Shakespeare wrote,

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

and that one person in life plays many parts – ‘his acts being seven ages’ – which he goes on to tell us are from childhood to old age. So these famous words are about life more than the stage, or in a way how life is like the stage. It’s not about the stage itself. Which is too bad, because that’s actually what this post is about.

When I think about it, he could have also said that the ‘acts’ in someone’s life were made up not only of many ages but also different moments and moods, making us different people at different times depending on how we feel or who we’re with. That would’ve interested me a bit more. But Shakespeare was a sharp card I think, so he probably did say something like that somewhere else, which I just didn’t read or maybe did read but just didn’t get.

The school year is winding down, all the tests are done, grades are in and we’re in the last week cleaning up and doing social things. According to Mr Shakespeare, I’m still in the ‘whining schoolboy’ act – but those were different times and those ages don’t really match our own exactly. No, in fact I’m pretty sure I’ve just moved into another act now which wasn’t on his list. It’s hard to put my finger on what it is exactly because although things change, so many things have stayed the same.

Something invisible is changed though, and I noticed it once in the circle of spotlight and again, in my favorite improvised monologue. That was the first night. On the second there was a mistake that bugged me and by the third I noticed the audience were too cool for school and could have laughed a bit more at our funny lines. Whatever. By then I’d already moved on to a new act.

And it’s not just me, it’s all of us and all our  ‘exits and entrances’. It’s like a team I guess, but not one that plays to win against another, just to win by it’s own rules. Maybe ‘win over’ is a better way of putting it because there’s no competition and belonging to the group is easy because there’s really nothing to fit into. If I’m not making sense to some of you, just try to imagine a club with no rules but to be yourself and have a great time.

Shakespeare knew a good thing when he saw it and probably didn’t want to brag too much about how good his life was compared to other people of his time. Not because he was rich or beautiful or because he beat another team,  but because he could say things he wanted to even in disguise, and get better at it by his own rules and maybe feel a little rewarded once in a while, when other people liked it too.

Whatever. We all go our own way and do our own thing. Just let your ‘strange, eventful history’ be full of the scenes you want and not what others think you should have, that’s the important bit. Don’t be too embarrassed to take your bows either, no one would clap if they didn’t want to. And anyway, you might has well live it up now before ‘mere oblivion’ strikes – what Mr Shakespeare called the last scene.

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I don’t know, but somehow I ended up talking about life, too.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2011

I was led there by the dog who always knows exactly where she’s going even when she doesn’t. She always picks up scents I can’t smell and sounds I can’t make out even when I try and focus.

I get the feeling though that I can see a little better than she can and last week when we were out in the Grunewald woods, I thought I might be finally catching on to what she’s looking at.

We got to a clearing and she barked, growled and dug and even though I couldn’t see anything at first, I noticed something unusual about the place. It just wasn’t the same as anywhere else.

I watched Avatar again the other day because it’s one of my favorite movies and I don’t know if I realized it before or if someone told me or if I really just got it now, but the “seeing” each other thing is all over the place.

So whenever the Na’vi say I see you, it actually means a bunch of different things – mostly to understand or know someone but also to like someone and sometimes even to believe someone.  I thought about that and then the last scene hit me in a totally new way (it’s the coolest movie ending ever by the way) because…, well actually, you know what? It would really suck if I told you how the movie ends before you saw it for yourself. So, forget it.

My point anyway, is that since we can’t hear or smell things like a dog, seeing is pretty much believing for us. We just trust it.

Afterward, she led me to a log covered with ivy and barked at the hollow space underneath, and I bent down to look but of course, saw nothing but dirt and leaves and a few spider webs. She started digging – there was definitely something there I couldn’t see. I stood up and looked around, staring into the green woods. It seemed to glow then, like something from a dream.

The V-Shaped Tree

I called the dog away and we hurried on. We came to a place where a V-shaped tree stood across from a U-shaped tree. I doubt the dog got the thing about the letters but she seemed to find the trees interesting anyway. She looked at me with her head cocked to one side and her eyebrows raised, like she had a big question mark in a thought bubble above her head.

I also doubt she noticed that the sun came through the V-shaped tree in an illogical angle and the U-shaped tree made an open door. She might have realized that each tree was actually two, huddled close together at the bottom to look like one. I thought this was cool but it disturbed her after a while and I pulled her away because she wouldn’t stop barking.

But I wondered if she sensed something else I couldn’t see.

The U-Shaped Tree

We walked on along the path and I remembered what my science teacher had said about how we see stuff – that our brains just fill in the spaces we’re not looking directly at because it has a copy of it stored in “cache”, so-to-speak. If that’s true then who knows what we’re really seeing and what we’re not and if we’re ever seeing the same things as another person. I raised my hand to say this in class, but then changed my mind.

I decided I’d let the dog show me something again and this time try to notice it more. Focus. I mean, I do look at stuff sometimes without noticing much about it.

But what happened after staring at something a while, was that it got all warped and strange. Like the way a word sounds totally bizarre when you repeat it over and over again, as if you’ve never heard it before in your entire life.

That’s when the dog took me to the sparkly trunk lying flat across the path,

and then the tall glowing fairy tree,

and finally, the bright green ivy wings.

Everything sparkled and fluttered around and even had some magic to it, though I’m not sure I actually believe everything I saw. Maybe we’re just supposed to scan over things without thinking or focusing, like we do most of the time, everyday. Or maybe we’re not.

Then when the dog cocked her head to the side at me she seemed to say I know what you mean or even better, I see you.

