and off she went...

Dear Friends, I'm disappearing from the blogosphere for the next three weeks. I'm going traveling, and access to the internet may be scarce. But I really, really hope that once I'm back in November, you and your wonderful blogs will still be here and that I can join in the blogging as if nothing ever happened. My life would be so much poorer without you so please try not to forget me...

P.S. this image has nothing to do with this post, but isn't Autumnal sky wonderful in London? I saw this purple-blue sky today at 7am from my kitchen window.

on creativity

I've been thinking about how we are surrounded by possibilities to be creative and what we do with them. One of the interesting things about creativity is that it's a messy process, and a very personal one. But also, that there are no tried and true approaches to being creative. Developing creativity is a very personal evolutionary process, full of trials and errors. A process of sorting out messes. It can be an intensely private work. Finding creative sense is rather like a journey into the unknown: there are many wonderful guide books, compasses, and preachers, but the ultimate destination is always elusive and enigmatic.

I’ve been focusing a lot on different things lately and it's been harder to get back into writing this autumn. I think that as we grow older we forget about being creative, we work hard on trying to fit into the world around us instead, which can be a very time consuming. We want to fit in. We want to look, speak and move like the people in the world that surrounds us.

I'm still trying working on how to be creative in different ways. I am thinking about how to look at the world from different angles and to find and follow my own vision of what's right. This means writing most of the time, but lately photography felt like an incredibly creative process – mostly thanks to my blog buddies who showed me how magical the world can be when it’s viewed through the camera lens. I’ve not had time to pick up the camera lately but for the next three weeks I will have it pretty much permanently glued to my hand – while in Asia, there will be plenty of opportunities to practice. A time to be creative will become available at last; there will be opportunities to daydream, to fantasize and to imagine. I look forward to this time away because when I'm not writing or taking photos, I feel that I’m losing the creative part of me that I value. I not only don't experiment with words, but I don't experiment with life.

wordless Monday - green

a post without a photo

I wonder what you think: here's a short story that I wrote for a creative writing course. I'm going to have to read it to out loud to a group of strangers but before I do that I'd love to know what friends think first. Be critical. Thank you.

The dog with the broken paw was barking again, but apart from that sad call for attention the city was dark and quiet and felt deserted. The first snow that fell that night made it feel colder, damper, and more grim than usual. Not that any of this made any difference to K. Before the unfortunate events that eventually led to his demise started, his life was quite dull and dark regardless of the season. He would get up to go to work at the same time every day. Every day he would make the same journey to the office on an overcrowded subway train. He would wear the same grey hat and the same grey coat all year round, regardless of the weather. He would get the same cup of coffee from Dean&DeLuca on his way. He wouldn’t utter one word to a living soul before the first absent minded greeting to his secretary, whose name he had trouble remembering even though she had worked for him for nearly six months now. That's the way he always lived, he got used to it.



He didn't quite enjoy his work, but it paid well so he stuck with it. After all these years it didn’t require much effort from him anyway. He didn't have friends because interpersonal communication never came easy to him, and apart from a brief affair with a girl from work he never had anyone that he could feel close to. He was never in love.


He was not exactly unhappy, but you would not call him happy either. So perhaps what happened later was to a large extent result of some basic need for change that grew in him unnoticed.


On that particular night, the night when the only sound audible in the city was the sad dog’s barking, the world felt exceptionally dark to K. "It's the 1930s, for goodness sake, where is the electricity at this time of a night" he thought to himself.


He decided to walk home instead of taking a subway. Walking the streets of Manhattan felt like a better option than sitting on his own in the cold flat, even if it didn't mean that he would talk to anyone. He walked down Spring Street towards Bleeker. He turned into Canal and walked past Phillies, usually empty at this time of a day.


Not tonight though.


The first thought that crossed K’s mind when he saw a girl in a red dress was how she brightened the night. Then he thought that she seemed lonely, which made her feel like a kindred spirit to K, like a friend he lost long ago, or indeed never had, like a soul mate he’d been looking for all his life. For a few minutes, he stood there transfixed by this vision; he couldn’t take his eyes off her and kept staring at her long dark hair, her head tilted forward. He couldn’t see her face but he knew she was beautiful. He suddenly felt the urge to walk in and talk to her. He felt drawn to her, he felt it almost his destiny to talk to her here and now, as if he had always known her, as if he could not exist a moment longer without her company.


