T S Eliot, in 1922, prophesied April's cruelness.

(This was typed up within a couple of weeks since the event hence the past tense in some parts.)

The thing about experiencing a car crash is how quick your thoughts are driven to the idea that your flesh will eventually turn to ash, or dust, or whatever.  The combination and collision of metal, tar road, a rainy day, and when the sun had not yet had its opportunity to adorn your day, is...it's quite the situation.  For the nights that follow you are reminded of a mortality that you long put to sleep.
Now, my accident was nothing close to a near-death experience, hell I got out of the car and circled it a few times, looking at my wristwatch, thinking absolutely nothing, but building up an inward frenzy.  I did not nearly die, no.  My only hindrance post was not being able to commence the asana practices I had recently picked up again.  But the event was my first (and prayerfully, last) serious car accident.  I've never spent nights in a hospital due to illness or some other misfortune, so this was my closest experience to chucking deuces to Life.

And when you're prone to depression most incidents are immensely and intensely experienced.  You quickly and easily find yourself on a path back to a solemness and a contemplative disposition.  The malady crawls into bed with you to remind you of other beloveds who experienced the same fate, fatally.

But you also learn to look at those who love and care for you with new eyes.  Your responses to the banal are less affected.  You remember to laugh more often.  To dance with abandon.  To love with expression.

Those who have lent me support have sown a bed of eternal gratitude in my heart for themselves; it's true: not everybody is capable of lending you their light when your hour has fallen to darkness.  I appreciate and I cherish, and I never forget.

I have always been a kind of fearless driver on the roads, I hope this incident (of April 3rd) will not tarnish that spirit; only time will tell (I'll be car-less for some time).  For now though, I'm just grateful to the Great I Am, for lessons, and for this water—my life.

True to Eliot's word—for the rest of April, and for every Wednesday since the day—my sailing has been anything but smooth.

South African short stories: and other excuses

Another draft I'm dragging to life.

I read these, not to completion, in January.  I am not about to make any excuses for why this is, (time is one of them) so, moving on.  The pic I took before knowing this fact; the plan was to read them and write up a read reflection, alas.  My memory from what I did manage to read is rather hazy, but I did note down a few thoughts on a couple of the short stories, to follow after the jump.  

From left to right: 16 Stories (an anthology of short stories by South African writers), edited by Clive Millar (1976); The Joke, Milan Kundera (1967); Six Fang Marks and a Tetanus Shot, Richard de Nooy, (2007).

Some of the shorts I enjoyed:

• Sponono, by Alan Paton

Sponono is a light-hearted read with an underlying sentiment.  In (mis)communication, loyalty and a kind of friendship that's more about a unspoken bond than it is about time-spent together.

• The Coffin, by Uys Krige

The Coffin is what short stories are generally made of.  No deep-running plot, but there is a story threaded that keeps you bound, the characters are peculiar, but they are portrayed in an endearing manner—the reader latches onto them.  Also, although the plot is thin, and maybe also shallow, there is an outcome already created that you must see through.

• Lost and Found, by Stuart Cloete

A story of moral fibre, I would say.  A young boy who acts out of love.  His close observers see him as "mad", which so often happens.  Society's tendency to name-call/shame as soon as someone veers outside of normativity never gets old.  The young fellow is drawn to animals, the "lost", and the vulnerable, and he seems to understand their language.  I like how Cloete only shows the boy's endearing seat of behaviour much later in the story, so you're left to read and guess through the obscurities.  Again, the dynamics of a short story was wonderfully met here.

• Through the Tunnel, by Doris Lessing

What a gripping story.  This is a moral-of-the-story type.  Its mild action keeps the reader's imagination reeling line after line.  Here the protagonist is a young boy, too, out at sea, out to discover not only the depths of the waters, but his own proficiency, endurance, fight and hunger to fulfill his agency of pride. Almost a coming-of-age story, yes! that's exactly it.

And of course, the anthology would not have been complete without a couple of Herman Charles Bosman shorts.  I enjoy reading his works.  I personally own a copy of Mafeking Road: and Other Stories (1947), an anthology of shorts romantically told by the imaginative and humorous Oom Schalk Lourens as narrator of the tales.

