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Friday, February 5, 2016

Tribute to my wife


" In your life you touched so many, In your death many lives were changed"
  Melinda Jones

Sibelius Violin Concerto describes our stories over the span of two years: Your illness and the struggle with the pain, our sad and happy moments, the tragic moments of your passing away. But mostly our love, your beauty and kindness.

Rest in peace My Love...



Monday, February 1, 2016

Without You

Since YOU passed away, each and every day it feels like being lost forever in the dark winter forest ...cold, dark, empty, lonely, forever..

Without,
YOU, home feels like a house

YOU, my days are empty

YOU, my hours are lonely

YOU, my laughter is sour

YOU, everything I get doesn't make me happy

YOU, the victory doesn't taste sweet

YOU, Happiness is not complete 

YOU, Sadness feels like forever.......

If,
I fail, I have no one to comfort me

I succeed, I have no one to celebrate with

Now,
Each day I pray for YOU

Each day I struggle without YOU, try my best for our children, I hope and pray that one day they will become everything YOU wished

Each day I wish I was a better person for YOU, regrets I have so many, It's something I must live with everyday

Each day I remember all the beautiful memories we had

Each day I remember YOUR beautiful and kind soul

Each day, I try to change who I use to be..to be a better person, better parent

Each day, I try to fight the demons inside me....


Sometimes,
At night, the pain squeezes my heart so hard

The places we have been to becomes sad

The things we use to do are hard to repeat

I feel so lost I don't know what I'm doing....


Love,
I will try my best to make you proud..
I will raise our children and tell them stories of their mother..
I will visit your grave often..
I will keep you inside me forever

Love,
If I have to let you go, I pray that God will put you in a beautiful garden of Eden..and the chance to see you again..IN ETERNITY..

 

 
 
 



 

 



 



Thursday, July 25, 2013

Notes from Beautiful Bookstores

Shakespeare & Company - Paris


This bookstore is located in 37 Rue de la Bûcherie, Paris, France. Opened in 1951 by George Whitman. It was originally named "Le Mistral" but renamed to "Shakespeare and Company" in April 1964 in tribute to Sylvia Beach, who founded the original bookstore in 1919. That bookstore was closed in 1940. The bookstore is probably the most photographed bookstore in the world. Simply the centrum of all book lovers. The place Henry Miller calls A Wonderland of Books.  

One afternoon, when I visited the bookstore, it was busy with the book lovers that came from all around the world. People did not come here just to buy books, they exchanged their admiration for books and asked the shopkeepers about the writers that frequented the store. Just by entering the doors, you can undoubtedly see that this is more than just your normal bookstore. The spirit of literature lives here. On the first floor, there is a piano room, where someone was playing while others were sitting around and reading. It was truly magnificent sight. Spiritual. 



The room with Notre Dame view
In the other room on the first floor, there is a table with typing machine on it. The window in front of the table is open with a view of Notre Dame. Here the visitors can sit down and read antiquarian books of English literature.

This bookstore also have lots of philosophy to it. The most notable is written on the first floor wall at the entrance to the Sylvia Beach Memorial Library: "Be not inhospitable to strangers less they be angels in disguise", as well as on the floor at the entrance: "Live for Humanity".

The writing on the windows shutters outside the store called "Paris Wall Newspaper": Some people call me the Don Quixote of the Latin Quarter because my head is so far up in the clouds that I can imagine all of us are angels in paradise, and instead of being a bonafide bookseller I am more like a frustrated novelist. This store has rooms like chapters in a novel and the fact is Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are more real to me than my next door neighbours and even stranger to me is the fact that even before I was born Dostoyevsky wrote the story of my life in a book called 'The Idiot' and ever since reading it I have been searching for the Heroine, a girl called Natasia Filipovna. One hundred years ago, my bookstore was a wine shop hidden from the Seine by an annex of the Hotel Dieu Hospital which has since been demolished and replaced by a garden. Further back in the year 1600, our whole building was a monastery called 'La Maison du Mustier'. In medieval times each monastery had a frere lampier whose duty was to light the lamps at nightfall. I have been doing this for fifty years, now it is my daughter turn."

