Sunday 13 February 2011

Laughter, jouissance and all that

Don't they look like they're having fun?

"Laughter? Do people ever care about laughter? I mean real laughter, beyond joking, mockery, ridicule. Laughter, an immense and delicisious sensual pleasure, wholly sensual pleasure..."

So Kundera quotes Leclerc in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and because Valentine's Day is so ludicrous let's laugh...



Saturday 12 February 2011

A virtuous circle

So, a day for clearing out and a day for throwing away a nasty little piece of paper dated 29/12/2010- a tag for cleaning that was never done - attached to a coat that was only divested of its plastic wrapping on the sixth of January. What would be gained by telling the shop owner of the hurt I felt on the day of my mother's funeral when his subterfuge was detected? Nothing. Best throw the tag away.

So why, then, when I spilt a packet of seeds, was it worth my time to pick up every one, rolling hither and thither over the table, under the table; every seed returned to the pack (easy-grow fragrant mix, quality guaranteed, sow by 2002). Simple, because they might still grow into hardy little annuals; something good, sweet smelling. But sharing my grief with the dry cleaner won't grow into anything.

So on to a female poet of 15th century Rome for the romantic season:

Vivo su questo scoglio orrido e solo,
quasi dolente augel che'l verde ramo

e l'acqua pura aboree, e a quelli ch'amo
nel mondo ed a me stessa ancor m'involo,
perche expedito Sol che adoro e colo
vada il pensiero.

E sebben quanto bramo l/ali non spiega;
eppur quand'io 'l richiamo
volge dall'altre strade a questa il volo.

Ed in quel punto che sorge lieto e ardent
la ove l'invio; si breve gioria avanza
qui di gran lunga ogni mondan diletto.

Ma se potesse l'alta sua sembianza
formar quand'ella vuol, l'accesa mente;
parte avrei forse qui del ben perfetto.


***

I live on this rock, horrible and lonely
like a suffering bird that avoid the green branch
and the pure water, and from whom I love
in the world, and from myself, I fly away
to let my mind go as fast as possible to my
Sun that I adore and love.

And even if my love doesn't open his
wings, when I call him back from other
directions, he flies towards me.

And it's there that he rise happily and
ardently, there where I send him, and a
small joy outshines all the greater joys
of the material world.

I would like to form his beautiful image
in my burning mind whenever I want,
so that I should have a small portion of
perfect love.

For you Joe...

Sunday 6 February 2011

My Boy


A day with my boy yesterday. Because he was 26 on the 26th we spent the day together and it was good. Almost a man; he told me some things about his life and I told him some about mine. We laughed and ate and then we parted. As I watched him walk away my heart was squeezed with the same feeling I had the first time I watched him take his first walk into independence, away from me. He's going to be just fine.


So, although they've never met, he has something in common with his grandfather in this photograph. It was sent to a young Italian woman in 1945 and on the back was written: ti ricordo questa uomo? Not a bad way to tell a girl you've survived a war. And I guess it squeezed that woman's heart because the rest is history. Ah, the ability to squeeze a heart. Well the faeries have my boy now but he gives me a day now and then.