Metro music -- Paris

Singers on the Paris metro: here and here

Two Firsts

Two firsts this week:

1. First live concert in Europe!

The train ride on the way there was most entertaining because the Heineken Music Hall is right next to the arena where a match between Ajax and Real Madrid was being played. So the metro was filled with loud, happy Dutch men screaming. I didn't get to take my camera in, so I used my phone to take this video :)
I realized I'm more obsessed with documenting than I am with enjoying. I think it's because I want everyone at home (yes, you and you and you) to experience EVERYTHING I am experiencing. I miss everyone so much.

2. A Thanksgiving dinner in K-Straat!
Although I didn't really go for the dinner because I was pretending to study, I crashed the after dinner clear-up and ate some yummy pumpkin pie and drank some gluvine. I also heard what everyone thinks of Christmas :) Same as we at home think about Diwali -- it's a community festival more than a religious one. But it was nice to hear about how Christmas is spent in Australia and Canada and America and Croatia :)

"Living with a Killer"

i live with a killer
she walks around
pretending
like nothing really happened
like it was out of her control
and there was nothing more she could
do to
save him

if only she were less selfish
things could have been different
he could have seen her grow
from a girl to a woman to a mother

she sees him in trees
she sees him in the sky
she hears his voice through walls
and she chases him in her dreams

and there are days
when she's gutted
hopelessly torn
and i watch her and wonder
it's tough living with a killer

for stars will rise again

if someone could fall in love with someone else through a blog, i'd fall in love with her.

crow feet

by bednij -- from two of my favourite blogs on the same day

"Prayer for the Man Who Mugged My Father, 72"

May there be an afterlife.

May you meet him there, the same age as you.
May the meeting take place in a small, locked room.

May the bushes where you hid be there again, leaves tipped with razor-
blades and acid.
May the rifle butt you bashed him with be in his hands.
May the glass in his car window, which you smashed as he sat stopped
at a red light, spike the rifle butt, and the concrete on which you'll
fall.

May the needles the doctors used to close his eye, stab your pupils
every time you hit the wall and then the floor, which will be often.
May my father let you cower for a while, whimpering, "Please don't
shoot me. Please."
May he laugh, unload your gun, toss it away;
Then may he take you with bare hands.

May those hands, which taught his son to throw a curve and drive a nail
and hold a frog, feel like cannonballs against your jaw.
May his arms, which powered handstands and made their muscles jump
to please me, wrap your head and grind your face like stone.
May his chest, thick and hairy as a bear's, feel like a bear's snapping
your bones.
May his feet, which showed me the flutter kick and carried me miles
through the woods, feel like axes crushing your one claim to man-
hood as he chops you down.

And when you are down, and he's done with you, which will be soon,
since, even one-eyed, with brain damage, he's a merciful man,
May the door to the room open and let him stride away to the Valhalla
he deserves.
May you—bleeding, broken—drag yourself upright.

May you think the worst is over;
You've survived, and may still win.

Then may the door open once more, and let me in.

~Charles Harper Webb

"Stop Crying Your Heart Out"

"Autumn"

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

~Ranier Maria Rilke (trans Bly)

Six Things to Know about DSLRs

Paris!

Was so nice to see Anchit again and be in Paris!



For descriptions, you can see the facebook album

"Verdriet"

November 2 was All Soul's Day in the Netherlands.
There's an old cemetery behind my building and we heard some singing and decided to go.

The whole cemetery was lit up with candles and you had groups of Dutch people singing around campfires around the cemetery. When we entered, they gave us each a poem and a small electric (but pretty) candle.

This was the poem I got. One group was just sitting around reading the poems as people passed by.
Another was chanting the names of the dead (you could write it and give it to them). "Johny" sounded so nice when sung. I hope he heard :) They also gave us some awesome gluvine.

You could also write a wish and hang it on this big beautiful tree.

"Verdriet" (translation below)

Huilen is een van onze
vele wonderbaarlijke
ingebouwde
genezingsmechanismen

Als we de kracht
en moed hebben
om onszelf met onze emoties
te confronteren
en ze als een deel
van ons zelf te zien
dan kunnen we
onze onverwerkte zaken verwerken
en een voller
en gelukkiger
leven leiden

Een mens is pas in staat
om werkelijk hulp te geven
als zijn opgedroogd
en de storm
van zijn woede
is gaan liggen

"Grief"
(loosely translated)

Crying is one of our
many wonderful
inbuilt
healing mechanisms

If we force ourselves
to have courage
and confront
our emotions
and as a part
of seeing ourselves
we can
move on
to a fuller
and happier
life

Man is able
to really offer help
once his tears have dried
and the storm
--his anger--
has settled