i walked
he wouldn't come along.
complaining about my speed
i waited
i went back
…back and forth, back and forth…
i offered my hand
he wouldn't take it
complaining about my direction
…forward, always forward…
he walked in circles
he lost direction
too absorbed in the past
to let go
to go anywhere at all
too occupied with the future
to even see me
in the present
from where I couldn't reach him
from where I couldn't leave
…don't do this, don't make me do this…
i explained
he wouldn't listen
complaining about my aims
…never enough, never good enough…
he wouldn't talk
he wouldn't try
too scared of the moment
to see me
walk away
28 October 2009
01 August 2009
Restlessness
Today, I want it all!! Darn moral codes and values – senseless – everything could be so simple without them, for sure.
Just what is that pull ... that pining ... that yearning? It hit me last night, out of the blue, from one second to the next. I felt alone yet wanted nobody there. Nobody who was available anyway...
And there is more ... I want to do too many things but lack the time, or the money. Work gets in my way. Moral ethics get in my way. Social conventions. Nothing's enough. Or already too much.
It's just one of these days. I know it will pass, but it can be agonizing at times. I'll never understand where it comes from when it happens without warning, arising from nothingness. Or where it disappears, from one moment to the next. No explanations, no clues.
It's like a physical pain sometimes, as if I'm being torn in two. Hungry, thirsty, craving ... and I cannot even say what it is that I so desire then – whatever I can't have maybe. More ... of what? Maybe just something else than what I have. It all seems so dull and worn at times ... futile, mediocre.
And all the time I know that once I'd have that "something else", it wouldn't be the right thing again, not over any length of time. I have everything already, everything I need ... and more, much more.
Maybe I crave perfection ... when there is no perfection. Or is there?
I try to remain in the moment, but still ... I want that moment to be different ... right here, right now ... I wanna shine, burn ... I want passion, fervor, life ... oooooh, life ... I taste it and it overwhelms me.
I can't get enough. I want, I want, I want ... I wanna embrace life wholeheartedly, passionately, without reserve ... when the one thing that gets in my way there is life itself. Can you hear the universe laughing? Hahaha!
Where does serenity go when it can no longer stand the silence?
As I said, I know this mood will pass. I've been working too much. I haven't been out in the open ever since I returned from the country and I miss that desperately, even after only a few days.
I need the night
the air
the stars
the smell of the wet grass
by the lake
nightbirds
fireflies
moonlight
upon my skin
I need to run real fast
swing high up in the air
spin around and around and around
with the wind catching in my hair
until I fall down on the ground
laughing, crying, laughing
hopefully
breathing it all out
the want, the need, the restlessness.
the thought of those hands
upon my body
gone
what is your cure?
what do you do?
Just what is that pull ... that pining ... that yearning? It hit me last night, out of the blue, from one second to the next. I felt alone yet wanted nobody there. Nobody who was available anyway...
And there is more ... I want to do too many things but lack the time, or the money. Work gets in my way. Moral ethics get in my way. Social conventions. Nothing's enough. Or already too much.
It's just one of these days. I know it will pass, but it can be agonizing at times. I'll never understand where it comes from when it happens without warning, arising from nothingness. Or where it disappears, from one moment to the next. No explanations, no clues.
It's like a physical pain sometimes, as if I'm being torn in two. Hungry, thirsty, craving ... and I cannot even say what it is that I so desire then – whatever I can't have maybe. More ... of what? Maybe just something else than what I have. It all seems so dull and worn at times ... futile, mediocre.
And all the time I know that once I'd have that "something else", it wouldn't be the right thing again, not over any length of time. I have everything already, everything I need ... and more, much more.
Maybe I crave perfection ... when there is no perfection. Or is there?
I try to remain in the moment, but still ... I want that moment to be different ... right here, right now ... I wanna shine, burn ... I want passion, fervor, life ... oooooh, life ... I taste it and it overwhelms me.
I can't get enough. I want, I want, I want ... I wanna embrace life wholeheartedly, passionately, without reserve ... when the one thing that gets in my way there is life itself. Can you hear the universe laughing? Hahaha!
Where does serenity go when it can no longer stand the silence?
As I said, I know this mood will pass. I've been working too much. I haven't been out in the open ever since I returned from the country and I miss that desperately, even after only a few days.
I need the night
the air
the stars
the smell of the wet grass
by the lake
nightbirds
fireflies
moonlight
upon my skin
I need to run real fast
swing high up in the air
spin around and around and around
with the wind catching in my hair
until I fall down on the ground
laughing, crying, laughing
hopefully
breathing it all out
the want, the need, the restlessness.
the thought of those hands
upon my body
gone
what is your cure?
what do you do?
23 July 2009
Summertime & Happiness
I’m loving this summer. Not that it’s remarkable in any way, it’s just one of these half-hearted summers, somewhat undecided. One week you’re melting, the next you’re freezing your ass off. I must admit I do not even know what I love about it, other than ... umm... everything?
Haha – I know this doesn’t make any sense but it’ll have to do. Fact is, I have no explanation. Maybe summer is really just an extra in all this, maybe I’m just loving this life right now, summer or not. Yeah, I guess that’s it ... I’m so in love with life, with the cosmos, with everything. I’m happy! (Cheesy, I know ... but couldn't care less).
Yep, in spite of the occasional pain and sadness, the struggle and doubts I temporarily give in to, what I fall back on, again and again – and what seems to be a much more natural condition – is happiness ... soulfulness, joie de vivre ... a simple, accepting, all-embracing joy. Finding beauty in the little things ... in simplicity, in the seemingly boring, the plain, the unspectacular ... so sublime.
For me, reconnecting with nature is usually the key. I am not much of an indoors person. As much as I can lose myself in a book or in front of the computer at times, I find to be true what Charles Eisenstein says in „The Ascent of Humanity“ (http://www.ascentofhumanity.com) – that „the more I come to live in those artificial realities, the more separate I become from the inherently fascinating realm of nature and self…“.
Turning too „indoor-centered“, I normally start feeling discontent, bored and unhappy after a while. Things that started out being fun or some simple diversion – doing stuff on the computer, surfing the internet, watching movies, reading books – they end up being more or less dissatisfying and unfulfilling if pursued over any length of time.
As soon as I step out of the door though, I feel those tensions lighten up. My worries fall off me, to an amazing degree. Going for a walk – taking a deep breath, paying full attention to my senses – is often the best remedy against getting too caught up in my own head.
It’s where beauty happens …
Like last week, when I almost forced myself out the door, going for a walk in the twilight, expecting nothing but a bit of fresh air. But there I stood ... watching the sky blend into the lake, concertedly melting into shades of pastel, consuming the horizon in their pairing ... completely in awe! All boundaries vanished as the glassy surface of the water turned into a giant kaleidoscope, a magic mirror, duplicating and distorting the indistinct reflections of clouds and trees, boats and birds, street lights and landing stages, creating something new – pure color and shape, void of any meaning – volatile beauty.
The falling darkness transformed everything once again, one by one the colors fell away, turning from violet to blue, from grey to black, shapes shifting into silhouettes.
Sitting by the nocturnal lake, I suddenly found myself shrouded by a blanket of scent and sound ... the spicy smell of the damp, dewy meadows ... the quirky cacophony of countless frogs quaking away on the water lilies ... myriads of fireflies shimmering and dancing amidst the dark silhouettes of the tall wild grasses, like little fairy lanterns, so enchanting. (Come to think about it, I don’t think I have ever seen this many fireflies before, there is an abundance of them this summer, they must be loving this humid heat...)
