"Sucking the world into her camera in rectangular pieces..."

Some more beautiful writing from "In a Strange Room" by Damon Galgut, a S. African writer.  The title is a quote from William Faulkner ("As I lay Dying"): "In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were."

***

"He has always had a dread of crossing borders, he doesn't like to leave what's known and safe for the blank spaces beyond in which anything can happen. Everything at times of transition takes on a symbolic weight and power. But this too is why he travels. The world you're moving through flows into another one inside, nothing stays divided any more, this stands for that, weather for mood, landscape for feeling, for every object there's a corresponding inner gesture, everything turns into metaphor. The border is a line on a map, but also drawn inside himself somewhere."

***

"A journey is a gesture inscribed in space, it vanishes even as it's made. You go from one place to another place, and on to somewhere else again, and already behind you there is no trace that you were ever there. The roads you went down yesterday are full of different people now, none of them knows who you are. In the room you slept in last night a stranger lies on the bed. Dust covers over your footprints, the marks of your fingers are wiped off the door, from the floor and table the bits and pieces of evidence that you might have dropped are swept up and thrown away and they never come back again. The very air closes behind you like water and soon your presence, which felt so weighty and permanent, has completely gone. Things happen only once and are never repeated, never return. Except in memory."

***

"They walk and swim and Anna takes hundreds of photographs, clicking the shutter voraciously, sucking the world into her camera in rectangular pieces, the fishing boats on the sea, the sun rising and setting, drops of water on dark skin, the faces of people passing by."

***

"Lives leak into each other, the past lays claim to the present."
 Or as William Faulkner also wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Heartache and strife

Some beautiful writing from "Tinkers" by Paul Harding:

"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? .. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough."

(...)

"Howard resented the ache in his heart. He resented that it was there every morning when he woke up, that it remained at least until he had dressed and had some hot coffee, if not.. until his rounds were done, if not until he fell asleep at night, and if his dreams were not tormented by it. He resented equally the ache and the resentment itself. He resented his resentment because it was a sign that he understood that such was each man's burden. He resented the ache because it was uninvited, seemed imposed, a sentence, and, despite the encouragement he gave himself each morning, it baffled him because it was there whether the day was good or bad, whether he witnessed major kindness or minor transgression, suffered sourceless grief or spontaneous joy."

Sales and purchases

Was in hospital, but now I'm recovering. Then my camera decided to give up the ghost (and nobody is prepared to operate on that!), so I bought a new one but am having trouble getting to grips with it, even though it's only a little automatic of the same brand as the old one, which I bought in Japan at least 7 years ago. I don't know why it is, but everything manufacturers seem to think is an improvement, I usually find to be a backward step - and I never discover these things until after buying the item: for example, my old camera had a "bump" you could hold on to, while I've almost dropped the new one several times because it's so thin. It's a pretty colour, though (turquoise)! I'm taking my new purchase to the seaside tomorrow and for a ride on the Coast Tram, I hope there will be something interesting to photograph.

The summer sales start here on 1 July, but I don't think I like the sound of what this shop is proposing! I think they mean they are slashing prices, not sure what the crow has to do with that...