Always
There are signs of life from the other side of the rainbow – your soul shining across to me.
I’m no longer sad for your departure, I have learned you have never left.
You bloom in every rose, you smile in every sunshine, we breathe the same air.
I celebrate your life and love as I celebrate all others and the entire eternity.
Always.
63 words, poem and photos/ and roses grown by -Adela Galasiu / memyselfandela June 2018
Dedicated to my father Ioan, for his birthday, 24.06.1949. Happy birthday dad, the roses bloom for you!
Moment
Motto: “If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start…
It’s the only good fight there is.” Charles Bukowski
Today is a gift. I am grateful to be here, feeling alive. I breathe in. I listen to a ring-dove singing in the tree next to me. I take in the air, the light, the smell of yesterday’s rain. Bumblebees come out sleepy trying to make up for the food they could not collect yesterday, hovering over lavender bushes and peppermint flowers that wave gently in the breeze. God smiles over us. The sun shines through the branches of the chestnut tree, my flowers bloom in the garden, their colours vibrating live a song in my eyes. Maybe they are, just like me, a part of God’s dream. Or maybe they are just a form of different frequency than the one of my soul. Maybe they are just strings that God plays with , like one plays a harp. It all makes sense, even though often my mind cannot even grasp the beauty of it all.
I drink a glass of water and contemplate life, like I do every once in a while, like we probably all do. Some people think that knowing that time is precious can make you lead a better life. What would I tell you if this would be my last day?
I’d say I’ve lost many things in this life, and sometimes it has felt like I’ve lost it all. Friends, time, love, children, relatives, sometimes even my mind. I’ve eaten too much or nothing for days. I’ve eaten my own bitterness and I drank the poison of my own ink-black thoughts. I’ve been freezing in train stations and on park benches thinking of why certain things happened in my life, feeling sorry for myself. I thought I was sometimes carrying too much luggage, but I think that was more the burden of my own life. Yet I have found out later that many of those things I’ve never really had, that they were never meant for me.
I have seen derision. And it was not the one coming from strangers that has hurt the most, but the one seen in the eyes of people I have helped out of their own ditch and considered friends. They say in my language that “the ones you don’t let die, will not let you live”. It was painful to find out what character some people really had. it has been gutting at times. Now it does not hurt any more, I have come to terms with all my experience. I have become older and hopefully wiser. I have learned not to regret things and I am mostly good at it, even though I can still catch myself doing it sometimes. I’ve often done my best and I know now that what people give is certainly what people will receive later in life.
Isolation? It is not a monkey thing. It feels sweet. It is not for everybody, I know it can be torture for others. But solitude is my gift. After all the pain induced by many things coming from the outside, my isolation meant discovering myself and finding peace, listening to my own soul tuning in with the one of the universe. And that is bliss.
Rejection? Yes, I felt plenty of that. I was one of those people that can feel like outsiders. Until I realised that I would have never belonged in certain circles of people or in the toxic environment that comes with them. So actually this was not a rejection, it was a discovery. It took me years to see that God had better plans for me , that He was opening me the right doors while I was trying like a stubborn child to open the wrong ones, again and again.
This is my path and you all have your own. Life is a journey. Some people learn from it, others get to the end of it not understanding anything, feeling bitter and angry. It may not be easy to walk on your own path, but it’s your quest. It all depends on how much you want it. And if you want it truly it will be better than anything you have ever imagined. It will equal conquering all your fears, it will mean finding your true self and facing God at the same time. Your days may be hard, but your heart will flame with the fire of all the passion you have in you. It will not be life that breaks you, but it will be you riding your own life.
I am only a tiny soul in an immense ocean of souls. All different, yet all the same. When I think of this I imagine a sky full of stars. The universe is immense, but we all have our own space, our own inner light and our own trajectory. I am trying to grasp what this life experience is all about, maybe just like you all. I’ve seen a lot and I still know almost nothing. But one of the few things I know now is that we should not be afraid, we should not let worry dry out our soul. Life is joy and we should experience the joy of being alive, the experience of our soul having a material body and interacting with others.
There’s no path, make your own. Be bold, be strong, be yourself. Try it, go all the way, it’s the best thing of all.
———————————————
900 words, memyselandela, August 2015
Photo: Lavender, Adela Galasiu, August 2015
tomorrow
I light my thoughts one by one
trying to smoke my darkness
my hand burns still on your heart
there, were I stopped pulsating
mountains of unspoken, dead rivers of tears
broken hopeless bridges
mere ordeal suffocating your heartbeat…
close you eyes. rewind. tomorrow we get born again
cynical love
Love… the “climb any mountain, ford any stream” love… the shouting in undying passion for his love kind of love… that sweet and sticky kind of love…
Why was this significant? Well, he was a love-hater just merely half a year ago. He was that person who would roll the eyes at someone like him now, and just say: “Get over it already!!!”.