Beauty seems to find me wherever I go and whatever I do lately ... it’s stunning at times ... like that triple rainbow the other day – another thing I’ve never seen before. It started out as a plain, yet huge and intensely lush, rainbow – beautiful to look at. I stopped under a tree to watch it rise ... its bright colors against the daunting, dark grey sky ... the sunlight tinting the trees a glaring yellow-green ... oh, grace and wonder. Standing there in the rain, I suddenly noticed a second rainbow forming right on top of the first one, spanning the whole valley. They were the biggest, brightest rainbows I had ever seen, breathtakingly beautiful, almost unreal. I couldn’t stop staring at them, all abuzz with fascination and awareness ... and then a third rainbow appeared, in a little distance to the first two ones, partly overlapping with them.
It’s impossible to describe the beauty of that moment, the intensity of that natural phenomenon, and how it touched me. It filled me with such a deep gratitude, sensation on every possible level, bringing a peace and contentment far beyond the satisfaction that comes with the somewhat entertaining but more shallow distractions of „indoor life“, the more labored, forced amusements I sometimes seek.
„Happiness is only real when being shared“, somebody said. My first impulse was to agree, but I’m not so sure anymore. I guess it can be real even when experienced all alone. Happiness has to come first, it must be real first, for me to develope a desire to share it, right? Sharing it can sure magnify and enhance it to some extent, but my ability to really experience it – to feel it – depends directly on me being connected and not separate from my self. If I am, if I am truly whole, happiness comes as a natural condition ... it’s only from there that I can share. Taking it a step further – maybe the truth is that whenever we’re really connected, in harmony with the universe, radiating that „inner bling“ – whatever we feel, we become – and in that, we cannot NOT share!
"Amen" ... haha!
Haha – I know this doesn’t make any sense but it’ll have to do. Fact is, I have no explanation. Maybe summer is really just an extra in all this, maybe I’m just loving this life right now, summer or not. Yeah, I guess that’s it ... I’m so in love with life, with the cosmos, with everything. I’m happy! (Cheesy, I know ... but couldn't care less).
Yep, in spite of the occasional pain and sadness, the struggle and doubts I temporarily give in to, what I fall back on, again and again – and what seems to be a much more natural condition – is happiness ... soulfulness, joie de vivre ... a simple, accepting, all-embracing joy. Finding beauty in the little things ... in simplicity, in the seemingly boring, the plain, the unspectacular ... so sublime.
For me, reconnecting with nature is usually the key. I am not much of an indoors person. As much as I can lose myself in a book or in front of the computer at times, I find to be true what Charles Eisenstein says in „The Ascent of Humanity“ (http://www.ascentofhumanity.com) – that „the more I come to live in those artificial realities, the more separate I become from the inherently fascinating realm of nature and self…“.
Turning too „indoor-centered“, I normally start feeling discontent, bored and unhappy after a while. Things that started out being fun or some simple diversion – doing stuff on the computer, surfing the internet, watching movies, reading books – they end up being more or less dissatisfying and unfulfilling if pursued over any length of time.
As soon as I step out of the door though, I feel those tensions lighten up. My worries fall off me, to an amazing degree. Going for a walk – taking a deep breath, paying full attention to my senses – is often the best remedy against getting too caught up in my own head.
It’s where beauty happens …
Like last week, when I almost forced myself out the door, going for a walk in the twilight, expecting nothing but a bit of fresh air. But there I stood ... watching the sky blend into the lake, concertedly melting into shades of pastel, consuming the horizon in their pairing ... completely in awe! All boundaries vanished as the glassy surface of the water turned into a giant kaleidoscope, a magic mirror, duplicating and distorting the indistinct reflections of clouds and trees, boats and birds, street lights and landing stages, creating something new – pure color and shape, void of any meaning – volatile beauty.
The falling darkness transformed everything once again, one by one the colors fell away, turning from violet to blue, from grey to black, shapes shifting into silhouettes.
Sitting by the nocturnal lake, I suddenly found myself shrouded by a blanket of scent and sound ... the spicy smell of the damp, dewy meadows ... the quirky cacophony of countless frogs quaking away on the water lilies ... myriads of fireflies shimmering and dancing amidst the dark silhouettes of the tall wild grasses, like little fairy lanterns, so enchanting. (Come to think about it, I don’t think I have ever seen this many fireflies before, there is an abundance of them this summer, they must be loving this humid heat...)
Beauty seems to find me wherever I go and whatever I do lately ... it’s stunning at times ... like that triple rainbow the other day – another thing I’ve never seen before. It started out as a plain, yet huge and intensely lush, rainbow – beautiful to look at. I stopped under a tree to watch it rise ... its bright colors against the daunting, dark grey sky ... the sunlight tinting the trees a glaring yellow-green ... oh, grace and wonder. Standing there in the rain, I suddenly noticed a second rainbow forming right on top of the first one, spanning the whole valley. They were the biggest, brightest rainbows I had ever seen, breathtakingly beautiful, almost unreal. I couldn’t stop staring at them, all abuzz with fascination and awareness ... and then a third rainbow appeared, in a little distance to the first two ones, partly overlapping with them.
It’s impossible to describe the beauty of that moment, the intensity of that natural phenomenon, and how it touched me. It filled me with such a deep gratitude, sensation on every possible level, bringing a peace and contentment far beyond the satisfaction that comes with the somewhat entertaining but more shallow distractions of „indoor life“, the more labored, forced amusements I sometimes seek.
„Happiness is only real when being shared“, somebody said. My first impulse was to agree, but I’m not so sure anymore. I guess it can be real even when experienced all alone. Happiness has to come first, it must be real first, for me to develope a desire to share it, right? Sharing it can sure magnify and enhance it to some extent, but my ability to really experience it – to feel it – depends directly on me being connected and not separate from my self. If I am, if I am truly whole, happiness comes as a natural condition ... it’s only from there that I can share. Taking it a step further – maybe the truth is that whenever we’re really connected, in harmony with the universe, radiating that „inner bling“ – whatever we feel, we become – and in that, we cannot NOT share!
"Amen" ... haha!
02 July 2009
Should we talk about the weather..??
This summer is just unreal so far. The weather has been crazy ever since I returned from Colorado – it's been so cold, I had to turn on the heating even as late as mid June when normally I turn it off by mid May. With the summer solstice it got a little warmer, or maybe I should say – the rain turned a little warmer – for that's what happened, it started pissing down like mad ... diluvian rain, for two weeks, making me feel all weary and irritable. The sound of the rain never ceased ... rain, rain, rain ... only interrupted by some violent hail or thunderstorms every now and then. When it finally stopped, the sudden silence was almost scary.
Within two days, it turned boiling hot. I guess you can imagine the effect of the soaking wet ground heating up like this ... jeez – outside it's steaming!! Some stifling muggy wash house climate. Everything’s damp. Even inside the house the air is so humid that the wallpapers start to peel and the books curl at the edges. Leaving the house, the skin turns sticky and sweaty within seconds. The slightest move is too much, too fast, too strenuous an action...
