L'Égyptienne

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive." ~ Anäis Nin

How it happens that one meets a person, in any number of circumstances, and the lingering impression that one is left with, like a trace of perfume or a memory of a warm smile... aren't those the things that make us wonder more about a person? You pass by them, but are touched by something else much deeper that remains with you.

***

abrazo soleado, 2008

acrylic on canvas, 24x8

So quiet was my introduction to the lovely woman you see above. Actually I had come to dance. Unbeknownst to me, the woman in the simple, elegant red dress and silver shoes who was dancing too was also the artist whose striking, beautiful paintings covered the walls around the dancers.

abrazo rosado, 2008

acrylic on canvas, 24x8

Watching her dance and looking at her art were one and the same. At the end of the evening, I had to tell her so, and the rest is still unfolding. I'm glad to say she is my friend now.

Meet Soad.

***

You have no idea how incredibly difficult it was to choose a photo for this post. The rest of the images live here, but you should read her story first.

grace, 2004
acrylic on canvas, 24x36

all images here courtesy of the artist

An Intimate Eye

"I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy." ~ Anaïs Nin

From yesterday.

I am wandering around in yesterday's images. I've had one of those yucky migraines from when I woke up this morning, so this day has been a total shambles: just cat naps, drawn shades and Excedrin.

But in the in-between moments, when I can stand a little light, I come back to my computer, to the images of yesterday (was it only yesterday?) and they make me feel better.

***

I am realizing more about my project. There is a subtle intimacy with the subject, a knowingness that comes after a few minutes, or many, when there is a letting go, that the subject surrenders to me, to my wishes, without shyness, without embarrassment.

I had not expected this. I only expected to take their photographs.

It is all ended when we shake hands and I put the lens cap on my camera again, saying goodbye and thanks. But the residue is there, when I revisit the images. Why do they let me do this?

That is the next question to be answered.

Excerpt from My First Press Junket

Okay, it's not the Frost/Nixon interview. But there's the Interview Me thingy going around Bloglandia right now, and when I saw there was an opportunity to be questioned by my blog crush, julochka, I thought now's the time, especially being on the Staycation and all.

Below are julochka's questions and my answers, and then at the end are the rules if you'd like to be the next Barbara Walters' special via me.

***

julochka: if you could throw a shoe at anyone, who would it be and what kind of shoe would you throw?

You know, at first I thought this was going to be the easiest question to answer, and then I realized how many layers and options there might be. Also, I'm going to a Big Lebowski bowling birthday party soon, so bowling is on my mind right now, as well as what I'm going to wear. So I also keep thinking about rolling a bowling ball at someone. Anyway, back to your question.

First off, you have to decide what kind of shoe to use. Now I know in the past I mentioned a certain pair of stilletto heels that I would toss, but after really giving this some thought and thinking about the value and beauty of those shoes, I could never throw them. Anyone I would throw shoes at would merit an old pair of really stinky Keds that I had for a while that I wore without socks. They got pretty ripe. For extra impact, I'd probably load the Keds with some small rocks, and maybe even work a dog poo into the mix.

Then I would hire a baseball pitcher (I don't know jack about baseball, so I'd have to do some research) to actually throw the shoe. Because if I were granted an opportunity such as this, with the way I'm liable to throw, I certainly don't want to miss my target.

I know now I'm supposed to pick one person to throw my rock laden stinky Ked at, but choosing just one thing is never something I can do. Keeping the list under 10 is a challenge.

High on the list, depending on availability, are: Jerry Fallwell (I know he's dead but I still despise him), Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, the two despotic cheerleaders from junior high school who were so incredibly cruel to me, and maybe Dick Cheney. I say maybe because I have this Big Lebowski scenario where at the end of the alley would be Cheney, The Shrub, Condoleeza, Rumsfeld, Gonzales-- who else am I forgetting here? How can I be drawing a total blank?-- and I'd get Jesus, the John Turturro character with his purple jumpsuit and his hairnet and his coke nail, to throw a perfect strike and nail all of those bastards. Whew, even in fantasy that feels good.

ps. If you want to throw a shoe at The Shrub (kind of old news now, but hey), you can do it virtually here at Sock and Awe. I am not very good yet, but I'll keep practicing.

julochka: you are a self-professed science girl...why didn't you study science-stuff and become a famous scientist?

