Lucky

"I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand"



"Lucky" is the story of a girl being raped; it is in fact Alice Sebold's memoir of her own rape that had taken place eighteen years before the publication of the book. If you are familiar with "The Lovely Bones", then this book, rather unfortunately, is better written, with short sentences that aim for the heart finding you with tears in your eyes. If you haven't read anything by Sebold, then it's high time you got down to some powerful, yet sad reading. Why? Simply because life is not just about laughter.

P.S. Careful! This is not a comfortable book. Some phrases might leave you speechless, since Sebold's confessions are gut-wrenching and disturbing.

"I knew, now that I had been raped, I should try to look good for my parents. Having gained the regulation freshman fifteen meant that my skirt that day fit. I was trying to prove to them and to myself that I was still who I had always been. I was beautiful, if fat. I was smart, if loud. I was good, if ruined."

"No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved."

Getting Old(er) and Wise(r)...

Shakespeare Rapping :)

"As you sow, so shall you reap" - Paulo Coelho and his secrets

Question: What do you do after you meet your favorite writer, that is Paulo Coelho?
Answer: You read his official biography! :)

After having read "A Warrior's Life: A Biography of Paulo Coelho" I could not help but marvel at Paulo's incredible strength and character. Surely, people interested in glimpses of his life before becoming the best selling writer that he is today know about the time he spent in psychiatric hospitals, his travels around the United States and Europe with of without (a) wife, his involvement in witchcraft... BUT this biography brings along facts and details never mentioned before, mainly due to the fact that Paulo's official biographer, Fernando Morais, had access to 170 handwritten notebooks and 94 cassette recordings that the writer has kept for more than thirty five years and which he wishes to be burnt when he dies.



Thus, we are able to read extracts written decades ago about Paulo's struggle to become who he is today, his insecurities, his black magic rituals and their effect on him, and we are amazed to discover that he is an incredible person with an incredible dream who had his doubts but never gave up. Here are a few interesting facts about his life:

* the small, white ponytail some 10 cm long is a sikha, the lock of hair worn by Brahmans, orthodox Hindus and Hare Krishna monks.

* he performs a short prayer at least three times a day and also when a plane takes off/lands or a car drives off.

* his favorite cigarettes are Galaxy, a brand found in Brazil.

* after his Pilgrimage brought hundreds of pilgrims a day to Santiago de Compostela, the Galician government named one of the streets of Santiago "Rua Paulo Coelho".

* Hotel Le Bristol of Paris, where Paulo sets parts of "The Zahir" has named a drink from the book as "Le chocolat chaud de Paulo Coehlo".

*when he was young, he didn't enjoy dancing, thinking it would make him ridiculous. (from my experience, he has no problem now :))

* Paulo wrote a parody of Kipling's "If..."

"If you can ask your friends and enemies for a chance.
If you can hear a 'no' and take it as a 'maybe'.
If you can start from the bottom and yet still value the little that you have.
If you can improve yourself each moment and reach the heights without succumbing to vanity.
Then you'll be a writer."

TO BE CONTINUED. SOMETIME.

Bodies

“Bodies”, written by Susie Orbach is one of the books that made me better understand the relation between body and mind. In a world in which the fact that you do not fit the pattern imposed by the ones around you becomes a great tragedy, psychoanalyst Susie Orbach explains why we are anxious when it comes to our bodies and why we sometimes end up hating it so much as to mutilate it, keep diets that make us risk our life, become anorexic and endlessly be preoccupied with the way we look and if we look according to the rules imposed by a society that supports shame towards our bodies through the ideal images imposed by it.

"Like many of us, the people I work with wish to and do reshape their bodies in both small and dramatic ways. They find fault with their bodies and say it makes them feel better, more in control, to improve them. Like most of us, they do not like to believe that they are being unduly influenced by outside pressures and may disdain such an idea, with its crude sense of manipulation. Whether followers of fashion or health trends or not, we take for granted that looking good for ourselves will make us feel good. And yet there is a subtle tracery of outside urgings which works on us, creating a new and often dissatisfied relationship with our bodies."