The original store, which doubled as a library, publisher and boarding house for aspiring writers, was featured in Ernest Hemingway's memoir - A Moveable Feast. The store was also featured in the Richard Linklater film Before Sunset, in the Nora Ephron film Julie & Julia and in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris. The notable writers that passed through the doors, included the writers of the Beat Generation, such as Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Ray Bradbury, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lawrence Durell, Tead Jones and James Baldwin. During the original shop times, writers from Lost Generation, such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The new generation of writers that participated in literary festivals or readings  hosted by the bookstore included: Paul Auster, Marjane Satrapi, Jung Chang, Martin Amis, Hanif Kureishi, Siri Hustvedt, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer.











Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen - Maastricht 

Entrance
This bookstore is located in Dominicanerkerkstraat 1, Maastricht, Netherlands. Often times quoted as the most beautiful bookstore in the world. The bookstore is built in a 700 year old former Dominican church. The original church was built in 1294. The church was closed in 1794 by Napoleon Bonaparte's army and spent some of the next two centuries abandoned and neglected. 

 The building has seen various uses since it was closed, from warehouse and archive to bicycle shed. The 13th century church was transformed into bookstore by Amsterdam architects Merkx+Girod, who chose modern black steel shelving and fashionable furniture, including a cross-shaped reading table to compliment the church's renovated vaulted ceilings, ornate arches and decorative frescoes.

These days, Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen, houses a three storey bookshelf complete with staircases, elevators and walkways. 


The reading table and cafe
When I visited this bookstore, it was full of people from around the world, not just there to buy books, but to enjoy the beauty of the store. Truly one of a kind. While most of the books are in Dutch, there is decent English collections as well as children books, and nice cafe. 


I took some time to marvel around and search trough its shelves. Found few good books and bought it together with few bookmarks. It's a great place to be if you are a book lover. 



Inside the bookstore







  

Friday, June 21, 2013

The House of Eternal Death

The House of Eternal Death
by Ernest Hadinoto


Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark
                             And shares the nature of infinity
                                    - William Wordsworth





A man was hanging from a tree close to the edge of the forest. The wanderer saw the figure from afar as he worked his way through the field straining to see through the blowing snow. It was barely visible. Upon reaching the edge of the forest, the body was no longer there. My vision must have wronged me, the wanderer thought, or my mind is playing tricks on me. It was the tiredness perhaps, walking for hours in the freezing cold, numb face chilled by the wind, hands cringed.

It was a cold and dark winter. Wind was hauling across a snow covered ground. Everything looked black and white with no single soul around. The wanderer was weak from the long arduous journey. Now that the night was almost near, the wanderer was desperate. He needed to find a place to rest quickly, before the winter froze him to death. He gathered all his strength and entered the thick dark forest.

There was small wooden house that stood in the clearing, withered and run down so badly even the shutters hung at an angle.Behind the house, the giant oak trees bending over almost took over the house. To all appearances, it had been abandoned by the look of half opened door. The wanderer opened the door and went in. Dust lay over every surface and there was a strong bad odor. There was a rotting chair and table stained with lichen, an old rustic wooden bed, a cracked mirror on the wall and fireplace. This would be sufficient for the night he thought. The snowing has stopped and the wind has calmed as he went out to gather some dry wood for the fireplace.

While gathering the branches of an old dead tree, he saw a girl on a swing not too far from where he was standing. What is she doing at this time alone in the woods he thought. Probably she lives nearby. When he finished gathering the sticks, he saw that the girl had disappeared along with the swing, how strange he thought. The atmosphere in the woods was filled with eerie stillness now that the hauling wind had stopped. He shook off that feeling and went back inside, closed the door, put on a fire and cooked some soup in a bowl.

He noticed some carvings on the door, of which at first, because of the dirt on it, he was able only to distinguish the letter "E". He swept the dirt with his sleeve away and succeeded to decipher the inscription. It said "Evil".

As the night fell, and the fireplace did not bring enough light inside, he tried to get some sleep. He suddenly felt that the air was heavy and tense with pressure, something was present in this place and it was evil, it felt like something wanted him out in that very moment. 