Some day, I will, definitely, return to that local library and borrow the Kundera and de Nooy  (grew up in SA, now lives in Amsterdam) reads, and I will return here, definitely, and boast about it.  I've been terrible at finishing books this year.  There are about a dozen of stop-starts to get through.  Will I ever...?

"The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used."

                                                                                                 – C. S. Lewis 

William Butler Yeats:

          All the words that I utter,
             And all the words that I write
          Must spread out their wings untiring,
             And never rest in their flight,
          Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
             And sing to you in the night,
          Beyond where the waters are moving,
             Storm-darken'd or starry bright.

"The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them."

The much revered Maya Angelou pointed out to us.  But when you're as foolish an undercover over-lover as I am, you will keep rendering chances to the same person's same mistakes over and over and over again.  You pray, at each time you're called to question their integrity, that this instance will not be like the other times, they will prove you differently, otherwise; I mean, they apologised the last time, surely nobody repeatedly offends with the very same sting.  

Yet, there is an inherent inclination to believe in only the utmost good somebody can offer; you want to believe that they didn't mean it that other time, but then... What do they do?  They disappoint you again.

You keep taking the kicks.

You wave your hand, in your best nonchalant and unhurt manner, to the air beside your face, telling them, No, it's okay,  I understand.  Yes, I do.  Totally.  Next time we'll get it right.

So you walk away—fully knowing you should have said something about the hurt that is mounting up inside of you.  You should have mentioned how you can no longer accept the disappointments because you've lost count of the amount of I'll-make-it-up-to-yous they owe you.  If you did not want to cause unnecessary friction between you two then you could have, in the very least, hinted at the gnawing feeling of a threat hanging over your relationship, a threat chewing at the very fragile fabrics of what you believe to be a mutual caring, sharing and understanding.  But, no.

You swallow the salt of choked-back tears and stare your anger into the ground and you keep walking. 

Creating a distance between you that surpasses the physical; you trust a little less, laugh a little less—your love wanes...

So, these arrived today:

These complete the bulk of my coursework for the next four months.  Of the lot are two plays, two books of poetry (which I am most pleased about), and two are verse-type narratives written in Anglo-Saxon language; of which one is Middle English (legible) and the other, Beowulf, Old English (illegible).

Now, The Lord of the Rings, which took the wind out of my sails when I learnt that I'll be reading it, will be studied contrapuntally to the other most-original books of literature.  To shortly sum up the trilogy's purpose: they are the contemporary response to the old – or rather ancient, even archaic, but surprisingly still relevant and evident in today's ways – culture and ideas (of religious, social, and cultural and and conversation). 

Here are very unprofessionally taken photographs of the Beowulf text and from the Canterbury Tales, to give you an idea of what's been contributing to my ever-increasing insanity.

To the right: Beowulf.  As of now, I've only seen its film adaptation.  I won't lie, I enjoyed watching it. (I am generally a read-the-book-first type of person, however, ahem, this occasion of medieval/renaissance lit proved to be the exception to my rule.)

To the left: Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  I am meant to read all these thousands and thousands of Middle English lines untranslated and convert it into my own understanding via poetry, or prose (which is quite a fun way of stretching one's imaginative muscles).                                                         One of my favourite prologues so far, to be honest, I haven't read many of them, is The Wife of Bath's.  Read it here, in English you'd understand: Wife of Bath's Prologue – If you have ever heard of proto-feminism (feminist philosophies before "feminism," prior to the 20th century), this is it.  And bear in mind too, this is centuries before Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, which is widely known and believed to be the very first subject matter of feminism in literature of the Western world traditions. 

There is a world of references in these texts at my disposal to use in my writing.  I am a born-researcher, so I am able to read one word and go on to discover a world of possibilities beyond its singular language, meaning, context.  I love that.  It makes for a long road of reading, watching, listening, observing, channeling... but it's worth the miles.  Now, if I could only find the time to write...

The trouble with to-read lists

If ever there was a list that is impossible to complete, it's the TO–READ list.

