Read reflections

Love in the Time of Cholera and White Oleander, the former by G.G Márquez and the latter by Janet Fitch – are the two novels I read recently, I read Commencement too I’ve already made mention of that on this blog.

Even if you aren’t one for having your nose in books, the aforementioned novels are really literary luxuries and I would wager that you’d enjoy them as much as any book lover would. 

When I was nearing the end of Love in the Time of Cholera there were events in my own family that were unravelling and very identical to the story narrated in the novel, so I found that much more pleasure in it.  Márquez writes easily making use of a descriptive language that had me lusting for the same ability; vivid and visual, like you had been invited on a road trip down the lanes of the character’s lives.  I swear there were times when I’d smell the almond tree from which yellow leaves were falling and the kitchen aromas he would write about. 

It’s a love story, yes, but a love story like no other – nothing expected and nothing too sweet, almost too real, autobiographically real, only that it’s not.  And it is quite humorous too, serious when he makes mention of the local wars and the Cholera epidemic that struck – there’s poetry too and that is always a welcomed accessory.

To give you a glimpse into the two main characters’ attributes in Gabriel Márquez’ own words via the novel: Florentino Ariza, he replaces his illusory love with earthly passions, a writer of love letters and the only convincing document he is capable of writing are love documents, whenever he finds himself on the edge of catastrophe he’d need the help of a woman but what matters most throughout the story is that he is a patient man, naїve at times but unrelenting nonetheless – fifty-one years, nine months and four days to be exact.

Now, Fermina Daza, well, she knew the dark side of the moon, a woman enchanted by grief, morally qualified, stubborn and paralysed with the fear to love.

White Oleander, oh... a story of beauty, a story about a poet imprisoned and her daughter who journeys self-discovery through a series of foster homes.  It is beautifully written, you are practically pulled into Ingrid, the poetic mom, and Astrid, the artistically talented daughter’s characters.  An intriguing mother-daughter duo, one I’ve yet to come across. 

I have not finished reading it yet, but I’ve already decided that it would list as a favourite.  It deems an intelligent and an enthralling read.  There is also nothing cliché about Fitch’s writing, so the phrases are mostly refreshing and impressive.

In the words of a reviewer “...a tale of poisonous beauty, dangerous, heady scents, an unforgettable story... Its narrator is part poet, part seductress, part Scheherazade, part street punk...” she ends saying how the novel will be scorched in your memory, and lingering in your heart.  Whilst reading it, I’d recall parts of Janet Fitch’s interview with Oprah, and how in awe she was with Janet’s writing, she really was not exaggerating.  It’s that good.

Let me entice you with little excerpts, the story is first-person narrated, pg 183: 

"I took it away from her (a gift of perfume) and sprayed it over my head so the mist fell like light rain.  Wash my sins away.  Make me a girl who’d never seen the firestorms of September, who’d never been shot, who’d never gone down on a boy behind a bathroom in a park.  A nursery-rhyme girl in a blue dress holding a pet lamb in a cottage garden.  It was me, after all.  I didn’t know quite whether to laugh or to cry, so I poured some more brandy in my glass.” 

This is a favourite line from what I have read so far, 

“I’d spent the last three years trying to build up some kind of a skin, so I wouldn't drip with blood every time I brushed up against something.”

I am five chapters away from the end, so bittersweet, this is one novel I know I will read many times over, there’s just so much to take from it.  I’ve read three novels back-to-back, so the next book I pick up will be something other than fiction, I know that for sure.

Images are my own © Lucinda de Leeuw 2011

When last have you watched... The Great Dictator? (speech only)

Commencement, by Steve Jobs - 2005

The text below is the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, on June 12, 2005.


The wisdom narrated in this address is invaluable,  success founded on a path less travelled, an alternate route, outside of the norm and those are the stories, and the people I hold in esteem.  Chronological order is so ho-hum.  And that can only be seen in hindsight, in moments where you're reflective of past events when at the time you felt miserable, and they all piece together and finally sense can be made.  That's what I live for.  "You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards."  May he rest, peacefully.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

  If you have never said "Excuse me" to a parking meter or bashed your shins on a fireplug, you are probably wasting too much valuable reading time. 

 ~Sherri Chasin Calvo 

--- Love this, reminds me of all the moments I've been startled dizzy upon hearing an unexpected voice or sound entering the realm I lose myself to when I'm entirely engrossed in a book.  I am reading White Oleander by Janet Fitch at the moment, an Oprah Book Club selection - it is dripping with literary enticement.  I'm only six, or is it seven chapters in and already it has reached 'a favourite' status.

Love

Even if I should never know it, for what it means, for all that it represents, for all the symbolism it spells out, the infinite etchings across millions and millions of hearts, for all it takes and never returns.  Even if it would turn inside out from its abstractness and show me sitting in my hands what it means to me, tangible and soft, and tender to touch - or maybe it won't, maybe it would drench the lines on my palms in blood that will seep and it pains and runs through the veins in my arms to settle in the cusp of my heart.  Even if all that happens - I would still take.  And hold on to that promise that is a sole purpose to many.
A promise.  A hope.  A truth.  A feeling. Love.

quaintlynoted

Living my life in a form of uncertainty, but that's okay!