I haven’t experienced this kind of moist, humid summer in years. I feel like I'm in South Central Georgia again ... wondering how those Dixie storms managed to make it all the way here ... it’s raining every other afternoon now, along with heavy thunderstorms. After the rain, it usually cools down a bit, but in the morning the heat is back, steaming up the air ("what air?", one is tempted to ask) in no time.
For the first few days I felt just fuzzy, listless and somewhat paralyzed, but I must admit that I'm starting to like it somehow. I feel „comfortably numb“ – actually, it’s not such an unpleasant feeling, temporarily losing all sense of time and space and purpose. Days just merge into one another, slipping right through my fingers. Everything is blurry, like not really real ... last night, yesterday, last week, ten days ago ... it matters not, it all feels the same. Far away, dream-like, irrelevant ... laissez-faire is the only attitude one manages to maintain in this heat.
I wish I had a wooden front porch with a rocking chair where I could sip my iced tea in the evening breeze ... I'd close my eyes and dream of the south ...
But no, I'm not complaining – for the first time in a long time, I'm pretty content being where I am. Maybe the "where" really doesn't matter that much at times. I feel like I carry it all right inside lately, everything I'd normally seek in the distance ... beauty, peace, harmony, adventure ... whatever. Maybe it's myself, providing places with all that, myself carrying it there, my own mind creating my own reality. I normally just don't even try to find it where I am anymore, assuming it is some place else. I guess it's not. It's right here.
These past few weeks have been filled with bliss, beauty and wonder. So much to be grateful for, so many moments of happiness, of peaceful adventure, moments of joy and pleasant surprise, moments of love ... moments that make everything else seem worthwhile, no matter what.
What a wondrous, wonderful life this can be – right here where I am.
Within two days, it turned boiling hot. I guess you can imagine the effect of the soaking wet ground heating up like this ... jeez – outside it's steaming!! Some stifling muggy wash house climate. Everything’s damp. Even inside the house the air is so humid that the wallpapers start to peel and the books curl at the edges. Leaving the house, the skin turns sticky and sweaty within seconds. The slightest move is too much, too fast, too strenuous an action...
I haven’t experienced this kind of moist, humid summer in years. I feel like I'm in South Central Georgia again ... wondering how those Dixie storms managed to make it all the way here ... it’s raining every other afternoon now, along with heavy thunderstorms. After the rain, it usually cools down a bit, but in the morning the heat is back, steaming up the air ("what air?", one is tempted to ask) in no time.
For the first few days I felt just fuzzy, listless and somewhat paralyzed, but I must admit that I'm starting to like it somehow. I feel „comfortably numb“ – actually, it’s not such an unpleasant feeling, temporarily losing all sense of time and space and purpose. Days just merge into one another, slipping right through my fingers. Everything is blurry, like not really real ... last night, yesterday, last week, ten days ago ... it matters not, it all feels the same. Far away, dream-like, irrelevant ... laissez-faire is the only attitude one manages to maintain in this heat.
I wish I had a wooden front porch with a rocking chair where I could sip my iced tea in the evening breeze ... I'd close my eyes and dream of the south ...
But no, I'm not complaining – for the first time in a long time, I'm pretty content being where I am. Maybe the "where" really doesn't matter that much at times. I feel like I carry it all right inside lately, everything I'd normally seek in the distance ... beauty, peace, harmony, adventure ... whatever. Maybe it's myself, providing places with all that, myself carrying it there, my own mind creating my own reality. I normally just don't even try to find it where I am anymore, assuming it is some place else. I guess it's not. It's right here.
These past few weeks have been filled with bliss, beauty and wonder. So much to be grateful for, so many moments of happiness, of peaceful adventure, moments of joy and pleasant surprise, moments of love ... moments that make everything else seem worthwhile, no matter what.
What a wondrous, wonderful life this can be – right here where I am.
08 March 2009
Life and Me and Henry Miller ...
Yesterday night I have been talking to a friend about how Henry Miller's books have influenced both our lives so much – and how a lot of people are really amazed to hear that, not thinking Henry Miller's books are actually the stuff that guides you anywhere, life-changing or enlightening or whatever. There is other books that seem to be classics when it comes to that ... but Miller???? Just why is it his books are so often confined to the scandalous or the obscene? Well, I think maybe these people just didn't read with their hearts and minds open enough ... maybe they couldn't see. Or maybe they didn't read Miller at all. There is a lot of spirituality in Miller's books, a lot of wisdom and insight. It will be different things for different people and I don't claim my perception of his writings to be the only possible one – I sure have my very own, very particular, very lilli-ish relationship with Henry Miller, influenced by my own complex past and self, others have their's ... well, so.
When I first laid hands – and eyes – upon a Henry Miller book I must have been about thirteen – and that had nothing to do with it's contents at all. The book was 'Tropic of Cancer' ... it was bound in purple velvet with red and silver print and had a wonderful abstract illustration of a crab on the front cover. It looked so wonderfully louche and bohemian – I was completely mesmerized by it for years and years. I must admit I have always had a certain liking for louche aesthetics ...
I was about sixteen when I finally read 'Tropic of Cancer' and I was almost disappointed, having assumed to be in for something lewd, judging by the blurb and preface. As it was though, it couldn't actually shock me much. My family was not quite what one might call decent middle-class, my aunts running a whorehouse, one uncle in jail for armed bank robbery, another a shady croupier in a big casino. They were pimps and peculators, gamblers and cheats, at home in the boxing arenas and racecourses of Germany. My mother would tell them again and again to watch their language with us but they never managed for any long time and you bet: my brother and I just loved to hang with them ... it was another world, so fascinating, so seemingly dangerous, so "out of bounds" ... it seemed as irreal as TV or the movies, somewhere between 'Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn' and 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. Sometimes my aunts would take us to the brothel (while it was closed, mind you!) where we would sit by the bar on those high, wooden stools, hypnotized by the sounds of the slot machines, feeling strangely excited, completely in awe of the place. The women working there would smother and mother us, teaching us how to play poker and blackjack, letting us win most of the time, so that we always came home with huge amounts of extra pocket money which we had to hide from my mom in order to avoid her getting suspicious or even worse: making us give it back. It was a wild time and always made for interesting stories with our friends ...
Of course, that's only half the truth – just one side of the coin. As you can probably imagine, there was also a lot of bullshit connected to growing up amongst a horde of ... well, – hookers and criminals, really. But what I meant to make clear was that it sure kept me from being especially appalled by any of Henry Miller's writings. I had grown up with all that seemingly obscene language and I knew how it was just words – different words than those we were supposed to use, yet somewhat more honest and direct, often enough spoken with much more feeling (not necessarily positive though) than the hypocritically polite vocabulary used in most of my friend's houses.
What I found with 'Tropic of Cancer' was a book that for the first time blended the two clashing realities I had known so far: the poetic eloquence my literary grandfather had aquainted me with and the blatantly vulgar vocabulary of the streets ... I was thunderstruck, absolutely fascinated. I have always had a special relationship with words, loving them for their sound or feel, without even caring what they mean at times ... and here was Henry Miller ... overwhelming me with his lavish use of them: new words, strange words, complicated and exotic words ... I'm not sure I paid much attention to the actual story when I first read it, all I remember is that it left me hungry for more.
