Ode to Layli

We have a mystery writer on Forage today .. Guess his or her identity..

I sit here waiting as you dance,
Wondering what I’m doing in France.
I texted Florence, no reply yet –
Perhaps she’s playing hard to get.

I don’t know how your camera works.
In that respect, me, it merks.
“Rinsed” and “seen” you prefer to use,
If only we had Urban Dictionary in Toulouse.

The French language, it brings me pain
Like your studded nose – how insane?!
On Forage I hope this doesn’t go
Or the world will know of your honteux.

Dr Lopez, Pancake boy, the list goes on
Your liaisons, they’re far from bon.
So shamefully dressed, you had to return
To pyjama lady – when will you learn?

“Cochonneries“: the word has served me well
But “je suis confondu” is all I ever tell
La langue francaise, c’est merveuilleuse
But spoken vite, it’s affreuse.

Now it’s time for Taylor Swift,
This poem has suffered drift.
The points it made are very scattered
But killed some time – that’s all that mattered.

Bare Jokes Day

strolls. red thread. cheese.

Marianne and the Garonne

Little Red Man.

A Sunday afternoon, Marianne and I decided to take a stroll around Toulouse to see the beautiful river and check out some of the photography that was being displayed at the ‘Manifesto’ photography exhibition.

There were some bizarre thought provoking photos of people from Bucharest staring at you from a scene of decay, there were photographs of random people at the Toulouse swimming pool, there were some disturbing photographs taken by Les Krims of all the Krims and their neighbours … there were some clever photos of photos in the toaster and hanging on a washing line, and one that I particularly like was the set by Flore Gardner. Flore Gardner sews on top of found photographs and I enjoyed her board of photos with her addition of a ‘little red man’. You’d have never thought a stick man could be so adventurous and versatile … I like these images because the random red man has just been plopped onto the photos, like I’ve been plopped here in France. Although I think I am less noticeable than a red stick man. A girl in my dance class said that my ‘r’s are very good for an English person … I don’t know whether she was being polite or whether the English ‘r’s are just really really bad. I also find it impossible to say the word m’inscrire. The stick man is also very friendly and is consorting with all sorts of people so friendly, open and helpful… what an example this stick man is.  Got to “strive to be shining examples unto all mankind, and true reminders of the virtues of God amidst men” as advised in the Tablet of Wisdom (Revealed by Baha’u'llah). This is so important, if we change ourselves we can change the world around us, if we turn on a lamp it will shed light on the whole room…

Marianne doesn’t like art that tries to think. There was a lot of art that tried to think at the late night expo the other night of modern art in a gallery nearby. This included the ‘Tableaux Vivants’ which means ‘living paintings’ so it was basically people doing shoulder stands or holding a leg up and there was a dinner table with people sat around it eating … I ate ‘fromage vivant’ which is this cheese with micro spiders that live on the outside and apparently bring out the taste … it was nice … but you could see them moving…

Pre-jeune. Perles. Pistolets.

” Salut, Bonjour, Coucou … Je m’appelle … et en ce moment la communaute Bahaie de Toulouse est en train de lancer un groupe de … a Junior Youth Group for the young people between the ages of 11 and 15 in Empalot. This group is a chance to bring young people of all different backgrounds to work together and become agents of change in their world, in their neighbourhood. It is incredible listening to the ideas of the junior youth as they discuss how to help others and improve the life around them; raise awareness about the environment, organize a football match for the children, offering lessons teaching others how to read and write, taking care of the aged, cleaning the buildings, painting a mural…

What is excellence? What does the word excellence mean to you? In this group we are going to develop our spiritual and intellectual excellence. What are some of the spiritual qualities that you can name? What are the qualities that you see in the people you admire or love very much?

“Que chaque matin soit meilleur que la veille, et chaque lendemain plus riche que le jour précédent”

What does it mean to make each morning better than its eve?

“That tomorrow will be a beautiful day and it doesn’t rain?” says one JY (in French)

Mmm…unfortunately the weather is slightly out of our control … but we can work on ourselves to so that “Demain je serai meilleur qu’aujourd’hui”…

Although, it’s always better when it doesn’t rain. Though to be fair the weather here in Toulouse is pretty good despite it being October.

And the energy of the junior youth is endless … we had the group with discussion, games and rap and then played basketball for about 2 hours and then a few persuaded us to let them back into the apartment to collect their sheets of paper and then they stayed at the apartment for about an hour singing and trying to make a human tower. Those boys are pearls, as Bassim says.