This is an interesting question because I (again) have several answers. One being that when you're in college, you don't know what the hell you want to do. At least, I didn't for a couple of years. Luckily, I fell in love with printing and that gave me exposure to a variety of science courses that I was required to take, including materials sciences, physics, both kinds of chemistry, and biology. I think at the time I was so wanting to get out of college and start working that the thought of going for anything more than a BS was out of the question. I also gave myself short shrift... I'm a lot smarter than I gave myself credit for, and I just assumed that I couldn't handle the really hard classes. Or perhaps I didn't find the branch of science that really made me want to commit to it. Even today, I enjoy reading a book about quantum physics as much as I do about cell biology or even some of the social sciences.

That being said, there's a romance and a passion for scientific inquiry that anyone can have and I think that's what draws me to science because it is not only full of discovery and hard work and luck, but also training the mind to think and not live in a fairy tale. Science in its truest form is very democratic (I'm not talking about research institutes and the like), and for anyone to take an interest in the physical world around us should be applauded because there are certainly many more opportunities to live in fantasyland. I like to think of myself as a science appreciator, but back 100 years ago, it was not uncommon for many middle-class homes to own a microscope just for the fun of it. How many families today gather around a microscope after dinner, just to see what they might see?

Keep in mind that many people, not all classified as scientists, made amazing discoveries throughout their lives, including men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, where science played a part of their naturally inquisitive minds. So perhaps there's hope for me yet.

julochka: what inspires you?

Ask me tomorrow. No, I'm kidding. But on any given day, the answer could be different. However, if I was to try to see a pattern in what I find inspiring, I think it's when a person can distill a feeling or experience into such a beautifully simple way that you're left in awe. For instance, there are sentences I've read by John Steinbeck, Anais Nin or Margaret Atwood that are so simply but perfectly crafted that I have to re-read them several times over because they amaze me with their truth.

Same thing with certain artists. Take for example Andy Goldsworthy. The things he can do with twigs or rocks or leaves are extraordinary. And you and I couldn't copy him in a million years.

I'm also very visual, so colors and visual textures make a big influence on me, and also the lack thereof. I am very influenced by certain kinds of music and instruments, especially the piano and the violin.

So I guess when I look back at my answer, it's Truth, Vision or Perception, and my eyes and ears. I'm sure there are more subtle influences I appreciate and find inspiration from, but this is what comes to mind today.

julochka: before you became tangobaby, had you had other dance lessons and so were, in general, coordinated enough to learn the tango?

I have to say that if it weren't for tango, I probably wouldn't be dancing at all. Keep in mind that just because you can do ballet, it doesn't mean you can tango. Tango is a partner dance (obviously) but being comfortable with someone in your very personal space is a uniquely different kind of partner dance, even amongst the other ballroom dances. When you watch people dance Argentine tango, like in my little video, keep in mind that it's completely improvised and all of your clues you read from your partner. With tango, you quite often never know what will happen next.

That being said, I am the world's worst bellydancer and the saddest looking ballerina you've ever seen. I am definitely all about dressing up, so it's hard not to fall in love with bellydancing because the costumes are so awesome and when you have a pile of coin belts and finger cymbals and veils draped about your bedroom, you feel like Bathsheba. And the music just makes you want to move. But the difficult part about bellydancing is that people will be watching you at some point. That was what killed me. I'll never be able to perform, and with bellydance, even if you are just dancing in class, there comes a time where it's just you and the mirror and someone else's eyes. I couldn't do it. Somehow the tango doesn't affect me that way. Or I just took to it so easily. I never had a really difficult time with tango.

And ballet is just plain hard. I'm a baby. So is flamenco. Wow! I'm really bad at a lot of dances.

The only other thing that I kind of sucked at but enjoyed a lot was fencing. I do hope to get back to fencing someday so I can live out some of my little Errol Flynn daydreams (except we'd be fighting Basil Rathbone together if I was Maid Marian). The fun part about fencing is that when your arms and thighs are covered with little dark perfectly round bruises, you can look in the mirror and say, Yeah, I got those in a duel. It just makes it hard to wear short-sleeved tops.

julochka: if you were going to run away to somewhere in the world, where would it be?