In fact, he did. He definitely said that very loud to real people in public. Worse yet, he said it to some of his closest friends. His utter disdain for public displays of affection was both ferocious and adamant. Romance felt like a construct rather than an extension of emotional expression. Love seemed like an obligation, a constant game of one-upmanship where the stakes just get higher. Love. What the hell is love, anyway? It’s just a word.
What was it, you might wonder, that turned him into such a bitter curmudgeon at such a (relatively) young age? Same old story, I guess – he’d been in a good number of relationships, many of which left him so heartbroken it was hard to pick himself off the floor. After a particularly bad year, it was enough. He removed his heart from his sleeve and tossed it. It just wasn’t worth it.
Sure, since then he had other rendezvous. He even said the big “L” again, though it was more calculated, measured, and guarded. Love was something that could be rationalized. Marriage was something that could be brokered. Everything occurred in its due course, was controlled, and was expected.
Everything… except this.
He was in a rather deep denial over how badly the last relationship had hurt him and proclaimed, nearly the next day after the breakup, that he didn’t give a damn and that he was over it. The breakup, while not his idea, was just the due course of the relationship. Though he had plotted it differently, he rationalized it would have ended eventually, and she had been gracious enough to do him a favor. His love and him, they connected then, while he was stoically broken and when he still thought he knew all the answers. He dismissed her, back then, since he would need to grieve for the prescribed time (mathematically, it is half the time you were with someone, but he figured that he should be good in about six months, give or take). He told her that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. He saw other people. He even ended it with her. It just wasn’t in his logical and methodical equations. He explained to himself the significance of the break. Over those many heartbreaks, he realized that using “let’s break up” as fighting ammo just isn’t cool. To combat this, he’s implemented the “a break is a break” rule, meaning that if she breaks up with him (or vice-versa), then there was a damned good reason to do it. No looking back. A break is permanent.
So, when he ended it with her, he really had no intention of ever seeing her again. Ever. But something odd had happened. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. But there was so much fear. So much fear that something would go wrong. Well, he called “fear” “reality.” After all, she was German. He was American. She – here for just a few more months. He had a job here in Chicago, with no potential to transfer elsewhere. Where the hell can a relationship with limited time go? To the short-term-no-commitments bin, and that’s where he tried to keep it.
Maybe she found him at just the right time in his personal quest of self-exploration. Maybe they were so compatible that everything was just what love is supposed to be. Maybe, just maybe, there is no explanation, because that’s what love is, something irrational that just kind of happens. Whatever it was, it was as though his heart melted – literally. He hates such cheesy metaphors; he would apologize for all those cynics out there – don’t forget, he was you!). It was as though he’d put his heart in a cryogenic freezer and then took it out, just in time to be warmed by this beautiful and amazing woman.
Regardless of what it was, he couldn’t stay away from her for long. He invited her to the L Stop launch party, where he had convinced himself it would just be a hook-up. At Thanksgiving, he specifically skipped out on plans elsewhere to cook her a traditional meal, convincing himself that it was just that he was showing her a true American T-day. No, there wasn’t a possibility that he actually liked the girl. What’s done is done. No looking back.
Something, though… something was different. He felt his pulse quicken. “Breathe, breathe, get it under control,” he thought. Her perfume lingered in his car after she left and his pulse raced. His thoughts wandered off to her during the day. His heart beat uncontrolled within his chest, it felt like anxiety. But it felt so much better than anxiety. Damn? What the hell was going on with him?
Fortunately, though, he was too intoxicated with her to think straight. He had blurted out things like, “Why don’t you come over (again) tonight” before he could think them through. His poor roommate had to listen to “Why the hell do I like her?” over and over again while he picked at the teeny tiniest minuscule faults wherever he could manage to imagine them. This eventually morphed to, “Why can’t I STOP liking her” and eventually an all-out, “Oh GOD, I think I’m in LOVE with her”.
All the reasoning in the world couldn’t rationalize this away. In fact, despite their separate nationalities, there was no legitimate reason holding them apart. He could always move to Germany; she could move here, she had an in-demand job that could always warrant her work visa, maybe no marriage needed. She was smart, funny, gentle, and crazy hot – what the hell was there not to love?
