Rain

And the rain falls.

Sullen heavy skies...
and a relentless flow
of rain.

Like teardrops
that carry no pain,
but cleanse, refresh, renew.

And the rain falls.

DLD/30JUN07

Hoofing It Around the Island

#35 - The Kingdom by the Sea, by Paul Theroux
Finished 6/30/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 361
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: I enjoyed Theroux’s journey around the coastal perimeter of Great Britain, even though the prose became very repetitive and droning at times. He is particularly adept at characterizing the myriad of interesting people that he encountered as he walked, took the train, jumped on buses, or hitchhiked his way through a dazzling array of tiny hamlets, picturesque villages, and dreary towns. He seems to have a rather bleak view of most of the places he visited. I took this with a large grain of salt (sea salt, that is *wink*), as I prefer to come to my own conclusions on such things. If nothing else, this served as a wonderful geography lesson for my summertime explorations of places far and near. I kept Google Maps up the entire time I was reading, so that I could track his steps from place to place.

FAVOURITE QUOTES: “I kept walking. It was possible for me to look through the front windows of these bungalows and see people polishing a souvenir horse brass, or buffing a cruet, or crocheting a doll with a long dress as a container for hiding the toilet roll. And I saw a woman at the window of one bungalow carefully biting the tip of her tongue and ironing an antimacassar. No one at Lydd-on-Sea was staring out of the window at the hideous nuclear power station and whispering, ‘God help us,’ but rather the general activity had to do with tidying. I thought about this as I walked along, and it seemed hugely appropriate that people were ironing antimacassars in a spot where a nuclear melt-down could be occurring. This was England, after all.” [p. 52]

The following two quotes are from the section on Northern Ireland….a depressing and frightening account indeed. (Theroux’s journey took place in the early 1980’s):

“It was all old grievances, and vengeance in the dark. That was why the ambush was popular, and the car bomb, and the exploding soap box, and the letter bomb. The idea was to deny what you stood for and then wait until dark to get even with the bugger who made you deny it.” [p. 233]

“Ulster was a collection of secret societies, to which only men were admitted. The men dressed up, made rules, beat drums, swore oaths, invented handshakes and passwords, and crept into the dark and killed people. When they were done they returned home to their women, like small children to their mothers.” [p. 238]

At Least I'm Not Missing Anything....

Stuck inside. Recuperating from a cold. Waiting (see my last post). Day after day of rain and dreary weather at least validates my inactivity. With any luck, the rain will stop before school starts again in October. Sigh.

Lemon hot toddies all around. My treat. :) Now where's that book I was reading.....?

Rain
Rain surrounds you
It kisses your cheeks
And you imagine
The rain
As arms
Holding you,
Protecting you
Safe
In the rain.
--Anne Lacy

Listening to: Train in Vain (Annie Lennox), on iTunes mvyradio (from Martha's Vineyard).
Just finished: Signing up for a monthly DVD rental program through Amazon. If it's gonna rain for a month, I may as well catch up on all the films I've missed in the last year.

In a Lull

Life seems to have slowed to almost a complete stop the past week or so, while we await release of our final marks. Somehow it seems like nothing else can happen until I receive notification of my grades on 11th July. So I wait....

I spent a few days with a fellow student in London last week. We reflected on all the hard work we've done to get this far, and shared our growing anxiety about "the wait."

I came home on Sunday and again....I wait.... I fill the hours with books and music, but there's an underlying tension throughout the hours while I wait. I'm considering going to Scotland for a week, but I'm reluctant to make plans until after the 11th, so I wait. I'm confident enough about my results that I've already informed my family that I won't be coming home to Canada this summer, and yet there's that teeny little bit of uncertainty that holds me back from making different plans. So I wait....

I have a stack of books on medical anthropology at my elbow that I've been browsing through. I'm becoming more and more certain that this is the direction I want to pursue for grad studies. I've been looking at the university websites -- McGill, Oxford, Toronto, Cambridge -- checking out requirements and course offerings and deadlines for application submission. I need another year at LSE to finish my BSc, but in many cases, applications for Sept 08 admission to grad school must be sent in by Dec 31/2007; and scholarship applications even sooner than that. There's lots of paperwork to do. However, none of this makes a difference till I know my grades. So I wait....

The last two days I've been fighting off a virus of some sort, and have spent much of my time sleeping. While I don't relish being ill, sleeping makes the wait somewhat more palatable.

Life is on "pause"....

timelessness

A gentle quietness...
The still glowing embers
bring remembrance.
Ancient pathways beckon.

Recline in the grass...
Embrace the moonlight...
Bask in sprinkled starshine
and allow the drift to begin.

