Feeds:
Posts
Comments

between the leaves…

February 10, 2010 by cybersass

when i was little, other than my granny’s lap, my favorite place in the whole world, was the library. in fact, the library was my baby-sitter. i would spend hours reading there after school, enthralled. i still remember those wooden benches, the long rows of books, the sun streaming through the windows in the children’s section and how i’d occasionally be allowed to wander into the adult side to choose my stepfather’s sci-fi tomes he liked to read.

i’d read at the library, then i’d take a book home with me and inevitably, i’d be back tomorrow for my next fix. books rocked my world. they took me on journeys i’d never have been able to make otherwise. they were my respite from a reality i wouldn’t wish on anyone. when i had a book infront of me, i was spell-bound. the leaves of books were and will always be for me a little sliver of heaven, each and every one.

so imagine how i felt yesterday, when i heard on the news  that of all things, the protesters in balfour had set a library alight. the thought of all those books, all those worlds going up in smoke, all those journeys which no one will now have the opportunity to take, really made me sick to my stomach. part of me is so angry at the ignorance. don’t these arsonists realize that books can feed you more than bread? but as i think that, i realize that my anger is possibly misdirected. maybe i should be angry at a government which besides not providing, is also not working at furthering education and changing attitudes. i don’t pretend to have any political analysis. i know that it’s not as simple as decrying people as arsonists. or maybe it is…

burning_book

all i know is that in the smoke rising from that library, in those pages curling in on themselves, in those worlds crumbling, are infinite possibilities and openings and realizations which now will never be experienced.

and that makes me really sad.

Posted in life | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

sometimes less is more

February 4, 2010 by cybersass

in case you had any doubts, there’s nothing neat or contained about me. you need but look at my hair to concede the truth of that statement.
my curls sproing off in different directions like the coils of a mattress in a rent-by-the-hour cheap motel. i boing when i walk, everything bouncing exuberantly, often in direct contrast to what i might be feeling.

you might describe my style as funky, eclectic, even eccentric sometimes, but i doubt you’d ever call it classic. no crisply starched shirts and pencil skirts for me.

like my life, sometimes i can be messy. clothes pile up in heaps for days before i’m compelled to restore order. 3 months later i’ll suddenly wonder why there’s a spool of thread in the middle of the kitchen table. i’ve spent large parts of my life coloring outside the lines.

sometimes though, i  wish i was a waif with one of those compact bodies, the kind you can carelessly toss into a pair of jeans and a tshirt, or silicon-slip into a little sheath dress and heels, the epitome of classic perfection. you know, pert sized 34b breasts, just enough for a womanly curve, not enough to necessitate double bra-ing before you head to the gym at certain times of the month or like these mounds of mine which strain against and constantly threaten to spill from their constraints like a janet jackson wardrobe malfunction. sometimes i want a derriere that sounds exactly like the word, muscular, yet curvy and pertly french, not this minor mountain that rises behind me and proclaims to the world that  i am, yes indeed, one of the progeny of saartjie baartman. i want calves and thighs and waist all proportionate and contained. not these rambunctious humps and curves and clumps that boisterously clamor off in different directions, dead set on their own agendas.

sometimes, just sometimes i’d like to be the mistress of my own domain, this sassy, cantankerous, disobedient, wild willed sheath of flesh which in this life
i supposedly command.

i guess the spongy mass between my ears is what i can best command, but it’s difficult sometimes to not be various shades of envy-green. damn, look at holly hunter who at 51 has the body of a teenager. pert. compact. even cute. but then i have to remind myself; life or at least, what we look like, is the result of  a lotto in which we involuntarily participate and the landscape of our bodies was sculpted by a distant sculptor to whom there’s no recourse. bottom-line (pun intended), i guess it’s not what we’re given. it’s what we make of it.

and make no mistake, i’m grateful for what i’ve got. sometimes, though, i wish i’d been given just a little bit less!

p.s. the crude little animation was something i came up with for my first website around 1995 or so

Posted in life | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »