20150927

The red balloon



After digging potatoes in the morning, yesterday afternoon I run beside and swam briefly in the lake - probably the last time this year unless we get an "Indian summer" - and then today I biked to the Curragh and ran 9 miles (barefoot and shirtless), average speed 6.4 mph. Two youths in a sports car stopped to ask directions to the motorway but in reality to ask if I was hot - it was a beautiful sunny afternoon so of course I get hot when running. My track includes part of the bike journey home.

My track

Mountains of home from the lookout post

The Braveheart hill

Curragh golf course

Pink sheep

Curragh race-course

Home to pizza and chips, thanks Ali! And then, since I mentioned it in this morning's meeting, I watched the beautiful fantasy "The Red Balloon".


20150913

Celibidache


View from our home

The Adagio from Bruckner's 8th interpreted by Sergiu Celibidache - thirty five minutes of sheer bliss.

20150905

In remembrance of me


Kafka on the Shore

I've just finished and enjoyed reading a book by Haruki Murakami. The translation from Japanese is faultless and, rare for me, it was a book I could hardly put down in spite of its strangeness. I guess, as usual, because it is about a boy with whom I could identify. It moved me, perhaps even changed me.

I won't explain the plot, indeed I don't claim to fully understand it - you'd be better reading the book yourself. If you do, I figure you'll either passionately love or hate it. The story is the portrait of the subconscious of a fifteen-year old, and tells of the indistinct borderline between reality and imagination, the power and importance of poignant memories, of love and rejection and release from family curse, of forgiveness and remembrance. It's depictions are tender, honest, human, sexually explicit (from a mature fifteen year old's perspective), disturbing, surreal, ridiculous, metaphorical, random, beautiful, dreamlike. As the story resolves towards the end of the book:

I burned up all my memories... all sorts of things including my time with you... that's why I wanted to see you and talk with you... while I still can... the most important thing is you've got to get out of here. As fast as you can.

But you don't understand - I don't have any world to go back to. No one's ever really loved me, or wanted me, my entire life.

Just one thing... I want you to remember me. If you remember me, then I don't care if everybody else forgets.

A question wells up inside me, a question so big it plugs up my throat and makes it hard to breathe: Are memories such an important thing?

It depends... in some cases they're the most important thing there is... Kafka? I have a favour to ask. I want you to take that painting with you... after all the painting is originally yours... You were there. And I was there beside you, watching you. On the shore, a long time ago... I want you to have that painting with you forever... A long time ago I abandoned someone I shouldn't have, someone I loved more than anything else... but the whole thing was a huge mistake. You were discarded by the one person who never should have done that - do you forgive me?

I do forgive you, I tell her... and with those words, audibly, the frozen part of your heart crumbles... Silently she lets go of me. She takes a hairpin out of her hair and stabs the tip into the inner flesh of her left arm, hard... I bend over and put my lips on that small wound... only now do I understand.

Farewell, Kafka Tamura, she says, Go back to where you belong, and live. Keep looking at the painting, just like I did.

As I read this I am reminded, a little obliquely, of: and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." After the same manner also he took the cup, saying "this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

Human as we cannot help but be, we need the tangible bread and wine just as much as Kafka needed the picture to keep an important memory fresh. Lest we forget...


20150901

To gym or not to gym



I may have mentioned this before but, for exercise and stability of mind, I run typically 5 miles or more, barefoot, several times a week. I wear shorts for modesty, a T-shirt if it is cold, and don't care too much what I look like. Of those that live in the same community here some don't exercise but those that do... well that's what this post is about. Don't get me wrong - I am not saying what they do is wrong, just that it is beyond my comprehension.

These folk require special and expensive machines to do what they do. The machines in turn require a "gym" to house and use them in. They have to dress up in special, strange and generally skin-tight gym outfits. As a result they no doubt keep themselves fit, no doubt fitter (but then they are a good deal younger) than I am. But the expense, and the rigmarole they have to go through!

I am reminded of our hi-tech coffee machine, the type that grinds beans freshly for every cup. This machine needs constant TLC - emptying the drip tray, emptying the grounds bin, filling with beans and water, periodic de-scaling, etc. It has a zillion error indicator lamps (well, almost) and malfunctions in almost as many ways. And the coffee it makes - frankly, most people prefer that from a plunge-pot. I compare this with: put a tea-bag in a mug, pour in boiling water and add milk to taste and, voilĂ , one mug of tea.