Open your mind to the heavens...
Let your spirit bathe in the mists of time...
Let the joining begin
as it has so many times before.

Welcome the dream of tomorrow.
Let it fill you with hope
and anticipation.
Grasp the silver thread.
Follow it back to the past.
Acknowledge the connection.

Return to the present...
Reflect on the truth...
Rejoice in the moment...

Know that
all time is
now.

DLD/20JUN07

"It's Simple Mathematics"

#34 - Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, by Jean Lee Latham
Finished 6/19/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 251
Reason for Reading: Newbery Challenge
REVIEW: I loved this book about the life and times of Nathaniel Bowditch, a mathematical wizard as a boy who became a navigating genius. The setting is the turn of the 19th century, and the story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, and on the high seas. I greatly enjoyed the descriptions of how to sail by the stars, how to use a sextant, and how to calculate latitude and longitude long before the advent of modern-day instruments. It gave me new appreciation for the difficulties involved in navigating sailing ships and the ins and outs of the high seas trading industry. I loved the book now, and I would have greatly loved it as a teen as well. It was books like this in my early years that fuelled my love of adventure and my belief that anything is possible, if only you want it enough and are prepared to do what it takes. I now have an unexplainable urge to watch Master and Commander. LOL! Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t read this as a teen. Who knows what line of work I might be in now if I had? *grin* Storytelling at its finest. Highly recommended.

* * * * *

Sadly, Nattie, the host for the Newbery Challenge, was unsuccessful in her battle against the cancer that took her life on June 7. It is my intention to complete this challenge in her honour. My deepest sympathies to her family, especially her son Jonathan, age 9, and her daughter Anna, age 6.

Listening to: Iapetus (Enya)

castles never last

castles never last

the water nudges the wall
eroding, disintegrating
little by little

breathe....release
breathe....release
breathe....release

every breath
erodes the foundation...
castles can't last
forever

the walls become sand again
swirling in tidewater pools
and then swept back to sea

only to be rebuilt
by another child
on the other side of the world

breathe....release
breathe....release
breathe

DLD/19JUN07

Repost: Landscapes of Wales

The top photo is the town of Barmouth. The middle two are from my hillside hike, and the bottom is taken from Panorama Viewpoint.

Repost: More Hiking Photos from Wales

Life on Other Planets

#33 - The Book of Dreams, by Jack Vance
Finished 6/17/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 268
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: This was the fifth and final instalment in the Demon Princes series. I quite enjoyed the whole series. Vance is clearly a most imaginative and clever author, and as a sci-fi writer he stands among the best. Every chapter begins with an excerpt from some important published work of the future, something that advances the plot or elucidates some element of the story. I particularly enjoyed his careful descriptions of clothing styles, which varied dramatically from planet to planet, and the details of various strange and wondrous foods and menu items. Meticulous attention is also paid to local dialects and musical instruments, dances, and songs. Each world is brought to life with its own colours and sounds, and plenty of elaborate detail. Pure genius!

Listening to: Slow Roll 77 (Freakniks), on iTunes Flaresound.
Pensive about: The ups and downs of personal relationships, both new and old.

tides

i sit at the shore
mesmerized by the tides
that rise and then subside

the water comes to me
filling the sand with pools
of reflected sunshine

then the world tilts
and the sea flows back to you,
leaving me empty

like the ocean,
i search for balance
within the endless motion...
the ebb and flow...
of life and love

the tides that rise
and then subside

DLD/17JUN07

A Week by the Water

The train journey to Barmouth was longer than I expected....over eight hours. I didn't know you could travel eight hours by train in Great Britain without falling in the ocean! LOL! The last hour of the journey, however, was pretty close to that. The tracks hugged the hillside above the sea, and the scenery was spectacular. At right is the tiny community of Barmouth, tucked between the sea and the hillsides...very picturesque indeed.


I'm not sure from whence emerged the intense desire to go to the seaside, but when I booked this vacation some two months ago, the sensation just wouldn't go away. Somehow being near the water refreshes, soothes, and renews in a most remarkable way. I love the sound of the waves, whether they're gently lapping the shoreline or rushing in with a great crash. The beach at Barmouth is one of the most spectacularly beautiful that I have ever seen. When the tide was out, there was a huge expanse of soft, fine sand that seemed to go on forever. And what amazed me was how few people seemed to be around most of the time. As the weekend approached, more and more families and arm-in-arm young couples appeared to take up space with their blankets and coolers, but for most of the week I was there, the beaches were as uncrowded as the photos here portray. Even on the busiest days, the sun-worshippers didn't show up till well after 10 a.m., and were gone again by 5:30 p.m.



