maybe even more one of death than one of life? We eat meat, we cut flowers, people hunt, people get cremated and buried or offer their bodies to science. People sell weapons and wars are being fought. Some people thrive while others starve to death.
There is not only the beauty and goodness daily put on display for sales targets, but also the reverse side of it all. There are not only new born babies and blooming flowers, but also dead people laid to rest and entire systems that revolve around death itself. From the undertakers that earn a fortune while dealing with grieving families to the little beetles that eat decaying flesh, all have a little part in it.
Some of the birds that have nested last year have died, and a suite of insects and plants contribute now to taking apart and redistributing every material atom of them. Every little creature and plant that dies gets quickly surrounded by a cortege of creatures, just like a circus that comes to town and gets very busy before the show. Behind the scenes of it all nothing gets saved or lost, but everything is transformed in new matter for life, and so new life can find the raw minerals needed for it to emerge again.
Many years ago, as I was dealing with the water that was trying to find its way into my lungs, I had forgotten who I was or what I wanted from life. What I had eaten that morning or what I had in my bank account had no meaning at all. It was all worthless and the only thing I could gasp for was a breath of air. I was, I guess, not different than a wounded bird that beats its wings one more time before it takes a last breath. A little part of me knew that it could have been the final moment that day. And yes, it was scary. Scary because I had no idea what was about to happen. Horribly scary because I had no control over my own life. There and then I was not ready to give up. Between few heartbeats and a hope for air it occurred to me that I had not appreciated life truly until then. And God how I wanted to live!
In a mysterious way, a hand has been stretched my way. Not only a friendly material hand, but also a divine one. Then, when I finished coughing, with a horrible salty aftertaste and a stomach full of seawater, feeling sick and wet, I thought that it was not the time to go just yet, not until I would have learned the lesson of what life was all about. I think I was determined to take life more seriously.
I think I understand life and death more now, but like any person that has been sightless for many years, I am now awfully blinded by the intense light of the truth. That moment of salvation, the spark of life in my veins and the thought that accompanied them cannot be the result of an evolutionist theory, they are rather a mystery that my human mind is not ready to embrace just yet.
Other creatures are unaware of the realities of our human life. Birds and animals and plants cannot understand our complicated life and needs, our food, our languages, our customs. They do not consider themselves the greatest in the universe like we do. They have no idea what mathematics or science are, yet they are very much alive and lead a simple happy life. There are a limited number of neurons in our skulls, how could they possibly perceive the infinity of the universe? It is impossible. I am convinced that us humans cannot understand the whole complexity of life, all the dimensions that surround us, all the beauties of the universe and even less the mystery and greatness of the Creator of it all.
…………………………………………………………………..
900 words, Adela Galasiu, 2016
Photography: Adela Galasiu, May 2016
Blossoms
Spring blossoms
crashing (neu)roses,
defrosting (syn)apses and dreams.
Flowers explode
in renewed life
from the ancient mud.
Leaves waltz stormy with the light
Bees rest tired feet for a spell
before conquering another petal.
Sit and listen.
be humble. be grateful.
you are. now. alive.
…………………………………
45 words, Adela Galasiu, May 2016
Photography: Adela Galasiu , April-May 2016
March
A gentle thought to all the women in the world
Mothers and sisters,
Young girls and grandmothers.
March is the month that celebrates you all,
Your kindness and love,
Your beauty and your smiles.
Our life would be nothing without you.
May the ones in your life love and cherish you
As you rightly deserve.
Photo: Camelia, by Adela Galasiu, February 2016, Isle of Wight, UK.
Reflection
Outside your glass walls,
You can hear my world’s calls,
But if you look inside you’ll see
A difference between you and me.
Airborne, fireflies reach my sky
Prisoner, your heart wonders why
Nailed to the ground it can’t simply be free
Without a difference, just like me.
You may belong to a paralel world
Where winter’s scorching, summer’s cold
And the reflection’s a bit duller
Than the innitial vivid colour.
Reach out your finger, come and touch
A world of wonder named as such.
Yet if you break it, it won’t be
Just as amazed as you with me.
