Reminiscing

2009 started out with a mild, Spring like day that invited walking around town in an unbuttoned coat with camera around my neck, and rope in hand, with two pups in tow. We meandered, followed our noses and impulses with no particular plan in mind while I collected whatever caught my eyes in our "City Dipherent" in the lovely "Land of Enchantment."

The very next night at home, I fell down the stairs in response to the yodeling of my luck bringing black Pretty Kitty who indicated he was about to throw up, thrice! All I was able to think was 'not on my freshly laundered white cotton/linen couch covers!' In my attempt to race down to chase the cat off the sofa I slipped and tumbled down the stairs helplessly until I hit bottom. (Is there a message of sorts hidden in hitting bottom?) It took me a moment to gather myself and praise God-dess for being able to move and  for having no worse injuries then one deeply bruised and battered lateral thigh. The thoughts though that assaulted my mind, the feelings of vulnerability, the worries, the shock, the what ifs were intense. 

Following that, I gave myself permission to drown in a to me brand new novel, Shantaram. What an amazing, outstanding, poetic, sensitive, insightful and exotic read! Essentially it is a tale of father/son love, or the lack of and hope for. Such inspired countless adventures in to very rough terrain, such as an escape from an Australian prison, life inside the slums of Bombay, an Indian group of Mafiosos, illegal weapons trade with trekking through Afghanistan, and all along an infatuation with a Germanic woman, to name a few only. While it is a fascinating read, sprinkled with poetic gems of pure writing genius, it is also a very heavy, but spell binding subject matter that offers profound insights and questions in to human nature and motivation with seeming sincerity and deep probing. A diamond no longer in the rough, but  cut from the intense human experience of the writer himself, very well worth the read. 

Originally posted 1.11.09, which so reminds me of 9.11.01 and the many changes since.