i've seen it move

I always had a soft spot in my heart for men with holes in their chests. Where I come from, they call it 'chicken chest', and hearts of these men are said to grow smaller than the others.

There is a town in the south, a town with narrow streets and tall houses made of stone, that stretches itself along the coast, squeezed between the sea and the mountains. The cats there are said to live longer than people, and when they turn their heads for a moment and look towards you with their gleaming yellow eyes, such things are easy to believe.
In the only square, townspeople gather at dusk to talk about the day's catch. They're slow, reliable people, and their brown skin is weathered with wind and salt. They live with the great turquoise sea and they are bow-legged from ever sailing their boats.

It is dusk, and I am standing knee-deep in the water, watching the sky turn from blue to velvety, fragnant lavender. All the townspeople are at the square, and I can hear their soft murmur in the distance.

My life is a piece of fiction, mediocre for its fabula but rich for its style and language. I've seen beauty move among the trees and disappear in an instant. There wasn't much to it, really.

The others are sitting on the shore, they have the sky in their eyes. They're laughing at something, I don't know what. It's good to be young and to have the sky in your eyes. But soon it will be autumn again, and we will return to our dark apartments with ever burning lights and empty beds and to our falling leaves we so love to catch with our hands and admire for a second, knowing they will rot soon, and their weight on our palms makes us sigh.
I don't think about it. I think about the sea that fits my knees perfectly like a piece of beautiful cold metal jewelry. I think about a man with a hole in his chest who never speaks a word and has the sky in his eyes. I've seen beauty move under the surface of his skin like a smooth shiver and disappear in an instant.
I've met someone recently. The hole's in place, but his heart, unlike others, has not grown small. It's big, and there's plenty of room in it. I think I'll cling to him for a while.

I always had a weak spot for men with holes in their chests, you see. I suppose it has something to do with my heart, that's grown as small as the head of a nail.

how to be alone

 

 

a beautiful poem by tanya davis.

 

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow-downers, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo dessert and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back, like a book of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might have never happened had you not been there by yourself. 

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after a while nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

real lady marmelade

 

 

ko sem bila majhna, je moja babica vsako leto vkuhavala marmelado iz cibar in sliv. vsi v družini smo smo se nad tem bolj kot ne pritoževali, saj je gospa sredi že tako vročega poletja zakurila v največji peči v hiši, pristavila ogromen lonec in v njem cmarila sadje cel ljubi dan. hiša je bila polna sicer prijetnih, a zadušljivo lepljivih vonjav in izparin, v sami kuhinji pa se je temperatura povzpela na nivo tiste v kaki steklarni ali kovačiji. 

zato sem vedno imela občutek, da je kuhanje marmelad občutljiva, naporna in izjemno mučna dejavnost, in se je sama zelo dolgo nisem lotila. po lanskoletni izkušnji s hruškami in letošnjem bližnjem srečanju s figami pa ugotavljam, da sem se pošteno motila. domača marmelada je lahko pripravljena tudi v dobri uri, s pravo klimo pa tudi temperatura ostane znosna.

 

figov džem

 

1kg fig

50dag sladkorja

1 limona

1 strok vanilije

 

fige opereš, olupiš in narežeš na manjše koščke. v večji posodi z debelim dnom (zato, da se bolj enakomerno segreva) karameliziraš 5dag sladkorja. dodaš fige, kuhaš cca 10min. v drugi posodi segreješ preostali sladkor, ampak paziš, da ostane bel. posuješ po figah, dodaš semena iz stroka vanilije in iztisnjen sok ene limone. dobro premešaš, kuhaš še dvajset minut do pol ure. ko se kapljice marmelade na hladnem krožniku začnejo strjevati, je zadeva gotova. 

 

na tem mestu naj priznam, da sem 20dag sladkorja nadomestila z želirnim sladkorjem, ampak mi je zdaj za to žal. marmelada je postala preveč čvrsta, želejasta, zato sem jo tudi prekrstila v džem. zato v opozorilo: ne dodajaj želina, tudi če te je strah, da boš skuhal figovo juho! s hlajenjem se zadeva precej strdi in pridobi na čvrstosti.