100 words, memyselfandela / Adela Galasiu, 2015
Photograph: http://www.texnoworship.com.ar/2014/07/14-mind-bending-reflection-photographs.html
Yes / Da , Octavian Paler
Yes
“Yes, It isn’t always wise to say
that the muses get silent among weapons..
My words are here and I hold them
as you would hold a spear.
Mother, forgive me, I couldn’t otherwise.
I know you’ve been quiet all life
and I should have , maybe, done the same
but out of our silence
a scream had to gush oneday
and here it is, filling up my mouth with hope and tears
and with a sunny sadness
that is mine, I’m not sure,
mine or my grave’s. But
this has almost
no more importance at all.”
Octavian Paler, Poems
Da
“Da, nu e întotdeauna o înţelepciune să spui
că muzele tac între arme.
Cuvintele mele sunt aici şi le strâng
ca pe o lance.
Mamă, iartă-mă, nu puteam altfel.
Ştiu, tu ai tăcut toată viaţa
şi ar fi trebuit şi eu să fac, poate, la fel,
dar trebuia odată ca din tăcerea noastră
să ţâşnească un strigăt
şi, iată-l, îmi umple gura de speranţă şi lacrimi
şi de o tristeţe însorită
ce-mi aparţine, nu mai ştiu,
mie sau mormântului meu. Dar
aceasta aproape nu mai are
nicio importanţă. “
Octavian Paler, Poeme
Translation: Adela Galasiu
Photo: Photobucket
Eyes / Ochi
In a far away land there is a city with hundreds of wise houses. Each house has a roof, a soul and an attic with two windows. Eyes scrutinize the birds that get back to their nests late at night, the grannies that bake homemade bread, the blatant children playing outside, the flowers raising their heads in the sun, the cats that purr in hidden corners, the dogs hiding their precious bones, the women that dream of the return of their husbands and the husbands dreaming of other women.
Every day opens a new color, a new hope, ends a life and begins others. Every evening sends to sleep all the rippled memories of the day, all the children and cats and birds and wives and husbands. Some of the grannies will sleep longer, other babies will get born out of the dreams of past nights. Some of the flowers will grow seeds, others will bloom, the stars will seem to rotate on the sky awaiting the rays of the same sun that has opened the eyes of all the children and women and cats and husbands and grannies and birds.
When morning comes the smell of coffee invades the streets. It fills up the sky and the staircases of all houses. As eyes open life vibrates, noises clash in the air, birds sing again, cats lick meticulously their paws and wash their furs with slow movements on the edge of wide open windows, dogs inspect every corner of their territory, children moan instead of waking up, wives pack lunch for their husbands, husbands go to work hoping that the day will be better that the other days. And even though life seems the same, it is always different.
In the city where houses have eyes life can still flow in unexpected patterns. 
Houses have eyes in Sibiu, Romania.
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Intr-o tara indepartata exista un oras cu sute de case intelepte. Fiecare casa are un acoperis, un suflet si un pod cu doua ferestre. Ochi privesc cu mare atentie pasarile care se intorc la cuiburile lor noaptea, bunicile care coc paine de casa, copiii galagiosi care se joaca pe afara, florile care isi ridica frumosul cap in soare, pisicile care torc in colturi ascunse, cainii care isi ascund mult iubitele oase, femeile care viseaza cu ochii deschisi la intoarcerea barbatilor lor si barbatii care viseaza la cu totul alte femei.
Fiecare zi deschide o noua culoare, o noua speranta, sfarseste o noua viata si incepe altele. Fiecare seara trimite la culcare toate amintirile ondulate ale zilei, toti copiii si toate pisicile si toate pasarile si toate nevestele si toti barbatii. Unele bunici vor dormi mai mult, alti copii se vor naste din visele noptilor care au trecut. Unele flori vor face seminte, altele vor inflori, stelele vor parea ca se rotesc pe cer asteptand razele aceluiasi soare care a deschis ochii tuturor copiiilor si femeilor si pisicilor si barbatilor si bunicilor si pasarilor.