"The slim aesthetic – with pecs for men and ample breasts for women – bedevils those who don’t conform, and even those who do happen to fit can carry a sorrowful insecurity about their own bodies. A constant fretfulness and vigilance take hold for many from the moment they wake until the time they fall asleep. Their bodies are on high alert. The norm has become to worry. In another time, we would have called such anxieties an illness and, seeing how many suffer, we would have called it an epidemic. But we don’t. We have become so implicated in variants of body preoccupation ourselves, and girls and women in particular so colonized by it, that the preoccupation has become second nature – almost ‘natural’ and invisible."

The majority of the examples and cases presented in the book are shocking and they demonstrate the power of those around us to influence our psyche, whether those around us are tv commercials or our own parents.
“Bodies” has revealed how vulnerable we are to exterior stimuli and it has made me rethink the attitude I have towards my body so that this does not turn into a daily burden.
In short, we are more than our own bodies and from time to time it is of utter importance to remind ourselves of this fact.

My Life in HER Books

The incomparable Jeanette Winterson is talking about the books that marked her life.

Jeanette Winterson: "My Life in Books" with Ann Robertson from pedalo on Vimeo.

Word Clouds

Word clouds

View more presentations from Marisa Constantinides

Bitch?

Bitch

by Carolyn Kizer (1984)

Now, when he and I meet, after all these years,
I say to the bitch inside me, don’t start growling.
He isn’t a trespasser anymore,
Just an old acquaintance tipping his hat.
My voice says, “Nice to see you,”
As the bitch starts to bark hysterically.
He isn’t an enemy now,
Where are your manners, I say, as I say,
“How are the children? They must be growing up.”
At a kind word from him, a look like the old days,
The bitch changes her tone; she begins to whimper.
She wants to snuggle up to him, to cringe.
Down, girl! Keep your distance
Or I’ll give you a taste of the choke-chain.
“Fine, I’m just fine,” I tell him.
She slobbers and grovels.



After all, I am her mistress. She is basically loyal.
It’s just that she remembers how she came running
Each evening, when she heard his step;
How she lay at his feet and looked up adoringly
Though he was absorbed in his paper;
Or, bored with her devotion, ordered her to the kitchen
Until he was ready to play.
But the small careless kindnesses
When he’d had a good day, or a couple of drinks,
Come back to her now, seem more important
Than the casual cruelties, the ultimate dismissal.
“It’s nice to know you are doing so well,” I say.
He couldn’t have taken you with him;
You were too demonstrative, too clumsy,
Not like the well-groomed pets of his new friends.
“Give my regards to your wife,” I say. You gag
As I drag you off by the scruff,
Saying, “Goodbye! Goodbye! Nice to have seen you again.”

I Love Reading about LOVE

David Levithan's book "The Lover's Dictionary" is a true poem, some even call it a prolonged haiku. I sipped every word hoping I would not have to finish it so soon; I even allowed myself only a few definitions a day in order not to spoil their beauty by taking in too much. When the book ended I wanted to wrap myself up in half the definitions so I would not forget them. Then, I remembered I had a blog :)

* AUTONOMY, n.
"I want my books to have their own shelves," you said, and that's how I knew it would be okay to live together.

* CORRODE, v.
I spent all this time building a relationship. Then one night I left the window open, and it started to rust.

* HUBRIS, n.
Every time I call you mine, I feel like I'm forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I'm reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power.

* QUALM, n.
There is no reason to make fun of me for flossing twice a day.

* YEARNING, n./adj.
At the core of this desire is the belief that everything can be perfect.

Happiness anyone?

Hafiz

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket to protect you.

Man and Boy

Harry and Gina love each other tremendously so they get married. Nothing seems to disturb their bliss, but after five years in which they raise their child, Pat, Harry has a one night stand with no meaning to him but unfortunately (or not) Gina finds out about his escapade, so she decides to start her life all over again, but this time away from Harry, in Japan.

The important question that Harry asks himself (and we should try to find an answer to it, just in case...) is: "Can one stop loving and give up on a relationship that they thought it would last forever just because of a mistake, be that sleeping with a colleague?"

"People don't break up because of a one-night stand, Gina. It's not what grown-ups do. You don't chuck it all away because of something like that. I know it hurts. I know what I did was wrong. But how did I suddenly go from being Mr Wonderful to Mr Piece of Shit?"


