Knowledge is like a sharp pain between the eyes. It throbs and hurts and makes us wince.

Awareness is a curse that will leave us naked in the worst of blizzards, shivering and begging for a break or a moment of sleep.

Growth is in the end nothing but the early stages of the final fall, necessary yet futile.

Sadness is a deep, dark lake into which we feel compelled to dive once in a while to wash off the sweat of brief happiness.

And words are just that. Words. They’ll occasionally get one drunk.

2006-12-06 20:49 • Posted in Schtroumpfissime: 3 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

• 1 - Vince says:
  
  

  « All right, here’s a comment to my own post (it’s like a « note to self » or something) :
  
  - And Joy is... a brand of dishwashing soap. »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-06 21:23 • Reply
• 2 - Newyorkangel says:
  
  

  « :-) »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-07 02:56 • Reply
• 3 - Anonymous says:
  
  

  « Joy is a life heater, a life bender, a life saver.
  Words can be pure joy.
  Or, misused, pure hell. »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-08 10:10 • Reply

As much as the creek can sparkle with color in summertime, it is turned by the snow into an almost surreal monochrome world.

So I’m sitting at Waves with my coffee, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the shot I originally liked most, and along comes Nicky. She glances at the picture opened in Lightroom and without even thinking twice about it, she smiles and waves (pardon the pun) a hand at the screen, saying I should crop it vertically to enhance the bridge. Of course, why didn’t I think of it earlier?

Now it’s really my favorite.

[ As usual, click to enlarge ]

2006-12-04 20:12 • Posted in Photoblogs: & Vancouver: 2 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

• 1 - Sigrid says:
  
  

  « I disagree with your favorite. I adore the green ribbon bewteen the white snowbanks. »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-06 08:10 • Reply
• 2 - Anonymous says:
  
  

  « Ahurissant comme la nature ceinture Vancouver.
  Et quelle différence entre les Maritimes et la Colombie britannique,
  entre la côte est policée et douce, et la côte ouest sauvage et pleine de barbares...
  »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-06 08:14 • Reply

There was this very little dog that played with a basketball as big as he was in a large snowfield. He would push the ball around with his forehead at a tremendous speed, sliding and slipping on the snow but gathering great momentum nonetheless. Eventually, the ball would collect wet snow and its new irregular shape would prevent it from rolling straight, so the dog would stop and dutifully bite at the snow until the ball was clean again, at which point he’d resume pushing and chasing it around.

There was this window washer, unaware that his efforts rained down on the pedestrians below, endlessly ascending and descending along a building wall on his cable, tiptoeing on ledges, a fish on the outside of a human aquarium. There are so many windows to a tower.

And there was this rather determined tug boat engaged in an aquatic ballet around a huge freighter, seemingly kissing her from all sides in the middle of the Inlet. It reminded me of the surgeon fish delicately picking parasites off the shell of a grateful giant sea turtle in Deep Sea 3D.

And then there was this adorable redhead sitting at the empty terrace of a café, absentmindedly brushing a rebel lock of hair away from her face as she read an old book. She kept laughing silently at the story, completely absorbed by it, never noticing that the very laughter would unavoidably shake her wild hair loose and back in front of her eyes.

And there was, too, a lot more happening, in a regular, rhythmic, systematic, repetitive fashion. But I didn’t see all that, too busy looking back at all the times I should’ve broken the pattern and taken a different step.

The problem with repetition is its hypnotizing nature. Everything in the universe is vibration, from particles to our very actions. We unconsciously seek a rhythm, a wave pattern, and we settle in it. We ride it as it carries us.

But since I know all this so well, I’ve made a rule for myself to keep changing my patterns and to take improbable side-steps. So much so that it’s become a pattern of its own. Check mate.

2006-12-03 23:47 • Posted in Schtroumpfissime: 2 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

• 1 - Sigrid says:
  
  

  « Interesting. And what does it do for you? What does it avoid? What does it create? »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-04 10:36 • Reply
• 1.1 - Vince answers:
  
  

  « You’re kidding, right? »

  Date of comment: 2006-12-04 22:37 • Reply