Cand vine dimineata aroma de cafea napadeste toate strazile. Umple cerul si casele scarilor. In timp ce ochii se deschid, viata vibreaza, zgomote se ciocnesc in aer, pasari canta din nou, pisici isi ling meticulos labele si isi spala blana cu miscari foarte tacticoase pe marginea ferestrelor larg deschise, caini inspecteaza fiecare colt al teritoriului lor, copii gem in loc sa se trezeasca, neveste impacheteaza pranzul pentru barbatii lor, barbati merg la lucru sperand ca ziua va fi mai buna decat alte zile. Si desi viata pare la fel, este mai totdeauna diferita.
In orasul in care casele au ochi viata poate inca sa se scurga in tipare cu totul neasteptate.
Casele au ochi in Sibiu, Romania.
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300 words / 300 de cuvinte,
Story and Translation / Poveste si Traducere : memyselfandela / Adela Galasiu October 2013 / July 2015
Photo- Photobucket
Marooned
Motto: “We are cut, we are fallen.
We are become part of that unfeeling universe that sleeps
when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie asleep.” /
” Suntem secerati, suntem cazuti. Am devenit parte a
acelui univers lipsit de simturi care doarme cand suntem cel mai activi
si mocneste ca jarul cand ne intindem in somn.”
Virginia Woolf, The Waves/ Virginia Woolf, Valurile
MAROONED
I am lost like a stone
Submerged in the depths
Of this endless reality
In which our thoughts sometimes touch.
They come and go
Sometimes tormented like an agony
Sometimes calm like a madman
Marooned on an island of thousand silences.
Don’t keep me in your pocket forever,
Throw me far away,
Just enjoy the moment of
My passing ripples through your existence.
NAUFRAGIAT
Sunt pierdut ca o piatra
Scufundata in adancurile
Acestei realitati fara sfarsit
In care gandurile noastre uneori se ating.
Ele vin si pleaca
Uneori chinuite ca o agonie
Alteori calme precum un nebun
Naufragiat pe o insula a miilor de taceri.
Nu ma tine in buzunarul tau pentru totdeauna
Arunca-ma in departare,
Bucura-te doar de momentul
Trecatoarelor mele unde prin existenta ta.
———————
memyselfandela/ Adela Galasiu, 63 words, 2014
Photo: Photobucket.
Waves
Motto: “How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.” Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Peace in a distance,
Overwhelming and grand,
My spirit cannot touch it.
I have drowned my words in the blue
In the green and darkness.
Isn’t silence better?
Smashing restless against the walls of my soul,
Irregular resolute
Waves.
Photos: Adela Galasiu, 2014
39 words, memyselfandela, 2014
Black & White & Rose
Everything consists of
mostly empty space
filling the gaps between
levitating particles.
The singing bird,
the traveling train,
the darkness around,
your inquisitive eye
all are mostly not here.
Could we exist
without the invisible
particle of life
that makes
all the difference?
God’s breath of life
radiates inside us
creating the moments
that touch our hearts,
giving them substance.
In a life that could close
like a dark eyelid
over all
we defy all logic
and will always remain
absolute blossom.
81 words, memyselfandela/Adela Galasiu, June 2014
Here / Aici
You can reach from your distant world
my caged sea of dreams
and my head resting on your sands, in a thought.
Hungry eyes gaze full of unspoken stories
lost in this wind, flying, diving, jumping
in this phase of time that belongs to us.
Memories, white and blue
embrace your bones, fill up my breath
dissolving in this finest infusion of light.
——————————————-
Poți atinge din lumea ta îndepărtată
mare mea de vise incuiate
și capul meu rezemat pe nisipurile tale, într-un gând.
Ochi înfometați privesc plini de povești nespuse,
pierduți în acest vânt, zburand, scufundându-se, sărind
în această fază a timpului care ne aparține.
Amintiri, albe și albastre,
îmbrățișeaza oasele tale, umplu respirația mea
dizolvandu-se în aceasta minunata infuzie de lumină.
63 words, memyselfandela/ Adela Galasiu June 2014
Photo: Adela Galasiu, May 2014
Bloom – 2 Years of Blogging
My dear friends, I am blogging already for 2 years now.
What an intensive experience it was, what a great experience I see ahead.
I thank each and every one of you for stopping by in my humble universe.
