You don’t need to lay your ears on the ground
Nor let your hand glide over the brown earth
to feel life’s heartbeat beat within you.
Just close your eyes and listen,
Without expectation, without need
Just quietly as if there is only this one thing to do
Until the chains of time crumble to dust and
Are picked up by the winds and forever dispersed,
Leaving a burning sun to rise within you
Flooding your body with the brightest light.
(photo @spasmicallyperfect)
Hi everybody.
Although below post isn’t a true account of events, it’s not really fiction either.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed that Spasmically Perfect doesn’t quite feel write ( 
) anymore and what has been so many things to me over the last few years, somehow no longer seems to fit.
I was considering shutting it down completely but I can’t. Too many treasured souls have left their virtual footsteps on these grounds and too many treasured moments are forever captured. Not to mention that it will always serve as a reminder of friendship in its purest and most inspirational form.
And just like a guitar that gathers dust in a corner, who knows, someday I’ll fall over it and feel – once more – inspired to play.
Until then, you know where to find me, should you wish to. And for those of you who wonder whether I’ll still come visit once in a while: stop wondering and write something so that I have a piece or two to read when I show up!
To all of you who have read and commented, THANK YOU for contributing in your all so individual ways, and for being such wonderful company along the way.
Until we meet again, take care’
and don’t forget how beautiful you are,
because you are,
LOVE, Spaz
“It’s time to write”, she said quietly, almost absent-mindedly, while her lower head was hiding behind a steaming cup of close to overflowing tea.
She wasn’t finished, and so he waited patiently, nibbling on a brownie crumb.
“Not like before. Not the dashes of thoughts, feelings, documentations of life or what I see life to be. Not the little prayers of gratitude, the longing for hope, asking to be seen, heard, and maybe remembered. Not the trying to figure out why I’m here, we are here. It’s useless. It’s a waste of time. A cruel trickery making myself believe that I actually have something to say, know something, love something.”
She still wasn’t looking at him. She never did in these moments. Her world was too busy to handle without having to deal with his, or anybody else’s for that matter.
He didn’t mind. He knew one word, gesture of need and she’d snap out of it, she’d come running forgetting all about her world, just so that she could rescue another’s.
That’s what made her beautiful. That’s what made her beauty a high price to pay.
“Something new. And I don’t care whether it’s new to the world, or has been done a million times before. That’s not important anymore. It will be new to me. And it will be my own. Fully. Untainted, uncensored, unread. It won’t matter how it comes out. Just that it does, like a wild horse. Then, maybe, someday, a story will emerge, a story that needs telling. But how can one tell a story, before one has mastered it, tamed it? And maybe, maybe letting it run free is what really makes one happy.”
She took another sip of the top of her cup, her eyes locked in the distance.
He could see tears filling up, but she didn’t let them fall, instead she forced a smile.
And so they sat there, quietly.
It’s a zoo.
Not a story about a zoo, but a zoo of stories,
actually not even stories,
just story lines,
tens, hundreds of them,
small, big,
beautiful, shocking,
odd, true,
fictions based on an ego,
or lack thereof,
toppling over each other,
and every time I breathe,
think of nothing,
there’s another one,
wanting to be heard,
heard in a herd of a zoo of story lines,
good luck.
first instinct to capture them,
organise them, categories them,
lock them up,
who knows breed them,
raise them, feed them,
into at least one good story,
the kind one buys a book for,
not online,
no,
walks to a book store
and pays in cash for.
good luck.
So I sit,
in the middle of the zoo,
watching them race
through the grounds,
some circle or halt,
some mate,
some grow,
but none stays,
why would they,
they’re just random lines,
created in a head,
creating a zoo,
which I now observe,
unable to make more of it.
Just my luck.
(photo @spasmicallyperfect)
Beautiful stories told
Set in wondrous landscapes
Where hair shines golden
And the grass is green and soft
The sound of bees
And smell of countless flower heads,
Oh how I wish I could find that place
Within myself again.
I know it’s there,
And as I stumble through time
Pathetically clinging
To all that isn’t mine to hold
Deceiving myself into believing
That this night will end by itself
While I get high on emotions
I no longer can trigger myself.
Hidden away on a quiet street
Behind closed blinds
The sun still finds me and refuses
To entertain my darkness,
For the garden within me
Needs the light
to be able to grow and bloom
and be ready, for the moment I arrive.
Any male or female who at my age still is fortunate to have their mother participate in their lives knows that it isn’t always easy. There came a time where I grew bigger than my mother’s opinion, which was probably around about 18 and a half.