So I snatched 'Sexus' from my parents bookshelf. On the outside it didn't look half as exciting as 'Tropic of Cancer', but ... wow! This time I must admit I was indeed kind of shocked, stunned at the very least. I mean, it was so much more explicit – it may be different for a male teenage reader, I don't know – but as a girl of sixteen or seventeen I was kind of repelled by his detailed descriptions, disgusted even. The way he was talking about sex was like miles from the romantic notions I might have nurtured back then. And yet I couldn't stop reading – I sensed something almost mysterious behind his words, something deeper, something beyond my grasp. I remember I merely skipped over the "raunchy" parts (I couldn't stand the way they made me blush and left me feeling all bashful) but the honesty and frankness of the book had an enormous effect on me. I was reading it in English and didn't understand half of it, neither literally nor figuratively and after stumbling through maybe one third of it, I gave up on 'Sexus' for the time being.
I didn't know anything about Miller back then, he was just a name, just some author. I didn't know any of the backgrounds to his stories. The Henry of his books seemed to be a fictional character to me, yet a strangely touching one. He came across as being so human, so real and likeable in all his scruffiness and that intrigued me quite a bit.
Years passed and I was well in my twenties when I touched 'Sexus' again. It was amazing, it suddenly felt like a completely different book. It couldn't floor me with it's language anymore – I mean, I was warned, I knew what was coming and my notions on sex had become somewhat less innocently romantic by then – but it left me speechless, once again. What struck me unexpectedly was the depth, the profoundness, the straightforwardness and stark honesty with which Miller laid open his innermost self.
I came to adore Henry Miller. In 1994 I read 'The Colossus of Maroussi' – my favourite of all Miller's books – and that finally sealed my high esteem of the man. It was a revelation in terms of insight, history, philosophy, apperception and the relativity of truth. Greece seemed to come alive in front of my eyes and I yearned to go there and explore it for myself. One year later I finally did, ending up on a Kaiki, a greek fishing boat, in a little harbour on the Peloponnese, near Epidaurus, facing the island of Hydra. I would spend night after night sitting on deck with a petrol lamp and a glass of Retsina, with just a dog and hundreds of mosquitoes for company, reading Miller ... not exclusively but to a great extent. It's forever etched on my memory, the atmosphere of those nights ... the distant noise of the taverns by the harbour, the greek music and voices, the smell of garlic and mediterranean herbs and the distinct tasty smell of the inevitable gyros being prepared in the bar by the pier. My time with Henry, yeah!
My english friends were laughing at me, joking I was too young to waste my life on a dead guy, however ingenious, that there were other men out there, alive even ... but I was smitten. For weeks on end, every night, there was just Henry Miller ... and Lilli clinging to his every word, smitten with his eloquence, smitten with the truth he spoke. By then, I had long come to understand that his writing was mainly autobiographical and I admired him for his arresting candor. I still had to swallow hard at certain chapters, still felt myself blushing, happy to be alone and unobserved while reading – but first and foremost it was the deep and sharp, pictorial thinking that had me hooked on him. That and the way he described people and places, making them come alive through his words. It was a gift I came to highly appreciate ever after, a gift I would forever seek and venerate, in my heroes as much as in the everyman.
The complexity of Miller's character fascinated me. He was a failure in the eyes of some ... and yet some kind of hero. A heartbreaker and an asshole at the same time. A poet and a plague. How somebody could be so obscene and yet so gentle, so careless and yet so profound – so bemusing ... it simply sent my head spinning. Reading Miller I started to question a lot of things – but most of all my own thinking and (mis-)conceptions. The second time I read 'Sexus' it was not so much the action or the words that fascinated me but the person Henry – I was mesmerized with this personality ... so real, so wild.
My sailor friends brought back a biography from England but reading it I found that all I needed to know was already there in his own books. He gave me food for thought, causing me to reflect on a lot of things, but as I returned to Germany by the end of the year, I became too busy to read or occupy my mind with Miller – or any other writer – for a long time. My obsession with Henry Miller ebbed off, yet his way of seeing things had influenced my thinking quite a bit – and for good, I tend to say.
I didn't touch his books for more than ten years. Then there was this day last winter, when picking a book by buddhist writer Pema Chödrön to take to bed with me to read, I suddenly found myself staring at 'Sexus' and felt a sudden urge to take that one instead. And once more it was like ... wow!!! It was all there again, right upon reading the first pages ... so stunning, moving, touching, exciting, stimulating and arousing ... in more than one aspect. But just like the last time, it was like reading a different book yet again. It was like the book had grown with me or I with the book ... I found myself almost dumbfounded by paragraphs and sentences I couldn't even remember to have read the last time. They kind of jumped out of the pages, sometimes shouting at me, sometimes whispering ... as spiritual as anything possibly can be, or so it seemed to me. So much wisdom in there. This time it really touched my heart and soul, somewhere beyond fascination, much deeper. My understanding of his words was a different now. I could feel the pain and the many shattered dreams, the lost hopes and illusions ... and still so much joy, so much optimism, faith and strength ... Miller's energy is so contagious, almost addictive. He makes me hungry for this life, always. Vibrant with joy and a restlessness to go out there and live, just live, in spite of all and everything, in spite of life itself even.
The beauty of his words is so rough and true and universal, so all-enclosing and evocative, it's staggering. I read 'Sexus' and it adds a new dimension to reality, a dimension that reconciles the right with the wrong, reconciles irony and hope, joy and bitterness. I can see beauty in the obscene and wisdom in the trivial, the devine in the dirt and dust of everyday life. Lightness in the seemingly overbearing. It brings out every possible emotion in me, the whole spectrum of colours and moods. It makes me want to have a relationship with reality that is true, genuine ... somewhere beyond the dullness and routine ... direct, instantaneous, full of passion. It makes me want to risk more, defiant of potential pain or fear, despite possible shattered illusions.
Henry Miller ... somewhere beyond or besides or beneath being so drawn into his words and his world, he led me to see my own world so much clearer, bringing me much closer to it. What a genius he is, a wordsmith, an alchemist ...
When I first laid hands – and eyes – upon a Henry Miller book I must have been about thirteen – and that had nothing to do with it's contents at all. The book was 'Tropic of Cancer' ... it was bound in purple velvet with red and silver print and had a wonderful abstract illustration of a crab on the front cover. It looked so wonderfully louche and bohemian – I was completely mesmerized by it for years and years. I must admit I have always had a certain liking for louche aesthetics ...
I was about sixteen when I finally read 'Tropic of Cancer' and I was almost disappointed, having assumed to be in for something lewd, judging by the blurb and preface. As it was though, it couldn't actually shock me much. My family was not quite what one might call decent middle-class, my aunts running a whorehouse, one uncle in jail for armed bank robbery, another a shady croupier in a big casino. They were pimps and peculators, gamblers and cheats, at home in the boxing arenas and racecourses of Germany. My mother would tell them again and again to watch their language with us but they never managed for any long time and you bet: my brother and I just loved to hang with them ... it was another world, so fascinating, so seemingly dangerous, so "out of bounds" ... it seemed as irreal as TV or the movies, somewhere between 'Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn' and 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. Sometimes my aunts would take us to the brothel (while it was closed, mind you!) where we would sit by the bar on those high, wooden stools, hypnotized by the sounds of the slot machines, feeling strangely excited, completely in awe of the place. The women working there would smother and mother us, teaching us how to play poker and blackjack, letting us win most of the time, so that we always came home with huge amounts of extra pocket money which we had to hide from my mom in order to avoid her getting suspicious or even worse: making us give it back. It was a wild time and always made for interesting stories with our friends ...