I think it's not so much as a matter of where, but where and when. For instance, I would give a major body part to have been able to travel the Orient Express in the years between the world wars. Or to have taken a steam ship from New York to Europe during the same time. Or to have traveled through Africa or Arabia with Sir Richard Burton. Or the Silk Road. I am very intrigued by places where the East and West intersect. That's why Venice was so incredible last year for me.

I would also have loved to see the Earthrise from an Apollo mission. I wouldn't have minded not getting to do the moon landing, but to see the earth from space has to be one of the most amazing trips a human being can take. *sigh*

As far as destinations today, it's tough. I think I'm such a dreamer that if given the opportunity, I'd probably give almost any place a shot. I always have my passport on me, just in case. ;-)


But Turkey (anywhere in the Baltics actually), Morocco, Russia, Spain, back to Italy... anyplace there's a gypsy encampment... see, here I go again. Maybe I should think about taking up bellydancing again.

Thanks, julochka! That was fun!

***

Here's "The Rules."

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Thanks, and I'll try to do my best Barbara Walters impression ever.

***

portrait of a Gypsy Woman by Nikolai Yaroshenko.
image of Earthrise from LIFE Magazine.

Connection Overload

“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.” ~ Anais Nin

***

It appears that whenever I have something to say, Anais has already said it a thousand times better than I could.

This weekend was full of tiny surprises and subtle happenings. And connections. My goodness. Except I couldn't start to put them all down here because the power was out last night, for hours and hours. It was so cold and dark, so nothing got done. Even sleep, although eventually I dozed off.

All I could do was to think about the little gems I wanted to relive here, but also how very very cold you can be, even when layered with sweatshirts but there is no heat, and what was happening to all of my food in the freezer.

The power came back on after 1am, and I just downloaded the photos I was so anxious to see. I think now I can't tell a story unless I've taken a photo of something related to my thoughts, so in order to make it all real and before I can type the words, I have to process what was in my camera.

Here is a peek.

Happy Monday. I have to get dressed for work now.

xoxo

Nocturne #2

"I am the keeper of fragile things and I have kept of you what is indisolvable." ~ Anaïs Nin

***

I feel like a watercolor this week.

By the end of the day, all of my edges are blurred. My eyes seem to get more tired than usual, and the rims of my eyes are red by 5pm, like clockwork. My makeup disappears, where to-- I have no idea. It's like I never put it on at all. I have to go to the bathroom and dab on a bit of rouge, a little lipstick, just to show up and not be a shadow of myself.

I feel like I'm one of those marbleizing trays of water, when the drops of dye are added and they swirl together, little eddies of color. Each time a different pattern. Each night I come home looking like a different person than when I left the house in the morning. I almost don't recognize myself.

It's been a long week and there's still one day left to go. I grant that much. And it was wonderful to share some laughter with you yesterday, with that post about my dad. You guys gave back the joy of laughter to me tenfold by telling me you laughed too. That was the real gift.

***

Tonight I had dinner with my little friend Chipmonkey. In my watercolor state, I look at her and all I keep seeing are her beautiful eyelashes. I don't know if I have come right out and told her she has pretty eyelashes, but she does. And if she's reading this, then she'll know.

After dinner, we walked through the Mission back through the Castro and in my watercolor state, the streets just shimmered with lights and people walking to restaurants, riding bikes and generally just being outside, together.

It drizzled a little. Little rain droplets, intermittent. More watercolor.

***

On the train home, the fluorescent lights are harsh on the eyes. A young Asian man is sketching in a clothbound journal with a pencil. I watch him and he's drawing people sitting nearby. He's doing it so quickly and secretively that they don't even notice. But I do.

I smile at him and I can tell I just made him feel shy. So I smile at him again and then I can see that I've reassured him it's okay that I saw him drawing, and he starts to draw me. Then I feel I must turn my face away and pretend I don't notice. Please, I think, draw me pretty. I am so smudged right now. I have no hard lines and everything's running together.

