Enchantment passing through

Every story, tale or memoir - all are tales of human failing

There'll be no ties of time and space to bind us

And no horizon we shall not pursue
The moments when we smile and those in between

A journey we can only dream of...

( And how is it I say these things so easily to you? )

Is that all that we are good for

Just a stretch of mortal time?

( But why did I tell him this? )

For some god's experiment in which we have no say

( All I've done is tell him things he already knew )

Never wonder what I'll feel as living shuffles by

( He knew... )

A lifetime of not knowing where or how or why or when

( He knew... )

You are all I'll ever want...

from Aida

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Symmetry

But now and then he'll say something wonderful...

"I was hurt like this."

"I know. The difference is, I'm still here. Not just present; here."

"Always?"

"Always." A simple word, but it was a breach, a breakthrough. "Don't you know me by now?"

Hearing it, believing it...What was it he said some time back? 'I know more than anyone what chances a man could take...and how far he could fall.' She brushed her hand over his lips, felt him smile.

He exhaled warmth. "Feel better?"

She sighed. "You always know what to say."

"I don't until you ask. I just...do my best to answer you."

She felt a powerful rush of feeling for him, and tears stung her eyes. She broke, she cried, she rebuilt herself. It was never easy or pretty. But to him, anything else in the world outside, with its standards and sharp lines, could not have this perfection.


'Something Wonderful' from The King and I
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Between Being and Becoming...

Just One Sign is Everything

Chaya hai khumar tera
Dil mein sama ja
Beqaso ki taqdeer, tune hai sawari... *

This song is on constant repeat on my pod. It's a ghazal dedicated to the Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti. I may only know a smattering of it, but the Urdu language is so hypnotically poetic and unabashedly spiritual. I'm so captivated by this piece, I've begun doing dervish whirls on my weekend jaunts to the Tuileries ( yeah, I'm "spontaneous" like that, but the locals don't seem to mind! A nice gentleman even told me that I reminded him of a Fellini heroine heheh.)

A.R. Rehman is a genius.

Here's a vid of the song from a movie. It's sung after the firewalk /nikah of Emperor Jalaluddin Akbar to Princess Mariam-uz-Zamani / Jodha of Amer.

This instrumental version sounds divine as well:

*
Your trance is all over me
Reside in my heart
The destiny of the ones in despair, you have changed for the better


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Maybe...

The river Seine, nightfall

...I have been so busy trying to plan my life

( that I stopped living it )

...I get so caught up in the ways things are complicated

( that I forget that they don't always have to be )

...writing all those long, rambling letters in the dead of night wasn't the sort of thing I'd done very much before

( but I do it now, just because you wanted to know all about my day )

...it's about time I told you about that one night when I woke beside you and just held your hand and watched you while you slept, a sentinel in the pitch-dark of your troubled dreams

( and I stayed awake until the first light of dawn broke through your window )

...I don't let you know enough how wonderful you look when you smile. As if you're lit from within. You can conquer a room with that smile

( you conquer me )

...you meant it when you said I am ruled by petty passions. Fear. Jealousy. Pride. These things make me cruel

( and I have let them, for I know of no other way to fight for you )

...you were right when you said we didn't make it this far for us to just walk away

...it will take lifetimes to forget you, but even forgetting you is a passion. Where you are concerned, I am vulnerable

I want the reality. I embrace it, with all its sweetness and stings. I want you. Every part of you – not just who you are when things are easy to bear. I will not forfeit that. Even if you are cruel to me
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The tide is coming in...

...and you will dance on top of the waves.

You're closer than you think. Speak faith into your heart. Don't give up on your dreams. The tide will come back to you, my love.

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остальное в мире: Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын (Dec 11, 1918 - Aug 3, 2008)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, after he was released from the Gulag, 1953

“Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”

And my grandfather V.'s favorites from his dog-eared copy of The Gulag Archipelago :

Live with a steady superiority over life–don't be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same–the bitter doesn't last forever and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.

Rub your eyes and purify your heart–and prize above all else in the world those who love you and wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part with them in anger; after all, you simply do not know, it may be your last act.

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Il Mare

Positano, Italy

"In time," he whispered, coiling her hair around his fist. "I will be everything to you."

Even our sanctuaries can become prisons

How deeply and softly the colors of the evening have spread
At the end of the day the fragrance of fragile blooms rises along my path
In the first watch of night
Your voice awakens me, sometimes in a clap
Sometimes in a murmur
And the earth appears more lucid than the moon.

Whose footstep, whose shadow
Enters here?
Who gives me thorns
To decorate my palms
To change the lines of my fate?
Am I to live wounded with flowers ?


May the impertinence of my eyes be forgiven
May they look on you just a little
What my lips couldn't say, my gaze says for me.

Where did you walk off,
Where did I?
I kept roaming thus,
I didn't find what I was looking for
But on this bluff I beheld the world.


What is this place
Where I have no rule over joy
No power over sorrow?

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