Therefore, I have decided to list all the books I've yet to read or have been recommended to, on my blog.  Not only will this help me to keep an orderly track of them all (I've too many notebooks and make scraps of notes and recommendations all over the place, I subsequently forget about or lose them altogether) but it will serve as a spot for other readers looking for books to read.
In addition to these lists, I will also post a list of the books I have read.  I, unfortunately, cannot keep up with writing read reflections for all the novels, plays or poems I engage, so this list will at least enable you to have an idea of those that I have.  And it's never too late to do a reflection on a read, so then I could just select from the list when the time avails itself to me to do my unique "reviews".
It already is quite cumbersome keeping afloat all the drafts of my creative writing pursuits and even if I wanted to, I can't drop a post whenever.  There's my studies and there's life too, and the odd laze haze.

That's that.

Next update on this matter will be about said lists compiled, and up-and-running.

"Quiet as it's kept..."

This post will comprise of excerpts (randomly selected, by me, of course) withdrawn from the afterword in The Bluest Eye as written by its author, Toni Morrison (November, 1993).  I will do this to provide added context, and also just for the sake of it, to my post about the novel that comes before this particular post.  I love how she articulates her meaning, reasoning and purpose behind the construction and the how-to read of the narrative.  

"The novel pecks away at the gaze that condemned her." (p.167)

"'Quiet as it's kept' is also a figure of speech that is written, in this instance, but clearly chosen for how speakerly it is, how it speaks and bespeaks a particular world and its ambience. [...] Sudden familiarity or instant intimacy seemed crucial to me." (pp. 169 & 170) 

"The assertion of racial beauty was not a reaction to the self-mocking, humorous critique of cultural/racial foibles common in all groups, but against the damaging internalisation of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze.  I focused, therefore, on how something as grotesque as the demonisation of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member; a female. [...]
In exploring the social and domestic aggression that could cause a child to literally fall apart, I mounted a series of rejections, some routine, some exception, some monstrous, all the while trying hard to avoid complicity in the demonisation process Pecola [focal character] was subjected to." (p. 168)

"A skip, perhaps, in the natural order of things: a September, an autumn, a fall without marigolds.  Bright, common, strong and sturdy marigolds.  When? In 1941, and since that is a momentous year (the beginning of World War II for the US), the "fall" of 1941, just before the declaration of war, has a "closet" innuendo." (p.170)

"...a problem lies in the central chamber of the novel... the void that is Pecola's "unbeing"' (p.171)

"With very few exceptions, the initial publication of The Bluest Eye was like Pecola's life: dismissed, trivialised, misread.  And it has taken twenty-five years to gain for her the respectful publication this edition is."  

Again, all excerpts are taken from Toni Morrison's foreword in the book 

The Bluest Eye (1970).

Aruze waters. Tropical hues. A trip that echoes.

Ah, found this picture from almost three years ago.  It was me on a road trip with my mother to Maputo, (formerly known as Lourenço Marques, before independence) Mozambique.
It was a trip that elevated both my consciousness and desire to demand dignity for all peoples.  It showed me not only the strength and resilience of those who are seemingly less favoured in social and economic ranks, but also opened my eyes to how it is (always) possible to have a thriving (and joyful) spirit despite your circumstances.  The few days I spent there afforded me a kind of spiritual liberation too, being able to interact and hold hands with what I believe to be one of the world's most loving, giving and endearing people alive.  Mozambicans visibly exude a warmth that is unrivaled to many other encounters I've had.  Genuine smiles, sincere conversation, and delicious catering.  I haven't been back since, even though I promised myself to go again within a few months of my visit.  My parents have been there on numerous occasions  I was little though, their visits grew less frequent as I got older (er, ja).  I have an aunt over, my family there is where I've learnt the little Portuguese I am now familiar with.  But... I will visit again and when I do it will be for much longer than just a week, and preferably a solo excursion.
I also did plenty of reading and writing; and talking and reminiscing and reflecting and foresighting and loving with me mommy on the trips back and forth.  We chose to transport there by land for these very reasons, I fell even more in love with her during this time, as if that was any more possible, but it was.  And the stories we ricocheted between us will forever be a product of the woman I am.  
And of course, I took the window seat (shout out to Badu "I just need a chance to fly/ A chance to cry and a long bye-bye")