and in the end, despair

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” – C.S. Lewis

Yesterday was the first day I ever thought it. Something horrible.

She knew. She must have known.

We never spoke about it. Just didn’t seem the thing. Out of respect? That’s what we told ourselves. Denial? Some of us did that too. We never said its name.

But maybe she wanted to. Maybe she needed to. Maybe we were the ones who couldn’t cope so we told ourselves she couldn’t either.

Where’s the comfort in that?

christopsomo

It was Christmas. I was twenty three, trying to make The Euro jealous and dating a man named Alex. Alex was from Volimes, a village on the island of Zakynthos. He was six years older than me, brain crushingly beautiful and an absolute ass. But he was a fantastic cook when I could only afford supermarket ramen.

In Greece the Christmas Fast is broken on Christmas Eve with Christopsomo, or the “bread of Christ.” It’s meant to be a round loaf with a very subtle licorice flavor but I use standard loaf pans and, not being a fan of licorice, I leave out the mastic gum (the dried resin of a Mediterranean tree which gives it the licorice taste) and add currants. (Recipe)

Traditionally the bread is decorated with strips of dough in an early form of the cross, or X, with ends that split or curl into circles. The Greek letter X, or chi, is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ and was used as an early abbreviation. Hence the word Xmas. The baking of the bread is a sacred tradition in Greek Orthodox homes and the care with which it’s made is said to ensure the well-being of the home in the year to come.

Read: The Odyssey, Homer

a little space, you know

OUT of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

(Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour, carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;
Be not impatient—a little space—Know you, I salute the air, the ocean and the
land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)

farewell, artemidorus

(above) Assyrian sculpture and Balawat Gates (11th – 8th centuries BC)

Whenever we visit the British Museum The Euro spends most of his time in Room 4, which is where all the Egyptian sculpture is, mostly just staring at the Rosetta Stone. My favourite is the Ancient Assyrian (modern northern Iraq) exhibits. Large stone sculptures and reliefs were a feature of the palaces and temples of ancient Assyria. An entrance to the royal palace of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) at Nimrud was flanked by two colossal winged human-headed lions. A gigantic standing lion stood at the entrance to the nearby Temple of Ishtar, the goddess of war. This is one of a pair of lions that flanked the doorway in the throne room of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-359 BC). They were suppose to provide magical protection for the building.

(above) Etruscan Sarcophagus (3000 BC – 1st century BC)

The Etruscans flourished between the eighth and first centuries BC and were famed in antiquity for being devoutly religious, for their metalworking, their love of music and banqueting, and the independence they allowed their women. There’s a sarcophagus called the Sarcophagus of the Spouses in The National Etruscan Museum in Rome that’s made of terracotta and dates back to the 6th century BC that I adore. This one’s only slightly less lovely.

(above) Roman Imperial Mosaic Panel (3rd Century)

A mosaic panel from a fountain basin excavated in Carthage. Jets of water stream from the mouth; a water outlet beneath it has been filled with white tesserae. It’s of the sea-god Oceanus. In classical antiquity, Oceanus was believed to be the world-ocean. In Greek mythology, this world-ocean was personified as a Titan. Not quite as eye catching as he appears in the Trevi Fountain, but you don’t miss it.

(above) Mummy case portrait panel of Artemidorus (AD 100-120)

Just a beautiful example of merging of cultural influences: a Greek personal name, a Roman-style portrait, together with traditional Egyptian funerary practices. The mummy case is painted in encaustic, a mixture of pigment and beeswax with a hardening agent like resin or egg. Below the portrait is a falcon-collar and a series of traditional Egyptian funerary scenes applied in gold leaf. The largest of these shows the god Anubis attending the mummy, which lies on a lion-shaped bier flanked by goddesses (probably Isis and Nephthys). The god Osiris himself is also depicted on a bier, awakening to new life.

The identity of the dead man is preserved in a short, mis-spelled Greek inscription across the breast, which reads: ‘Farewell, Artemidorus’.

(above) Roman Portrait Panel (80-120AD)

Another portrait panel. This time, sans mummy or case. It’s of a naked young Roman with curly hair. The portrait was painted on limewood in encaustic and tempera.