One of the my first stops was at the Tourist Information Centre to pick up maps of self-directed hiking trails. I'm a little out of shape for longer treks (since I spent all of my "spare time" in the last eight months stuck in my room reading books and writing papers, rather than keeping fit), but I was pleased to find that I could still put in three to four hours without too much difficulty.

Pathways are one of my favourite subjects for photography. I love the perspective, and the hidden message of a new destination and undiscovered mysteries right around the next corner.



Another hike, another day.....and here's yours truly....proving that I did indeed wander through these beautiful landscapes. My camera is a 5.0 megapixel Canon PowerShot A530, with 4x optical zoom. Mostly I just set it on automatic and let it do its own thing. This was the first time that I stopped long enough to learn how to use the auto timer. I carefully balanced the camera on a large rock, set it for 10 seconds and scooted over to the gate. This was taken very near the Panorama viewpoint looking over the harbour, and the photo at left is from the viewpoint itself, showing the train bridge over the mouth of the Mawddach estuary.


It took me about an hour and a half to climb to the highest point of the hills behind Barmouth, and I was rewarded with beautiful views of the Welsh countryside (and the odd sheep as well *smile*). I was intrigued by the natural stone "fences." Aren't they beautiful? Many houses in Barmouth are constructed of the same local rock, and I loved how they blended right into the hillside.

I spent a lot of my time just looking at the water, mesmerized by the magical motion of the waves. I had a lovely room with an unobstructed view right over the water, and a big comfy armchair settled nicely in the window nook. And several times a day I'd head out to wander the beach. Walk, refresh, renew, breathe. Very very relaxing.

The tides fascinated me. They made me think of the world as a great huge balancing mechanism, and I visualized the water flowing gently back and forth between the continents. I wonder if it's the earth's way of always trying to find that middle ground where the water could be perfectly still and serene. :)

The photo above right is my favourite of the entire trip, taken on a peaceful, quiet evening.

Poppet at the Seaside

Look up, Poppet,
look w-a-a-a-a-a-y up.....





















Poppet perched on a piling, gazing out at the seascape.














Poppet wonders where the water goes when the tide goes out, and what does it feel like to dip your toes in the surf? (Poppet has no toes, you see.)










Poppet checks out the rocky shoreline....











....and climbs up to the Promenade for a wide view.

Writing Habits

Andi over at Tripping Toward Lucidity blogged today about writing rituals and habits. I responded there, but enjoyed the topic so much that I'm copy-and-pasting my comment here:

The only truly unbreakable writing habit I have is procrastination. I can find all kinds of other things to do before starting the paper. Wash dishes, take a shower, go for a walk, straighten my bookshelves, braid my hair, sort out my photos, and OMG look at how those coloured pens got all out of order!!! *snort* My writing space looks kinda like the photo you posted, though. 'Cept my chair is worn out, faded fabric with a really yucky brown/beige floral print; and my "footstool" is the wooden desk chair that I pull across the room cuz I don't own a proper ottoman, don't wanna spend the money, and don't have space to keep one anyways; and the walls are grungy used-to-be-white horrid wallpaper that's peeling off in every corner and along every seam; and I don't own a dog. Okay. Now that I think about it I guess it's not much the same at all. But I do have that annoying sloped ceiling above my head that always seems to get in the way when alighting into or emerging from one's writing fervour. Just one of the perils of life in a third-floor dusty Dickensian garret.

As far as distractions, I cannot work ANYWHERE where people are moving around, such as at the library. I utterly HATE doing research or writing at the library. The whispering around me makes me nuts. But I've gotta have music, and I've gotta use my earbuds plugged into my laptop, and the volume tends to get scooched up higher and higher until it's eventually at its max. The genre doesn't matter -- it can be jazz, rock, blues, classical, whatever -- but It has to be familiar music, not NEW music. Familiar music just blends into the background; new music draws my attention away from the work. And once I do (finally) get out of procrastination mode and settled in my space with the music blaring into my ears, I tend to sit and write until the damn thing is done. Not unusual for me to go five/six hours without stirring from my spot.

And in case you think I'm kidding, the photo above is my writing spot as it looks at this exact moment. I particularly like the towels hanging over the radiator at my left elbow. Charming, don't you think? Yes, I really am living a very very (very!) simple existence just now.

How about you? What are your writing peccadilloes? I'd love to hear about your unbreakable habits too!

