Time´s They Are A-spinin´

Today we bought a table cloth at the Chinese store. It´s light green and has a pattern of apples, limes & oranges. Also there are some repetitive white scribbles, that seemed to make no sense at first sight. It turns out that they say ´white´in mirror image.

Yesterday my friend Ione read a poem about apples to me and Jamie. A lovely one. We organized an evening of poetry. There was wine and good food, and a background of soft piano music. They read some their amazing work, and we read some poems by admired poets. Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, Michael Ondaatje. And one they particularly moved me, an excerpt from

´From Eloisa to Abelard´ by Alexander Pope.

...
I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought;
I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;
I view my crime, but kindle at the view,
Repent old pleasures, and solicit new;
Now turn'd to Heav'n, I weep my past offence,
Now think of thee, and curse my innocence.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis sure the hardest science to forget!
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest th' offence?
How the dear object from the crime remove,
Or how distinguish penitence from love?
Unequal task! a passion to resign,
For hearts so touch'd, so pierc'd, so lost as mine.
Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,
How often must it love, how often hate!
How often hope, despair, resent, regret,
Conceal, disdain — do all things but forget.
But let Heav'n seize it, all at once 'tis fir'd;
Not touch'd, but rapt; not waken'd, but inspir'd!
Oh come! oh teach me nature to subdue,
Renounce my love, my life, myself — and you.
Fill my fond heart with God alone, for he
Alone can rival, can succeed to thee.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
...

(whole poem here ) We kicked off with ´Responsibility´

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners
giving out poems and beautifully written leaflets
also leaflets you can hardly bear to look at
because of the screaming rhetoric
It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy
to hang out and prophesy
It is the responsibility of the poet not to pay war taxes
It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory
towers and two-room apartments on Avenue C
and buckwheat fields and army camps
It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the female poet to be a woman
It is the poet's responsibility to speak truth to power as the
Quakers say
It is the poet's responsibility to learn the truth from the
powerless
It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no
freedom without justice and this means economic
justice and love justice
It is the responsibility of the poet to sing this in all the original
and traditional tunes of singing and telling poems
It is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it
on in the way storytellers decant the story of life
There is no freedom without fear and bravery there is no
freedom unless
earth and air and water continue and children
also continue
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on
this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be
listened to this time.

by Grace Paley

While waiting I browsed though some art books in a gallery. I happened upon a book called Autobiography by Sol Lewitt. It was a book of 3x3 collections of the man´s apartment (&life). *1

The theme of collection has been waking up in me ever since Jamie´s here ( and i hear more) . And through several smaller incidents. I saw an interesting work recently in Circulo de Bellas Artes. It embraced collecting, the act of collecting. shells, beans, stones. Collection. i´ve always had a desire to collect, but have always resisted this urge because it clutters my surroundings and that of others.
Things I´ve collected in the past: stamps, stickers, stones, paper& envelopes. I would love to be a collector of antique 6 jut plain old cameras & books.



*1
"From about 1975 LeWitt also made books employing photographic images to construct systems... [His] most discussed book in this mode is Autobiography of 1980, in which he surveys and inventorizes every nook and cranny of his Manhattan loft. The 128 pages comprise 1116 photographs using his regular 3 x 3 grid layout. We are shown around the plumbing, the various pots and pans, the nine pairs of shoes; later there is a motley collection of chairs and then we are invited to peruse his book shelves, his cassette tape collection, the snapshots of his friends--as if allowing us to look around, while the artist himself has just popped out.--John Janssen,



I also celebrated my birthday for an entire week. I had a great night with friends in Dos Gardenias, drinking Margaritas. And my friends Sara & Jamie prepared big lunches for random friends. i spent my week out of place and indulged in bars, at cocktail parties, fancy restaurants, with art collectors, friends, doing translations, freethinking my future, throwing out furniture, laughing, reading, listening, worrying, all this while drinking and smoking. I met a well-known ( wi(l)dly famous) photographer. She told me that she doesn´t control the outcome of her background colors. That was the most absurd, while comforting thing I´d heard in years. I didn´t know whether to laugh or frown for a while. I guess it´s that way some times. Even the ones that are our examples don´t know how they do what they do, or better yet, they just do it without knowing why.

And she collects things.

I was her interpreter. And accompanied her on her tour around upper & high class Madrid. Ironically i spent my week with one of the most famous photographers of today because of my language skills. That tells me something. For a while now I´m thinking of concentrating on improving my language and translations skills. Either through self-study or doing a Master in the Netherlands. Working as a translator while continuing with photography and traveling seems written on my body. ( dutch expression, literal translation. bad joke.)
I don´t know why it has taken me so long to see that working with language was something i was somehow bound to do. It´s just always been around. And I´ve always loved it. Somehow it doesn´t feel like work.
Collection, Translating, Traveling.

New paths. Me and Jamie are still on our way to Tarifa. But also open to impulses and sidetracks. Most importantly*2, there´ll be Photography, Poetry & Laughter.

Surrender.

*2 The adverb has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: of greatest importance
Synonym: first and foremost

Meaning #2: above and beyond all other consideration
Synonyms: above all, most especially