It wasn’t until my marriage that I realised that my mother’s realities were woven way further into the fabric of my life than I ever realised. One simple example was my frustration about the way Hubby hung up his bathtowel after showering.
“You should never fold a wet towel, it can’t dry properly and will smell.”
“That’s nonsense.” Hubby replied.
And that’s when I delivered the fatal blow:
“It is not nonsense, it’s true, my mother always said so and our towels never smelled”.
There. Done. End of conversation.
Well, not quite. It didn’t take him a second to respond:
“Well, in our home we always folded towels and they didn’t smell either. That’s how my Mum did it and I’m fine with it.”
I had never considered that his mother and my mother didn’t do things exactly the same way. I mean, thinking about it of course that seems logical, but to that point I never had considered it. If Hubby didn’t do things the way I felt they should be done, I had blamed it on him not knowing better. I had conveniently left his mother out of the picture. Now, since I know that a bigger portion of society seems to have serious issues with mother-in-laws, I have to state for the record that I do not. I have total respect for my mother in law and especially in regards to her handling of bath towels she has a clean and nicely scented record. And yes, they are folded.
So there I was completely taken aback. Not so much at the fact that there may be more than one way to successfully hang bath towels but by the realisation that there may be other incomplete realities that I had inherited. I was relentless in questioning anything my mother ever taught me and in an attempt to discover my true self, shelved my mother’s wisdom.
Life does a good job at balancing out these moments of growth and as my own experience increased, I had no choice but to claim some of her wisdom. Still I couldn’t help but notice that despite the closeness we shared while living together, I not only saw us as two completely different women, but began to question, whether my mother even understood who this woman was I had become.
Until a few days ago. A rather casual conversation about a job opening at my work, lead her to go on a rant about how I had to apply, how all one really had at the end of one’s life is to look back at one’s achievements. It was obvious that in her eyes, rising up the corporate ladder was an achievement.
Getting annoyed with her obviously ’status’-driven definition of achievement, I started to protest.
“Now shut up and listen, this is your mother talking, you said what you had to say, now it’s my time!”, was her very assertive answer.
Since I hadn’t heard that tone of voice since I was about 12 years old, I obeyed immediately. I shut up and listened. Truly listened. As open as I possibly could (while still taking debate notes).
What unfolded was my mother not only taking charge of the conversation but reminding me more accurately than anybody else in this world of who I am. Reminding me, because she realised that I had tried so hard to follow the right street signs of this life, of which suddenly none seemed to fit anymore, that I had simply forgotten not so much that I had an inner direction but what it was. She showed me my one constant in my life and I recognised it instantly.
I’m not sure she’ll ever understand how much she did for me in that moment and how close I felt. There wasn’t any doubt that we once shared the strongest natural bond there is and that no matter how much distance we’ve had between each other since, she has never left my side. Having let a few days pass since that phone call I know that all that I’ll ever classify as an achievement can and will be built on that one constant. I know she knows that.
And when I’m old and looking back on them, I’ll smile and say: I did it Mum and I couldn’t have done it without you.
It is my favourite time of day
when from the west the evening sun
descends on the tops of the olive trees
and slowly dips them in a golden glow,
richer than the morning light,
shorter too, with a subtle melancholy
that only those who live their days fully
can truly understand.
Oh how fortunate are those of us
who now that night falls gently
awake anew, our bronzen skin
wrapped in swaying white dresses
and twigs of jasmin in our hair
we are escorted by our favourite knight,
and dance below the starlit canopy
or walk along the dark blue seas.
How could one ever leave this place
where time is not a commodity
but a witness of sensual awakening,
as fingertips follow the path of moonlight
along the rolling hills of shivering skin
and warm salt water curls around our feet
as if to tie a bond between the elements
easily broken but never forgotten.
“If you can make it through a home rennovation project that you and your partner are working on together and still want to keep living in the same house afterwards, that’s when you know that you are capable of facing come what may”.
This is an ongoing joke I make, especially when speaking to younger couples that are convinced they will reach their diamond wedding anniversary just because they managed to agree on their first shared couch. Although I laugh when I say it, I know what I am talking about.
That doesn’t mean just because you’ve made it through one, that any following ones get easier. Hubby and I have been working on finishing our basement over the last few months. Since we’ve done full rennovation jobs before and know the back breaking, nerve wrecking labour that goes into them, we did hire contractors to do the walls and ceiling for us. We figured that we could save some cost on doing the flooring ourselves, especially since Hubby somehow knew exactly what needed to be done. Not that he’s done it before but then there is the God given male gene called ‘I don’t need instructions’.