“Ca t’interesse? Il y a un session chaque samedi, point de rendez-vous devant la mediatheque a 14hr!”

Another thing I noticed here in Empalot is that all the boys run around with guns! Just after the junior youth group and on our way the basketball court, two boys ran into the house and brought out two guns to shoot at us and each other just after having thought about how to help others …

The other side to Marie revealed...

First Impressions

View from my window

Bedroom

Rue de Languedoc

Arriving places early leads to taking random photographs...

L'appart a Empalot

Little streets en rose

Les glaces au Jardin des Plantes

Marie Luce

L'equipe!

Macaroons courtesy of Le Poussin Bleu

Laughing gargoyles

Florence "wow shards of glass"

Detachment. Observing silence. Darkness

Ok so I have decided to renew my efforts in blog writing for my year of service with the Baha’i community on my gap year.  And at the moment I am in Toulouse, France and have been here for about a week so far…

I realise the title to this blog entry might sound … pessimistic… despondent… mournful… negative… but it isn’t really.

So detachment, I think detachment is the very first and foremost test. The test of leaving somewhere that you know very well, and leaving the people that you love very much to go somewhere that you do not know, and where you know no one. And the people that you meet just aren’t the same. And understanding humour in a different language just isn’t as easy as you thought it would be. But yes I think that going away somewhere is a real test. It also makes you appreciate home and things and people … The people of Toulouse are very nice in fact. Very friendly and they actually like the sound of English people speaking French! Or they might be lying to spare my feelings…

Observing silence … This is what I found myself doing quite often as I would listen and then get tired and then listen more and find I would have something to say but then I had stopped listening for a while and so it might have already been said or asked … I think understanding things is part psychological. Interestingly enough I read something the other morning that Baha’u'llah says to “observe silence and refrain from idle talk. For the tongue is a smouldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul”. I have always thought, if I am silent I need to talk more so that I am talking … but really this is senseless. The power of speech is incredible though, also one of the purposes of the Junior Youth programme that is going to be implemented here in Toulouse! Power of expression. I am learning how to use my power of expression in French…

And darkness… The French have dark houses!!! They always use their shutters to protect the house from the heat, the lampshades are such that rooms are not very bright, the apartment is designed so that the natural light in the apartment is not that much or that great.  Oh it is a beautiful apartment nonetheless! In the town centre in a building I think just from the 19^th Century, so not too old, but old with high ceilings nonetheless. And my next door neighbour is a Chocolatier’s shop!

So yeah, these have been my first few challenges. But it’s not negative.  Challenges are good. We grow and develop as a result of tests. Tests are good.

But yeah, I think I will like Toulouse very much.

The Harrowing Striped Pyjamas.

I am usually of the mind that the film of a book always falls short of expectations. However the film ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ is an exception to the rule. Note I have not actually read the book but, I cannot imagine it surpassing the film in conveying the beauty of the friendship between Bruno and Shmuel, the tragedy of the holocaust and the idiocy of the Nazi regime.  

Another rarity is crying at films. I often get those lumps that develop in ones throat during a sad film but this film had tears streaming silently down my face as I bit my lip and stared at the screen.

The well known historic backdrop to the film was subtle so as not to swallow the characters but blatant as it formed the basis of the events and was alluded to in every scene. The focus of the film was not really on the war itself or on the ‘farm with the electric fences’ but on the relationship of the two unlikely friends: Bruno and Shmuel. By focusing on relationships as oppose to the shocking events of the period, the film was made more personal and accessible and thus history is made more personal: something that happened to people as oppose to a list of names and dates on a war memorial.

The innocence of the children in the film is a refreshing antithesis to the stone cold soldiers, the awkward dinners and the anguish of the grandmother expressed at the beginning of the play. Bruno catches view of the men working on the ‘farm’ in ‘striped pyjamas’; an accurate yet erroneous description of the concentration camps. This innocence is seen again with Bruno describing in amazement the Jew, Pavlov, who ‘gave up’ being a doctor to peel potatoes. The beauty of the friendship between the two children is a beacon of hope amongst the hatred and confusion within the family and the nations.

