Catherin Deneuve

The novel is based on a love story and it would appear quite an ordinary and typical triangle, but below the surface the author has developed a concept that is much more profound and complicated than the love affair itself. Lucile, the main character has been living with Charles, her 50-year-old lover and outstanding representative of the Parisian elite society, when she meets the handsome young Antoine and is powerfully drawn to him. Lucile’s choice between the two men in her life and the resulting consequences are the focus of the story line. It is the shattering dilemma whether to be true to herself and hurt others’ feelings or sacrifice her own feelings, whether to give up all the benefits of wealth in order to commit herself freely and openly to the man she loves or choose the safety and comfort of a rich life and lose the only one with whom she got to know the true meaning of love and passion. She chooses to follow her heart after all, but it proves the wrong decision for her. Eventually, her feelings are smothered by the mundane and trivial in a daily routine that lacks the sparkle and excitement of opulence. Finally, Lucile returns to the delicate, loving and understanding Charles for whom she feels genuine affection, but nothing of the powerful attraction she had for Antoine. Yet, this is not a victory of money over love. Money here is simply the means providing the freedom that Lucile desperately needs to be her real self.

The most interesting and valid point for me is the conclusion the main character draws inspired by a book she’s reading, William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, that it is idleness that allows us to indulge in introspection, to gain balance and concentrate on the simple pleasure of just breathing, being alive and being aware of it. Idleness in the sense of not being reduced to some boring job that drains out all your energy, idleness as opposed to having to earn one’s living doing something alien and incongruous with your natural predisposition.

Watercolours by my niece

I used to believe I was able to accept people as they are without judging them and without expecting them to change in order to suit my own needs.  Recently, however, I was put in a number of situations  which have all led to the same awareness: while being proud of my ability not to judge people, all the time in fact, I’ve been judging, criticizing and even condemning those who do not share my values. I’ve only been tolerant to the ones I like in general. What’s even worse, I’ve been incapable of forgiveness and as a result, I’ve accumulated a formidable amount of bitterness and offence that I’ve been carrying around in my soul for as long as I can remember.

The most striking of these situations that have caused me to realize I was only obscuring my harsh judgments under the pretence of being fair and objective was to do with the manager whom I’ve always despised as the most arrogant and self-centered person in the office. To cut a long story, I was asked to make a list of the employees who were to take advantage of some privilege and I made a silly mistake. I omitted someone from the list out of mere absent-mindedness. I could not explain how it happened, but it did. When it was found out that the person in question was missing from the list, the manager became furious and started shouting at my colleague who was not at all to blame. My first thought was to keep silent and let the manager calm down. Then immediately I reconsidered.  I could not let someone innocent be subjected to all this shouting and humiliation for what I did. I went into the manager’s office and, with my heart pounding like a drum, clearly stated that it was my fault. I’d expected him to go berserk and pour his frenzy all over me; I’d expected him to threaten to cut my salary for being so negligent, etc. Nothing of this happened. As soon as I announced I was the one to blame, his face expression changed to one of surprise, he changed the topic all of sudden and continued to shout about something absolutely irrelevant to the abovementioned list. He was obviously trying to shift the object of his anger. I felt even more ashamed, so I went quietly back to my office. In a few minutes, he was there with me, pacing restlessly to and fro as if trying to find the right words. It was so embarrassing that I couldn’t stand it and like a complete idiot I said, “Well, sometimes I lack good concentration”, to which he replied ardently protesting that all my translations were so painstakingly accurate and it was human to make mistakes. It was a shock to hear him defending me from my own criticism of myself…

I know the fact that he was so benevolent to me on this particular occasion does necessarily make him a nice person. It’s just that I realized I had been totally denying his positive side.  I’d kept my eyes and my heart closed to the good things he’s done for the company and the employees. I’d bitterly hated him for his negative features; I’d been gossiping and bitching about him maliciously with whoever was ready to join in. What right did I have to do that? What made me think I was far better than him?

Photo by Sylvia Stoyanova

It was this as well as a few other occasions that made me see how very little understanding and tolerance I had for what I considered contrary to my views. I allowed my outrage and negation to spread over the person instead of just disapproving of a single act or a line of behaviour. Once I became aware of that, I have stopped being so negative and life has become a little brighter. I believe I’ve become a bit wiser too.

Very often I feel the need to write something, just write. It is not related to the physical process of writing itself, but rather a necessity to unload something from my mind or my heart as if by putting it down I will manage to get relief, calm down and make space for new experiences.

The problem, however, arises when I sit down at my desk and I find myself unable to write anything.

I have established the reason for this phenomenon to occur. It is that every time the subject I’ve been meaning to write about suddenly appears insignificant. Somehow it seems ridiculous to describe trifles in writing and I tell myself not to be so petty. It feels like a waste of time and energy, a shame to engage my mind in minor matters when there are so much more important things in life. Then what I usually do is share the issue with someone, but the need to write still remains unsatisfied.

