Watching the world turn

Turning, turning, turning through the years.

Minutes into hours and the hours into years.

Nothing changes. Nothing ever can.

Round about the roundabout and back where you began.

Round and round and back where you began.

From the song "Turning" from Les Misérables, the musical

A sunset (or Earth-turning)
seen from St. Vincent

There is something special about watching the Earth turn. It can be beautiful, mesmerizing, peaceful and awe-inspiring all at the same time. Sunrise is an almost magical time. The first rays of the sun hitting the land, watching the sunshine chase the night away, it's peaceful and pulse-quickening at the same time. Sunset is equally fulfilling to watch, colourful and amazing, but softly fading into night. Here are some more sunsets from the Caribbean. It feels so big but at the same time so ordinary being in those moments when I have the time set aside to watch the sunrise or the sunset. It's like the thoughts I have are coloured by the colours in the sky - stress becomes nothing, and all thoughts mellow out. Now that winter is coming and the days are shorter, I can more often see the sunrise and sunset - if I just remember to look out of the window. Maybe I should make that a priority, to enjoy some tranquil moments during my otherwise slightly stressful days.

The progress of the sun across the sky is something I rarely observe except during the summer, so watching the sun move sluggishly across the sky is something that reminds me of hot summer days with nothing to do but to relax with a good book. Carefree and relaxing days, just watching the world turing and going for the ride.

Focault's pendulum

At university, I find myself drawn to another thing that marks the passage of time and the turning of the Earth - Focault's pendulum. The basic idea is that the pendulum moves in the same direction all the time, but because of the rotation of the Earth, its direction appears to be changing. The one here has metal pins set up around it, and these are knocked down about every 8 to 10 minutes (yes, I have timed it).

It is mesmerizing watching it rotate, knowing that when the next pin is knocked down, the world will have changed. Ever so slightly, but changed nonetheless. The Earth turns and we go with it, however unwilling we are to go at that pace. We are turning around and around, but never back again, even though it an feel that way. We are all time-travellers, travelling forwards in time at a speed of one second per second. Those second become hours and days, which become months and years.

Sometimes, watching the Earth spin, I feel so small, stuck down here on this pale blue dot. But then I think of how beautiful this blue ball is, with its teeming life and small everyday miracles like snowflakes and dew drops. It is humbling and awe-inspiring as well as peaceful to witness the turning of the Earth and the passage of time. Happy time travelling, remember to enjoy watching the world turn.

Brio and creativity

Word of the week: Brio - enthusiastic vigour, or great energy and confidence. (Merrian-Webster online dictionary)

I think I need a little more brio in my life. Some zest in the things I do. I am really feeling the autumn coming with shorter, colder days, and after a busy weekend catching up with old friends and getting new ones, I feel I need something that will energize me. Enthusiasm in what I do is often essential to give me that extra push through the boring everyday tasks.

Lately I have had this feeling that I want to create something - be creative. But I have so much to do, and I know that ideas don't come unless I invite them in. So I just go around trying out different mediums to express myself creatively, and try to feed my addiction to creating. It is a bit weird to have these periods where I just want to create something all the time, although I have few ideas, just a nagging feeling.

Random bad drawing of a giraffe
with broken legs (I'm bad at drawing legs)
in front of a Kilmanjaro I wish had that much snow on it's peak.
The original random line became the giraffe's back and neck.

I feel like when I suppress my need to express myself creatively long enough, it just bubbles to the surface like this, giving me this distracting need to do something - anything - creative. As I said, I don't have many concrete ideas, but often, if I just start creating something random (like drawing a picture of a giraffe  eating from a tree in front of Mount Kilmanjaro - from one random line), it's like I unclog the pipes, and the creativity starts flowing again. Not very well at first - frequent blockages are usual - but creativity, like so many other things, improves with frequent usage and practice.

I would really like to keep my creative side honed and ready on demand, but so often I don't have the capacity and energy needed. It's yet another facet of my life that I have to fit in and balance correctly with all the other important things. But my comfort is that I doubt I can destroy my creative side. It will always be there, just sometimes buried deeper than other times. The tubing will there, it just needs some periodic maintenance or a thorough cleaning to work again.

Books read: 45
Pages read: 12971

PS: Since I write this blog partly (or maybe mainly) to keep my creative side awake, I will be posting some of the written things I create here. Mostly, poems go on this blog, while photos go on tumblr. My output for the latter isn't very big, so don't expect much original content over there on tumblr (but you can still find funny, pretty, nerdy, book-related, nerdfightastic, and wonderful things here.)

Hush

The image of you that will live on in me
will not be complete.
The sad memories will shrink
into nothing and disappear,
but the happy memories will expand
and become happier,
bathed in a golden glow.

You will always be happy and healthy.
Nothing can mar your delight
in the warmth of the sun
or the smell of the mountain
on that perfect summer's day.

The laughter and smiles,
the happy times,
the wonderful hikes,
the things that you taught me
about the value of nature and life
will live on in my mind
and shape me as I go on.