Love and Light to you all,
Adela
—————————————————-
Bloom
close your yes
so that we don’t lose any atom of us
l hide you in me
leave out all the rest
keep on pulsating my love
inside of our heart
we bloom
——————————
33 words, memyselfandela, 2012
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.
Lunatic
The absolute solitude embraces the caryatids but has not forgotten the smile in your eyes.
I spend my days with my rebel freedom, with the stone kings and the frozen time.
Life continues to pulsate in the depths of my heartless veins.
On the same stairs where you were holding my hand
The rain has replaced the sound of your footsteps beside me.
Your wish for happiness has not yet extinguished my soul.
I write like a lunatic on the corner of every table I happen to find,
In the silent places where I have once been with you.
Lunatic. Yes, I am a lunatic. The absolute lunatic for loving you.
111 words, memyselfandela, February 2014
Photo: Photobucket
The Movie Bet
As you all know I have always loved movies. Watching movies has been throughout my life a balm for my soul and an exercise for my mind, a delight for my imagination and a great inspiration.
At some point in my past I made a bet that I will be able to see more than 100 cinema movies. The bet was meant for this year but I think I have seen more than 100 movies every year anyway. So as the time goes by I will honour this bet on my own and I will share with you my movie experience and thoughts.
Here are the movies seen this year so far:
1. Rush (2013)
2. Escape Plan (2013)
3. Carrie (2013)
4. Walking with Dinosaurs (2013)
5. The Hobbit (2013)
6. Paranormal Activity (2014)
7. American Hustle (2013)
8. Frozen (2013)
9. Blue Jasmine (2013)
10. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
11. Epic (2013)
12. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
13. Delivery Man (2013)
14. Last Vegas (2013)
15. Mr Peabody and Sherman (2014)
16. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
17. I, Frankenstein (2014)
18. Out of the Furnace (2013)
19. Saving Mr Banks (2014)
20. Jack Ryan : Shadow Recruit (2014)
And the journey continues…
memyselfandela, February 2014
New page dedicated to the cinema: The Movie Bet
Last Rose
Behind the fences of my soul
Where foxes did not need to hunt
And hares lived in bliss
I had grown you my garden of roses.
The wolf and the lamb in my heart
Were living always together,
No affliction or fear had come upon them
In the quiet shelter of this world.
You have come and then left like a thief
Greedily taking my defenses, merciless crushing my peace.
Now that I’m broken and cold like a dying stone,
Away from all sanctuary, my heart blooms your last rose.
Photos: Adela Galasiu
90 words, memyselfandela, 2014
Rhapsody in Blue – Be Passionate, Be True, Be You!
Today I offer you a rhapsody from my heart. An effusively rapturous and extravagant discourse. My expression of enthusiasm and praise for a musical piece that I absolutely madly deeply adore.
Whoever has read my blog in the past knows that I am passionate about Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I have written about it in the past and I listen to it every once in a while when I am happy or when I recharge my inner batteries. Yesterday, as I read one very surprising comment on my blog, I have realised that I have never taken the time to put together all the reasons why I love this musical piece so very much.
The comment came from a BBC Radio 4 producer who is researching for a programme about Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I was first of all completely surprised that my post about Gershwin even showed up in an online search. But it was even more exciting for me when I had the joy to discuss on the phone with the producer and I was asked what feelings this particular piece of music awakens in my memory and heart.
If I want to explain what I feel about it I need to rewind my whole life. My memories of it start in childhood when I heard this piece on the radio and have simply fallen in love with it. Coming from a family that loved music, I have listened to both classics and modern music as I grew up. I have fed my spirit with opera played on old magnetic cassettes, with Chopin and Beethoven, with Ravel and Vivaldi, just like I have fed my soul later on in my life with the music of the 80’s and the rock music. When I was a child music was a great joy for us, as in the communism we did not have access to all the variety of entertainment that one can experience now. It was only natural that I fell in love with this piece that infuses Jazz, Impressionism and classical elements molten in a 20th Century romantic theme offered with brittle and quirky interruptions.