 

I watched this film with my sister and her junior youth group and what seemed to resonate most with them was the scene in which Shmuel is working at the house polishing glasses and Bruno gives him food from the table. A soldier sees him eating and confronts the boy asking if he has been stealing to which Shmuel responds ‘No, he gave it to me. He is my friend’. When asked if this is true Bruno, after a long pause for conscience battling, denies it claiming he has never seen this boy in his life. We next see Shmuel back at the concentration camp with a bruised eye. The distressing consequences of dishonesty in the film caused my sister and her friends to become more aware of their truthfulness as they started to say “Don’t lie like the boy in the film” in conversation afterwards. Shmuel’s act of forgiveness is yet another example of hope in the film and another example for my sister of how to treat others…

 

 

So the next day I jump on a plane and fly to Germany. The Cologne Cathedral or Dom is a huge structure that seems almost out of place. At times it looks sinister with its blackened walls and gothic form which contrasts to the rest of the city due to the war having flattened all of Cologne save this cathedral. Walking through the city with my neck crooked upwards and this dark old structure staring at me was a poignant reminder of the war and its dark and destructive effects.

 

Some houses and shops in Germany also have gold tiles on the pavement outside to pay respect to each of the Jews that were killed during the war from that residence. Walking past a shop with 15 gold tiles at its doorstep, the reminders continue.

 

The Quick

For the last 19 days I have been fasting.

The fast is quick. 19 days have passed. The sun now sets at 6:22 as oppose to 5:50. Fasting always sheds new light on life; this year something that I noted was the preciousness of time. Without food and drink one gets tired and so the will to do is reduced. On a normal day one might think ‘I am tired and hungry now I will do it later’. But then in the fast I think, well I am going to be tired/hungry a lot during these 19 days so I may as well do something regardless. Consequently, I found that I was actually quite happy doing whatever it was on an empty stomach.

“There is no time to lose. There is no room left for vacillation”

But sleep is also very important.

A second realisation prompted by the fast is the amount of cake that I eat at school. Literally everyday there is a lesson in which we eat cake.

“Would you like a cake?”
“No thank you, I’m fasting at the moment…”
“Oh yeah!”

“Would you like a cake?”
“No I’m still fasting at the moment”
“Oh yeah! Sorry I keep forgetting!”

“Would you like a cake?”
“No thank you, I’m actually still fasting at the moment!”
“Ohhhh yeah… what about a skittle? Are you not even allowed a skittle?”

Fasting is a strange concept for many. Why would someone choose to deny themselves food and drink? The Bahá’í fast is essentially “a period of spiritual recuperation” and the abstinence from food and drink is merely “symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desires”. During and as a result of the fast, “the heart becomes tender and the spirituality of man increases”. The material fast is a “token” of the spiritual fast.

“As I am fasting from the appetites of the body and not occupied with eating and drinking, even so purify and make holy my heart and my life from aught else save Thy Love, and protect and preserve my soul from self-passions”.

Defined by detachment: “Thou hast bidden all men to observe the fast, that through it they may purify their souls and rid themselves of all attachment to any one but Thee”. We are such dependent creatures and the fast is a time when we can see that it is only God that can get you through the day, not chicken nuggets or caramel shortbread.

And so it is. The fast is over. The time of spiritual recuperation has timed out. The fast is truly refreshing. Though this year it has seemed an especially quick refresher. Like a short storm in the tropics or a cup of water thrown on you at a picnic.

Naw Ruz resolution 1: no vacillating.

Naw Ruz resolution 2: be spiritually recuperated (I wish recuped was a word) more often.

Naw Ruz resolution 3: stop biting nails.

Naw Ruz resolution 4: …

Ceramic Magic

So I am walking past a notice board in the art block and see a notice of blue and white  printed with the words POTTERY PARTIES. I take a look and find out that it is about a workshop with a local potter to play with clay and glaze.

James pokes at a tile

So I gather some friends who may be interested in pottery, or may be interested in art, or may feel obliged to come, or that i forced to come to make numbers. We were five. One Two Five was easy enough to find. A building that looks like regular house in Bathford is in fact a beautiful and spacious gallery of ceramic and glass genius with the studios in the garden. We enter the house and after having a gander at the art on the walls and in the garden we make our way to the studio and Gary begins talking to us as we sip herbal tea from homemade mugs spun in that very studio.