The only thing I really want to do is listen to a nocturne. That is what they are for, inspired by night, to be listened to when it's dark outside. If there was music written for a watercolor, then I would listen to that. But right now it is Chopin. There is a reason why ladies still leave flowers at his grave at Père Lachaise. I would too if I were in Paris.

I'm sorry if this post makes little to no sense at all. I'm probably confusing you right now.

Perhaps if you listen to this nocturne with me then you'll understand what I mean. Have a good night.

“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together” ~ Anaïs Nin

Chopin: Nocturne #2 In E Flat, Op. 9/2, CT 109. Photo taken at the Palace of Fine Arts.

Dig Deeper

"And, everyone who ever had a heart
They wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who ever played a part
Oh wouldn't turn around and hate it."

~ Lou Reed, "Sweet Jane"

***

Here I am.

No, Oprah did not call.

No, John Podesta did not call.

Despite my apparent virtual fame (lol), I'm still here.

***

I can see now where those people who were on a season's reality tv show or that poor doofus Joe the Plumber got all bedazzled by some sudden portion of starlight and sunshine. Look at me! You finally found me!

I'm somebody!

Well, truth is that we were all somebodies before the searchlight, right? We all had a life. You don't need 6,102 hits in a day to prove it (truth be told, the vast majority of hits are not readers).

It's nice to think that some of you here suddenly feel like I'm the little golden nugget you found after spending hours in the cold stream, panning through muddy silt. And here I show up in the bottom of the tray, glinting at you. That's cool. But dig deeper. I dare you to read this blog. Not just the last three posts but a whole bunch of 'em if you really mean it. Then you can decide if I'm still golden and if we still have something to say to each other.

And for those of you who've been here with me the whole time, maybe months or more than a year, you know, as with your own selves, you scratch the surface and there's so much more than you can even begin to write. And then there are the things that will never get said at all, but you still hope that people can read between the lines. Or see it in a photo because words just aren't enough sometimes.

***

"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it." ~ Anaïs Nin

A few types of comments jump out at me:

I'd love to have a blog but I don't know how.
I don't have anything to say.
I'm boring.

For those of us who've been blogging for a while, we've been more than pleasantly surprised that the act is a reward in itself. Our blogs become a virtual studio, an open creative space, and a salon where like minds congregate. There's no impetus to succeed or stand out; in fact, it's a place to get away from all that stuff: Stretch your brain while you exercise your fingers. Manipulate thoughts into words and see if that effort translates into something beyond what you meant.

So grab that brass ring and write and share, for reals. And if the blog doesn't feel like your thing, then go out and do something else. There are no real rewards at the end of the day, just your creativity and your happiness.

***

This morning I made my own infernal music loop (in response to the earworm saga yesterday) by listening to the Cowboy Junkies' cover of Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane." But this time it's a song I really love, sometimes crave to hear (isn't it funny that you can crave a sound just like something to eat?) so I purposely wanted to hear it as many times as I could before leaving for work.

The Boy had not heard this song before, and we slow-danced in our pj's to it. I nuzzled his neck. Margo Timmins has such a sexy voice.

Before I left for work, he says, "You know what Sweet Jane really is, right? It's heroin."

I figured the lyrics had something to do with drugs, but never gave it much thought. I just like the song. But that's what I mean. Dig deeper. There are little hidden truths buried all over the place. Not just here.

***

ps.: I took that photo a few weeks ago, in the Tenderloin before going to that talk about Benjamin Franklin I told you about. What's really attracting me lately in my photos as I sort through them are the ones that are full of contrasts or contradictions. This image in particular really says more to me than I can describe.

Friends and Lovers

"A startlingly white face retreating into the darkness of the garden. She poses for me as she leaves. I want to run out and kiss her fantastic beauty, kiss it and say, 'You carry away with you a reflection of me, a part of me. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence.'" ~ Anais Nin, Henry and June

Today.
Autumn.
Shakespeare's Garden.
Thank you.
xoxo

The Parabola of a Writer or, On Coming to This All Backwards

There is an order of Buddhist monks in Japan whose practice is running. They are called the marathon monks of Mount Hiei. They begin running at one-thirty a.m. and run from eighteen to twenty-five miles per night, covering several of Mount Hiei's most treacherous slopes. Because of the high altitude, Mount Hiei has long cold winters, and part of the mountain is called the Slope of Instant Sobriety; because it is so cold, it penetrates any kind of illusion or intoxiation. The monks run all year round. They do not adjust their running schedule to the snow, wind or ice. They wear white robes when they run, rather than the traditional Buddhist black. White is the color of death: There is always a chance of dying on the way. In fact, when they run they carry with them a sheathed knife and a rope to remind them to take their life by disembowelment or hanging if they fail to complete their route.