So hush;
lay yourself to rest.
We both know
all the words
that should not be said.
But you have made my life
more perfect.



Credit goes to Terry Pratchett, for this wonderful quote. (Otherwise, this is written by me.)

Books read: 42

Summer!

Summer holiday in Norway for me consists of going to the family's cottage and spending lazy days there, reading, swimming, and relaxing. Tomorrow morning, I'm finally heading out to the cottage. It means a whole week without internet access, hot water, drinking water from the tap, or electricity (except for the little we can get from our solar panel for lighting). I think it is delightfully primitive. The cares of the world seem to just melt away, and you are left with peace and tranquillity.

Dragons...they are just amazingly awesome

Of course, as the book person I am, it leaves me space and peace to read and enjoy my books. I came back from England 15 books richer, so I'll be reading and reading and READING. I have just started checking out more fantasy (after I so thoroughly enjoyed The Lord of the Rings), and I have just begun exploring the world of Pern. So far, I like it very much, but I have only read one and a half chapter. But, at the same time, it's about DRAGONS, so how could it NOT be good?

I have recently read Looking for Alaska by John Green, which I liked very much. It considers deep questions concerning the meaning of life and other such things in a way that teenagers can grasp and understand. I absolutely loved the characters - really quirky but at the same time realistic. I have also read Blankets by Craig Thompson recently (in fact, yesterday), and I absolutely loved it. It deals with some of the same themes - growing up, love, insecurity, religion, the big questions of life - and it is a wonderful graphic novel. Both books are highly recommended reads. (And for those of you for whom this might hold merit: Blankets has been observed on John Green's bookshelf. You don't believe me? Here's proof!)

So now I'm going to go and enjoy the Norwegian summer while reading more good books (at least I hope they're good...). I hope your summers are equally wonderful, and that you get enough time to sit down and read a book of your choice in peace and quiet.

Books read: 35
Pages read: 9834

Gardens and waterfalls

This is going to be the last post about my time in St. Vincent. I know it is overdue, but at least now it is here. The last couple of weeks in the Caribbean, Kristina and I did some sightseeing, so that I could experience the must-dos of the island.

One day, we went to Kingstown to visit the botanical garden and Montreal garden. It was wonderful. The botanical garden had a wonderful alley, see picture. At the top of the alley, there was a space where you could get married. How amazing would that be? It was very well kept, and it was lovely.

From the botanical garden we took an overpriced taxi to the Montreal garden. It is a privately owned garden, and it was absolutely enchanting. There were wonderful flowers everywhere you looked, and cute walkways to experience it all. Most of it was pretty jungle-like, but some parts were manicured and beautiful in that sense. I absolutely loved it and went wild taking pictures of all the wonders of nature.

My last weekend, I decided to visit some waterfalls in the area where I was staying. I went with some friends to a waterfall called Trinity falls. It was quite a long hike, but we found provisions along the way. There were a lot of ripe fruits growing along our route. We found oranges, grapefruit, and mango, and we also bought a pineapple from a farmer we met along the way. The picture shows me holding the almost invisible (or almost eaten) pineapple. It was a bit smaller than I give the impression of, but it was very nice and juicy.

I find water very interesting. We are dependent upon it to survive - our bodies are mostly made up of water. It also makes for interesting visual experiences, and there is something attractive about water falling down a hill or a cliff. It is almost dreamlike to capture in a photograph, but it is the basis of life on this planet. It is everywhere, but at the same time, it captures our interest and draws us to the places where it behaves unusually (i.e. falls down vertically). Clean water is beautiful, not only when it falls down a sheer drop, but when it comes out of our taps or when it saves a baby from dying.

But there are people who don't have access to clean water. In East Africa, there is a drought right now. And instead of just sitting at home enjoying the fact that we can drink the water that comes out of our taps (and the fact that we have water coming out of taps in our homes), we can do something to help other people to enjoy these privileges. If you want to donate to help in the East Africa crisis, you can go here. If you want to help creating a stable and safe water source for communities in developing countries, go here. This organisation works to help children, and therefore also works on creating clean water sources. Water is vital for our survival, and everyone should have access to it.

The day after I had visited Trinity falls, I visited Dark View falls. This is closer to where I was staying, and a wonderful quiet haven. The falling water seemed dreamlike and magical when captured with a camera. It seemed like a beautiful veil, fit for the princess of the forest, from a forgotten fairy tale.

I have a feeling most of you didn't understand last week's blog post. I made a promise to myself that when I finished my challenge of reading 30 books between Christmas 2010 and Christmas 2011, I would write a very silly story incorporating all the titles of the books I had read. So that was last week's blog post, and you can check it out here. Now that I have completed my challenge, I think it is time to reveal to you all that I have had another reading challenge going for a while. I want to join many other people in trying to read 50 books in 2011. So I will be removing the book I read in 2010 from my list, and I will count books and pages read from January 1, 2011.

