Humpty Dumpty...
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall....
But it isn't the anthropomorphic egg from 1797 that I am talking about but rather the wall itself...and finally the fall of a fair egalitarian Utopian idea gone horribly wrong. An idealistic dream that forced on its people a concrete wall crowned by barbed wire and glass shards, tenaciously guarded by sharp shooters with a License to Kill.
I could write many pages on The Wall/Die Berliner Mauer...and many pages have already been written....but I am not a political journalist. Its just a blog - I write what my senses tell me....Every time I visit Berlin, I am hit to the very core of my soul... and today, as I write this, it is 9th November 2014 - the 25th anniversary of The Fall of The 155 km long Wall and its 203 military towers....
How I rejoice with the people of Berlin....
The atrocities of Nazi Germany has yet to settle on Europe although it is nearly 70 years ago. There are fewer and fewer people alive to tell the gruesome tales of the horrors of that war. But Die Berliner Mauer was/is the present times ...it was 1961...
How could such a thing happen?
When E and I visited Berlin for the first time, Berlin was celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Fall. We would go to cafés and shops and elderly people would talk to us of what they remembered. It was heart wrenching to hear their stories of oppression and brutality....and failed escapes. There is a looong list of words I would use to describe the 30 years that suddenly, one day, divided families, lives, cultures, lifestyles - and history. West Berlin & East Berlin....
I am glad that in 1989 history proved Kipling's first line of the poem wrong...
"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..."
but zoomed right into the third line....!!
"But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth....!
(although it was The Empire he was talking about. Funnily enough he wrote this in 1889.... exactly 100 years!)
The more films I see, books I read, documentaries I see, The Wall museum I visit, the people I talk to in Berlin, the white crosses near Brandenburg Tor I see ... the more I am aware of the appalling and senseless tragedies that befell the average common man. Just people. Just like you and me...
Gruesome.... Awful.... Monstrous....Repugnant....Frightful....Savage....Unspeakable...
Horrendous.... Repulsive.... Oh, just a few on my list....
The most poignant photo that I have seen of The Wall is taken in August 1961... This little boy was playing on the opposite side of the Wall from his family when barbed wire just rolled in and divided the city. The soldier helped the boy safely over the barbed wire to his family despite his stringent orders to shoot at sight.... What I think is poignant in this photo is not so much the little boy being saved but rather the soldier looking over his shoulders and hoping he is not being seen, but helping, nevertheless. There is a sense of humanity that surpasses the revolting orders issued by the then Powers-That-Be.
I have tried to find out more about this particular photo that has haunted me for decades but unfortunately I have not found anything about the fate of this soldier. I was happy to see it at the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (the museum) in 2009 and took the photo.
Here are more photos on the Internet:
http://www.vintag.es/2012/05/berlin-wall-pictures-in-1961.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14515913
These were taken when E&I went there in 2009....
Berlin today is a fast moving city and yet has a sense of its past clinging inexorably to it - not quite comfortable with the new, not quite ready to be rid of the past. It will take many generations to shake off this veneer. The people who lived through these 50 years must grow old and die before it can all turn around. It is a long and heart wrenching process for many - to re-establish themselves socially, economically, politically and culturally on par with their West Berlin brethren.
I hope from my heart that the word "Re-unification" will not just be on a political level.
Apart from the brutal remnants of The Cold War, Berlin has its share of the remnants of WW-II as well. Beautiful modern architecture jostle and juxtapose with grand old buildings making Berlin a thoroughly exciting city for my senses, my walking shoes and my Canon.
Like I said, I could write any amount about Berlin - it fascinates me to no end. But the church....that is absolutely fascinating! It is called the Kaiser-WilhelmMemorialChurch (and nearly unpronounceable "Gedächtnis-Kirche" in German). It is a beautiful neo-Romanesque church built in the late 1800s and partially destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943. There is now a huge crater on the top of the steeple -"lovingly" called The Hollow Tooth. I have read that there were plans to rebuild it in the 50's but while the rest of devastated Europe painstakingly restored their cities to near pristine perfection, Berlin chose to keep it as a constant reminder of the destruction and futility of war....and instead, built a fabulous, beautiful, ultra-modern, cubistic, futuristic, octagonal monolith like structure beside it as the new church. The hall in the old church serves as a Memorial Hall with many photographs before and after the bombing.