Of course, that's only half the truth – just one side of the coin. As you can probably imagine, there was also a lot of bullshit connected to growing up amongst a horde of ... well, – hookers and criminals, really. But what I meant to make clear was that it sure kept me from being especially appalled by any of Henry Miller's writings. I had grown up with all that seemingly obscene language and I knew how it was just words – different words than those we were supposed to use, yet somewhat more honest and direct, often enough spoken with much more feeling (not necessarily positive though) than the hypocritically polite vocabulary used in most of my friend's houses.
What I found with 'Tropic of Cancer' was a book that for the first time blended the two clashing realities I had known so far: the poetic eloquence my literary grandfather had aquainted me with and the blatantly vulgar vocabulary of the streets ... I was thunderstruck, absolutely fascinated. I have always had a special relationship with words, loving them for their sound or feel, without even caring what they mean at times ... and here was Henry Miller ... overwhelming me with his lavish use of them: new words, strange words, complicated and exotic words ... I'm not sure I paid much attention to the actual story when I first read it, all I remember is that it left me hungry for more.
So I snatched 'Sexus' from my parents bookshelf. On the outside it didn't look half as exciting as 'Tropic of Cancer', but ... wow! This time I must admit I was indeed kind of shocked, stunned at the very least. I mean, it was so much more explicit – it may be different for a male teenage reader, I don't know – but as a girl of sixteen or seventeen I was kind of repelled by his detailed descriptions, disgusted even. The way he was talking about sex was like miles from the romantic notions I might have nurtured back then. And yet I couldn't stop reading – I sensed something almost mysterious behind his words, something deeper, something beyond my grasp. I remember I merely skipped over the "raunchy" parts (I couldn't stand the way they made me blush and left me feeling all bashful) but the honesty and frankness of the book had an enormous effect on me. I was reading it in English and didn't understand half of it, neither literally nor figuratively and after stumbling through maybe one third of it, I gave up on 'Sexus' for the time being.
I didn't know anything about Miller back then, he was just a name, just some author. I didn't know any of the backgrounds to his stories. The Henry of his books seemed to be a fictional character to me, yet a strangely touching one. He came across as being so human, so real and likeable in all his scruffiness and that intrigued me quite a bit.
Years passed and I was well in my twenties when I touched 'Sexus' again. It was amazing, it suddenly felt like a completely different book. It couldn't floor me with it's language anymore – I mean, I was warned, I knew what was coming and my notions on sex had become somewhat less innocently romantic by then – but it left me speechless, once again. What struck me unexpectedly was the depth, the profoundness, the straightforwardness and stark honesty with which Miller laid open his innermost self.
I came to adore Henry Miller. In 1994 I read 'The Colossus of Maroussi' – my favourite of all Miller's books – and that finally sealed my high esteem of the man. It was a revelation in terms of insight, history, philosophy, apperception and the relativity of truth. Greece seemed to come alive in front of my eyes and I yearned to go there and explore it for myself. One year later I finally did, ending up on a Kaiki, a greek fishing boat, in a little harbour on the Peloponnese, near Epidaurus, facing the island of Hydra. I would spend night after night sitting on deck with a petrol lamp and a glass of Retsina, with just a dog and hundreds of mosquitoes for company, reading Miller ... not exclusively but to a great extent. It's forever etched on my memory, the atmosphere of those nights ... the distant noise of the taverns by the harbour, the greek music and voices, the smell of garlic and mediterranean herbs and the distinct tasty smell of the inevitable gyros being prepared in the bar by the pier. My time with Henry, yeah!
My english friends were laughing at me, joking I was too young to waste my life on a dead guy, however ingenious, that there were other men out there, alive even ... but I was smitten. For weeks on end, every night, there was just Henry Miller ... and Lilli clinging to his every word, smitten with his eloquence, smitten with the truth he spoke. By then, I had long come to understand that his writing was mainly autobiographical and I admired him for his arresting candor. I still had to swallow hard at certain chapters, still felt myself blushing, happy to be alone and unobserved while reading – but first and foremost it was the deep and sharp, pictorial thinking that had me hooked on him. That and the way he described people and places, making them come alive through his words. It was a gift I came to highly appreciate ever after, a gift I would forever seek and venerate, in my heroes as much as in the everyman.
The complexity of Miller's character fascinated me. He was a failure in the eyes of some ... and yet some kind of hero. A heartbreaker and an asshole at the same time. A poet and a plague. How somebody could be so obscene and yet so gentle, so careless and yet so profound – so bemusing ... it simply sent my head spinning. Reading Miller I started to question a lot of things – but most of all my own thinking and (mis-)conceptions. The second time I read 'Sexus' it was not so much the action or the words that fascinated me but the person Henry – I was mesmerized with this personality ... so real, so wild.
My sailor friends brought back a biography from England but reading it I found that all I needed to know was already there in his own books. He gave me food for thought, causing me to reflect on a lot of things, but as I returned to Germany by the end of the year, I became too busy to read or occupy my mind with Miller – or any other writer – for a long time. My obsession with Henry Miller ebbed off, yet his way of seeing things had influenced my thinking quite a bit – and for good, I tend to say.
I didn't touch his books for more than ten years. Then there was this day last winter, when picking a book by buddhist writer Pema Chödrön to take to bed with me to read, I suddenly found myself staring at 'Sexus' and felt a sudden urge to take that one instead. And once more it was like ... wow!!! It was all there again, right upon reading the first pages ... so stunning, moving, touching, exciting, stimulating and arousing ... in more than one aspect. But just like the last time, it was like reading a different book yet again. It was like the book had grown with me or I with the book ... I found myself almost dumbfounded by paragraphs and sentences I couldn't even remember to have read the last time. They kind of jumped out of the pages, sometimes shouting at me, sometimes whispering ... as spiritual as anything possibly can be, or so it seemed to me. So much wisdom in there. This time it really touched my heart and soul, somewhere beyond fascination, much deeper. My understanding of his words was a different now. I could feel the pain and the many shattered dreams, the lost hopes and illusions ... and still so much joy, so much optimism, faith and strength ... Miller's energy is so contagious, almost addictive. He makes me hungry for this life, always. Vibrant with joy and a restlessness to go out there and live, just live, in spite of all and everything, in spite of life itself even.
The beauty of his words is so rough and true and universal, so all-enclosing and evocative, it's staggering. I read 'Sexus' and it adds a new dimension to reality, a dimension that reconciles the right with the wrong, reconciles irony and hope, joy and bitterness. I can see beauty in the obscene and wisdom in the trivial, the devine in the dirt and dust of everyday life. Lightness in the seemingly overbearing. It brings out every possible emotion in me, the whole spectrum of colours and moods. It makes me want to have a relationship with reality that is true, genuine ... somewhere beyond the dullness and routine ... direct, instantaneous, full of passion. It makes me want to risk more, defiant of potential pain or fear, despite possible shattered illusions.
Henry Miller ... somewhere beyond or besides or beneath being so drawn into his words and his world, he led me to see my own world so much clearer, bringing me much closer to it. What a genius he is, a wordsmith, an alchemist ...
20 January 2009
My ice cold winter wonderland …
Aah, I'm sad … this is my last day in Austria, my final night in the mountains. In spite of worrying quite a bit before I left (due to some family related issues) and in spite of the rather nasty cold, I've been enjoying my time here a lot. Over the years this tiny village, nestled in between the Dachstein and the Tennen mountain range, has become "a home away from home”, a place where I love to be, where I feel welcome and comfy and at peace with myself and the world.