Books read: 29
Pages read: 7824

The flipside of the coin

Recently, the horse team (Kristina and I) had an 'open weekend', as it is called here. Really just a mini-holiday or a long weekend. Our open weekend lasted from Saturday the 28th of May till Tuesday the 31st. We decided to go to Union, one of the southernmost of the Grenadines, which are all the islands in this country except the biggest (St. Vincent, where I live). There are around 30 of these smaller islands called Grenadines, and many of them are uninhabited. Not quite your idea of a desert island (with one palm and white sand), but really small nonetheless.

We (A friend from the school named Maria, Kristina, and I) decided to take the slow ferry from Kingstown to Union, which took us approximately four hours. It was nice, and I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out that the ferry was Norwegian! Many of the Norwegian signs had not been removed, and through a little detective work we figured out that the ferry had been in use on the west coast of Norway, maybe in the Bergen area (in the 60's and 70's I would guess). It was very interesting to see signs telling us not to smoke and where to eat in Norwegian. I spent most of the trip lying down reading The Two Towers, because I was exhausted from our two hour long shopping spree in Kingstown (I hate shopping (when it's not for books), and especially when it's hot).

The next day, after a bad night's sleep in a bedroom that was either full of persistent mosquitoes or far too cold with the air condition on, we got a ride to the island 'next door' with one of Maria's many contacts on Union Island. The ride was fun, but a little scary (and quite bumpy), since we were brought across the sea in a tiny inflatable dinghy. On Palm Island, we met another of Maria's contacts, who showed us around on the island. He worked in the hotel that owned most of the island, and also for some of the rich people who owned private holiday houses. I really identified with him, and to me, the houses we walked past seemed like a totally different dominion, and I felt like I didn't belong there. I was peeking in the back window at a world of long baths in private pools, champagne in the morning, massages and golfing. And I really felt that I had no right to enjoy the paradise for free. We had lunch with another worker, who made a wonderful lunch of lobster and lots of other super-delicious things. We discussed politics and talked about the way of the world. Then we enjoyed the white beach and the warm, clear water, before we headed back to Union Island on the worker transport boat.

We then changed into tourists. We ate a good meal at a restaurant belonging to one of the nicer hotels that evening, and the next day we went on a sailing trip with a big catamaran round to some of the other Grenadines. During that trip, we had unlimited drinks and meals included. The first stop on the trip was Palm Island, and now we saw it from the other side. We were tourists who dropped in for half an hour to swim and enjoy the beach. On another island on the trip, we could have bought T-shirts with texts such as 'Sail More - Work Less'. One of the places we went to that day was Tobago Cays Marine Park. There, I got the opportunity of snorkeling with sea turtles. It was wonderful and magical. I saw big ones, smaller ones, and huge ones. One of the big ones had a 'pilot fish' - a fish (a sucker fish) that had connected itself to the turtle's shell. The turtles were grazing on the seaweed that grew on the sandy bottom, and they looked really peaceful.

I enjoyed the trip very much, and it was especially interesting to see the flipside of the commercial coin. To feel like there is a world where you are clearly on a lower rung of the ladder, and that I didn't belong at all, was an interesting experience to me. It was a bit strange to reverse it and to be able to jump up the ladder the next day, but I feel like I have gained a new perspective on tourism through this trip.

Books read: 23
Pages read: 6204

25. Music keeps me going

Today I was not feeling very well. To keep me going in the tasks I had to do, I used music. I was listening to music on my iPod and singing (very off key) to keep me going through sweeping and manure shovelling. It definitely works. When I listen to music, I focus on the music, not on discomfort or the dreariness of the task at hand. It's like the beat in the music tells my body to keep going and not lie down on the ground and sleep. It pushes me forward and keeps me going.

Making music is also rejuvenating. Usually, playing the flute or the drums makes me more happy and harmonious. It's like there is something inside me that is fighting to get out. It can take different forms when it finally gets out of me. I could improvise on the flute, write a melody or a song, paint a picture, write a poem, write a story (though that hardly ever happens), or take photographs. I am sure there are many other creative outlets I could use, but these were the ones that sprang to mind.

I reflected over it today: what would I do if I was stranded on a desert island? No music, no books, no internet. Of course, first I would make it a priority to make or get the things that would keep me alive. Then I think I would eventually find the music of the nature around me. The waves beating the shore with an unsteady rhythm. The sound of the wind in the trees. The sounds of the living creatures, singing me to sleep and waking me up. Then I would discover the stories the island had to tell. I would probably flesh them out in my imagination, but I would discover signs, like small notes passed in a classroom. An old notch in a tree, a broken branch, patterns in the sand, signs of creatures going about their business. I would begin to piece it all together, in a great tapestry of life where everything has its place and order. I would eventually fit myself into the big artwork the island would be, and live in relative harmony with nature there.

At least this is what I hope would happen. I know I am not as open to the music of life and nature as I should be, but I hope I will be someday. I wish I could greet every creature as my brother, and live with nature instead of battling nature was much as I do now. My dream is to feel at peace and one with nature. I hope I will continue on that journey my whole life. It's the journey that matters. Not the final destination.

Books read: 18
Pages read: 4852