Beautiful Cynicism III

The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind the anonymous medieval poet makes me remember, the rain that falls on a day when you’d just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency.
-Susan Allen Toth

Le temps s’étire
Soirée de pluie printanière
Et moi je songe
-Natsume Sôseki

Pour la course au lointain, jeunes femmes coquettes,
Attachez à vos pieds les légères raquettes.
Les champs sont blancs à l’infini; de toutes parts
Il neige. C’est le temps propice aux beaux départs.
Sous vos habits de laine épaisse, souple et chaude,
Ne sentant pas l’hiver, vous irez en maraude,
Passant les vergers nus et passant les maisons
Où la neige a planté de pâles horizons.
Et vous croirez pouvoir atteindre jusqu’au pôle!
Il neigera toujours du blanc sur vos épaules,
Et vos lèvres seront rouges comme un oeillet!
Vous rirez de tomber, d’un beau rire complet!
Chacune sera gaie aussi de toute chose,
Et chacune sera rose comme une rose!
Sur le tapis fourré de molle hermine, au soir,
Lasses, vous reviendrez au foyer vous asseoir.
Belles d’avoir bu l’air ardent des étendues,
Ayant marché sur tant de blancheurs épandues
Dont vos yeux resteront pour longtemps éblouis,
Quelque nuit, vous aurez des songes inouïs
D’arbres blancs, de maisons blanches, de paysages
Exquisement givrés, beaux comme des visages!

Albert Lozeau, Croquis d’hiver

I peel a pomegranate and say to myself;
Weren’t it good if one could see,
the seeds of people hearts;
Tears come when the juice splashes in my eyes

I love the tart, bitter, zesty, clean taste. I love the sight of the blood-red juice dripping between my fingers. I love the pulpy flesh surrounding tiny, crackling seeds, like so many velvet pillows. I love the hardiness of the thick pink skin that gives it its shape, so round and dignified. I love the translucence of the white inner peel, so delicate and thin. I value its contribution to autumnal feasts, and its place in my favourite season’s harvest. Juicy, messy, complex, delicious pomegranates…

Par la couleur du ciel et les plaintes du vent,
Par les tons nuancés du feuillage mouvant,
Par mon désir de rêve et mon coeur qui frissonne,
Dans la sérénité profonde des beaux soirs
Où la lune apparaît bleue au firmament noir,
Malgré les astres clairs, on l’aperçoit qui rôde
Sur le gazon, ou dans les coins des chambres chaudes.
Il émane de lui je ne sais quoi de doux
Qui frôle notre chair et qui pénètre en nous,

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
-George Eliot

« Corps violent, redoutable, honteux… »¹

¹ Mon corps, par Odilon-Jean Périer
² Othello, par William Shakespeare, trad. par François-Victor Hugo
³ Le voyageur chérubinique, par Angelus Silesius, trad. par Maël Renouard

“A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden, swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.” (Henry Ward Beecher)

J’adore les oranges: leur douceur et leur acidité, leur couleur et leur parfum. Perfectly bright little spheres heralding nothing but happiness and healthfulness. Dimpled rind, taut skin, they fit perfectly in the palm of one’s hand. Et n’oublions pas les autres dans la famille: les mandarines, clémentines, satsumas, de toutes les couleurs, de jaune à rouge. Le parfum des oranges est synonyme avec les jours longs et chauds de l’été. (And, incidentally, it’s also somewhat synonymous with the cynic, for those who know her, as her body butter is satsuma-scented!)

Voilà: maintenant la couleur orange et ces beaux agrumes vous rappelleront du cynique!

“Le chocolat est divin, moelleux, sensuel, profond. Noir, somptueux, gratifiant, puissant, dense, crémeux, séducteur, suggestif, riche, excessif, soyeux, doux, luxueux, céleste…”

Elaine Sherman

Photo: southofmainstream.com

While cleaning house today I came across boxes full of memories; old photographs, old notebooks, old albums. Later, when taking a break from the dusting and sorting, I couldn’t decipher what music I wanted to listen to. I decided to rifle through my mix tape collection.
I have many, many mix tapes, which fall into two categories: those I made for myself, and those I received from others. The former group I love because it represents my past; each tape is a chronicle of my moods, my creativity, my self-expression – and they all contain songs that I love or that move me, so there are no “bad” songs.
But the latter group is equally important to me, perhaps even more so, because it consists of expressions of love and friendship from people who were close to me at one time (or still are). A mix tape is meant to convey a certain feeling, a certain mood; it is a collection of songs that certainly means something to the tape’s creator, but is also designed to send a message to the recipient.
In my collection, I have tapes from old friends who are no longer in my life; from old friends who are thankfully still very much in my life; from acquaintances I never really knew that well (whose tape was perhaps an attempt at becoming closer? who knows…); from ex-boyfriends. I cherish them all, even the ones containing – shall we say – questionable musical choices. I love them for what they mean to me, and what they must have meant to the person who made it for me.
Tonight’s selection: a spunky yet melancholy mix from a very dear friend who is far, far away in physical terms, but who remains very close to my heart.

J’ai quittée l’autobus peu de temps après; et comme chaque fois que je débarque le Santa Bus, pendant tout l’après-midi un sourire chatouillait mes lèvres.