After monks complete a thousand-day mountain marathon within seven years, they go on a nine-day fast without food, water or sleep. At the end of nine days, they are at the edge of death. Completely emptied, they become extremely sensitive. "They can hear ashes fall from the incense sticks...and they can smell food prepared miles away." Their sight is vivid and clear, and after the fast they come back into life radiant with a vision of ultimate experience.

...Why do the marathon monks go to such extremes? They want to wake up. That's how thick we human beings are. We are lazy, content in our discontent, sloppy and asleep. To wake up takes the total effort that a marathon monk can exert. I told my class on the last day of the four-week seminar, "Well, you have two choices: Mount Hiei or writing. Which one will you choose? Believe me, if you take on writing, it is as hard as being a marathon monk."

Excerpted from the introduction, Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America by Natalie Goldberg

***

That quote is from one of my favorite books, a book that lives in my private exalted mental category where I consider a book to be a friend. I remember when I first read that tale of the marathon monks and something inside me gave a dull tug and also a shiver of recognition and excitement. But I was a voyeur, just a reader. I had never put pen to page or fingers to a keyboard.

Wannabe writer. Someday I'll write something. When I have something to write about.

***

I took one of Natalie Goldberg's workshops when she was a guest lecturer at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, in Marin County. I had read Writing Down the Bones, and I was struck by the author's brutal honesty and bravery. She just wrote. She did it no matter what mood she was in, whether or not she had a topic. It was a practice, a promise. It never occurred to me to feel that devotion about anything, but to me, if it was to be something, writing seemed to make a lot of sense.

And still I didn't write.

***

It's hard to say I'm a writer. I haven't been published. I haven't any expertise in a given field of study that I could be writing about. I don't have anything uniquely profound to say. But still I want to write, no matter what trappings of writingdom I haven't acquired yet.

It's primordial. A compulsion. A craving.

Once I finally let the genie out of the bottle, I haven't been able to put him back in. Not that I want to.

***

From the time I was a little girl , I steadily developed a fascination with the mechanics of writing: the old Royal manual typewriter that smelled of dust and hurt my fingers to press the keys hard enough just to mark the paper. The fragile onion skin. A fountain pen (how many kids in elementary school wrote with a fountain pen? I did.) Putting lead in a mechanical pencil. The shininess of lead on lined notebook paper. Pink eraser crumbs and how erasers smell when you rub them.

When I got older, I chose a major in college that would really let me dive into the mechanics of putting words on paper. I learned how to use French curves and scales to design a single letter (the old art of creating a font has nothing to do with computers, but everything to do with geometry and positive and negative space), how to measure in picas and points, how to cut rubylith, how to burn a printing plate, how to set up and run an offset press. I also had a box full of more expensive toys--every size of Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pen, India ink, crow quill pens, engineering scales and protractors and compasses.

But still, I put no words on paper. I knew how they got there, in principle.

And still even later, when the nuts and bolts of putting ink on substrate lost some fascination for me (although I will never be cured completely), I became the writer's doctor. First a proofreader, then an editor. I niggled over minutiae. The Chicago Manual of Style was my bible, and I fought tooth and nail for serial commas and em-dashes. I became passionate about Garamond (yes, I am very old-fashioned in some things). I used a red pen, or a green or purple one to comment in the margins when I didn't want to crush sensitive egos.

And writing seemed farther away than it had ever been. I couldn't even fathom that I would ever write a sentence that I wanted to read, let alone share it with anyone else.

***

So many years later I have finally come to the place I meant to start. At the beginning, it feels like.

It may only be a blog, but finally, finally I write. Sometimes it's all fluff and crap, and sometimes I think hey, maybe I'm onto something here. And it's all exactly as great and hard and fun and boring and everything I thought it might be.