We begin by pounding some clay into a slab, rolling it until it is smooth after which we make marks and textures using different sticks and random kitchen and haberdashery utensils. We were told that “The potters greatest tool is the hammer”. In other words don’t be too attached to your work. Practicing pottery is such a preperation for life. Being to attached to our work holds us back from exploring the visual limits that we could reach or cross with our ceramical creativity. Likewise, being attached to this transient world could hold us back from living life to the full and missing opportunities as well as achieving our potential and focusing on the less important aspects of life. In the Baha’i Writings, Baha’u'llah tells us …

“Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more.”

So detachment from the things of this world, from the appearance of our pot, or from our own self-image is in fact hugely liberating. Of course this doesn’t mean that we should completely discard our possessions or actually vandalise our studios and throw our pots out of the window. Detachment merely “consists in refraining from letting our possessions possess us.”

Fraction of a tile

We left our vases and tiles to be biscuit fired in the kiln and drove home wondering whether they would survive…

Several weeks later we returned to find our handiwork safely solid and ready to adorn. We were led back to the studio where we were given back our ceramics, a pot of paintbrushes and an array of jars filled with glaze. An hour of glazing and we are done, some opting for a subtle sheen of glaze and others pouring glaze over them with a bucket.

We blindly glaze not really knowing what each piece will turn out like. Again, detachment becomes of the utmost importance. Finally we are finished and the pieces are once more, thrown into the fire.

Not knowing what our work was going to look like, or even if it was going to survive the fire, we left it to the kiln. A week later. The result: weirdly attractive. The process transforming a lump of discoloured clay into a glistening piece of ceramic magic.

The Vase.

Like Electricity…

Tearing my eyes away from the theatre stage I glance at my arm and see that my hairs are standing on end. The theatre has this effect on me. Billy Elliot was one such performance that managed to simultaneously be touching, amusing and of an impressively high quality. Lets softly rove through some of the impressions made upon my mind during the performance of Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

A striking feature of this performance for me was the sound of voices in unison of the miners. The chant affirming that they are “all out together, all out as one” was chilling and uplifting. Their tone sombre yet their defiance hope inspring. As they “stand as one” through all of their hardship the fellowship and unity shown in these men is beautiful. The touching thing about this play is the how these are GOOD PEOPLE. Billy’s father is willing to give up his pride and his life to give his son a chance. The striking miners have no money yet club together to buy Billy a coach ticket. An example of the teaching from the writings of Abdu’l-Baha that…

“Nothing can be effected in the world, not even conceivably, without unity and agreement…”

The effect of screens and barriers on the stage was also very powerful. The bus window taking Billy’s father to the mines and the cage like fences highlight the sacrifice he is making for his son. Furthermore the shields of the policemen closing down on Billy as he tap dances his way into and around the chaos shows the audience how very impossible and despondant these people’s situation is, making the hope and unity amongst them all the more poignant.

The dancing in the show was actually excellent. Despite the girls ballet class being bad ballet, they pulled of dancing badly with beautiful precision and expression. The energy in these shows always makes me want to be dancing and not sitting on a chair … The joy in the dancing was really marked against the dark and gloomy backdrop of the miner’s strike. With the policemen singing alongside them, ballet becomes a mark of  ’hope in hopelessness’.

Another character of the show that made me ponder was Grandma. Grandma was hilarious. She was a bit crazy, forgetful, she liked to hide mouldy pasties and sausage rolls. She was good. I enjoyed her song about her husband, introducing a feminist element to the play as she sings about the expectations on women to marry and stop living when they had that ring around their finger. Grandma tells Billy that if she had her time again she would not get married to Granddad, but would be free and go dancing and never be sober. The emancipation of Grandma was displayed in a lively dance, contrasting the old frail woman with her young dancing partners; a fusion of her past and present. A fun, amusing, batty old woman, that dances funny and acts insane.

Little children saying “wanker” on stage always seems to be a crowd pleaser.  

The journey to London: Lian and Louisa.

Blogging

I fear that this blog could lead to me living life vicariously. The other day i was talking to a friend about ‘vicarious living’. We do live in an age where we live to record and reminisce and then move onto the next occurence and then plan more occurences. The now! L’instant! La vie est trop court! Albert Camus was one such who appreciated the present moment after he almost lost his leg and died. Losing ones leg and dying would be very annoying. So appreciate your legs and life.

“Ah wow Florida would be so fun, we could go to Disney land and Universal, and Sea World, and it would be really hot and we would be in America..”

“Yeah, think of the photo opportunities”

Why really.

Coming home from work and just not sleeping is something that should never be done.

Happy Valentines Day.