But it’s not so much the actual task of laying flooring that is the greatest challenge, but more the dynamic of two very different but very confident personalities working together. Luckily, one of them is a female and therefore ok to step back and let the more experienced person take the lead (or at least realises that not having any experience herself probably doesn’t make her the best leader in that situation). As one knows, luck only last that long. For that female, let’s take myself as an example, still has a perfectly intelligent mind, and on top of it sees anything as a process which if handled efficiently has a planning stage before the execution stage. So, before you start anything, you’ve gone through the process in your mind, have purchased anything you didn’t own yet, have looked for and assembled everything else you needed for the job before your hands are dirty and self leveling cement is flying around the walls.
Unfortunately, the leader, lets assume Hubby, with another God given gene called ‘I know what I’m doing so why would I waste time thinking through the steps if I can just do them instead’-gene, does just that.
Minute 10:
“Oh, now I need the trowel. Hon, can you run upstairs into the garage, I think it’s in the work bench.”
Minute 12.5:
“Shoot, quick, get me some water and paper towels to clean the splash”
Minute 25:
“You know what? I think I might need a vapor barrier. Love, can you drive to Home Depot and get some?”
Minute 45 (just after I arrive back with the purchase):
“We’ve got a problem, we’ve just run out of cement. I’m sorry but could you get me two more bags from the Depot?”
I will refrain from repeating anything that some day may be held against me in some divorce court. Let’s just say, it was enough to raise my bloodpressure to a level that didn’t exactly allow for extra patience when it came to actually start laying the flooring. Which isn’t really that much of a deal, however one still has to pay attention especially when making cuts around corners and pillars.
Having taken wood working classes myself, I am well aware of the ‘measure twice, cut once’-rule. Now of course, that only applies if you actually have measured wrong in the first place. Which, you’ve guessed it, is a gene that males don’t have (I know I’m right). And should a piece not fit, it of course has to do with either the all of a sudden faulty miter saw or is a direct cause of a VERY tricky flooring situation where even the best skilled would have failed at first.
I could go on and on, but I trust that you get the picture and if you are familiar with this situation then I’m sure you are already wrestling with post traumatic stress (sorry, but then why should I suffer by myself?).
Anyway, we put down the last piece on Monday evening. And tonight after Hubby has moved all the stereo equipment into the basement and we are hearing ‘Tubular Bells’ as clearly as I’ve ever heard them in his new, to perfect acoustics scale music room, I have no choice but to sigh at such beauty. Yes, I know I wasn’t at all eager to start this project, nor quite frankly thrilled to work through it, but the result is worth every single piece of frustration encountered along the way.
Let’s hope I can remember this feeling to give me enough motivation and patience to make it through any other upcoming house projects.
No, that doesn’t mean that I’m ready for the next one!
(photo @spasmicallyperfect)
I have been missing the sun. We’ve just had a fabulous long weekend of mostly blue skies and yet it somehow still didn’t feel like enough. The snow has mostly melted, what remains lies rather sad below a layer of street dirt, next to dead grass.
I think even more than the sun I miss the colours, the vibrancy that sidetracks one’s mind that would otherwise turn inward where it may get lost forever. Together with the skies, I was beginning to turn blue myself.
And so I turned to work, finally uploading my winter vacation pictures up on my photo blog. There I noticed an older shot about as busy in fiery colours as can be. I played the slide show and was left completely in awe of the Nature’s beauty. This is rather surprising, considering that a) I consider myself fully aware of mother earth’s miracles and b) I took those shots myself.
As I looked closely at each picture, I tried to remember what I saw through the lens. The subjects must have inspired me back then or else I would have walked on by and yet tonight they appeared more beautiful, more alluring than I recalled.
“You do have a gift to capture beauty”, one voice said.
“Nobody can ruin something as beautiful as that”, the other replied.
I decided not to get into that internal discussion but to replay the pictures again.
Bottom line, the pictures I took back then managed to deliver some of the colour I was missing today. And that, is all that matters.
Battling strong February winds,
stripping me from everything but where I need to go
And the strength to move one step at a time.
Raw emotions slapping me around,
like a leftover leaf from last Fall,
uncontrollable it seems and painfully vulnerable.
But what if I’m failing to see
the power of the dance,
failing to see
those same emotions creating
what I’m unable to generate
when life is comfortable?
Vulnerability which allows everything in
and removes all masquerades.
Emotions that create wonderful streams of words
and allow to fully connect.
A weak backbone that instead of cracking
bends and so survives
strong February winds.