And then something quite inexplicable happened. Was it the disastrous and so real comprehension of this own imperfections that overwhelmed him? Whatever it was, he stopped a half step towards the door and just stood there staring through the window at the lonely figure leaning on the counter. She was almost calling to him but all of a sudden the glass window between them felt like an impenetrable wall, impossible to break through. Incredibly, deep down, he knew this was his one chance and he saw himself not taking it. He walked away feeling that something very important just passed him by and he did nothing to stop it.


I guess this is partly to blame for what happened to K later. But that's a totally different story.

blog action on climate change day

Today's the day when we need to talk about climate change. Of course climate change is something we should talk about every other day too, but today's the day when over eight thousand bloggers in the blogosphere unite to say how important it is to talk about it.

Blog Action Day on Climate Change originated at this site and in very note worthy manner calls for attention of all bloggers exactly today, on 15th October. Check it out. Sign up. Let me know what you think.

Nowadays it's virtually impossible to avoid talking about climate change and blogosphere is just one of the platforms where this is mentioned. The message is out there, it has been out there for a while now, and the need to do something about it is becoming more and more urgent.

Today in the morning I listened to a Radion 4's report on how the Arctic Circle is melting and how by 2020 one will need a boat rather than a sledge to its centre.

Yesterday I've read about wild tropical forests of Cambodia disappearing from the face of the Earth.

And we all know how the resources are shrinking, how Spain and Italy and turning into deserts, how precious the water is...

In the meantime people still find it hard to say good-bye to the bottles of Evian water and paper coffee cups.

Therefore I find it extremely encouranging to hear that people like my friend Julochka gladly uproot their families and give up their blue rooms in search of a more eco-friendly way to live. We need to hear more stories like this.

(I do my best even though I am very guilty of abusing paper in all forms and I fly to places. But I bike to work. And I refill my lifeventure water bottle...)

I know how frustrating it is to know that while you're trying to make an effort someone else out there is totally abusing the resources but we have to keep giving good example. And as my friend Tessa of An Aerial Armadillo fame once quoted: If you thinkg you're too small to be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito. I find this thought encouraging.

Indian Cooking

If I can help it, I don't use public transport in London, but take my bike instead. Going on a subway train leaves me breathless, stressed and somehow more tired than cycling: too many people on the platforms, too much rushing, too many delayed trains...


But the London Underground happens to be a great place to find out about what's going on in London's cultural world, there are tons of up-to-date posters and you could practically find out all you need to know from them. It can also be an interesting place for those who like to find a poem in random places: the LU is doing their best to make a journey more pleasant by posting Poems on the Underground around the stations and on the trains. Today, in order to get to where I was going I had to take a train. And as I sat down I found myself face to face with this little wonder:

Indian Cooking
by Moniza Alvi, from Carrying my Wife (2000)

The bottom of the pan was a palette -
paprika, cayenne, dhania
haldi, heaped like powder-paints.

Melted ghee makes lakes, golden rivers.
The keema frying, my mother waited
for the fat to bubble to the surface.

Friends brought silver-leaf.
I dropped it on khri -
Special rice pudding for parties.

I tasted the landscape, customs
of my father's country -
its fever on biting the chilli.

colour me blue Tuesday

Going back to the colour series: introducing blue. I thought it would be the easiest colour to locate in my photo folders, since it's my favourite, but in the end it wasn't. I don't find many impressive blues to choose from so I went for this slightly dusty-blue selection which is not perfect, but full of great memories.

***

A sign at the museum in Strasbourg. Taken a few years ago when I was studying in Heidelberg and spending weekends driving around that part of Europe. Good times.

This Indian lady's sari was intense blue, trust me. Unfortunately came out as simply blue in this picture (I was using the ancient Olympus P&S on this trip). I visited her house in Orcha, India, and didn't want to be rude taking too many photos so I snapped this one quickly and without much preparation. It isn't perfect but I think that the effect is interesting.

A very blue sea in Portland in Dorset. The weather was amazing when I was there in July. It's possible that the weather is always amazing in Portland. I really should move there. My lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper are waiting...

Blue rope on a boat, also Portland.

Same place, different boat... just loved this sign.

Blue EU flag by the new national library building in Paris. My signature tilted shot. I wasn't drinking, I just thought this way is more fun...

Blue skies and Senate House reflecting in the next door building. My work place.