Well, after leaving behind his own hangups, and letting it just all unfold with no plan…it turned out there was nothing not to love. Was it…was it that he was just too scared to try love again? Scared? Him? But, it turns out he was. He kept thinking that this wonderfully amazing woman would just walk out of his life (and really, he had given her plenty of reasons to).
But he let it all go and decided to put it all on the line. Instead, with a shaky voice, while they snuggled on the couch, he leaned over to her ear. Just as much because he was scared he’d mess it up in German as he was scared to say it out loud, he whispered:
“Ich liebe dich”.
1100 words, Adela Galasiu 2012
Photo: Photobucket
Evocation / Évocation – Nichita Stanescu
She was beautiful like the shadow of an idea
Her back smell like baby skin
Like freshly broken stone
Like scream from a dead language
She had no weight like respiration
Laughing and crying with big tears
She was salted like the salt
Offered at big feasts by barbarians.
She was beautiful like the shadow of an idea
Among waters, she alone was a shore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elle était belle comme l’ombre d’une idée.
Ses épaules sentaient la peau fraîche d’une enfant;
à une pierre elle semblait – vite brisée,
au cri elle paraissait – dans une langue morte.
Elle n’avait pas de poids comme le halètement.
Souriante – larmoyante aux grandes larmes, rares —
elle était salée comme le sel poudroyant
consacré aux festins par les vieux barbares.
Elle était belle comme l’ombre d’une pensée.
Entre les eaux, elle était à elle seule, la terre affamée.
Jeune lionne – l’ amour , Nichita Stanescu
Jeune lionne, l’amour
a sauté sur moi.
Elle m’avait guetté, toute tendue,
depuis quelque temps dejà.
Ses blancs crocs, elle me les a enfocés dans la face,
aujourd’hui la lionne m’a mordu la face.
Et brusquement la nature
se tourna en cercles tout autour
de moi, tantôt plus large et tantôt plus près
tout comme des eaux serrées.
Et le regard jaillit en haut,
arc-en-ciel coupé en deux,
par l’ouie aussi rencontre,
des alouettes tout près.
J’ai porte la main à mon sourcil,
à ma tempe, à mon menton aussi,
mais la main ne les reconnaît plus.
Et elle glisse inconsciemment
sur un désert rayonnant,
sur lequel passe en douceur
une lionne cuivrée
aux perfides mouvements,
pour un temps
et un autre temps…
Bird, Pablo Neruda
It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air –
and there, night came in.
When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography –
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.
Absence, Pablo Neruda
“I have scarcely left you
When you go in me, crystalline,
Or trembling,
Or uneasy, wounded by me
Or overwhelmed with love, as
when your eyes
Close upon the gift of life
That without cease I give you.
My love,
We have found each other
Thirsty and we have
Drunk up all the water and the
Blood,
We found each other
Hungry
And we bit each other
As fire bites,
Leaving wounds in us.
But wait for me,
Keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
A rose.”
Pablo Neruda
Breath
When
You
Turn
And
Close
Your
Eyes
I
Hear
How
My
Heart
Breaks
Into
Pieces.
Loneliness
Falls
Like
A
Leaf
In
My
Soul.
When
Love
Leaves
Me
There
Is
No
Reason
Left
To
Breath.
Timeless loop
Common sense says:
go ahead
Heart says:
Here is what you’re looking for
I remain
in an infinite
timeless loop
that I have
not the slightest idea
how to resolve …
New leaf
Time to turn a new leaf.
To finish the old
sad long chapter,
to cross over things
which I should, perhaps,have done long ago…
Now, finally!
I feel I’m ready.
Ready
to write the last dot.
Definitive.
As all stories
indisputable end.
End.
Finally, I am prepared to accept the given situation.
Time for an end now.
As I continue waiting
I mark a blank slate.
And every end is a
a new beginning.
——————————
memyselfandela, 2012
Only when I lose myself
When I think of you
when I breath
I can still not understand
what you want from me
it feels like you have never enough of me
it feels like I’m completely losing myself
but only when I lose myself with you
I can find myself
Nuts
First day of spring…
sun shines everywhere…
go out, leave the computer…
breath…
see the colour of the sky…
smile and do something crazy…
allow yourself to be nuts today… 🙂
About me
the Mother and the Child
the Destroyer and the Builder
the Teacher and the Pupil
the Darkness and the Light
the Tear and the Laughter
the Dreamer and the Realist
the Rebel and the Submissive
the Traveller and the Guide
the Dispair and the Hope
the Loneliness and the Shelter
the Lover and the Solitary…
I’m all in one name: Woman.
memyselfandela 