The answer is in the book, but what kept me reading on was how Harry managed to cope with it.
"Man and Boy" reminded me of "One Day"'s male voice and that was one more high point in the story, which also takes a look at how we (should) act at thirty, wondering if we made a good choice giving up some dreams just to follow others.

"That was my problem. When I thought of turning thirty, I thought of somebody else's life."

Find time to read it! ;)

Dream Catch Me...

Word of the Week: Horses

We may say we love horses, but the English love them more, since they have so many idioms and expressions about them :)

~(straight/right) from the horse's mouth: if you hear or get information straight from the horse's mouth, you are told it by someone who has direct knowledge of it
~ a horse of a different color: (Am.E.) something that is completely different from another thing
~ horses for courses:(Br.E.) the process of matching people with suitable jobs or activities
~ never/don't look a gift horse in the mouth:(spoken) used to tell someone to be grateful for something that has been given to them, instead of asking questions about it



~ white horses: (Br.E.)waves in the sea or on a lake that are white at the top
~ put the cart before the horse: to do two things in the wrong order
~ hold your horses!:used to tell someone to do something more slowly or carefully
~ dark horse: (Br. E.) someone who does not tell people much about themselves, but who has surprising qualities or abilities
~ be flogging a dead horse:(spoken) to be wasting time or effort by trying to do something that is impossible

On (a Happy) Life

Eat Pray Love (or a book about an American woman bored with life)

It is a wonder I went on to finish this book, taking into consideration that I stopped enjoying the main character, Elizabeth Gilbert, after the first fifty pages.
Still, I do understand why it has become a bestseller: it presents a rather selfish American woman who has it all, including plenty of money to take a year off and travel to three foreign countries - Italy, India, Indonesia - drops it all, messes with her life and, of course, just as in a soppy American movie (yes, I have seen this as well) finds happiness in the end. Don't we all want this?

I don't want to be married anymore. I don't want to live in this big house. I don't want to have a baby.



Surely, I understand her struggle with not wanting a baby, her wish to discover God and love after divorcing her husband, her craving for good food, her drive to feel free, her need to satisfy both spirit and body through her actions, but her journey was not at all convincing. I found her quite naive to just travel to Bali a second time because a Yodalike medicine man told her she would do so, to pretend to be such a post-feminist liberated woman and then long for a handsome Italian to kiss her, while still analyzing his status and not being satisfied with the fact that he lived with his mother (while she gave up a marriage to a powerful man who loved her very much)and he was younger (I found no reasonable explanation for this, only maybe that she was more into older guys, seeing that she chose Felipe, a Brazilian man much older that her).

I wish Giovanni would kiss me.

Oh, but there are so many reasons why this would be a terrible idea. To begin with, Giovanni is ten years younger than I am, and, like most Italian guys in their twenties, he still lives with his mother. These facts alone make him an unlikely romantic partner for me, given that I am a professional American woman in my mid-thirties, who has just come through a failed marriage and a devastating, interminable divorce, followed immediately by a passionate love affair that ended in sickening heartbreak.

Even if certain American critics claim that this is not chick-lit but an irresistible memoir, my view is that her whole spiritual journey is rather fake. It is a good book if you have nothing else to read and the only ideas that you remain with after the final chapter are a) people can be so superficial, even on a spiritual quest b) each person has his/her own word. Hers was "antevasin" (in the book) and "attraversiamo" (in the movie, demonstrating that, after all, anything is changeable when it comes to "serious" literature). As for my word, I haven't found it yet, maybe I will go on a spiritual journey in its search :)

Merry Christmas!

Joy

Joy is knowing God has granted you innermost wish and you are still around, basking in His glory, breathing the air and smiling back at the sun or childishly enjoying the raindrops falling on your cheeks. Joy is knowing you are not alone and there is always someone to share the miracle of being alive with.

Word(s) of the Week: Angry

Everybody knows what "angry" means, but did you know these related words and expressions? :)
a little angry: miffed (informal), peeved (informal)
rather angry: annoyed, irritated, cross, in a bad/foul mood
very angry: furious, livid, outraged, incensed, incandescent with rage (formal)
to become angry: lose your temper, go mad , go berserk (informal), go ballistic (informal), hit the roof (informal)
words for describing someone who often gets angry: bad-tempered, grouchy, cantankerous, crabby, stroppy (BrE informal)

The True Alchemist of Words

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