But what choice did he have, it was too dark and too cold to go outside and yet this feeling was so strong. What I am to do he thought. Staying here is my only option. Again, he tried to sleep, as he turned to the side, right there in the cracked mirror, he caught the glimpse of himself and just when he was about to close his eyes, suddenly he saw that the reflection of his was looking at him with a diabolical sneer. Dire consternation overtook him.  

On the spur of the moment, his chest felt hard, something was on top of him. His vision became indistinct, his heart was throbbing hard and he was fighting to catch his breath. He was not able to move his body as the evil was pulling his soul from his body. He struggled so hard that all his energy left in his body. Finally he screamed and abruptly ran out of the house as the evil let go of him.

He ran to the woods, in sheer terror he saw people hanging from trees everywhere he looked. They were looking at him and laughing, the entire forest was filled with sinister laughter. He ran and ran until he came a upon field, where hundreds of men were hanging alive by the ribs to gallows, crying, howling and writhing in pain. There was nowhere to go, no place to hide. Paniced and terrified, he ran back to the house, away from all the monstrosities, back into the mouth of evil.   

He fell to the floor as he ran into the house, his head slapping on the dirt, bleeding a little and shivering, he heard the door slammed behind him. He was in the dark momentarily until the entire room was covered in light. It was a different place now. It was a house with a long hallway and to the left and the right were chambers. Right then, two men dressed in black hoods wearing plague doctor masks picked him up and dragged him forward. He tried to lose himself but to no avail. He cried and screamed uncontrollably. His words "Let me go" barely made any sense. The men ignored him. 

They took him to the first chamber, he saw a man roped to a rack with two men wearing black hood turning the handle and the ropes pulling the man's arms until he heard a loud crack of bones with the man screaming in anguish and the tortures laughing. Behind the tortured man, three heads were displayed on a spikes, with maggots crawling out of the face's skin.

They dragged him to the next chamber where a woman's limbs were stretched out along the spokes and the wheel was slowly revolving. The woman was beaten with iron hammer through the openings between the spokes. She was in such pain that her mouth was wide open trying hard to let the pain out, but no words came out.

Then they took him to adjacent chamber in which two women were spread-eagled to a tabletop, their hands chained around the wrists and the bare feet chained around the ankles. The two torturers slowly drove skewers of wood into the flesh under one woman's toenails. The other woman nails were extracted by the torturer slowly. The wanderer could see the agonizing pain these women were in.

In the next chamber, a man's arms were tied to a pole above his head while his feet were tied below. The torturer was using small knife peeling off the man's skin slowly. In the left chamber, three men was suspended from poles, the torturers were lashing their backs. In the same room, there were another three men hanging from the ceiling with forks placed between the breast and throat just under the chin and secured with a strap around the neck. The orgies of bestiality and the monstrosities of suffering was too terrible for the wanderer to contemplate. There was no hope for salvation. He almost fainted.   

Finally, the wanderer was taken into a chamber where three iron cabinets were standing upright. There were two men in brown hoods wearing goat masks. One of them was sitting behind a bench and the other was shouting and pointing at the wanderer from his desk, but he could not hear his voice. After all the shouting, the man behind the bench, pointed to a roof, where a rope was hanging.

In that instant, he was transported back to the room of the cottage, but it was a different place now. There was a light right in the center of the room, where stood a chair and directly above was a rope hanging from a tie-beam. He felt enormous pressure in his chest, something was inside him, a vicious energy that overtook his mind, it was taking him towards the chair, he felt hopelessness, despair, tremendous pain and sadness. Unrelenting darkness was within him while he ascended the chair. He heard whispers in his mind telling him to tie the noose around his neck. He followed the whispers and the evil pushed him off the chair. As he drifted into unconsciousness, he saw the whole terror and suffering of tortures flashing before him once again. Death had come to him with chains of infinity. He died a grisly death.


A year passed by, seasons changed, another poor soul entered the house of eternal death. 



Note: My first attempt at writing. Some grammatical errors may be there. Comments are welcomed.