Here are some old photos of the Church and below are my mine.... Enjoy!
Signing off for now!
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Oh, the Joys of a Second Hand Bookstore...
(SORRRRYYYY... I wrote it in October and totally forgot to publish it...it was left in the "Save" file...!!)
Summer has given way to autumn.
Life has returned to a kind of somnolent normalcy after the intensive, effusive, short Scandinavian summer... when everything happens in explosive urgency - (You see, we know what awaits around the corner - the long cold grey icy winter ready to ambush us). The colours now are so vibrant and radiant - bursting forth like a veritable van Gogh on my senses, nature's last and lovely smile of the year. L.M Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables says: "I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."... I agree with her. Post-summer-Octobers are a time for retrospection and meditation.... with many flashbacks to feed my hungry soul.
I remember the second hand bookshops behind Park Street - (on Russell Street, Camac Street and so on) in Calcutta - where I spent many a teenage hour browsing. They are now fitted with modern shelves of light wood and are all alphabetically organised. Smartly dressed youngsters ask politely:
Any particular book you are looking for, madam?
(HEY! when did I become “Madam”? OMG...I was a girl in plaits just the other day...)
The musty smell of old books are now long gone, the piles on the floors where one had to be adept at Callisthenics in order to see the spines of the books are a part of my memories. Must one now have a “particular” book in mind...? The art of browsing is surely a dying one.
But here in Sweden (in the past 10 years or so...), my joy has returned! I go to all the Second Hand stores that have mushroomed in my town and our neighbouring towns.... They are run by volunteers from the Swedish Salvation Army, the Swedish Red Cross, Humanitarian Aid, the Free Churches. All these "shops" have a little shed outside which are always lit and the doors kept unlocked - some of them even have ramps so you may lug in heavy things like sofas etc. People leave in their clothes, shoes, books, crockery, cutlery, lamps etc that they no longer want and it is sold in these shops. The money thus earned (and often even clothes, toys etc) all go to various international aids - mostly to war-torn areas or wherever the need is.
Thus it is aid, re-cycling...and pleasure! Three wonderful words....
Having a few minutes to spare when in town, I dive straight to the book-department.... and oh! what joys lurk in those shelves to ambush my senses... there are lovely oooold armchairs (also left there by some one) where you can sit and browse.... to my dismay, I have been so engrossed once that I forgot Time and came late to an appointment. She had a good laugh though when I told her why....and was not cross with me, thank goodness!
Rows and rows, shelf after shelf of books - what treasures! There are a few authors whom I just can't leave behind... James Hilton for example...(and as a result I have 3-4 copies of Good bye Mr Chips and other books by him, both in Swedish and English) A. A Milne (how can I leave poor Pooh Bear and Christopher Robin all alone on a shelf?), A. J Cronin (oh so much pleasure as I was growing up) James Herriot (such nostalgia!) ...to name but a few.....
And then there are books that I have wanted to read and suddenly the book is just THERE... waiting for me! At times it is a book I have read and do not have in my bookshelf and I just want to "have it". At other times I have bought a book and didn't find it to my liking - I have gone back to the shed and returned it for a re-sale - hoping it will give pleasure to someone else...the double proceeds thus helping some one in greater need in a far away war-torn country...
I bear these riches home triumphantly to sit in my sofa and spend many a dark Scandinavian winters day in an escapist mode - in an armchair, under a warm electric blanket, a cup of coffee (and OF COURSE...a piece of dark chocolate).
What an abundance of wealth for the ravenous soul.
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Creeeeepy....Creeeepy.....
This weekend was Halloween...
In Sweden we do not celebrate Halloween. It is rather a very sombre day of visiting churchyards, lighting special candles, putting flowers on the graves and remembering the loved ones who have passed away. Shops and commercial establishments are trying their best to get Halloween into our lives here but apart form young children wanting to dress up in ghoulish attires and flower shops selling a few bright orange pumpkins - it has not quite caught on. Maybe it will, in a few generations.
So far it is still very traditional, quiet and contemplative indeed....