This appreciation for the Rhapsody in Blue has continued throughout all my life. Every time when I was defeated and low I have sat and listened to it. Unlike other people with linear lives I have been through many changes, I have witnessed a lot of pain, loss, death, suffering, but also love, joy, sacrifice and hope. Wherever things were worst in my family I was present. Throughout this all, whenever I have listened to this piece of music I have added another pearl of feeling to what has become now a very long string. To me it is now not only music, but a masterpiece and pure beauty. And because it has been with me through it all, happy moments, sad moments and great changes, it has become a part of me and a symbol of life itself.
When I say life I don’t mean only good things. Life has many layers, ups and downs, just like the human mind and heart. There are many shades and colours, numerous moments of darkness and light that create the clear image of our multidimensional reality, a rich kaleidoscope of feelings, moments, images and sounds that create a whole.
Many people don’t know that this piece of music was a commission and that it has been written in a train. This may sound uninteresting for some, what is a train you may say. Well, for me a train means volumes. My father has passed away in a train. I have loved travelling by train all my life. Even now the train is my favourite transportation to wherever I go. It brings memories, it revives moments in my past, it is also (for those who believe that dreams have a meaning) a symbol of change, passage and novelty in one’s life. Gershwin says himself: “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise… “. He is right, it often happens to me too to hear the tune in the noise…
Rhapsody in Blue was a challenge because it was created in a very short period of time, against the clock, by a young and ambitious Gershwin that didn’t want someone else to steal his idea. This speaks volumes for me again. Under a similar pressure I have left Romania and started a new life in a moment when I felt I must do and I can do more with my life. I was young, ambitious and a bit unaware of what life may bring. But I didn’t care, I had only one thing in my mind- I wanted to make it. I think it is out of such moments of determination that meaningful things get born.
Did you know that the original title was “American Rhapsody”? In the end the title of this piece was inspired by two famous paintings of James Whistler of which one, “Nocturne In Blue And Green of the Thames at Chelsea”, has been rejected and misunderstood in the beginning because it was too modern for the moment when it was offered to the public. There are people who, despite of being rejected for their ideas or passion, carry on and believe in their dream until one day that dream proves to be an extraordinary thing. They may not see all the staircase, but they go up step by step, they simply have faith. It is not easy to believe in your own value when maybe nobody else does, yet being consistent in your efforts brings great results in the end.
Gershwin was not conservatory trained, an awareness of which he carried with him to his grave, and something his arch critics would never allow future students of the piano to forget. Yet, no conservatory teaches talent, so nothing can stand in front of Gershwin’s unique style and genius. Pianists have consistently interpreted Gershwin somewhere between the classicism of Chopin and the 20th Century romanticism of Rachmaninoff, but when it comes to Gershwin’s strict rhythms, what is not heard is more important than what is, for it is the magic of the split-second spacing between the notes that brings Gershwin’s Rhapsody to life in a melodic thread woven itself into a masterpiece.
The Rhapsody, with its composer as soloist, was premiered in front of a packed house that included Rachmaninov, Kreisler, McCormack, Godowsky, Sousa, Heifetz and Stokowski. Even the ones that later did not like it when it was first presented to the public and said it would have been “structurally flawed” have categorised it as a “sentimental” piece. It is as melancholic as my Romanian soul and it is full of feeling and light. It is sad at some points. It is happy, rhythmic and improvised too. Through all these characteristics it is ALIVE. If you would listen to only a part of it, if you would take a bit out of it, if you would listen to it all it would be just as alive, and that is amazing. It is a series of stories put all together, a series of songs that match perfectly in a single, uninterrupted composition of continuous and extravagant enthusiasm.
I have listened to it through various moments in my life and I have understood it in different ways. It speaks to me of happy childhood years. The first clarinet trill reminds me of a new beginning, of a new day, of sunrise. I am an animation movie lover, so when I have seen it translated into image by Disney’s Fantasia 2000 I have added even more meaning to it, as I thought that the animation is a perfect illustration for the hope trapped inside this fabulous piece of music. And I will always remember how I danced on this piece with the man I love. In a moment in time, in a quiet evening, in a quiet flat, in a quiet neighbourhood in London he has taken my hand in his hand and we have danced on this wonderful rhapsody. Our souls were dancing too, we were happy, the heart was full, the world was in the right place and we were in the right feeling.
