Absences

Suprematist’s Black

That moment comes
When absences define you
Between leaving and arriving
Between closing and beginning
Between letting go and holding on
Between forgetting and remembering

That moment comes
When you need no language to express
Taste of grandma’s apple cake
Lavender sunsets sipping glass of red
White cat Black cat shadow play
Midnight opera explosions of joy

That moment comes
When you try to capture images
Motorino red in the blue of Greece
Roses arranged in the cold November drizzle
Apologetic birthday Parioli corner bouquets
Stella di Natale stricken with illness.

That moment comes.


Magdalena Anna Kropiwnicka

it's a fine samba romance

So here I am listening to Billy Holiday "Fine Romance"....what a bold, beautiful song.
I tried to dance to the old Broadway tunes. Tried to remember how it carries my feet, so different to my inner sambas.
More stiff, the rhythm is there, steps go fast, yet the body stays firm.
Got it.
And then inner dramatic last pose at the end note of the musical number.
That's why all my love of cabaret is replaced with that samba hip swing. More suave. More understated.
African rhythm’s honest vibrancy is what I miss.
How dance is part of each day. How clapping hands together is the way to be welcomed inside someone's home. There in Botswana, I remember. We danced at the courtyard of an African house, part of their baby birth celebration, drunk the sorghum beer (oh, that was awful!, allowing myself to be culturally un pc!)....It was such a beautiful day. We watched the race, the biggest amusement of the week of race cars passing through the bush roads on their way to Namibia. It was the same day when I saw wild elephants for the first time on the way back through the natural reserve. Sitting on the roof of the car moving slowly towards the approaching sunset posing as a tourist with the camera, suddenly the road is crossed by a gigantic mother elephant and her two babies. The whole setting is so obvious: we are in her territory, this is not a zoo. She looks at the car slightly annoyed and slowly walks by. Stunned by her grace I simply forget that I have a camera, at least during these crucial seconds when our eyes meet. So God bless Botswana and its' rhythm when keeping secret the Okavango is becoming increasingly difficult. May all the gods keep Okavango villages smiling, may they assure that the tourists will be respectful and patient, that the hippos be wild, that the baboons remain baboons and that the Queen termite enjoys fully each one of her millions of relationships a year. May the guides ravel at the first time wild bush wonderers who let them see its beauty afresh; may the tourists recognize the guides' unique craft. Let the elephant cemeteries lie undisturbed and let the giraffes continue looking surprised.

My saudade for Botswana. My saudade for Brazil lost inside the sambas of Rio in winter time. After all, it is only after I have learned how to dance the slow, the melancholic saudade samba is when I have began to truly understand and love this dance. No other dance, for now, seems more about the feeling, pure reaction to rhythm, the comfort of dancing to sadness, the true power of catharsis in dance. Because at the core there is always the soothing rhythm of life, the very essence of the African drum. The trance like rhythm, magical rhythm, forcing your body to make the healing move. To smile in the face of life’s hardship. The music of slaves, the beauty of African call to life combined with the uprooted Portuguese tropical fado. My samba. Yes, I intend to continue to samba through life.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/mar/04/okavango-delta-floods-of-life?picture=359281783

Gracias Sevilla...(love letter)

Sevilla,
I walked and I biked in the rhythm of your streets
I met you when I needed to get over old relationships
With other cities
You helped me get over my suadade for Brazil
Reminded of passion for life
You seduced me with the drama of your poetry
You thought me how to listen to dance
How to dance in my thoughts
Without forever samba on ipod
With Lorca’s meditative words

“Sevilla es una torre
llena de arqueros finos.
Sevilla para herir.
Córdoba para morir.
Una ciudad que acecha
largos ritmos,
y los enrosca
como laberintos.
Como tallos de parra
encendidos.
¡Sevilla para herir!
Bajo el arco del cielo,
sobre su llano limpio,
dispara la constante
saeta de su río.
¡Córdoba para morir!
Y loca de horizonte
mezcla en su vino,
lo amargo de don Juan
y lo perfecto de Dionisio.
Sevilla para herir.
¡Siempre Sevilla para herir!”
Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936)
Gracias mi nuevo amor….

Sun Rises Again on the Expat Blog

I have never been a huge admirer of Hemingway until I was introduced to “The Sun Also Rises”. I always thought that the problem with mainstreaming Hemingway had much to do with the heavy masterpieces being shoved down the throats of 15 year olds around the world struggling to deal with the epic of death in “The Old Man and the Sea”. While this is nothing in comparison with the Polish literature shoved down the throats of Polish teenagers where titles speak for themselves as in “The next one to the gas chamber please” or “Ashes and Diamonds”, I take Hemingway as my guide to Spain. Ernest has been clear on defining the rules for the expat writers: live in the artsy quarter of a European city, write in a cafè, talk to other artists, drink lots. While not having been able to follow Hemingway’s rules since moving to San Casciano Val di Pesa, a small town 30 minutes outside of Florence, no amount of world’s most excellent wine has taken away all the ache for a proper writing cafè or enoteca. Not surprisingly hence, each time over the past year when I tried to write my expat blog again it has always been inside the premises of the Enoteca/wine bar on Via Urbana 49 in Rome. Not because they got WIFI or because Angela has many times handed over the keys to Lynda’s apartment or guarded my little bag left over while I run to my meetings at the UN. No, it is because the dimly lit interiors smelling of wine corks, cheese and garlic have always given me the inspiration. Via Urbana was home away from home back home in Rome to home on my way to my spirtitual home. It was Rome.
Now I am off to Seville. Heart of Andalucia which is to Spain what Tuscany is to Italy. Just the idea of going, moving, traveling makes me write again. Throughout last year I was going back to the cities, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, never a tourist, always at home while not living there anymore or yet. Seville will be different. Seville will make me write about Florence.

“Eat the garlic”, Mike said, “you must eat the garlic!” (paraphrased from “Sun Also Rises”). Somebody ones said that garlic is to cooking what insanity is to art. I say, going to Seville to polish my Spanish is to me what cafè’s have been to Hemingway.
I am back.

when you go through the winter of words, read RUMI

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

And frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

And begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.



Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.



Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

There is a field. I’ll meet you there.



When the soul lies down in that grass,

The world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

Doesn’t make any sense.”



……………………………………………………….



“my worst habit is I get so tired of winter

I become a torture to those I’m with.”



……………………………………………………………..



“Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,

No light and no land anywhere,

Cloudcover thick. I try to stay

Just above the surface, yet I’m already under

And living within the ocean.



You’re crying. You say you’ve burned yourself.

But can you think of anyone who’s not

Hazy with smoke?”

……………………………………………………..



Love, tell an incident now

That will clarify this mystery

Of how we act freely, and are yet

Compelled.

it is RUMI who has helped me to find the words to say what it is like to leave Rome, what it is like to be in between places, to await for the arrival of Spring.

the commentary on last year's world affairs

This is ironic given how apologetic this particular publication has been for the lack of regulation of financial markets. This is ironic how before the financial crash this year alone has pushed additinal 100 million people into starvation, mostly due to financial speculation on the commodities market. It is ironic how few billion are still missing from the hunger pot.

but we bail out the banks. with hundrets of billions.

yoga

YOGA

I learn to open my body
Stretch out my mind
When wind blows through me
With its healing whispers

Inhaling faith
Exhaling fear
Inhaling trust
Exhaling tears

Yoga

I open my mind.