Today in the morning I visited one of the Blogs of Note: a blog of a girl named DeeDee [http://deedeeabodeely.blogspot.com/ ]. And although I do it very rarely, I read everything posted since the opening of the site.
At first I was struck by the physical resemblance between DeeDee and The Famous Her. They could well be sisters, though resemblance like this one makes me think of the strange natural coincidences that bring to this world unrelated look-alikes.
And then I read, and read, and wasn't sure whether the content, coming from within the layout's colorful polka dots, warms me up with its cheerfulness and brightness, or rather saddens, as it concentrates the peaceful joy of living among people, something that currently seems unattainable to me in this world.
Her short posts are like summer days. The smell of sunburned skin, bright mind, tree tops full of leaves. Some fruit rolls over a wooden table in the garden. And friendly voices of beloved people can be heard all around, the last sound that one hears late in the evening before falling asleep.
And that photo of her on the top of the site: green water, blue sky. Redish soil and the authoress standing on it with her arms spread in triumph or joy she sends straight to the sky.
What I feel isn't jealousy for sure.
Most of all I feel the satisfaction as if I were this world's supervisor; the satisfaction that there are lives like this one, happy faces like hers, happening somewhere out there.
Maybe I have to be at the point I've reached, a place rather dark and cool, to be able to see the one, who walks on the "sunny side of the street".
2008/07/23
2008/07/20
first steps in translation
Translating written texts teaches me a lot of patience. I'm able to conquer my own aversion to returning for the second or third time to a text I wrote or translated by myself – something rather impossible not long ago; I used to leave things the way they were, even if it meant omitting some major mistakes. After all, it's most arduous and uninteresting; one has use their strong will to increase attention in order to analyze sentences afresh, is if they weren't in the temporary memory.
Also, what attracts me to translating is the so called butterfly effect. The selection of a single word, the decision made between two synonyms, can influence the undertone of the whole sentence and decide, how the reader will perceive the further sequences of the text.
And like in many other areas that interest me, I can see, how arduous the process of learning the good translation is. I feel that simple, predictable in their style and structure pieces are somehow awkward when translated by me. They remain the translation of a text and not the rightful Polish the should have become. I get tired quite quickly, but not discouraged. In every new text I could occupy myself with I see a tidbit, I find words interesting, I want to have a closer look, find them their Polish equivalents as if it could save them.
I feel it's of a great advantage to me that I translate articles whose subject matter lies within my interests. And it's not only because I don't get bored in the third hour, but the text simply seems more worth the trouble. Which is a bit selfish as it boils down to identifying the reader with myself, and everyone obviously wants the best for themselves.
I also think one has to be extremely courageous (or unaware of their actions) to translate Literature. And still be able to sleep at night.
Also, what attracts me to translating is the so called butterfly effect. The selection of a single word, the decision made between two synonyms, can influence the undertone of the whole sentence and decide, how the reader will perceive the further sequences of the text.
And like in many other areas that interest me, I can see, how arduous the process of learning the good translation is. I feel that simple, predictable in their style and structure pieces are somehow awkward when translated by me. They remain the translation of a text and not the rightful Polish the should have become. I get tired quite quickly, but not discouraged. In every new text I could occupy myself with I see a tidbit, I find words interesting, I want to have a closer look, find them their Polish equivalents as if it could save them.
I feel it's of a great advantage to me that I translate articles whose subject matter lies within my interests. And it's not only because I don't get bored in the third hour, but the text simply seems more worth the trouble. Which is a bit selfish as it boils down to identifying the reader with myself, and everyone obviously wants the best for themselves.
I also think one has to be extremely courageous (or unaware of their actions) to translate Literature. And still be able to sleep at night.
2008/07/11
this love
Today my mom came to Warsaw. As soon as she arrived we started to prattle. I made a salad for our lunch. There was too little rice and too much salt in it. She would know how much salt should be added. We decided to go and see Urszula Dudziak's concert, which was to start at 7 a.m. We managed to eat ice-cream at Hoża before the show, and in the meantime we got soaking wet as a great summer storm broke out over Warsaw. Although I wasn't cold, I had to listen 5739473 times that I should've taken a sweater with me. And that there was no point in going to the concert because it would surely be cancelled.