My stay didn't quite turn out the way I expected — upon my arrival in the valley I was informed that an avalanche had cut off the gravel road that leads to the little cabin I was planning to stay in and that it wouldn't be accessible for the next few weeks. Thankfully, a friend quickly offered me a room on their farmstead, next door to my mom and her husband, and in spite of being somewhat disappointed not to be able to spend my time the way I had hoped for (a little further away from the village – and, the family..!), I gratefully accepted. Yet I wonder what would have happened if the avalanche had come down only AFTER I had reached the cabin?? Would it still have taken weeks to clear the road?
Anyway, so I ended up staying at this mountain farm, living in a cosy little room facing the Tennen Mountain Range. What a wonderful view upon waking up!!! My window is facing west, so I can not really see the sun as it rises in the morning, but I can watch the peaks in front of my window turn from blue to pink, from salmon to yellow and finally white, as they reflect the sunlight — it's so lovely to watch: those changing colors, the light's play — every morning I wake in anticipation of this spectacle …
This wing of the farmhouse is next to the stables and sometimes when I wake right before dawn, all curled up underneath the warm sheets, I listen to the noise of the cattle being milked, the light sound of the horse sleigh bells as the sleighs are taken out of the coach house, the panting and stamping of the horses … and in spite of the awful cold it makes me feel all cosy and snug, I bury myself deep in my pillows and under my giant down duvet where the cold can't reach me and go back to sleep until the first daylight comes up and wakes me again — this time to the sound of the heating being turned on — and I stay in bed watching the mountains change colour … by the time they turn from salmon to yellow the room is usually warm enough to dare come out of my eiderdown shelter and finally face the day, take a shower, have breakfast and get dressed for the world outside … which means covering my body with down again, haha, turning into something that resembles a marshmallow at best, a fat little "Michelin Man" at worst … these past few days we have had degrees way below zero (in Celsius anyway), dropping as low as -17°C / 1°F at daytime.
(click pictures for bigger view)
yeah, I look funny, I know! Just look at those mittens above, haha! A friend gave them to me, they may not be exactly elegant but I wouldn't have been able to take all these pictures without them in the freezing cold, they're the perfect photographer's winter equipment, a fingerless glove and a mitten all in one, real cool!
Looking like a marshmallow man I leave the house at about ten every morning, going for long walks, hikes or snowshoeing tours, either by myself or with family or friends. I always feel a little odd and clumsy, trying to move with all the many layers of cloth, heavy boots, hat, scarf and mittens on me …
Out there, what I find though — once I start moving and forget about the cold and the clumsiness — is a near perfect winter wonderland … a bleak but beautiful landscape, formed of patterns, shapes and texture, sun and shadow constantly painting pictures onto the snowy white canvas spread across the land, pictures that change from one minute to the next, everything is in motion and yet nothing moves.
(click pictures for bigger, better view)
The world is frozen still, motionless underneath the wandering light, the everchanging shadows giving the illusion of a liveliness that ceases as soon as the sun disappears for even the briefest of moments. A fierce cold is all that remains, a world void of colour other than shades of grey and blue … a hostile, threatening blue that bites my face as much as my soul, creeping up my back and under my skin, sending shivers up and down my spine … it's impossible to stand that cold blue — that blue cold — for any length of time, to keep on moving is the only way to escape — that, and praying for the sun to return soon. Until then, my batteries run on emergency power, moving like a robot, not thinking, not dreaming, not looking right or left … one foot in front of the other, looking down, head pulled in between the shoulders, making my way to some lodge, some fire place, some hot cocoa … to come alive again and finally find the strength and motivation to face the way back home, ha!
Do I sound unenthused? Haha! Truth is, as unpleasant as it sounds when I describe it like that — and as much as I curse that blue cold while being exposed to it, for sure — I still adore it! It's some kind of love-hate thing, I guess. I love the way the cold makes the following warmth seem so much more wonderful and valuable … I like the challenge of being out and about in that kind of weather, the way it makes me become aware of nature's strength and power and the beauty and wonder of being able to move therein.
It's a world of opposites — one moment everything seems dead and gone, like the world is hibernating, even the colors and sounds — but it only takes a single ray of sunshine sometimes, to make everything come alive again. It's fascinating and enchanting and at times I can completely lose myself in that, following the light's play with my eyes, listening to the stillness, simply being alive. I stop all the time, looking here and there, taking pictures of wayward findings, odd little details, snow that glistens and shines like rhinestone in the sun, snow crystals as big as pebbles, looking like feather and down, so soft and flaky, like it's not cold at all, haha! What a mistake — I'm reminded immediately upon touching it with my bare hands, ouch!
The weather is changing all the time, too. Up here in the mountains a bunch of clouds in the distance can turn into a nightmare above my head within minutes. A sky so blue that it hurts my eyes can turn grey and black while I have a quick cup of cocoa in a ski lodge. I have been told all sorts of scary stories, people getting lost in these mountains, caught by thunderstorms, dying in landslides and avalanches and whatnots … and I will admit I'm a bit of a coward, I have no intention of risking my neck or other important body parts, especially not when I'm out all alone, so I always ask the locals for weather forecasts and trail conditions before I start, making sure there are lodges within reach of the trails so I can rest and warm up and — most importantly for a gourmand like me — grab some decent food! I must stay strong, after all, and in the cold one burns sooooo many calories …
In fact, this year places to go have been pretty limited, due to the somewhat odd weather and snow conditions. Many trails are not accessible in this deep, way too fluffy snow — at least not by foot. Even with snowshoes or touring ski it's difficult and rather hazardous now, with the — unseasonably — high risk of avalanches. There are quite a few summits that have lifts or ropeways going up but usually that means just tons of people and completely crowded lodges, which I'm none too mad about, so most of my favourite peaks are subject to being adored from the distance only this winter, looking up from below instead of the other way round, the way I'd prefer. Well, if I see the mountains at all, that is! Right now there is no trace of them on the horizon, like some greedy giant has stolen them overnight.
(somebody just stole the mountains ... click for bigger view!)
The place where they should be is one huge, murky, grey plane, a misty swirling of clouds hanging so deep you no longer reckognize them as clouds. Yesterday's blizzard brought tons of ice and new snow and the sky has been completely cast over ever since, it feels like it hardly lights up during the day. It put an early end to my tours and hikes, limiting the possibilities to spend the day quite a bit, but it's still beautiful.
The trees … they look like they are covered in icing and sugar now, every little twig is coated in white — multitudes of teensy-weensy white ice-cubes, so funny to look at! Many of the young alder trees are bending and breaking under the heavy, frozen snow, exposing the fresh orange wood on their inside, the colorful splinters forming a strange contrast to the monochrome blue and white around them, looking almost obscene.
(click pictures for bigger, better view)
Ice, ice and more ice … everything is freezing over, even the creek has disappeared, though I can still hear it's babbling sound. Way down underneath it's heavy, gently rounded ice crust, it still flows, invisible to the beholder.
