Thread: Just a bit of Prose (I think you may call it...)

...Taken from an email to a friend. Just rambling, but I like the imagery and where it went. It actually says a lot, although it may not be apparent. Wisbech, in England, is where I was born. That fact, and the fact I moved to Australia when I was two and having a German father, English mother and the French grand-mother always made me confused about 'what' I should call my self (it appears we need labels). I post it regardless by way of conversation. One should just say stuff sometimes and cop the flack regardless, we should just be us and dispense with role playing. I'm reading Martin Buber on the bus to work at the moment. That guy knows stuff. Great philosopher. I love philosophy. Too much, maybe; which is why I write rubbish like what you see below. You can blame Martin...

I often dream of Wisbech where I was born. I don't remember it of course, though I have some pictures. The dreams entail glimpses of yellow, sandy, crescent shaped bays (like one would see in a Dick and Dora book: 'Father promised to take us to the bay if it was fair, where we would build a sand castle with bucket and spade and watch the yachts in the bay'; one needs to introduce the tricky word 'yacht' at some point; often in conjunction with 'quay') from a 'front room' window, where we are having afternoon tea of (of course) tea and very very small sandwiches (tiny ones; really very small). We wander down to the bay and the dream ends. I never end up swimming and always wake up depressed with the untidy, messy, un-ordered Australian landscape with untidy road verges and nary a cobblestone or properly trimmed hedge in sight. Let alone a tea cup; heaven forbid. A lady at work commented to me the other day 'I like your elegant tea set' in regard to my small glass tea pot and vintage tea cup (I was making 'Dragon's Eye' tea; hand rolled White Tea in Hibiscus flowers; little balls that un-ravel in a most elegant way; visible in all their understated glory through the tea pot glass; slightly floating; almost ethereally in the darkening light-tan coloured infusion). I replied 'Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment' She said 'It was meant as one', demonstrating a little uncertainty now at her comment. So then I felt uncertain. And left. Carrying my little glass teapot infusing hand rolled herbs (allegedly, one should say; I mean, where's the proof? Could be a machine that's employed for all I know; which might actually be better; you don't know where those hands have been) back to my desk and spooned creamed honey (it's less messy) into my tea cup thinking that maybe I felt like an idiot.

At least you are dreaming of events related to your life. For some time now I have been dreaming of people, places and events that have, in no way, any conceivable relation to my everyday, or even fantasy, life. In some I am me and in too many I am someone else doing something entirely foreign to me. I am not even sure that English was being spoken in these dreams, although if not, I understood exactly what was being said. In waking mode I like myself, so they are not escapist dreams. I am beginning to think that for some reason I am having other peoples dreams, acting in an overload capacity for someone, that night, that is having an over abundance of dreams.

Hmmm. Escapist dreams. Don't you love having them, but hate having HAD them? You know that feeling on awakening? Just a moment of niceness and comfortableness followed by stark, real, annoying, burr in the sock like depressing reality.

Who are you? What are you?

I love this quote from Buber:
'The way he says I -- what he means when he says I -- decides where a man belongs and where he goes.' and;

'The It-world hangs together in space and time. The You-world does not hang together in space and time.'

Didn't you say once that your father refused to take you to the zoo or circus or something? That which you are describing sounds like an idealised version of a childhood from the famous five or swallows and Amazon's or gerald durrell, the sort of childhood filled with endless summer's in a country where summer doesn't mean getting cooked if you stay out for too long, but a country with soft grass and un-dangerous animals, with dens in trees, and.staying.out until dusk, which can get pretty late.
Don't feel an idiot, just remember that not everyone is employing sarcasm when they compliment you. Those little tea balls are like a little bit of hope or promise, Round and incomplete until they bathe in the glory of your teapot where they blossom and become what they are meant to be.
Life would be much easier if we were all tea balls.

You commentary is insightful, Carl.

Originally Posted by edhewitt

Didn't you say once that your father refused to take you to the zoo or circus or something? That which you are describing sounds like an idealised version of a childhood from the famous five or swallows and Amazon's or gerald durrell, the sort of childhood filled with endless summer's in a country where summer doesn't mean getting cooked if you stay out for too long, but a country with soft grass and un-dangerous animals, with dens in trees, and.staying.out until dusk, which can get pretty late.
Don't feel an idiot, just remember that not everyone is employing sarcasm when they compliment you. Those little tea balls are like a little bit of hope or promise, Round and incomplete until they bathe in the glory of your teapot where they blossom and become what they are meant to be.
Life would be much easier if we were all tea balls.

You're exactly right. Loved the Amazons and Swallows books as a child. Also love your analogy of the tea balls. Any yeah, I have to get to a stage where I don't second guess what people are saying to me...