This is what comes to the surface, but on a deeper level I know it is because I have learned to suppress my emotions, the unwanted ones, but the effect has spread to almost all my emotions. I’ve become so skillful at it that now I find it difficult to identify my emotions, let alone write about them.

I must have mastered this skill at an early stage because I’ve already come to a point where the only thing I feel is emotional hunger. This is not easy to describe either, but the prevailing characteristic is the feeling of emptiness or shortage. Something important is missing, something critical, something I have banished, but off with it went away my vitality, my dreams, my zest for life.

At this point, I don’t know what it is. There is only the vague realization. But somehow I know this is what has blocked me so profoundly and every time I want to write I get stuck, I have nothing to write about because I’m full of something obscure and blurred that won’t pour out and won’t give way to the clear thoughts and emotions one needs to be creative…

Translating is rarely a boring occupation.  A text is never merely a text. It’s a living thing, it forms a relationship with me. There are texts that yield in so well and give me a sense of wholeness and integrity. There are other texts that stammer and stutter and sound incomplete no matter how hard I try. There easy-going, affable texts that leave me with a pleasant feeling and a smile on my face and solemn or excessively elaborate texts, on the other hand, that make me think the world is a complicated place.  Some texts are tricky as you think they’re light and good-humoured, but they turn out to be practically untranslatable into the target language.

One of these days I was given a little brochure to translate that was about some of the most remarkable monuments of Indian architecture. Shamefully, I had never heard of some before. So when I say translating is continuously broadening my mind, I mean it.

Here are some pictures that I like the most. I’m not posting any information about them as this is not the purpose of my post, but because they are magnificent I want to have them on my blog.

Click to view slideshow.

The reason I remembered this, however, is that two things happened in May which still have me contemplating. One is a novel I read by Viv entitled The Bet, and the other is the class reunion of my former students who graduated from school five years ago.  I will now concentrate on the class reunion because The Bet had such a powerful impact on me that it deserves to be the subject of an individual post.

For the complete course of secondary education I was the class teacher and English teacher of the above-mentioned students. I will never forget the very first day they came to school. Newcomers were supposed to be split into two classes and I was to take one of them. The other class was to be given to a colleague who was 15 years my senior and was known to be rather strict and easily irritated. What a terrible embarrassment I felt when all the new students lined up in front of me and none would like to enroll into my colleague’s class. That choice was far from being based on any high reputation of me as a teacher.  It was merely thanks to the fact that I was the younger teacher and I have this air of kindness about me that seems to attract people. Especially confused 14-year-olds on their first school day. Well, I spent the next almost five years (with the exclusion of the summer holidays) teaching those kids English and was at the same time daily involved in their problems, had to handle their misbehaviour, settle their arguments, speak in their defense before the school management, get calls from angry or alarmed parents and think about it all before I went to sleep at night. They were wild, aggressive, stubborn and always up to something, like most teenagers. Now they are 25 years old and most of them are university students with part time jobs.

When they invited me to their class reunion, I was reluctant to go. I thought it would make me feel old and stagnant, especially that I knew no other teachers would attend for different reasons. But I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t disappoint them. And I wasn’t given a single reason to regret it. I never felt old, ignored or left out. On the reverse. They somehow managed to integrate me in the entire thing and I honestly felt part of them, one of them actually. I was amazed at how frank and open they could be. All through the evening they told me hilarious stories about the crazy things they did at school, during trips and after classes. From my current point of view these are innocent pranks and tricks that all young people are up to, but then I thought they were really horrible. A lot of important things that happened at that time and had an impact on everyone in the class were now revealed to me from another perspective. I was also completely shocked to learn that one of the toughest machos in the class had attempted to commit suicide because of a girl he fell in love with. I was surprised that it was not the ones whom I had praised and tolerated because of their better skills, but it was the once uncontrollable and unreceptive almost hooligans with the harshest punishments imposed that held my hand longer when greeting me and took the opportunity to say how thankful they were. There were many unexpected confessions and revelations that made me wonder if those were really the same kids from five years ago.

In other words, I was amazed at how much had been going on behind my back and beyond my knowledge. And I suddenly realized, not without a feeling of sadness, that I’ve never really known them. From my teacher’s desk I only saw them as a class with a specific atmosphere and particular academic and behavioural issues and I was so devoted to fixing those, that many other important aspects had escaped my attention completely. I am grateful for coming to understand this and for the great time I had, but I can’t help wondering why is it that I am becoming aware of all that only now, three years after I’m done with teaching. What is the lesson I’m meant to learn? I still have a lot to think about.

I often regard helping others as being part of my karma because I was told so by a numerologist and, above all, because it is indeed that whatever changes occur in my life, I always end up in situations where my services are needed badly. Frequently, this is at the expense of my time and my own desires.