All the hundreds of little waterfalls coming out of the hillsides, they have turned into scary gatherings of icicles, looking like mighty spear heads, like the hastate portcullis' of ancient castles …
In spite of the weather, I went for a long, final walk today, partly following the cross country ski tracks (as far as I could see them in the mist), partly trudging through the deep snow … I so love the crunching noise of the snow, it always has a rather becalming effect on me, almost tranqulizing..! Today though, in the dense fog, everything sounded quite different, somewhat muted, subdued, like really "flat".
There was no trace of the sun, as well — it seems to have disappeared with the mountains for good. The cold became unbearable after a while, my face was frozen so stiff, I couldn't even move my lips to greet a fellow hiker, it was simply impossible to form a single word, ha! Hard to believe this was the same trail I walked only a couple of days ago, when reaching the summit and being exposed to the sun, it was so warm that I could pull off my jumper and sit there in a t-shirt, getting a tan (umm, okay — more like freckles in my case...). That day the sky was almost brash blue and instead of the vast nothingness, there was a mass of summits in front of me, it was silent as well, but in a different way, a distinct crystal clear silence … broken only by nature itself, the whistling noise of the wind, the soft, fissling sound of little snow clods sliding down the slopes … every now and then I could hear a bird in the distance, it's song echoing off the mountain face. I even saw a few roebucks while I sat there that day, moving about noiselessly — something I could not even imagine today, with zero visibility.
That day was special in more than one regard, seeing those deer was an exception, for sure. Fact is, most of the wild animals I saw during my time here were dead … elks and chamois, shot by Dutch hunters. A few days ago I went down to the valley to have dinner with my mom and her husband, when a couple of dead elks blocked my way ... the hunters were posing proudly and dozens of photographs were taken of the men and their prey. The snow in front of them was blood-soaked and the giant stag's antlers formed a spooky silhouette against the backdrop of the violet evening sky … so majestic those animals looked … such a sad sight ... their dead eyes wide open, their necks bent in the most bizarre of angles, their bodies still warm enough to steam in the cold … what a shame.
Considering that the above "event" was nothing too special for anybody involved, I no longer wonder why it is that by day I find all these animal traces but hardly ever come across any of their causers … quite different from what I experienced in the Rocky Mountains, wildlife hides all day in these parts of the world, coming out of the woods at night only, knowing all too well that their heads carry the hunter's favourite trophies …
Ah, it's getting late, I guess I must come to a close now, facing my last night in this wonderful winterworld. Here I sit and type, looking out of the window as night falls, missing my friend, the moon … like the sun, it is hiding behind those ruthless clouds. Not that it was ever really there at night, ha! … but by day, turning my face to the sun, what did I find up there in the middle of the blue sky? Yep, the crescent moon! Visible all day, disappearing with the twilight. For a few minutes every day I could see it in the dark, right beside Venus, the brightly shining evening star, before it finally went down behind the mountains. Without the moon to brighten up the sky, the starry night was overwhelming ... glistening and sparkling like a carpet of jewels, some celestial snowfield, reflecting these earthly ones.
During one of my first nights here, I got up in the middle of the night, felt my way to the window and opened the curtains, expecting to find the snowy, greyish night sky that I had said goodnight to a few hours ago … instead I suddenly found myself gazing at millions and millions of stars! The brightest, biggest stars I could imagine, bigger and more impressive than any starry sky I've ever seen, even bigger than the stars in the desert. I was completely mesmerized by all the twinkling — I opened my window, staring up into the sky, ignorant of the cold, almost hypnotized … it was like the sky was pulling me in, sucking me up, spitting me right into space, to be a star among stars, twinkling down from above, eternally … but alas, the chilly wind transported me back to reality in no time, forcing me to quickly skedaddle back underneath those warm eiderdown quilts …
So, goodbye it is — goodbye mountains, goodbye snow … goodbye my cheeky little kittens, goodbye wonderful view ... boohoohoo — I'm sooooo drippy and sappy and sentimental, haha!
Okay, I guess I should sleep for a few hours now, before it's time for the long drive back home ...
ps: more pics to follow soon!
My stay didn't quite turn out the way I expected — upon my arrival in the valley I was informed that an avalanche had cut off the gravel road that leads to the little cabin I was planning to stay in and that it wouldn't be accessible for the next few weeks. Thankfully, a friend quickly offered me a room on their farmstead, next door to my mom and her husband, and in spite of being somewhat disappointed not to be able to spend my time the way I had hoped for (a little further away from the village – and, the family..!), I gratefully accepted. Yet I wonder what would have happened if the avalanche had come down only AFTER I had reached the cabin?? Would it still have taken weeks to clear the road?
Anyway, so I ended up staying at this mountain farm, living in a cosy little room facing the Tennen Mountain Range. What a wonderful view upon waking up!!! My window is facing west, so I can not really see the sun as it rises in the morning, but I can watch the peaks in front of my window turn from blue to pink, from salmon to yellow and finally white, as they reflect the sunlight — it's so lovely to watch: those changing colors, the light's play — every morning I wake in anticipation of this spectacle …
This wing of the farmhouse is next to the stables and sometimes when I wake right before dawn, all curled up underneath the warm sheets, I listen to the noise of the cattle being milked, the light sound of the horse sleigh bells as the sleighs are taken out of the coach house, the panting and stamping of the horses … and in spite of the awful cold it makes me feel all cosy and snug, I bury myself deep in my pillows and under my giant down duvet where the cold can't reach me and go back to sleep until the first daylight comes up and wakes me again — this time to the sound of the heating being turned on — and I stay in bed watching the mountains change colour … by the time they turn from salmon to yellow the room is usually warm enough to dare come out of my eiderdown shelter and finally face the day, take a shower, have breakfast and get dressed for the world outside … which means covering my body with down again, haha, turning into something that resembles a marshmallow at best, a fat little "Michelin Man" at worst … these past few days we have had degrees way below zero (in Celsius anyway), dropping as low as -17°C / 1°F at daytime.
(click pictures for bigger view)yeah, I look funny, I know! Just look at those mittens above, haha! A friend gave them to me, they may not be exactly elegant but I wouldn't have been able to take all these pictures without them in the freezing cold, they're the perfect photographer's winter equipment, a fingerless glove and a mitten all in one, real cool!
Looking like a marshmallow man I leave the house at about ten every morning, going for long walks, hikes or snowshoeing tours, either by myself or with family or friends. I always feel a little odd and clumsy, trying to move with all the many layers of cloth, heavy boots, hat, scarf and mittens on me …
Out there, what I find though — once I start moving and forget about the cold and the clumsiness — is a near perfect winter wonderland … a bleak but beautiful landscape, formed of patterns, shapes and texture, sun and shadow constantly painting pictures onto the snowy white canvas spread across the land, pictures that change from one minute to the next, everything is in motion and yet nothing moves.
The world is frozen still, motionless underneath the wandering light, the everchanging shadows giving the illusion of a liveliness that ceases as soon as the sun disappears for even the briefest of moments. A fierce cold is all that remains, a world void of colour other than shades of grey and blue … a hostile, threatening blue that bites my face as much as my soul, creeping up my back and under my skin, sending shivers up and down my spine … it's impossible to stand that cold blue — that blue cold — for any length of time, to keep on moving is the only way to escape — that, and praying for the sun to return soon. Until then, my batteries run on emergency power, moving like a robot, not thinking, not dreaming, not looking right or left … one foot in front of the other, looking down, head pulled in between the shoulders, making my way to some lodge, some fire place, some hot cocoa … to come alive again and finally find the strength and motivation to face the way back home, ha!