"...Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how.  The moment you know how, you begin to die a little."  I read this and I actually had to sit back as it forced something inside of me to take note and grasp it for all its worth.  Reading it over, again and again, as if it was a note written out, personally, just for me.  "The moment you know you begin to die a little" echoed in the back of mind as I was making sense of all the turbulence I've been experiencing life-wise lately.  It encompassed my entire existence, at that instant.  Me, looking and searching for the answers to so many of life's vagueness and incompleteness, the incomprehension of the daily struggles and the glimpses of joy that do, as much as I sometimes want to turn a blind eye to, appear every so often.


We are meant to go about this not knowing, because if you do know, then why live anymore.  You would die a little more each day because there'd be little to live for, little left to strive for, little to understand.  What keeps most of us waking up to each day, hopeful, as the rising sun, new and untainted, is to discover just a little more, to unveil a little more of that lingering riddle, the unquestioned and the unanswered.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, is so correct, the happenings in my life are just fine, they are more than alright - it means that I am in fact, living, it would mean nothing to me if I had it all figured out and laid out bare.


I love when I stumble upon meaningful quotes, prose, poetry or images, music or whatever at a point or time that I most needed some assurance or understanding.  I'm sharing this, because, who knows, maybe you needed to hear it too.

My perspective on the Slutwalk

When something fails to ignite any interest in me or I deem it an activity that doesn't align with who I am or what I stand for - I pay it no attention.  But if that something is not disappearing from subjects in the media, personal conversations, etc. the curious creature awakens.

The topic in question is an event that dates April 3rd of this year as its debut, in Toronto.  Quick background: some time in January, Constable Michael Sanguinetti at a crime prevention forum said, "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimised".  He later apologised for his distasteful remark.

Ponder on the amount of vast ignorance cited in that statement and the damage it carries, the hurt it lashes out relived in many sexually harassed victims upon reading or hearing those words.

Moving along, Heather Jarvis and Sonya Barnett are the co-founders of the what's been said to be a controversial movement, called the Slutwalk, based on Mr Sanguinetti's sentiments.  In a recent post (Aug 25th) by Heather, on their site she writes that she's not urging anybody to call themself a slut but rather that it,

"can be seen as less about you when you're called a "slut" and more about them."

 Furthermore, I read stories by contributors about their personal experiences with regard to being violated and stripped (excuse the pun) of their integrity and the freedom of womanhood, on the very same site.  Heartrending stories.  I did all this to gain some perspective on the Slutwalk that has come to South Africa, first Cape Town this August and will be held in Joburg this coming September.  Tweets, comments on media forums, blogs, etc. all commenting with ferocious yays or nays about it.  In retrospect, I find that many were unwarranted and that the authors of some of what was said based their opinions on little background as to the why, what, and who.

Reading the ordeals posted by participants or those for this movement makes you understand why.  The term "slut" perceived as utterly rude and offensive, hence, the 'I refuse to attend a campaign that labels me as such' backlashes.  Those participating feel that they have been reduced to that term and all it connotes.  They were rendered powerless, and the march paints a symbolism in that it gives them back some power.  It removes the shame.  The guilt.  The victimisation.

"the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we're taking it back. "Slut" is being re-appropriated."

-- One of the "whys" posted on the site.

 
Umeshree Govender, writes in an article, "SlutWalk Cape Town, perhaps surprisingly, was not organised by an anti-rape organisation or a feminist group, but rather by three unwitting masters students: Umeshree Govender, Stuart MacDonald and Michael Clark...".  She points out the many facts that proved to be a common thread describing the march, that it is about divorcing yourself from misconceptions, that 'asking to be raped' is an oxymoron.  It's unbelievable the number of people who think women or men ask for it.  She writes too, about a woman who wore to the march exactly what she did the day she was raped, now that's bravery personified.  Read more of the article here: From the 'Chief Slut' Herself .

Not too long ago, I read a novel, Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, where more than one of the young ladies characterised are subjected to different accounts of sexual abuse and rape and younger girls prostituted.  In an underlying tone, the perpetrators saw no harm in their deeds.
It's upsetting, when you're out on leisurely strolls, errand running, not in the least bit looking or dressed for any attention to receive catcalls, wolf-whistling,  or the odd grope, etc. by random strangers; men who still see you as just an aesthetic object for their pleasure.
Just the other day, I tweeted about an incident, where I was asked to pose for a picture that this nobody on the streets would use as a screensaver on his cellular phone.  Appalling.  And disturbing, not to mention how uncomfortable you're made to feel.  I responded, with words unkind and continued on my way, albeit, questioning how I was dressed, did my walk insinuate anything, you know.  No one asks to be assaulted, not sexually nor criminally, so from that standpoint I see the message loud and clear conveyed in the Slutwalk campaign.  The term used, unfortunately, does dilute a worthy cause - there are always victim-blaming tales cited in these assaults, many people are just missing the point because they are rather consumed by the semantics of the title.