Il est une liqueur, au poëte plus chère,
Qui manquait à Virgile, et qu’adorait Voltaire;
C’est toi, divin café, dont l’aimable liqueur
Sans altérer la tête épanouit le coeur.
Aussi, quand mon palais est émoussé par l’âge,
Avec plaisir encor je goûte ton breuvage.
Que j’aime à préparer ton nectar précieux!
Nul n’usurpe chez moi ce soin délicieux.
Sur le réchaud brûlant moi seul tournant ta graine,
A l’or de ta couleur fais succéder l’ébène;
Moi seul contre la noix, qu’arment ses dents de fer,
Charmé de ton parfum, c’est moi seul qui dans l’onde
Infuse à mon foyer ta poussière féconde;
Qui, tour à tour calmant, excitant tes bouillons,
Suis d’un oeil attentif tes légers tourbillons.
Enfin, de ta liqueur lentement reposée,
Dans le vase fumant la lie est déposée;
Ma coupe, ton nectar, le miel américain,
Que du suc des roseaux exprima l’Africain,
Tout est prêt: du Japon l’émail reçoit tes ondes,
Et seul tu réunis les tributs des deux mondes.
Viens donc, divin nectar, viens donc, inspire-moi.
Je ne veux qu’un désert, mon Antigone et toi.
A peine j’ai senti ta vapeur odorante
Soudain de ton climat la chaleur pénétrante
Réveille tous mes sens; sans trouble, sans chaos,
Mes pensers plus nombreux accourent à grands flots.
Mon idée était triste, aride, dépouillée;
Elle rit, elle sort richement habillée,
Et je crois, du génie éprouvant le réveil,
Boire dans chaque goutte un rayon du soleil.

Jacques Delille

(Je vous en prie, excusez mon français maladroit, et pardonnez-moi mes erreurs grammaticales; j’apprends, j’essaye… )

Sans la musique, la vie serait une erreur.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

“She could not tell where the water stopped and her body began…”

I’m not sure when my love affair with the bath began. I do know that I fell in love with the warm water and steam at an early age. Perhaps it’s because as a child I wasn’t allowed to shower due to an operation on my ears. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always loved water. Perhaps it’s because I feel perpetually cold. Perhaps it’s because it is a moment that is mine and mine alone. Once the bathroom door shuts, I am in my own world. It is my time, shared only once in awhile, with a very few worthy souls. The bath is my way of relaxing. If I have a stressful day, I come home and draw a bath, letting the water comfort me. If I wake in the middle of the night, I draw a bath, letting the warmth envelop me. If I cannot stop crying, I draw a bath, letting my tears disappear into the water.
I have bubble baths, white foam climbing the tiled wall, reaching up to the ceiling. I have candlelit baths, with candles placed all around the rim of the tub and on the windowsill and sometimes floating in the water. I have silky baths, filling the tub with oils and milk. I have herbal baths, tea leaves and spice floating past my curves. I even have working baths – as long as no electronics are required, of course!
Depending on the type of bath, in the tub I will read newspapers, novels, magazines; I write in my journal, take notes for work; I drink iced tea and hot cocoa, and eat frozen juices and chocolate… I very nearly could live in the tub.

Recipe: for a rainy day

Handful of pine needles or juniper sprigs
3 broken cinnamon sticks
10 or so whole cloves
3 thick slices of fresh ginger

Place ingredients in a large mesh ball or tied cotton gauze and let hang from faucet in the path of flowing water.

The above quotation and recipe are from a lovely book called The Art of the Bath, by Sara Slavin and Karl Petzke.

And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
-William Shakespeare

“Water – ambiguous, amorphous. In so many creation stories, water symbolises a nothingness from which the gods bring forth the tangible. At once bright at pure, it is also a dark force, carving canyons, flooding plains, and swelling into shipwrecking waves. But whether positive or negative, water is the most basic element of life and therefore divine.” from The Art of the Bath, Slavin and Petzke.

I was born and raised on an island. Summer days were spent at the beach with friends, each of us daring the others to wade into the frigid, salty water. Sitting on the docks in the evening, when the sun dips below the horizon, lazily dangling feet into the cool lake. Watching fishing vessels unload their catch at the marina. Having your face sprayed with a fine mist as you speed along the open water in a motorboat. Walking outside in the middle of a downpour. I love water in all its forms.
I remember nearly drowning. It’s a feeling unlike any other. As a child I wasn’t a very strong swimmer. I loved being in the water, yet was terrified of it. I was walking along the edge of a pool, holding on to the wall with my hands. I dared to make my way to the deep end; I felt the ground move away from my feet. I held on to the wall tightly. There were many people about. Someone ran past me and brushed against my hands, still gripping the wall, but I slipped, and felt the wall falling away from my hands. I tried reaching out for it, but in my panic pushed myself even further from the wall. I had inhaled and swallowed large amounts of water. My chest and throat burned. I remember seeing the water level rise up over my eyes. I could feel myself sinking. I was still frantically reaching up, paddling furiously, but the harder I tried to surface, the faster I sank. I remember my feet hitting the bottom of the pool. I told myself not to attempt to breathe, knowing I was surrounded by water, but instinct is hard to shuffle aside. Besides, I was trying to call for help. I remember actually inhaling the water, in huge gulps. It felt as though I was taking in litres with each breath. I turned my head, and saw people at the far end of the pool. All I could see were their legs and hips, dangling, dancing while suspended in the nothingness. I realised nobody could see me, or hear me. I remember looking up towards the surface; it seemed so very far away. I tried walking along the bottom of the pool. I got closer to the dancing legs, but had to stop. I was too tired. Walking on the bottom of the pool felt like wading through molasses. I vaguely remember seeing the dancing legs getting closer, but recall nothing else until I was pool side. Violent coughing. Legs so weak they feel like chewed bubble gum, all flimsy and stringy. Burning eyes, throat, nose, chest. Water pouring out of every nook and cranny of my body. I felt as though I had been run over by a large truck. I do remember finally seeing the kindly face that belonged to the pair of dancing legs that saved my life.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I still adore the water. I admire its versatility, relish its freshness, stand in awe of its power.  It allows us to play with it, harness its energy, clean ourselves with it, and fuel our bodies with it. It is to be revered and respected.