happy people

i've been watching this documentary.  it's available on netflix.

what is the word

new things here

early this time because i have something i'm needing to do away from the studio this morning.

...

Letter to a Lost Friend

BY BARBARA HAMBY

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened

              between us, like ostyt, which can be used

for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room,

              and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet,

which is to want something so much over months

              and even years that when you get it, you have lost

the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky,

              “It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.”

What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face

              and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left

the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights

              at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men,

who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young

              and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote

all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke

              in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books

everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné,

              so that now, on a train in the taiga of  Siberia,

I see what she sees — all my books alphabetized and on shelves,

              feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins,

neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends

              are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’,

and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved

              for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin,

a rough ball of  lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books

              and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes

close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding

              the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.

...

speaking of siberia, did you hear the story of the family who lived in a tiny cabin on the siberian taiga for 40 years without any other human contact?  here's a link about it from my friend virginia's radio show.

...

and here's what i was listening to all last night while i worked on those enhabiten things up there:

thanks for stopping by.

have a great day,

x

liane

stripping and putting on

 

I always felt like a bird blown through the world.
I never felt like a tree.

I never wanted a patch of this earth to stand in,
that would stick to me.

I wanted to move by whatever throb my muscles
sent to me.

I never cared for cars, that crawled on land or
air or sea.

If I rode, I'd rather another animal: horse, camel,
or shrewd donkey.

Never needed a nest, unless for the night, or when
winter overtook me.

Never wanted an extra skin between mine and the sun,
for vanity or modesty.

Would rather not have parents, had no yen for a child,
and never felt brotherly.

But I'd borrow or lend love of friend. Let friend be
not stronger or weaker than me.

Never hankered for Heaven, or shield from a Hell,
or played with the puppets Devil and Deity.

I never felt proud as one of the crowd under
the flag of a country.

Or felt that my genes were worth more or less than beans,
by accident of ancestry.

Never wished to buy or sell. I would just as well
not touch money.

Never wanted to own a thing that wasn't I born with.
Or to act by a fact not discovered by me.

I always felt like a bird blown through the world.
But I would like to lay

the egg of a world in a nest of calm beyond
this world's storm and decay.

I would like to own such wings as light speeds on,
far from this globule of night and day.

I would like to be able to put on, like clothes,
the bodies of all those

creatures and things hatched under the wings
of that world.

-by May Swenson
-----

Hi Folks, There's something about this poem I identify with.  I dream a lot about flying.  But it also confuses me.  I don't think I understand the end. 

Parts of this poem led me to read about my astrology sign this morning, Gemini, which I do periodically.  My birthday, by the way, is 6/7/67.  Cool, no?  I had my chart read once and it was really fascinating and I do believe there is truth in it.  Do you?  I am absolutely restless and mutable.  I can be critical of others.  I love to learn.  It's true that I am both sympathetic and detached.  Full of contradictions.  This one bit made me stop and think, "Your emotions are on a more mental than feeling level."  Not exactly a compliment but I can see truth in it.  I also do enjoy people but at heart I am independent.  This can be a challenge.

So have you ever had your astrological chart read?  What do you think about it and what are your defining characteristics?

PS- the photo is of Siberia in summer.

journeys lasting for generations

Below is a picture of an Evenki reindeer herder taken by

Chris Linder.  Click the image to view it full screen.

"The Tungas used reindeer to colonize vast areas of the eastern taiga which had previously been impenetrable and had perhaps never before been visited by any human. To this day, short of helicopters,much of Russia's land surface can be reached in no other way. Moving along rivers in winter and over passes in summer from one river system to another, forever pushing into new territory,a Tungas family could travel on journeys lasting for generations.  Today, fewer than 50,000 Eveny and Evenki are spread over a third of the territory of Russia."

-The Reindeer People

Here's a link to an article in the NY Times about these people and this book. 

The video has no video...only audio.  But the singing is beautiful, I think.

running across rough scree

"Reindeer have the most flexible joints of any hoofed animal- they can scratch their ear with their back hoof and can run across rough scree where a human can barely crawl."

-from The Reindeer People

Don't you love the term "rough scree"?   But doesn't it also sound a little naughty? Or is that just me?

Plus you should click the images to make them larger because you'll be all like, whoa baby!  so do it.

images from the dail mail

my jaw drops

Abandoned 18th century buildings in Siberia found here.

In other news, I think I may have an ear infection. This is something I've not had in my adult life so I'm not sure. But I'm experiencing sort of sharp jarring pain in my left ear and it feels kind of warm. Not good, right? Have I told you I don't like going to the doctor's? I almost never go except for a yearly check up and even that I forget sometimes. I don't take any medications. What I'm saying here is I'm stoic and pain-tolerant! But I'm going away for a few days to Burlington, Vt and I'm a little concerned this ear thing is going to get worse.

When my kids were little and had the beginnings of an ear infection I would chop up garlic in olive oil, sometimes with mullein in it, then heat it up and drip it in their ear. Usually helped. But people! I got a lot to do today before I leave. And 'm already getting nervous about leaving the kids home. I practically run this place single-handed. I do not have time to mess around with my silly ear.