Postcard Series – Amsterdam
Yesterday, I had a space-cake; I spent my day in an exploding kaleidoscope. Now I’m standing in front of Van Gogh’s best work. It’s a dizzy whirl of colours and emotions, pain and joy, each cut, stabbed, smudged and gently kissed by a stroke of his brush. The space-cake was fine, but this is what I guess they call a real high.
Amsterdam, July 2011
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I’ve taken to writing (myself) postcards when travelling. I’ve this image in my head, of me, thirty-forty years down the line, going through stacks of yellowing postcards, and thinking about the good old days, a cup of hot chai in hand.
A Matter of Perspective
I’m floating above the world in an open basket. The sun is staring back, bright eyed, and a chunky layer of fog guides us along the way.
Around us other balloons float up and down, weaving a unique colour-coordinated symphony in the bright blue sky. It’s the whoosh of burning propane and the crackling radio (traffic control) that keeps me grounded, reminds me that this is real, keeps me from floating away on an escapist fantasy.
Quietly, steadily, we climb up, up, up. I stand on my tip toes and look down; squares of fields, zigzagging crop lines, crooked rooftops, fairy chimneys, open nests, they all grow smaller, and strangely more magnificent. Looking down, shadows grow lighter and crevasses open up. I see shapes, layers and personalities that were invisible before, hidden in the mundane and routine. I see beauty where I saw boredom before. I see what the birds see.
I should be scared of the drop, instead I feel a soothing calm take over. I feel a wave of inspiration, hope. Everything, even thought the same, is so very different. It’s a matter of perspective, I guess.
Twilight Hour by the Loch Ness
Standing by the edge of the lake, I watch the light.
It dances with the clouds, twirling them around in quick but graceful movements, creating spools of airy, white cotton candy in the sky. It dives like a dolphin, between the water and the sky, setting the horizon ablaze. It flirts with the wind, whispering soft nothings to it, and the wind answers back in haunting winter song. It transforms driftwood and plain plying boats into mythical monsters. It makes bright, fiery colours out of grey and frost.
Winter time by the Loch Ness is one long, continuous twilight hour.
The Classroom in Czechoslovakia
It’s a classroom, almost.
Three wooden school benches stand one behind the other, empty but holding the weight of their own history. The desks, old and tired, and yet free of adolescent engravings, hold open textbooks with lessons I don’t understand. The pages are yellowing, the print on the cover is relatively fresh, a blue base with yellow writing.
I am fascinated. These are the pages from cold war thrillers from my teens. These spaces have existed in my mind as narratives and fast paced prose – spies, jumping from pages in novels to blockbuster film scripts, Bourne style. And now, here they stands in front of me, real, raw.
I follow the invisible chalk trail from the blackboard to the ground, but the dust has been swept out. Charts are tacked on to the wall with bits of tape. But what catches my attention is a little above eye level, next to a propaganda poster: A grime coloured gas mask; hollow eyes and an alien snout. It looks down with a sinister expression, flushing the room with something cold and terrifying, these Dementors of the Iron Curtain.
“I remember the gas drills,” she says. Her curls are as steady as her voice, both anomalies. “We had to wear the masks and run out to the open ground. The mask was so heavy. It was really hard to run.”
Something shifts. It becomes real. Not a novel anymore, but harsh and difficult. We keep standing there, behind the exhibit ropes, lost in versions of that time.