Listening to: Could Fly (Keith Urban)
Thinking about: Booking another vacation (Scotland)

The Beach at Fairbourne

I cannot BELIEVE the sheer beauty of the Cambrian Coast beaches. And, yes, they truly are this EMPTY! Utterly amazing. Weekends are much busier, and they tell me July/August is crazy, but these are undiscovered gems -- pure and simple. Fairbourne is just south of Barmouth, on the opposite side of the Mawddach Estuary. Taken from the train, which hugs the coastline a
hundred or so feet above the ground. Yowzas!

Vacation Reading

I finished all four books that I took with me on vacation. Ahhh.....the glory of long days filled with zero responsibilities and good reads.... Life is good. *smile* Here are my reviews:

#29 - The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, by M.G. Vassanji
Finished 6/7/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 436
Reason for Reading: 2003 Giller Prize Winner
REVIEW: Although I found the book long and tedious from time to time, I quite enjoyed the story of Vikram Lall and his family. The story is set in Kenya, yet told from the perspective of a narrator (Vikram) who now lives in Toronto. It tells of a third-generation Indian family, still struggling to find their true place under the remnants of colonial rule. The politics of the time are well represented, although they serve more as a counterpoint to the lives of the Lalls than as the central feature. Vassanji succeeds in developing a family story that acts as a microcosm to the national events surrounding them. Well-told with interesting and captivating characters.

#30 - The Cat Who Went to Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth
Finished 6/7/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 74
Reason for Reading: Newbery Challenge
REVIEW: A delightful fable about a poor painter who is commissioned to create a masterpiece of the dying Buddha for the village temple. The artist ponders and meditates on each element of the painting. He spends time contemplating the meaning of each animal to be added, but is unable to include the cat, as legend tells that only the cat of all animals refused the teachings of Buddha. When the painter rebels against tradition, and includes a cat in the painting, he is rewarded with a miracle. A very good primer on the meaning of life, compassion, and love in the Buddhist religion. Every word masterful and meaningful. Highly recommended.

#31 - The Monk, by Matthew Lewis
Finished 6/10/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 1452 (Palm Pilot)
Reason for Reading: 18th/19th Century Novel
REVIEW: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It’s entirely different from anything else I’ve read from this era. Hard-hitting, tough, violent, judgmental, lusty. It’s all about sin and temptations. There are a variety of characters that tell their stories throughout the course of the book, and all the stories converge in surprisingly unique ways. Recommended.

#32 - Women with Men, by Richard Ford
Finished 6/12/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 255
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: My first by Richard Ford and amazingly good. Loved the insights into the male psyche of his main characters. This is a collection of three short stories, connected by themes of marriage and infidelity, the search for love (or conversely, the seeming avoidance of it), and how human relationships work (or rather, how they don’t). The three main adult male characters are very well depicted, fully three-dimensional, and memorable, but each of them is also distinctly unlikable in their own fashion. Fascinating material.

I earmarked a number of striking passages, including these two...

“Obviously she was more complicated, maybe even smarter, than he’d thought, and quite realistic about life, though slightly disillusioned. Probably, if he wanted to press the matter of intimacy, he could take her back to his room – a thing he’d done before on business trips, and even if not so many times, enough times that to do so now wouldn’t be extraordinary or meaningful, at least not to him. To share an unexpected intimacy might intensify both their holds on life.” [p. 7]

“In that way, he felt, it was a typical academic marriage. Other people forged these same accommodations without ever knowing it. His parents, for instance. It was possible they hated each other, yet hating each other was worth more than trying to love somebody else, somebody you’d never know in a hundred years and probably wouldn’t like if you did. Better, they’d found, to focus on whatever good was left, set aside all issues they would never agree on, and call it marriage, even love.” [p. 159]

The Erstwhile Welsh Wanderer Returns....

I'm having too much fun catching up on everyone else's blogs to update my own (yet), but here's one photo for now....This was taken on my Saturday hike up the mountain. Very...um....Welsh-ish, don't you think?? *smile* Lots more to come! (Promise!) Including poppet pics. Hehehe..... Oh, and book reviews. Three or four, if I remember correctly. Back soon!

Off to Snowdonia

Tomorrow morning I leave Chesham at 1010, head to London Marylebone Station and then take the 1150 train to Barmouth, Wales, by way of Birmingham. I'm looking forward to a surf-dabbling, mountain-hiking, book-reading, poetry-composing, journal-writing, seaside-wandering, afternoon-napping, sandcastle-building, poppet-posing, wine-drinking, good-food-eating, and utterly-relaxing holiday. I'll be back in a week, and ready for regular blogging again. Be good to yourselves. {{{hugz}}} In the meantime....here's a video of the area I'll be visiting. Enjoy. *grin*