But I have seen pictures.....Halloween is supposed to be a rather spooky time.......
ghosts....spiders...cobwebs....skeletons...devilish masks... scary pumpkins...bats and so on...
But let me tell you what I think is really spooooooky and creepy...
It is a song by Sting....Hahaha ...yes... really!
(I think I have been seeing too many Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse, Miss Fisher and such like!!!)
Just read these lyrics... OMG! Halloween-ish indeed
Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you
Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you
Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you
Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you
And here is a photo to go with it........!!!
(Cresat Scientia)
Samhain
When summer's end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
- A.E Houseman (Oh, the delightful Mr Houseman!)
Samhain is such a beautiful word!
It is Gaelic and means "Summer's end". I had to look up its pronunciation.... Gaelic words are notoriously difficult to pronounce.... apparently it is SOW-IN (Irish)..... SOW-EEN (Welsh) and SAV-EN (Scottish). You choose....!
There are Gaelic festivals for "Samhain" to usher in the winter and marking the end of summer...what a joyful positive way to think. When one lives in Scandinavia, having a festival to actually usher in the winter after the short wonderful summer is hardly on anyone's mind....! But may be one should change it all around...and think thus.
I awoke with a shock a few days ago.... the first morning frost ! The garden outside my bedroom window was a shimmering pale white, my poor sunflowers drooping miserably in the frosty cold.... aaah, yes...winter knocking tentatively. Letting us know it is near.
It is of course the end of summer but if we bid our time we shall meet again: Summer and Us. So, saying goodbye to the warm balmy summer winds is not for ever.
Autumn and winter have joys of their own...if we just stop to look...
It is a time when Nature can't quite make up its mind whether to be warm and pleasant or cold and frosty. Will the sun come up or will it remain grey? Should I wear a jacket or just a thin sweater? Should I wear my wellies or Converse?
In the end it is wellies and jacket (just to be sure, y'know) and the sun shines smartly at you making you stand in the town square looking quite a nincompoop!
But oh! Everywhere I look there is delight.... chestnuts on the ground from the grand chestnut trees in the square behind the church.... the vee of geese honking overhead... (lucky chaps, en route to sunny España!) .... the "summer's end berries" lingon, rosehip, rowan berries and a myriad others lighting up the woodlands... the smell of early apples, heather and hay from the fields.... the mists settling lightly obscuring the road I know is there... and in the early evening, the orange moon with rooks flying across.
Its not quite autumn yet - nor is it summer...
It is a magical time - Samhain. A time when one can read stories about fairies, sprites, goblins and elves - and believe they may actually be right there at the bottom of the garden. A thresh hold of No-Seasons-Land when Time seems to stand still....not wanting to let go and yet drawn inexorably to wintry-scapes.
Here are a few photos.
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Mushrooms!
Nope I am not going to tell you about mushrooms....
They have the most astounding, funny names and their Latin names are nearly unpronounceable....!!!
I mean, bitorquis rodmanii.... crocodilinus..... fuscofibrillosus..... .... molybdites
morgani.... cyanoxantha.....xerampelina.....confusus floccopus..... strobilomyces.... rugosoannulata....
.
Their common names though are quite funny.... Shaggy mane.....Lawyer's wig... Old man of the woods....Aborted entoloma (whaaaat??)..... Alcohol inky cap (omg).... Crocodile agaricus....Death cap (or a trap??)..... Horn of plenty.... Bear's head.... Monkey head.... Pom-pom...
I could go on...
But I love looking at them and taking pictures on my walk...
they light up the woodlands when autumn comes.
The "Toadstools" as we all have read about in fairy tales are simply delightful.... they look like petit fours/fairy cakes! Almost as if Nature had put pearl sugar (or whipped cream through a pastry bag!) on strawberry icing on a fairy sponge cake!
These "Toadstools" or Amanita muscaria as they are named are of course poisonous but I have read that they ARE edible if parboiled....OMG...Should I believe that? I am certainly not trying it in my mushroom soup...I am sticking to the white button and chanterelle mushrooms!
In Sweden we can pick mushrooms anywhere in (all) our woods.... Most Swedes who go mushroom picking actually go on a 2 weeks' Mushroom Course - evening classes, organised in all our towns - to first learn about all the mushrooms...or our local hospitals will certainly be in dire straits!!