Lately, I’ve been thinking, however, that in helping others the most important thing is not to overdo it.

Probably the worst case of unbidden help I can remember is my university professor who taught us literature. Once I turned to him for advice and then for months I was unable to make him understand that it was all I needed. It seemed he had resolved to devote himself to helping me grow in my field and soon enough he became a real burden. There were numerous telephone calls, tedious conversations that took hours and plans were made for my future that had little to do with my own ambitions and intentions. What’s more, his commitment to helping me was so intense that it instilled a feeling of guilt and ingratitude in me because of my growing unwillingness to cooperate.

I am not an ungrateful person, quite on the contrary. But my professor’s behaviour was starting to annoy me more and more until there was a point when I felt nothing but contempt for him. Fortunately, this is all in the past now and I’ve recovered my respect for his professionalism.

One should have a sense of proportion and provide help within due measure. Otherwise, one simply turns into a nuisance and an intruder.

one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met whose friendship was like a violent shake by the shoulders to wake me up to who I really was at the time…

“In the castle of the harmless ghost, whom no one had ever seen, there was a heavy door and behind it spooky maze-like corridors meandered leading to parlours full of absences. The only exception was the clutter gallery where all sorts of vagaries lay scattered: books without texts, pictures without images, memories of what was never lived through and various useless items of a similar nature.

There amongst them stood the magic mirror. Whoever looked into it would always see themselves exactly the way they wanted to see themselves and could admire their perfect reflections undisturbed, so everyone went away in satisfaction, leaving new memories, illusions and longings in return.

Once a girl came who had a tiny piece of the blue sky in one of her dark brown eyes. She made grotesque faces and unseemly poses, but there was never a hint of ugliness in the mirror at all. She became very suspicious and when she looked really close, she was able to sense someone’s presence. There she found the ghost. He had no appearance or shape of his own but had taken after everyone who had had a look into the mirror. He had even copied the tiny piece of blue in the girl’s eye. He kept disintegrating most disgracefully, mouldering into dust and they soaring up in the air again forming himself differently. This weird behaviour continued endlessly and after watching for some time, the girl became so furious that she broke the mirror with a single blow.

Slowly, the ghost began to lose his resemblances to all the visitors and what was finally left was his own confused self. He was not handsome, neither was he strong or courageous, but he was so loving and gentle that the girl fell in love with him. And because he was now loved, he believed in himself and abandoned the safe comfort of the ghostly castle and was no longer so scared to become exposed to the pains and joys of a  real person’s life.”

It was on the way back that I saw the nest! A couple of storks. In my youth I could see them on church roofs, but nowadays the pollution and the hubbub of the city has chased them away. Whenever I saw a stork I used to feel happy and lucky. I really believe they bring good luck. Perhaps because they are a symbol of spring, or the earth awakening from the frost, of life itself.

It’s not a really good photo. The nest was too high up and the late afternoon was a bit gloomy, but still I’d like to have it here.

Honesty is unquestionably rated among the highest and most valuable virtues. And yet, we seem to honour it theoretically, but when it comes to telling the truth or hearing the truth our behaviour shows quite the opposite. Honest people are often regarded as either gullible or rude, inconsiderate and even hostile. We only appreciate the truth when it suites us. I came across this quotation and I believe it’s a fair observation:

“Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.”

~Lin Yutang

I’m not trying to justify my own lying. Even though my intentions are not evil, a lie is a lie by all standards.  Probably the worst of all is that once it is uttered, you start to believe in the lie. It becomes your reality and robs you of part of your life.

I am very gentle and compassionate, responsive to others’ needs, genuinely and disinterestedly helpful and I’ve gone out of my way to alleviate other people’s hardships, but I am not an honest person, obviously.

When I was little, my country was a socialist state and the materialistic ideology of socialism opposed all religious views and holidays. As a child I never knew Easter had anything to do with Jesus. In fact I never knew who really Jesus was until I entered the English Language School and in my third year I came across the New Testament in English. It really felt like reading some apocrypha.

The few people who dared to go to church and light up candles at Easter were usually elder men and women and we were told that they were old and senile and could not let go of their antiquated beliefs.

At that time, I only associated Easter with my extended family coming together for a big dinner. But traditions from the past had managed to survive and there were always coloured eggs and sweet bread for Easter.

That time has gone for good and I fully understand the true meaning of Easter now. But part of me will always stay at that tender age when my mom prepared home-made Easter bread. Nowadays we buy them from the supermarket, but back then it was such a big event. The whole building would smell of baking sugar, eggs and butter, everyone making their own sweet bread. It had thick crispy crust with melted sugar and sometimes nuts on top and the core was soft and yellow. Some would put raisins or caramelized orange peel pieces inside, or ground lemon skin for a change. But it was delicious in any case.

It could be that Easter bread reminds me so much of my carefree childhood and not really the taste of it, which is no longer the genuine thing, but I am still absolutely enamored with it!