Ula Dudziak spoke and sang what she usually does, and everyone was delighted as they usually are. Afterwards there was a great show of the Big Band Riff, which astonished us, like only the big jazz standards of Coltrane or Miller can, but it astonished a little less an ever talking couple sitting next to me with their baby and a wet dog that kept on sitting on my feet. While the gentlemen were playing, it started to rain again, and again we were lucky because it stopped exactly when we decided to go home. On our way she talked to my as if I were a dog. I told her not to talk to me as if I were a dog. A streetcar showed up and she asked me if it stopped where we wanted to get out. I replied I'd ask the motorman. While I was doing this, she said with a strong voice that it would obviously stop there.
Funny. Especially the dog part.
Ula Dudziak spoke and sang what she usually does, and everyone was delighted as they usually are. Afterwards there was a great show of the Big Band Riff, which astonished us, like only the big jazz standards of Coltrane or Miller can, but it astonished a little less an ever talking couple sitting next to me with their baby and a wet dog that kept on sitting on my feet. While the gentlemen were playing, it started to rain again, and again we were lucky because it stopped exactly when we decided to go home. On our way she talked to my as if I were a dog. I told her not to talk to me as if I were a dog. A streetcar showed up and she asked me if it stopped where we wanted to get out. I replied I'd ask the motorman. While I was doing this, she said with a strong voice that it would obviously stop there.
Funny. Especially the dog part.
2008/07/10
Navigating the Heart
I am addicted to stories. If I reject them, it's only out of fear that the characters will come too close to me; to feel comfortable I need a few meters of space (plus the picture as a whole is better seen in this position). Like in the calm, waving "Lighthousekeeping" by Jeanette Winterson, the stories around me have no beginnings nor ends, they flow in time and space with their currents always interweaving. I can see it best when I go out from the dark rooms of the Muranów movie theater, where Juliette Binoche or Tony Gatlif have just made my thoughts slow down. I walk into the daylight, into the city, into the crowd, and watching it all in slow motion I can clearly see the story written into each and every face. These people are the embodiments of their own secrets - and that's why I admire the work of Frank Warren so much; he was the first to make the secret that keeps us human and decent the very center of an artistic project. All those pretty and ugly faces, hidden from the world, but still, showing so precisely how much strength they possess. Strange constellations of relations between the individuals, and the shivers down my spine when I accidentally step into the game, only to spend hours or days to regenerate in my flat.
And sometimes, though very rarely, among this cavalcade, some big dark eyes that wish to see a peaceful lake covered with fog.
Humankind is charming. If only you can stay on the shore, with a hot mug and a blanket, and silently watch, and only watch.
And yes, hope that from time to time someone will sail up to you in good faith.
And sometimes, though very rarely, among this cavalcade, some big dark eyes that wish to see a peaceful lake covered with fog.
Humankind is charming. If only you can stay on the shore, with a hot mug and a blanket, and silently watch, and only watch.
And yes, hope that from time to time someone will sail up to you in good faith.
2008/07/08
'Warsaw' doesn't equal 'worse'
I'm trying to activate myself, but without no results so far. It's been a good day, but a Warsaw day, involving all free supplies of my attention. This city sticks its pieces in every crack of a man's perception and I'm a neurotic with high cortex activity level and my sensations need to be dosed. Even if the stimulus is the fresh, hose-rinsed city around 9 a.m. Or a little girl in the University of Warsaw Library's garden who quite reasonably considered today's every passer-by to be her potential playmate. Me myself was chosen to co-examine some pictures of a turkey and a turkey-hen. (Not to mention a bonus – a small talk with the pretty gorgeous mommy.) Then there was the stimulus of the colorful, juicy vegetables in the vega bar. Then, news from the psychology department: they don't actually desire to see me on the Thursday's entrance exam. (Now that I've already got to like all the ladies at the secretary's office/dean's office/corridors, well, all the ladies at psychology department. Now they're saying they don't want me!) And finally, the conference about China in relation to Tibet, the Olympics and Nicolas Sarkozy; it was amazing to listen to so many intelligent, constructive arguments of romantics who are right.
A day like this one had to end up with a bowl of cherries.
And with very heavy eyelids.
A day like this one had to end up with a bowl of cherries.
And with very heavy eyelids.
2008/07/01
holidays, ready, go!
I'm deeply impressed by the ability of regeneration possessed by my organism. It was just last Friday that I passed my last exam in this term and out of such an amount of stress I would have borne if I'd only had something to bear at hand. But seeing M. on Saturday, the night of movies and endless talking in a cozy smelling A.'s house, and coming home at 7 a.m. through the vague Warsaw, plus Sunday, filled with sleep with a break for vanilla ice-cream - that was all enough. I'm ready again. I may still sleep awkwardly, in a wrong pace and breath, but the strings are loose, they actually sway as gently as a hammock – the hotbed of the debauchery, where my books, movies and sleep turns out boring at times – something not to believe in only a few days ago.