(above) Roman Portrait Panel (2nd Century)

A final Roman portrait panel. This time tempera on oak. The portrait is of a bearded man wearing white tunic with purple clavi. It was donated to the British Museum by Sir Robert Ludwig Mond, a Lancashire chemist and archaeologist. Mond did work with Howard Carter and was involved in the preservation of the tomb of Ramesses

(above) Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty)

My favourite of the Egyptian Sculptures. The head from a monumental quartzite statue of Amenhotep III wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt. Amenhotep III was the grandfather of Tutankhamun and ruled Egypt for more than 36 years. The head originally topped off one of a set of statues that stood around the courtyard of his funerary temple at Kom el-Hettan, near Luxor. In the early 19th century the British collector Henry Salt bought the head, together with a second head from the same site, and both ended up in the British Museum.

londinium

From Top: Westminster, Tower of London, British Museum, Saint Pauls Cathedral, Equestrian Statue, City of London School, London Eye, Tower Bridge.

If anyone can tell me the who what and where of the equestrian statue, please do. For some reason I’m thinking its outside the Houses of Parliament hanging out with William and Richard. Or the Horse Guard. I’m probably wrong on both counts.

mal du pays

A field in Cheshire. Next to our old Sunday Pub. I always want to sing “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” whenever I pass it. You wouldn’t know from all the fleurs – but it was bitchin cold that day. This, the explanation for why my face looks like a rubber mask. I hardly recognise myself. Still, I love this photo. It reminds me of things.

stop crying your heart out

The very worst days of my life were also the very best. Being miserable and exhilarated at the same time. Standing on the of corner of Princess Street, looking up at a sky that tried to be light but couldn’t and thinking “This is you, all by yourself…and every bit of it is wonderful.”

Oasis always reminds me of those early days in Manchester, when I first kicked off the hills and became myself.

acting and writing et al.

“I trained as an actor in New York, and one discipline I studied was the Stanislavski technique, the basis of which is to live truthfully in the imaginary circumstances. That is what I try to do when I write. I set up an imaginary world, and try to let the characters live truthfully in that world.” DeLauné Michel

The Euro and I talk a lot about the interplay between acting and writing. It was the Chekhov-Stanislavski connection that finally made him realize what I was trying to do as a writer wasn’t so very different from what he was trying to do as an actor. And that, maybe, I wasn’t as nonplussed by his art as he imagined me to be.

His emotional engineering and mechanics of expression are much more concrete, much more tangible than mine. He uses his body, his face, his physical voice. Engages the real eye and not just the mind’s eye. He’s all about immediate interactions and reactions and sussing out wants and needs and objectives. In this last regard he’s become freakishly Freudian.

I don’t have his talent. His stage presence, or his life presence. And when it comes to certain communications, I don’t do physical or verbal very well. Lines drawn on paper and algorithmic keystrokes that turn 1s and 0s into meaning…those are my choice emotional mediums. I accomplish more with writing than I ever do with speaking. With writing, I can make you understand. When I speak I often lose all train of thought and any eloquence I might possess. I may as well beat both our heads against a brick wall. It would be more satisfying and we could get on with things quicker.

So, we talk a lot about acting and writing these days. The truths that join them both. And agree even through our disagreeance that he is perfectly suited for one and I the other. We also eat a lot of chocolate.

prospects and recollections.

Flynn and I are going on a mini-break next month. The last time we were together we were both living in the North of England. I was working for the Crown Prosecution Service and she was studying literary criticism and pulling pints in the Northern Quarter. I have some vague recollection of looking at bones and mummies…anthropological brain candy.

Images, compliments Flynn and me, were all taken at Carl Sandburg’s home, Connemara. There’s something very comforting about Connemara. Like it’s waiting to be someone’s Walden Pond. Like it was.

When Sandburg died, his wife, Paula, just up and left. She took nothing with her. The house remained as it always was, donated to the National Park Service.

i dont know how i ever fly

I have the loveliest back garden. With climbing ivy and purple flowers and white hydrangeas and a massive rose bush covered in little yellow sprays. Two tomato trees I’m determined to grow. My mother grew hundreds. Quite literally, hundreds. I can grow two. Probably not.

I thought, for a moment, back in May, I’d like to have tanned legs this summer. That thought came back to haunt me. The legs remain, as ever, poultry-coloured.

The tops of my neighbours’ houses, lined up all symmetrically, remind me of Brighton Beach houses. This makes me smile.

I want a hammock. Something bright and colourful. To swing in and catch Vitamin D in and just be all good-feeling in. But I don’t want ticks in my hair. Ticks terrify me. I use to love sleeping in the grass. I don’t do that anymore. Ticks are why.

Maybe I’ll put up a massive Moroccan canopy instead. I saw something like this once, at a friend’s house in Greece. It shaded patios and pillows and pools. Books about espionage. I could do nothing but sit beneath it until it got too hot for me to sit any more. With a tea set my mother gave me.

There’s always the problem of the sun, of course. My splotchy hands – my leopard spots. And that fat ole Robin that keeps mistaking my hat for a nest.