Do I sound unenthused? Haha! Truth is, as unpleasant as it sounds when I describe it like that — and as much as I curse that blue cold while being exposed to it, for sure — I still adore it! It's some kind of love-hate thing, I guess. I love the way the cold makes the following warmth seem so much more wonderful and valuable … I like the challenge of being out and about in that kind of weather, the way it makes me become aware of nature's strength and power and the beauty and wonder of being able to move therein.
It's a world of opposites — one moment everything seems dead and gone, like the world is hibernating, even the colors and sounds — but it only takes a single ray of sunshine sometimes, to make everything come alive again. It's fascinating and enchanting and at times I can completely lose myself in that, following the light's play with my eyes, listening to the stillness, simply being alive. I stop all the time, looking here and there, taking pictures of wayward findings, odd little details, snow that glistens and shines like rhinestone in the sun, snow crystals as big as pebbles, looking like feather and down, so soft and flaky, like it's not cold at all, haha! What a mistake — I'm reminded immediately upon touching it with my bare hands, ouch!
The weather is changing all the time, too. Up here in the mountains a bunch of clouds in the distance can turn into a nightmare above my head within minutes. A sky so blue that it hurts my eyes can turn grey and black while I have a quick cup of cocoa in a ski lodge. I have been told all sorts of scary stories, people getting lost in these mountains, caught by thunderstorms, dying in landslides and avalanches and whatnots … and I will admit I'm a bit of a coward, I have no intention of risking my neck or other important body parts, especially not when I'm out all alone, so I always ask the locals for weather forecasts and trail conditions before I start, making sure there are lodges within reach of the trails so I can rest and warm up and — most importantly for a gourmand like me — grab some decent food! I must stay strong, after all, and in the cold one burns sooooo many calories …
In fact, this year places to go have been pretty limited, due to the somewhat odd weather and snow conditions. Many trails are not accessible in this deep, way too fluffy snow — at least not by foot. Even with snowshoes or touring ski it's difficult and rather hazardous now, with the — unseasonably — high risk of avalanches. There are quite a few summits that have lifts or ropeways going up but usually that means just tons of people and completely crowded lodges, which I'm none too mad about, so most of my favourite peaks are subject to being adored from the distance only this winter, looking up from below instead of the other way round, the way I'd prefer. Well, if I see the mountains at all, that is! Right now there is no trace of them on the horizon, like some greedy giant has stolen them overnight.
The place where they should be is one huge, murky, grey plane, a misty swirling of clouds hanging so deep you no longer reckognize them as clouds. Yesterday's blizzard brought tons of ice and new snow and the sky has been completely cast over ever since, it feels like it hardly lights up during the day. It put an early end to my tours and hikes, limiting the possibilities to spend the day quite a bit, but it's still beautiful.
The trees … they look like they are covered in icing and sugar now, every little twig is coated in white — multitudes of teensy-weensy white ice-cubes, so funny to look at! Many of the young alder trees are bending and breaking under the heavy, frozen snow, exposing the fresh orange wood on their inside, the colorful splinters forming a strange contrast to the monochrome blue and white around them, looking almost obscene.
Ice, ice and more ice … everything is freezing over, even the creek has disappeared, though I can still hear it's babbling sound. Way down underneath it's heavy, gently rounded ice crust, it still flows, invisible to the beholder.
All the hundreds of little waterfalls coming out of the hillsides, they have turned into scary gatherings of icicles, looking like mighty spear heads, like the hastate portcullis' of ancient castles …
In spite of the weather, I went for a long, final walk today, partly following the cross country ski tracks (as far as I could see them in the mist), partly trudging through the deep snow … I so love the crunching noise of the snow, it always has a rather becalming effect on me, almost tranqulizing..! Today though, in the dense fog, everything sounded quite different, somewhat muted, subdued, like really "flat".
There was no trace of the sun, as well — it seems to have disappeared with the mountains for good. The cold became unbearable after a while, my face was frozen so stiff, I couldn't even move my lips to greet a fellow hiker, it was simply impossible to form a single word, ha! Hard to believe this was the same trail I walked only a couple of days ago, when reaching the summit and being exposed to the sun, it was so warm that I could pull off my jumper and sit there in a t-shirt, getting a tan (umm, okay — more like freckles in my case...). That day the sky was almost brash blue and instead of the vast nothingness, there was a mass of summits in front of me, it was silent as well, but in a different way, a distinct crystal clear silence … broken only by nature itself, the whistling noise of the wind, the soft, fissling sound of little snow clods sliding down the slopes … every now and then I could hear a bird in the distance, it's song echoing off the mountain face. I even saw a few roebucks while I sat there that day, moving about noiselessly — something I could not even imagine today, with zero visibility.
That day was special in more than one regard, seeing those deer was an exception, for sure. Fact is, most of the wild animals I saw during my time here were dead … elks and chamois, shot by Dutch hunters. A few days ago I went down to the valley to have dinner with my mom and her husband, when a couple of dead elks blocked my way ... the hunters were posing proudly and dozens of photographs were taken of the men and their prey. The snow in front of them was blood-soaked and the giant stag's antlers formed a spooky silhouette against the backdrop of the violet evening sky … so majestic those animals looked … such a sad sight ... their dead eyes wide open, their necks bent in the most bizarre of angles, their bodies still warm enough to steam in the cold … what a shame.
Considering that the above "event" was nothing too special for anybody involved, I no longer wonder why it is that by day I find all these animal traces but hardly ever come across any of their causers … quite different from what I experienced in the Rocky Mountains, wildlife hides all day in these parts of the world, coming out of the woods at night only, knowing all too well that their heads carry the hunter's favourite trophies …
Ah, it's getting late, I guess I must come to a close now, facing my last night in this wonderful winterworld. Here I sit and type, looking out of the window as night falls, missing my friend, the moon … like the sun, it is hiding behind those ruthless clouds. Not that it was ever really there at night, ha! … but by day, turning my face to the sun, what did I find up there in the middle of the blue sky? Yep, the crescent moon! Visible all day, disappearing with the twilight. For a few minutes every day I could see it in the dark, right beside Venus, the brightly shining evening star, before it finally went down behind the mountains. Without the moon to brighten up the sky, the starry night was overwhelming ... glistening and sparkling like a carpet of jewels, some celestial snowfield, reflecting these earthly ones.
During one of my first nights here, I got up in the middle of the night, felt my way to the window and opened the curtains, expecting to find the snowy, greyish night sky that I had said goodnight to a few hours ago … instead I suddenly found myself gazing at millions and millions of stars! The brightest, biggest stars I could imagine, bigger and more impressive than any starry sky I've ever seen, even bigger than the stars in the desert. I was completely mesmerized by all the twinkling — I opened my window, staring up into the sky, ignorant of the cold, almost hypnotized … it was like the sky was pulling me in, sucking me up, spitting me right into space, to be a star among stars, twinkling down from above, eternally … but alas, the chilly wind transported me back to reality in no time, forcing me to quickly skedaddle back underneath those warm eiderdown quilts …
So, goodbye it is — goodbye mountains, goodbye snow … goodbye my cheeky little kittens, goodbye wonderful view ... boohoohoo — I'm sooooo drippy and sappy and sentimental, haha!
Okay, I guess I should sleep for a few hours now, before it's time for the long drive back home ...
ps: more pics to follow soon!
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