Ooooohh.......The chanterelles are in plentiful now and delicious, fried in butter and topped on a toast....!
I don't usually have recipes in my blog but here is my favourite White Button Mushroom Soup:
500 gms mushrooms..... 1 onion.... 1 pod of garlic.....some thyme..... 2 teaspoons of butter.... 500 ml of chicken bouillon..... 300 ml milk...300 ml cream.... salt and pepper
Fry the chopped mushrooms, onions, garlic and thyme in the butter on low heat for at least 15 minutes. Pour the bouillon, milk and let simmer. Then add the cream. Salt n pepper to taste. Simmer and reduce to desired consistency. Serve with hot buttered toast and cheese.
Try it!!
On cold dark Swedish autumn evenings, it is a simple treat - but delectable indeed!
Enjoy the photos of the mushrooms - the names of which I have no idea!
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Baby and Sunny
Here are my bonny wild sunflowers - Baby & Sunny that I wrote about a few blogs back...
They just started growing - out of the blue - in our handkerchief sized lawn at the back of our flat.... (from the sunflower seeds that the birds get in the winter....)...
Oh....what a joyful discovery it was ....
Moreover, Chris, (i.e Helen Mirren in the movie Calendar Girls) puts it soooooo perfectly that I have really nothing else to add to it....
Here it is again, in case it is difficult to read it on the photo....
"I don't think there's anything
on this planet that more trumpets
life than the sunflower.
For me that's because of the reason
behind its name. Not because it
looks like the sun but because it
follows the sun. During the course
of the day, the head tracks the
journey of the sun across the sky.
A satellite dish for sunshine.
Wherever light is, no matter how
weak, these flowers will
find it. And that's such an
admirable thing.
And such a lesson in life."
- Chris//Helen Mirrren
in Calendar Girls
And Mr Wilde put the last few days of the sunflowers so beautifully...
(see pictures of "Sunny" on 30th & 31st Aug) :
"The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter - hour by hour."
- Oscar Wilde
What more can I add to all this except my photos....?
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Walks to Remember
"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer
HA-H!
Nope, no great thoughts have been conceived in my grey matter, I can assure you!
And I don't much care for Nietzsche's or Schopenhauer's philosophies either...but this particular line sticks in my head.... not to mention the fabulous title! It sounds even better in the German original.... (Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert)..... of course the German title Götzen-Dämmerung is a play on Wagner's opera title Götterdämmerung)
The book however has a section dedicated to aphorisms. Some of them are rather nice though. The rest of the book is mostly about decadence and nihilism and such exclusively Nietzsche-ian thoughts.
I digress....
I don't really know how I slipped into Nietzsche....
That was not my intention.....
I am going to tell you about my morning walks....
We are in a kind of limbo-season - neither summer nor autumn - but no matter, it is beautiful in the mornings...mist, rainbows, heather, geese, mushrooms, berries (yum!!), late flowers, hares, deer... oh, the entire plethora.
What pleasure...As Jane Austen in Persuasion put it:
".....that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling."
Our walking paths in the forests are all lit (to make it easy to walk/jog during our dark winters - in case you were wondering why there are street lights...).
There are free doggy litter bags in case you have forgotten one and need to clean up after your dog...there are of course bins along the paths....
There are also signs marked out for walking (the green one with a walking staff) ... and whether it was a pilgrim walking path in the distant past...(that brown sign with a decorative cross).
The red sign with a whole family and a dog is marked as The Healthy Path...
It is nice to imagine that where I tread today...a thousand others have too and thereby - on another dimension, one is not really alone....
Enjoy the photos!
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
It's never too late to....
When we lived in the house we had a huge garden....
now we live in a flat, we have a microscopic garden (thank god!)...
but NOW finally I planted my first strawberry plant...after all these summers in Sweden....!!!!!
Aaah well....
Its never too late to.....
fall in love... give up prejudices....take care of your health...follow your passion....
and of course, grow your first strawberries!
And so, on 9th June, a sunny summers' day, in a beautiful terracotta pot I planted my first strawberry plant and placed it on our makeshift stairs to the back garden (our landlord is going to build us a veranda, he says) ....
