Tuesday, February 27, 2007

A MAZE OF MISTY ISLANDS

When I feel a little down and out and suffer a bad air day I might do one of two things. My choice is usually attached to a fairly ruthless reflection upon my condition and the world. For example if I sense i am sick and going down with a kind of flu or cold I will take a cold water salt water swim in the sea and follow that up with a bum-burning curry. Anyway such has been my habit in the past and no bad habit either. But if the bad air day is more existential and pathetic I usually get myself back to something with the outdoor world. With this in mind I re-publish a little bit from one of my past books simply because I want to and will. Maybe you like it maybe you don't. Here goes :-

" The early morning two o'clock sky was silent. T slept and W too. K and I left. The canoes slipped silently into the sleeping waters causing small wake-up waves to ripple, which could, we imagine, cause some furry ears to twitch by the lakeside or a twist or two of owls' necks somewhere above. The silence remained and we went out to explore a maze of islands in the early morning mist.
The everyday world is brushed aside and the remaining twilight allows discovery as dark habit dissolves itself in the new defining light. "

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

ZoZoBear.............
Love it, thank you !
Bought back strong memories of all-night fishing.
However bad,sad or mad one felt, the sound of the water eased it.
Pitch black nights, and the rustling of the unknown.
The overwhelming peace that took over your soul.
Not, of course, as exciting as your version, but I do so miss it.......

zola a social thing said...

Yes LB : all night fishing must be much the same and the sounds of the waves and .....
I was born in a seaside town and maybe you were too.
Thanks for your poetics too.

Anonymous said...

" Pitch black tights, and the rustling of the unknown."
Lavenderblue : whatever next.

Anonymous said...

One lives in hope.........

anticant said...

Zola, you are an old meanie! I was just settling down to savour your evocative prose when the extract ended abruptly. Why such short commons? MORE, please! [sgd. Oliver]

Anonymous said...

I second that emotion.

zola a social thing said...

What can a person say after such nice comments?
Beware of that you wish for i say.
Small is beautiful and I have been thinking recently of the shortest way to express that emotion of beauty.
Thanks for your words anyway.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful images Zola. Thanks. My wife and I are avid kayakers and enjoy peaceful slips onto glassy lakes and bays as much as possible. Most of these are frozen here in Nova Scotia at the moment. So we try and make the most of what the Northern winter has to offer.

Farley Mowat offers me a lot of peace with prose like:

"Or the snow may be slanting swiftly down across a cluster of tents huddled below a rock ridge on the arctic tundra. Gradually it enfolds a pack of dogs who lie, noses thrust under bushy tails, until the snow covers them completely and they sleep warm. Inside the tents men and women smile. Tomorrow the snow may be deep enough and hard enough so that the tents can be abandoned and the welcome domes of snowhouses can rise again to turn winter into a time of gaiety, of songs, of leisure and lovemaking.

Somewhere the snow is falling"

Anonymous said...

1loneranger
oh how I envy you !
Lovely writing, as always.
Between you,ZoZoBear and Anticant we are spoilt.

zola a social thing said...

Happiness is sometimes a good paddle in peace ( paddling peacfully in the night streams).
Thanks for that oneloneranger who is certainly not alone as the missus will testify.
Great writing that from Mowat. I must try and read this stuff.

Anonymous said...

Zola-

Mowat's 'Never Cry Wolf'is a wonderful and evocative piece of the Canadian North. Snow Walker, a selection of shorts is very nice too. I've read you're in Lapland? Mowat's imagery transfers well there I'm sure. 'People of the Deer', is also a nice book of his.

Oh, now I long for a good paddle and night in a tent.

zola a social thing said...

This is interesting and I must try and write a post with this in mind.

I was sent a few years back a book by Wayland Drew called the " Halfway Man" and from 1989 and Canada.

I have not studied this book but I have loved many things in it,with it.

Thanks for HINTS (I think hints are the Northern ways mostly )and maybe outdoor type things are not so old fashioned.

It is just that we move sometimes better east-west than south-north. The arctic folk prefer east-west relations and cooperation.

Shame NATO does not agree!!!

Anonymous said...

Zola-

:) Well said.

I will add 'Halfway Man' to my ever-lengthening "List". Man, this is going to be a busy summer.

Hints and Stories. These are all we really have in the end no?

These facts are 'hinted' to us by those detached indigenous cultures encircling the upper reaches of our world. Lets hope they're able to keep hinting to us the way things used to be.

zola a social thing said...

you are not alone Ranger

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