Tales @ MindSay

 

Dear World,

 

 

Are things taking a turn? I finalized myself with rational thoughts to get myself in a finished mindset, and something just falls into my lap to change all of that all over again. Is this irony? Karma? Fate? I'll have to see. At least now, though, I think I'm finally breaking through the glass that's holding me in place. Maybe now, I'm finally able to see.

This entry wasn't supposed to make sense.

 

 

Sincerely,

      Nikolas

What can I say about my journey? I want to write, but every time I sit down to describe my experiences I just can't quite get it out. Yesterday I sat down to write about the little Chinese woman in the Malaysian  post office who was so kind to me. But how do I describe her tiny voice and Chinese accent, how she batted my hands away and insisted on repacking my boxes so I would get a better rate and, when the weight was just a tenth of a gram over, she ignored it and wrote that it weighed just 5kgs instead.

How can I explain the things I've seen and been a part of when they are such tiny moments every day. So many tiny moments and I don't know if you would "get" them--or if I can even describe why they are so profound.

And also, there is this sense that the outward journey isn't the importent part. That as great and amazing and wonderful (and sometimes terrible, uncomfortable and frightening,) as it all is that these things are only ephemeral and that the really importent journey is that which is occuring  within myself. I've compared my journal with that of the other bloggers and worried that I wasn't giving enough detail to the outward features of my journey. What exactly it was like to spend ten hours on a government bus from jodhpur to jaisalmer.  How I sat with five other people on a metal bench made for three and how a kind man tried to kill me by forcing me to eat uncounted bananas.

How I sat next to an old man with a little girl, no more than eight or nine years old man who I thought was his daughter until I noticed the toe rings, anklets and gold bangles of a bride. She had the mehendi, too. How I camped in the desert with the Raika, in the center of 200 men and was never hassled (but they prayed outside my tent at 4AM every morning under the full moon.

How my driver in South India took care of me like a daughter. Or how I lived for a month in a hotel in the family's apartment, taking my meals with them and helping their daughter with her homework. Why haven't I been able to put these stories into words? I'm so afraid their record will be lost.

DARK CITY

 

I was born in what I use to call a prostitute of a city christened Petropolis, stucked in the middle of the mountains of Rio de Janeiro, which name derives from an aristocratic bastard, whose family flew from Portugal, centuries ago, afraid of Napoleon, and settle in this country, which continues to suffer today with our present leftist government, not exclusively because it is leftist, but because it is dumb and blind and deaf. And corrupt, let us add. (Of course, the people, who still believes, is to blame, also!). 

The family of that aristocratic bastard is still around, charging people for every house or terrain someone buys or sells in this city, their members absolutely mad, victims of the weakness caused by centuries of incest. Of course, the real victims of these vampires are us, the citizens, who did not ask our forefathers to come to this land and make us born here. Well, things are what they are...

You know one of the reasons this ´Imperial City´ is famous? Because, back in the 40´s, a famous Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig, came to live here. Not much of a writer, compared to other heavy names of literature, herr Zweig chose our ´marvelous´ city for a reason: commiting suicide, alongside his second wife, on February 1942, right after Carnival!

Quite a reason to be proud, huh?! The guy comes here, running from the Nazis, only to find a city which surrounding landscapes depresses him even more, leading him to suicide. And people around here are proud of such a thing...!!!

Am I crazy? Am I a bad son of this town, which gave me to light? Whatever. But I tell you this, man, I tell you this...I´m not Jim Morrison but before all the crap hits the fan, I wanna´get my kicks...if I still can, for that matter!

 

Howdy Howdy all! Well I totally miss my digital camera and finally went to get my photos from the photoshop and it was expensive considering I am used to just downloading the photos for free so there it is. Well here are some of the pics... Now You should know that we are a hunting sorta crowd so there may be pics of pigs and deer being prepared (like skinned and such).

 

Here is a pic of the many turnip greens that my cousin brought over from his mom's garden. I forgot to get some to bring back with me, darn it!

 

 

Here is one of the wretched Hogpin that seems to fascinate the young'uns....

Here is a great one of new puppy that my Aunt took in who is named Zapata (don't ask LOL) Here is mom and Aunt Rachel, mom is the one with the Retirement cash on her lapel....

 

Here is one of my Nephew Trey (the kid on the left) 16, mom 53, and Man- his nickname (17) and cousin Marc in the background. They went hunting but didnt bring home anything.

 

 

 

Here is one of Mom and my Niece cutting a rug, check out Mom's concentration and the Santa hat (dont ask and NO she isnt drunk LOL)

 

 

 

Here is one of my favorite time of the evening in Mississippi, we sit around the fire and tell tall tales. Sorry about the picture quality ya'll, sigh...I miss my digital camera....

 

 

that's all for now ya'll, I'll post some more photos later....

How about some poetry...here...goes...(you're on my mind)

 

How Folklore Starts

It was during the year when masterpiece was not impossible
but increasingly unlikely — this one — when I heard the announcer
say William Berg's Mass for Three Horses instead of three voices.

 

At the time I thought, fabulous, this could turn everything around.

 

The beautiful oven of the August Gulf is seen best from Wisconsin.
Too much hot metal to touch, too many hopes heaped on impossible,
the clippings of which are faded and worn through from your wallet.

 

A good title but hopeless when I heard them actually harmonizing
not like horses at all, but rhymes like little bells ringing in words
to no purpose but attention to themselves, scaffolds, not Appaloosas.

 

What more could be done to prepare that story.

 

After currying, grooming, dressing for dinner in new shoes,
something swirls offshore in overheated uncertainty. You can hear hooves
in the gathering clouds, pawing to begin, a fugue in alternating names.--Allan Peterson

 

Goddess Bless

I have always been drawn to folk tales. I love to learn about different cultures and their own folk tales and creatures.

A friend of mine brought this to my attention. Its a great link that describes in detail with neato illustrations the Japanese folk-tale creatures.

I give you: the Obakemono Project.

I rather like the Neko-mata & the Yuki-onna