Then the first flower bloomed... then tiny green spotted strawberries.... oh what joy! There were at least seven of them.... they turned from pale green to orangy-red to pink-red to the deep strawberry-pinkish red that we all know but is so difficult to describe!
One day ALL of them were gone!
Well I know the thieves r-a-t-h-e-r well. They are Larry and Liddy, the cheeky magpies who live in the birches and fir trees around the garden...!
Well, actually I don't really mind at all. I can always go to the market square or to the supermarket and buy some ...or to the strawberry farms and "pick and eat and buy" some! (One can do that in Sweden y'know ☺ you can eat as MUCH as you like while picking and you only pay for what you pick)
But then... a few days later I got the better of Larry & Liddy and picked the two that they had left for us!!!
Oooooh! How delicious they were... our very own sun-warmed, small, sweet succulent strawberries. One of Nature's myriad bonbons!
We shared them of course. With a dollop of vanilla custard cream.
We ate them with great pomp and ceremony indeed....
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Butterflies at home.....
When I sit on the steps to the back garden drinking my morning coffee, I am visited by a friendly pale cream butterfly drinking its morning coffee (read: nectar!) too... from a mug of bright blue Lobelia ....
I am enchanted.... Imagine! butterflies were drawn 3500 years ago in Egyptian hieroglyphics ... but this is just "yesterday" as far as Time is concerned....I have read that the earliest fossil dates back to 40 million years ago!!! FORTY MILLION... It is absolutely mindboggling! to think that this butterfly keeping me company on a summer's day has its ancestors dating back all those millions of years....
Butterflies are a part of many cultures. They symbolise many things from the Japanese' "souls of the dead" to love, rebirth, good luck and so on...
For me.... they are just beautiful creatures in my garden...they bring me happiness by just "being here"...
"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you".
(Nathaniel Hawthorne)
I don't chase them,
I don't catch them,
I don't go looking for them...
They are just there...and I am glad for the chance to see them when they alight on one of my flowers...
or they read my book...
or play on my sandals...
or listen to music in my stereo....
or play in the brown soil...
or take a break on my blue carpet...
(See pictures below....)
Rabindranath Tagore
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Yes..... I know...I know...
You all must be so bored of my Swan family....
but ohhhh ... just LOOK at them...!
Aren't they the sweetest...cutest...nicest....kindest....
likeable-est....delightful-est....charming-est....adorable-est
things you ever saw????
Enjoy the photos....
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Fields....
John Lubbock (an English biologist and politician 1834-1913) has said:
"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books."
.... I think that is very true indeed....
These photos of the fields are all around our village... we pass them every time we go to Skara for our shopping on country roads....
I remember singing John Denver's top hit "Country Roads" in the early 1970s as a young teenager.... I am sure Virginia is very happy for that song but for me it is "Take me home" to my little village here in Sweden "where I belong..:".
Even now, Elizabeth and I sing it on the top of our voices (me, off-key!) all the way when we are driving home....!!!!
One year, many years ago a farmer planted a whole field of sunflowers (where the potatoes are growing this year)... it was like a huge yellow square box!
Another year a farmer had planted flax... the flowers are a soft baby blue/sky blue and Elizabeth (she was 6 at that time) shouted from the back seat of the car:
Mummy, Mummy....look! The sky has fallen down!
Fields are beautiful expanses of open ground.
The summer fields are particularly joyous... and the autumnal "Fields of Gold" are a delight to the senses....
Enjoy the photos....
Beautiful fields of cornflowers!
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
B&B
People who know me will know and understand :-) that ONE day I would be compelled to write a blog about B&B...no, not Bed n Breakfast but Baingan & Bhindi....i.e aubergine and okra in English ...but I prefer to call them by their Indian names......
Since 1965....(I think....It is in any case my earliest memory...) B&B and my taste buds have had an undying love affair. Of course it is all Mummy's fault! I was a very fussy eater in those days (hmmm, looking at me now no one will ever guess that!) and I would not eat a "proper" breakfast (= Britannia bread, Paulson's butter, Robertson's jam, eggs and milk with Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate ...) before the Army bus came in the (early!) morning to take me to school. My poor Mum was in tears! How can one send ones darling (albeit fussy!) little child to school on an empty stomach?
And so it transpired that every morning she and our cook would make me breakfast!