Below are a few wonderful quotes and images I've found about writing, trying to capture the essence of something that's hard to pin down. I hope you like them too.

***

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. ~ Vita Sackville-West

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~ Sharon O'Brien

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~ Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~ Ray Bradbury

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~ Anaïs Nin

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~ Vladimir Nabakov

Post inspired by a question from my sweet friend Relyn.
All beautiful images from flickr: typewriter, erasers, pens, nib, keyboard, metal type, notebook.

Reverie

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”


~~~


“How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.”


~~~


“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Postponing the Inevitable

I still have colorful Euro bills in my wallet. I also have Euro coins (and some smaller denominations thereof) in my coin purse. I also have a few postage stamps left in my wallet.

I finally put my passport away in my desk drawer. As much as it made me happy to catch an occasional glimpse of it in my purse, I don't want to risk losing it.

On Thursday, I took the well-used Italian-only map of Venice out of my coat pocket. I think I accidentally stole it from someone but it was a better map than the one I brought with me. I also threw away some receipts.

I still haven't dealt with my laundry though. I haven't put away my clothes and I'm still figuring out what gifts I bought and who I meant to give them to.

And sadly, my reveries of Venice are becoming less frequent and less vivid already. And it's only been a week. Usually I last longer. I'm still reading Venice, by Jan Morris, to keep the images and feelings alive in my mind for a while longer. It makes me sad to see that I'm returning to "normal" life again so soon. Mostly it's the sense of wonder and appreciation that I miss more than anything.

Yesterday, to stem the slowly seeping-away feeling, The Boy and I watched two films in which Venice is a primary character. One was recommended by two different friends: Summertime (1955), starring Katharine Hepburn and Rossanno Brazzi (man, is this guy good looking!), about a lonely American secretary who finds love in the arms of a gorgeous Italian man (um, why why why did I not see anyone in Venice who looked like this guy?!! It's probably a good thing that I didn't or else I might not have returned home.)


The other movie, A Little Romance (1979), was recommended by none other than The Boy himself, who still is in love with Diane Lane based on his seeing this film when he was twelve. I was lucky enough to find a used DVD of this film.

Both movies were filmed on location in Venice (A Little Romance was filmed on location in Paris, too, so that's big bonus for me right there) and both movies do capture the look and feel of Venice to some extent.

Katherine Hepburn was more tolerable to me than usual (sorry, I'm not a huge fan), although we couldn't help wondering why the guy was interested in her in the first place. David Lean, the director of Summertime, took great aerial views and sweeping pans of Venice (maybe not in Lawrence of Arabia epic proportions, but still genuinely breathtaking) and edited the film in such a way that you believed that Hepburn had every imaginable pictoresque view of Venice from her budget pensione balcony.

Both films captured the grandioseness of Venice and the romantic otherworldness of it, especially in the canals. It was fun to pause the film and exclaim occasionally, "Ooh, ooh, that's the Basilica de S. Maria della Salute! I was there!" or "That's the Doge's Palace, and across the water is the church designed by Palladio, oh, and see those columns...I was talking to you on my cell phone right there when I ran out of batteries!" Rather than holing up on the sofa with Rick Steves in Italy (I already did that anyway), I got to relive Venice in glorious Technicolor and set to lovely background music.

I'm sure there will come a day soon when I'm tired of sorting through the Euro coins in my coin purse to find an American quarter, and when the stamps in my wallet get grungy and torn. Just as there was a day when I washed the last carnet ticket for the Paris metro I had in my jeans and the little muslin teabag from Mariage Freres fell out of my coat pocket. But I'm going to try real hard to postpone that day for as long as I can. Venice is too amazing, too vibrant, too dreamlike to lose it so soon.

***
Today, I found this Anaïs Nin postcard through StumbleUpon.

I'm sure you can't possibly read the text but here's what it says:

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book...or you take a trip..and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure.

That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children.

And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song and it awakens them and saves them from death.

Some never awaken.

I will be sure to read this quote to myself whenever I feel the onslaught of hibernation coming over me. It is inexorable and one must be vigilant.

On second thought, I have decided that I will never take the Euros out of my wallet. That will help a little.