I love Rhapsody in Blue for many reasons, for the sweet sentimental parts, for the crescendos, for the vivid pace, for the epic dimension of it, for the jazz veins and the classical bursts. My interpretation of it is perfectly subjective, I see it through the lenses of my own soul, maybe different than other people. But for me it represents life itself seen through the eyes of an optimist. Unflawed and tightly woven, with its early 20th Century innocence and brilliant musical statements taken in and out of the performers and listeners souls, Rhapsody in Blue is for me a personal stairway to paradise.
Photos: “Blue”, Adela Galasiu 2013
1500 words, memyselfandela, January 2014
More about Gershwin : Gershwin plays Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue – posted in April 2012
BBC Radio 4 – Soul Music – The stories behind pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/soulmusic
Be
Come back Love, I have waited for you an eternity. I will wait till I’ll have no more reason to be…
Where I sit,
my windows burst with agony
only traces left of the sunshine.
Screams of pain,
from the bleeding heart within
smoke raising
from my dying fire,
life in a crude acknowledgement
and in the oblivion of my aching mind.
but all is left is this day,
within.
What is dull for others
is a deep dive in the consciousness for me,
my long-lost confession from deserted lives,
memories filling the deep blue sea
as a storm,
scratching lines on my face
and crevasses in my soul,
harbours of quiet
where sometimes only a lost echo
still lingers.
It is through this singular beauty,
the spark inside the chaos,
that I now witness
the only path that represents
sheer living.
I am consciousness.
Hanged like a shroud
eternity awaits
the sight of a life lived
with passion,
an escape from this colourless dimension
through the fire that burns deep inside every breath.
Madness it is, yet it is life
above just a carcass, into the soul
reborn –
pure existence
erasing all negative just to give life to life itself.
When I will finally open my windows
my silence will flood the outer universes
and my ardent heart
will cast far away the song of this ephemeral moment
so that my reflected souls outside
will know that we only had this day
to be.
Thank you Andre, Vandana and Luna Amara.
222 words, Memyselfandela, January 2014
Wash
God, have mercy, let it rain today,
My heart is so black, like my mind in ways.
Oh , there was a time when I could feel his taste.
His smiling eyes before me, tears down my face.
Sin for sale. Lover, will it feed your need?
Tell me, why you planted all these devil’s seeds?
What is now the truth? Can we get it back?
It’s was on the inside but you lost it’s track.
What was clean and pure is now left outside
On these paths of living we walk without guide.
What you knew and hid kills our frail tomorrow.
Bring your love back, lover, I may die of sorrow.
Bring life back, reborn, wash my love with tears
Be not scared to feel, love above all fears.
memyselfandela, January 2014
The Sound of Missing You
The sun paints a last trace of life before dying in agony. With it’s last drops of shadow it lingers under my tired eyes.
I carry within the memory of what love used to be. I can still hear our fading steps on the same old roads, on the same grey pavement. I can still feel your arm tight around my waist and your laughter.
Near me other couples chat like we used to, holding hands, blessed to not know how futile and doomed this moment of happiness is, sentenced to only live for a glimpse in time.
*
I was a fool to believe that you can make a choice. No. I chose you. The one you really are, not the one that hides his face. The one in which I believe, not the one that never believes in himself.
Darkness rises all around. In thoughts, in the shivering cold, in the unspoken emptiness. My once loving heart bleeds at the thought that you’re gone, yet nobody can take me the smile that you used to have in your eyes.
Maybe in your dimension you dance now with other masked faces and other smiles give you a passing smile. Yet deep inside you will never find your path on your own, there’s no path without love.
**
Rain strikes my cheek like your fingers once used to, falling cold, quenching the marks left by your ardent kisses. My lips whisper the shadows of the same name that never ceased to linger in my mind since I last saw you.
Countless prayers go your way, but you don’t even know it. If I would have stepped off the edge of my life I would still have never found you, for you are far, much further than my thought can reach to kiss you good night.
Memories of a madman fill up the sky as I lay myself to sleep. But even in my dream there will only be this burning love that has never ended.
***
333 words, memyselfandela, January 2014
memyselfandela 