It was the ultimate Bongo (Bengali) solution... and it worked! ... Rice with melting butter, thin watery masoor daal (red lentils) and of course: Begun Bhaja... fried aubergine......Ooooh! Can there be any better food than this?? I would eat a hearty "Mum's Bongo Brekky" and go happily off to Loreto C...leaving a delighted Mum waving on the doorstep all the way until the bus disappeared from view at the bottom of our spacious Cosmos strewn garden...
(The Britannia bread with Paulson's butter and liberal helping of Robertson's jam was neatly packed in a tiffin box in my satchel for lunch at school!... where I loved and enjoyed it immensely with all the other little girls and remains even today, yet another of my favo-foods)
All the years in India the B&B were daily regular unfailing features of any mealtime... be it accompanied by rice or chapattis. The variations of these humble veggies were endless..... In all my childhood travels, Mum and our varied regional cooks the B&B dishes they served were all delicious. My favourites however remain - Bongo style stir fried Bhindi and Begun bhaja and baingan ka bharta (roasted aubergine)... all quintessentially simple homely Indian fare.
And then I came to Sweden....
Hahh! Of all the myriad things I missed most ....were astonishingly - B&B!
They were rarely available in the mid 80's and one had to travel to special markets in Gothenburg or Stockholm...and they cost almost half my monthly wage for a kilo...to the bewilderment of friends and family back in India! It even prompted my parents to want to start a B&B export business and my Aunt to smuggle Baingan in her suitcase past the watchful customs at Frankfurt and Gothenburg...!!! But of course things have vastly improved in Sweden since... Baingan/aubergine is AVAILABLE now a days... at a price... hmmmm....
Well.... so now you know...
And then! three weeks ago one of the shops advertised Baingan!! O M G! It was so cheap... so cheap.... cheaper than in INDIA!! And huge (that's why I have my glasses in the picture...) . And nearly seedless. And the Deep Purple hue I remember so well.....O m g again... how could that happen? What a pleasant shock...The vegetable rack was literally inundated with aubergines from Italy, Israel and Spain... I was transported to Baingan-paradiso! What joy...
And as if that wasn't enough... for the very first time in my thirty years in Sweden I saw BHINDI (okra) in tiny 150 gm packets from INDIA...!!! - costing the earth, of course...but oh such double joy!! After ALL these years of B&B starvation....
I am, as you can understand, simply compelled to write my ode to this glorious joy ...hehehee....
I have in the last few weeks thoroughly enjoyed my B&Bs in all the various ways as I know how and returned in my heart to my childhood food heaven....and smiled with inner joy.
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Roadside Joys
Enjoy my slice of Scandinavian Summer....
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
Sad....Sad...Sad
I read somewhere that famous people were once asked what they thought was the saddest word....
Oscar Hammerstein II said: But
Writer John Dos Passos chose: Forlorn
Harry Truman said: It might have been....
Yes they are all certainly very sad and totally devoid of life and hope... Pearl S Buck once wrote: When hope is taken away from the people, moral degeneration follows swiftly after...
But to me, the saddest word I can think of is ABANDONED
ALL its synonyms go through my heart like a spear making it bleed....
Discarded... tossed away... forsaken... deserted....renounced... disowned...forsaken...
In each of these words is a such a profound sense of hurt, hopelessness, loneliness and despair that it is soul-shattering.
Its not just about derelict houses .... they too make me horribly sad... all the blood sweat and tears that went into building it...the memories etched into every plank, the sounds and smells that once permeated its walls, the garden left to grow wild where once there might have been flowers, shrubs, potatoes and carrots, the bench where they might have sat on balmy summer evenings.....all abandoned.
What saddens me the most are children all over the world - who are just abandoned... by the devastation of war, by the careless heartlessness of adults, by poverty and other socioeconomic causes, by drug abusers unable to care for their children .....and a plethora of other scenarios that paint such heart wrenching pictures in my mind. There is within this act, not just words such as illegal or criminal or malum in se but also such pure malicious evil. Although abandonment has been there in many cultures and tales and legends (Oedipus, Snow White to name just two) it is nevertheless the cruelest of acts....
Abandoned Children is the saddest "phrase" I can imagine....
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
YES...the Swan Family ...again!
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
