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i am going to keep reaching for the stars
because they are the brightest objects in the dark sky…
i am going to keep on dreaming
because life without dreams would be like a wingless bird trying to fly…
i’ve been neglecting my wee space here for the last few months while trying desperately to sort out trans-atlantic relocation logistics. it has never been this complicated… but i have also accumulated more (physical and metaphorical) baggage over the years. it occurred to me — when talking to people who have not lived in any other country other than the one they grew up in — that i must seem rather crazy to have lived, relocated, and made various cities home for a while… perhaps one only begin to have such fears and worries … or to anticipate such feelings with age and ‘wisdom’! often times, i envy those who are happy where they are… happy that they know where they’d rather be.
i want to say that while i had not previously imagine living in the suburban Midwest, nor bearing her excruciatingly cold winters, or tolerating her lack of architectural splendour that distinctively characterizes many historical cities of Europe or her serious lack of dramatic hills and skyscapes like those of bonny Scotland, i did find myself growing fonder of many aspects of life in Minnesota… and the NICE people who made my stay quite memorable.
“I Want to Say”
I Want to Say
Before I’m lost to time and the midwest
I want to say I was here
I loved the half light all winter
I want you to know before I leave
that I liked the towns living along the back of the Mississippi
I loved the large heron filling the sky
the slender white egret at the edge of the shore
I came to love my life here
fell in love with the color grey
the unending turn of seasons
Let me say
I loved Hill City
the bench in front of the tavern
the small hill to the lake
I loved the morning frost on the bell in New Albin
and the money I made as a poet
I was thankful for the white night
the sky of so many wet summers
Before I leave this whole world of my friends
I want to tell you I loved the rain on large store windows
had more croissants here in Minneapolis
than the French do in Lyons
I read the poets of the midwest
their hard crusts of bread dark goat cheese
and was nourished not hungry where they lived
I ate at the edges of state lines and boundaries
Know I loved the cold the tap of bare branches against windows
know there will not be your peonies in spring
wherever I go
the electric petunias
and your orange zinniasby Natalie Goldberg
from Top of My Lungs. © The Overlook Press.
C is for Cindy
who patiently listened to what seemed like verbal diarrhoea when i tried to practice for my viva…
and who positively picks up the bits of stuff i don’t have time to complete.
C is for a kind of courageous resilience that C, who is mentioned above, epitomises.
C exists for the craziness in all our daily struggles, and then some more…
C sounds similar to the word “sea”, which conjures up images of the latter’s companion; waves… and their vast eloquence and inexhaustible vocabulary of water in motion.
C becomes an abbreviation for “see” in “C U” and “I C”… when one is lazy to spell and write it all out.
C is for cat, its insatiable feline curiosity, and whose adventures that never seem to cease.
above and beyond that apparent whimsy,
C is for compassion.
L is for Lennie
who ungrudgingly clears away my trash bin every evening;
who provides prospective weather updates;
who very subtly chides me for staying at work till much too late;
who actually notices the untold stories;
who seems much too preoccupied with his cleaning to know;
who actually thinks he’s going to miss my not being around…
“I can’t believe you are leaving!” L cried.
neither could I, honestly…
“Write to the Dr. guy”, he said me.
“I’d like to keep in touch!” he insisted.
“You’ll hear from me…”
“You’ll be here on Monday, won’t you?”
“Uh huh…”
L is for learning
that people do care.
one thing i really appreciate about living in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere is the seasons. every season has its thing, even the wretchedly cold winters…
lately, it feels like spring here, and the days are getting longer. and there is nothing quite like having the warmth of the sun on your face on an otherwise cool day, or the prancing shadows that follow you like a transient friend.
over the last few days, i’ve been tweaking stuff behind the scenes… and getting help with the transition, which has been fairly straight-forward. as you may have noticed there’s a new ‘banner‘ on top! and overacuppa.com has moved to WordPress.com! there are still a couple of things to fix because i was using a different stylesheet on the other platform; imported entries do not retain all their paragraphs, fonts, foreign language alphabets might look strange, and pictures do not always align as they once did . it’s all part of the ‘makeover’… which i hope you will enjoy as it evolves.
meanwhile… here’s a sweet little poem i happened to fossick while finding inspiration for the new blog design…
Nearly Four
by Jeremy Lloyd
A teddy bear sits on a mattress one glass eye and threadbare paw
Looking at a cuckoo clock which tells it’s nearly ten to four
Four o’clock is teddy’s teatime, lots of friends and fancy cake
Although it’s only pretend eating…. oh how long ten minutes take
Shadows grow on distant hillside, orange sun on glassy sea
All in his amber eye reflected, and still ten minutes left till tea.
The mattress striped is old and broken, rusty springs through stuffing show,
The cuckoo clock is also broken but how’s a teddy supposed to know
Unaware he’s been abandoned, that this is not the nursery cot
The hills and sea, just glass, old papers on a disused rubbish plot
A telephone that no-one answers, empty tins that once held tea,
The clock that still says nearly teatime, where can all the children be?
For ages now he’s lain unwanted, saluting with a threadbare paw
He’ll never know he’s been discarded, till the clock reads after four
Don’t tell him that the clock is broken, as long as teddy doesn’t know,
It will always soon be teatime as it was so long ago.
i was first introduced to Robbie Burns quite serendipitously… you see, like so many of my school friends (i daresay!) we were quite engrossed with the television series: “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman“. it was during the episode when all so scrumptiously rugged and dashing Scully made a toast to Michaela, a female physician, who in addition to defending the feminine rights and independence in what seemed like a very male-dominated 1870s Colorado USA, also looked after three children she adopted from her midwife friend who died from an unfortunate rattlesnake bite. it was a film steeped with strong American family traditions as well as many cultural and racial controversies, but at the heart of it was this beautiful fabric of human connectedness, including the romance between Scully and Dr. Quinn. very aptly, the poem of Robbie Burns was chosen for that episode… and for a long while before i learnt of the famous Bard in his own homeland in Scotland, i was to etch that feeling i felt when i heard that poem recited by Scully to Micheala in my memory.
today i am gently reminded of how fond i am of that poem i heard so long ago… as it is aptly selected for the Writer’s Almanac today. in double ‘reunion’, for Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner, and the poem because it’s Burn’s birthday, i’d like to share it here, too.
Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare the weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!
“Oh my luve is like a red, red rose ” by Robert Burns.
i am tired
but the work’s not done
the work’s not done
and i take it along
to sleep with me
summer came
the blossoms
bicycle rides
ice-creams and
lunch time
by the lake…
half a sandwich,
milkshake, on the side.
a camping weekend
canoeing through waterlilies
hark… the call of loons
night sky twinkling,
trees whispering…
firewood crackling.
new faces
met at gatherings,
old faces
reconnected in cyberspace..
the usual
cooking, cleaning,
some movie-going…
but despite all that,
much to much time
was spent working,
dealing with life storms,
instead of enjoying
summer, the outdoors…
or spending time
being with people.
and now, trees
advertise in colour.
autumn’s caught up.
autumn’s caught up!
soon, winter will
park itself here.
there are days, too many of them, when i feel annoyed with the world, with the people i love, with situations i find myself stuck in… wishing that i could just make things however they are supposed to be… here and now.
What We Want
What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
“What We Want,” by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening. © W.W. Norton.