I'm still in the city, waiting for some papers at the linguistics that are already awaited at the psychology. Surprisingly, I don't mind. No doubt that the flimsy shadow in the "garden" by the University of Warsaw Library doesn't even resemble the surroundings of our house in the country ("a genuine extension of myself" – JW), but it does have some green grass, sparrows and gentle wind that distracts the water drops from the fountain straight to my skin. That's fairly enough and that compensates taking a crowded streetcar and my dense, heated flat. And when it nonetheless starts to become unbearable, there's always a cool hidden place in the Muranów movie theater, where I can reduce my being to the senses of sight and hearing, silently admiring Juliette Binoche in the "Flight of the Red Balloon".
My solitude is weird. Weird because satisfactory and at the same time lined with fear and anxiety, like an unwise lonely stroll of a wild deer chased by hounds. On the surface it's nice, it doesn't require needless words when I have nothing to say. I have a free hand. But I can easily tell it's bitter as well, there's a strong sense of insecurity and longing.
But. I decided I'm through with the mortifying analyses of all sorts of my relationships, through with searching my mistakes and oversights, and most of all, their sources that might lie within my upbringing, genes or environment. The official reason of my resolution is lack of conclusions, the emptiness that was supposed to be filled with lessons learnt. Another thing is that I'm simply tired, tired to the point where I'm ready to plead guilty for now and forever, cover myself up with a quilt and sleep as soundly as the guilty one who has nothing to lose – a sign that the self-mortifying ceremonial has gone too far. Anyway, I feel completely excused since my mother, immersed in the trance of removing the strawberry stalks, said that when one has a character like mine, it's no wonder they don't have "much acquaintances". It's ever surprising, how we resemble Silver and her mother in JW's "Lighthousekeeping": "The eccentricities she described as mine were really her own. She was the one who hated going out. She was the one who couldn't live in the world she had been given. She longed for me to be free, and did everything she could to make sure it never happened."
Still, it felt strange when on Saturday morning I said "bye" to A., my groupmate, knowing that I'd see her again in three months time. Well. I may be antisocial but I'm always sentimental.
I'm still in the city, waiting for some papers at the linguistics that are already awaited at the psychology. Surprisingly, I don't mind. No doubt that the flimsy shadow in the "garden" by the University of Warsaw Library doesn't even resemble the surroundings of our house in the country ("a genuine extension of myself" – JW), but it does have some green grass, sparrows and gentle wind that distracts the water drops from the fountain straight to my skin. That's fairly enough and that compensates taking a crowded streetcar and my dense, heated flat. And when it nonetheless starts to become unbearable, there's always a cool hidden place in the Muranów movie theater, where I can reduce my being to the senses of sight and hearing, silently admiring Juliette Binoche in the "Flight of the Red Balloon".
My solitude is weird. Weird because satisfactory and at the same time lined with fear and anxiety, like an unwise lonely stroll of a wild deer chased by hounds. On the surface it's nice, it doesn't require needless words when I have nothing to say. I have a free hand. But I can easily tell it's bitter as well, there's a strong sense of insecurity and longing.
But. I decided I'm through with the mortifying analyses of all sorts of my relationships, through with searching my mistakes and oversights, and most of all, their sources that might lie within my upbringing, genes or environment. The official reason of my resolution is lack of conclusions, the emptiness that was supposed to be filled with lessons learnt. Another thing is that I'm simply tired, tired to the point where I'm ready to plead guilty for now and forever, cover myself up with a quilt and sleep as soundly as the guilty one who has nothing to lose – a sign that the self-mortifying ceremonial has gone too far. Anyway, I feel completely excused since my mother, immersed in the trance of removing the strawberry stalks, said that when one has a character like mine, it's no wonder they don't have "much acquaintances". It's ever surprising, how we resemble Silver and her mother in JW's "Lighthousekeeping": "The eccentricities she described as mine were really her own. She was the one who hated going out. She was the one who couldn't live in the world she had been given. She longed for me to be free, and did everything she could to make sure it never happened."
Still, it felt strange when on Saturday morning I said "bye" to A., my groupmate, knowing that I'd see her again in three months time. Well. I may be antisocial but I'm always sentimental.
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