That being said, the event generated media attention, the name and movement caught on globally and is still spreading.  An education, especially in Africa, is muchly required more so now, after reading about Malusi Gigaba, Minister of Public Enterprises, having tweeted that he'd like to attend the Slutwalk because he might get lucky.  There is definitely some schooling needed.  You being the victim, should not even be mentioned in the same breath as incitement or justification for an assault of any kind.

Rape is about the violence, the act of domination not a short skirt, a top with a low-neckline, a dress that fits too tight, boots too high on thighs, a lipstick or a hairstyle that appears too bedroomy. And maybe, our officers and society as a whole need to be taught how to receive rape survivors with support rather than judgement.  Allowing us to move one step forward in this fight for those reduced to powerlessness.

An enemy bigger than my apathy

Simplicity and sincerity: I thrive off everything derived from these.  I pick up their nuances so easily, it's like second-nature to me.  Ranging from what I wear, indulge in to just about everything. In this instance, however, I've got the pretty, delicate and filled with melancholy sounds of Mumford & Sons playing in the background of the room I'm in... and in my head.

I love their music! It's simple, in the entire meaning of the word, with trombone flourishes and banjo picking in essence of the anthemic folk sounds.  Sincere in lyrics, that are intertwined with passion, intimacy and enthusiasm; presented in tinges of courage or sweet or hopeful tones with subtle connotations of religious riddles here and there.

When listening to their genius, I'm overcome with images blended in fervour and memories as each note and word is sung.  With a leading vocal so raw, you feel it ripping at the layers of your skin, delving deep into your innermost until you find yourself, unsuspectingly, lost in all its honesty.

Their lyrics carries poetical inclinations too, filled with metaphors and exposing a vulnerability and fragility - my favourite type of music to listen to, and listen to again, to listen to over and over, that vulnerable.  In elaboration: that you're drawn to cusps of losing your breath in the same moments as your eyes being brimmed with hot tears.

Anyways, Mumford & Sons' music is commanding and I'm looking forward to their new album so that I could tweet away my fav' lines from their songs.  Each of their songs render something majestical to me, I love them all individually and as a collective the album is just magical.  I Gave You All, however, deserves a special mention and this is it.

Musing over.

Even with the chaos "...It is still a beautiful world."

I'm about to expose a part of me I usually keep sheltered.  It's nothing dark and sinister, or maybe it is but we are all morally dwarfed in some manner. Yes?

Not indulging and enjoying this behaviour in a sickening and demented way, rather a mild obsession to delve in deeper to discover more and know more about these sort of happenings.  I'm sweet on heartbreak and chaos.

They ignite a frisson of intrigue in me.  An intrigue of inquisitiveness, mostly.  I draw to events that are out of the ordinary.  You know, they don't happen often and when they do, crowds the world over are gradually drawn in and we all form a part of the consciousness that this event is creating.  That chaos.

Right now, that chaos is packaged in the economic crisis in the US of America, the desperation in Somalia, the tension on the streets of the English, the reaching out to achieve peace in Libya and so forth.  All these events, indicates human wreckage to me.  And the questions mount in a burning fury, which in turn, has me wandering in the drama to silence my mind with neat or not so neat answers.

Reasoning always brings me back to the beginning and the core of my beliefs regarding life and human nature.  As a collective, we are able to operate under adversity's black clouds - and that, there is always beauty in the damage.  I watch the terrain and the circumstances, those involved and how their emotions and intellect steers them in their decisions.

The unruliness caused by some is met with the need for quiet by others.  It's always been that way, like yin and yang, how else will the world function.  There has to be discord in order for peace to be restored, even in places like London where it seemingly appeared to be all tea and scones all day every day.  I might not know anything for certain regarding these riots but there's not a chance that it is all sudden and startling.  It's built up and suppressed anger that is being displayed in these vile showcases of ruin and looting.

It's quite amusing to see the nation wanting to pack it away neatly and quickly.  These rioters had no slogans or demands as is expected with these type of rallies.  This is different and that is what has peaked my interest.

As is obvious, race and social and economic dimensions are always cited in these disturbing events - leading to more pressing questions.  In every society, are people marginalised by the abovementioned dimensions, and they are generally frustrated and feel obvious seclusion from the rest.  There are always elements of silenced crying, a hunger for opportunity or merely a chance to do better and be better.

So, during my quest to understand the cacophony, the politics, the humane element; I flick through the channels, click on the buttons, turn the pages, visit the histories of something similar all the while feeling exquisitely uncomfortable as I get occasional glimpses and examination of wonderment by those around me who are nonchalant by the chaos.

It happens every day, in the little things or the not so little things that I discover just how individualistic I am.  The hurt, anger, the aches and the chaos I navigate to is a concentrated yearning to see and find and befriend the subtle beauty in it all - because it is always there.  Always.  So, I scratch at the chaos and become exonerated in what lies underneath:  the luminous glory of that which is larger and way more profound than all the rubble and debris we beings can manufacture.

Edward P. Morgan:

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.