I threw her a stick, and we went home.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2011

March has come and gone without any comment from us. Although it’s been more or less the same routine here, the month’s disasters – among them the terrible effect of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan – had darkened my spirit and mood, making it difficult to write anything positive.

Maddy had something to contribute one day, but it passed with knitted brows. Cayden was busy with friends and Markus promised to post a series of thought-provoking photos but never got around to it. As for me I had no wisdom to impart, no consolations to offer, nothing so interesting to say. Some things sometimes, just stifle my voice.

Instead I’ve been idly doodling, drawing puerile pictures and listening to old, familiar music as if thirty years’ time had never passed. 

Here I go and I don’t know why
I spin so ceaselessly,
’til I lose my sense of gravity

Today it is April and for the first time in a long time I hear birds singing through the open window and there’s a thin but unmistakable hint of new foliage in the breeze. Sunlight between the clouds warms the facade of the building across the Hof, shading it on and off in a surprising Mediterranean yellow.

Things have certainly changed since I last made the effort to look but I’m conscious that it’s been a long rebirth this time.

I’m dancing barefoot
in mid air I spin
some strange music draws me in
makes me come on like some heroine

I spent the last few days fiddling with a drawing I want to call The Annunciation of Spring. I say “want” because although it began that way – as a positive thought –  I honestly think I must have gotten the iconography backward.

The (Tinkerbell-like) green fairy arrives to announce the onset of spring to the (Queen Mab-like) Mother Nature figure. It’s really more of a suggestion because it’s clear that Mab is not only indifferent but reminds us with her scepters that she wields the power of the sun and moon and will do whatever she likes in the end – fairies of spring be damned. Maybe The Renunciation of Spring would be a better title, but then I’d lose the Archangel-Gabriel-Virgin-Mary-Annunciation reference that was obviously lurking in the back of my mind. I don’t know what I meant to do with that actually, but can’t help wonder now how things would’ve turned out if Mary had just said “no”.

Which brings me to the music I’ve been listening to.

The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
the mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
grave visitations
what is it that calls to us?…
the line of life, the limb of tree
the hands of he
and the promise that she is blessed,
among women.

I knew better back then what it meant, before I knew anything at all. Maybe these are positive messages but I don’t know it because I can no longer admit to seeing all ends.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2011

Dancing Barefoot by Patti Smith and Ivan Kral

Last night I had ghosts as dinner guests. Friends and family who paid the courtesy of a visit though I hadn’t seen them in a very long while – the last time only within a dusty frame or from my memory as a small child. Some had lived and died before I was  born, so I was frankly surprised to see them at all.

This February recalls all the Februaries that came before – dim, drizzly or bright with vague temperatures that hardly kindle an emotion. Sometimes the sturdy breeze brings a hint of spring or promise of storm but mostly, it lingers between worlds.

It was for this reason I began with soup – a deep green pea that I hoped might appeal to both a winter and springtime palate.

Still, Enid puckered her lips at the first spoonful.

“Is it endive?” she asked.

“No, no, no my dear,” whispered Gerald beside her, adjusting his monocle. “A velouté d’épinards, certainly.”

“I do find it tastes something like blackberry,” piped cousin Minerva from across the table.

Great Aunt Bertha in Better Days

Her hollow cheek was a downy shade of grey even in the lamplight.

I wondered if my guests were capable of tasting at all and sat silently as the conversation ran to other nonsense, from the peculiar pattern of my violet drapes (which do not exist) to the French ancestors once inhabiting the house.

“What year was that, exactly?” I plied cautiously, with a glimpse at Great Aunt Bertha’s bloodless lips.

She turned her eyes up at the ceiling in a moment of grave thought.

“Why, 15…1585 it must have been,” she wheezed, fixing one unnerving eye on me and adding defiantly, “we were quite a formidable family then, you know.”“Our house is only a hundred years old,” I protested but the subject had already changed – along with the food, for at once steaming bowls of fish stew flecked with parsley appeared before us. The ghosts heartily dug in.

Soon, long gowns swept the flagstones, men smoked cigars and a dog fell asleep by the fire. Someone gestured toward the portrait of Miss Mary above the mantle and like a distant dream I heard sighs, snickers and all the usual ebb and flow of a dinner party that was winding down.

When the guests had gone I chose to just ignore the scatter of cups and plates, hoping they’d disappear as mysteriously as they came and made my way up the stairs.

I could hear the rain tapping softly at the windows followed by quiet and then back again, something in the way of ghosts caught between worlds.

This, as all Februaries I have known won’t be remembered, though it will likely remember me just the same.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2011

is for fable, fiction and fairy godmother and the fact that whenever I have a ton of homework to do I feel like writing something else – a story, on a completely different subject and with a few drawings, even. Maybe it’s those questions about the periodic table that get me going, you know, like how your brain freezes when you have to think deep thoughts about nitrogen. What is the atomic number of nitrogen? I know there’s only one answer for that and it decides its place on the table but when I look out at the darkening afternoon sky streaked here and there with a pinky glow, I think about things that have more than one answer and no one place, and that’s a lot more fascinating.

I’ve got a stack of books here on my desk I was looking through at the weekend, mostly fairy tale books I liked to look at when I was small. The stories I remember are strange and a little sad but I liked them because the good always won in the end, even if they had to drink poison or turn into deer to do it. What gets me the most are the pictures, I could stare at them for hours with their weird mixed creatures or impossible human hands. I want to draw like that.

Instead, words come out that I think would be good to start a story with and I scribble them down somewhere on a napkin or in the margin of my notebook paper. My friend once spotted, Leila had the typical look of a garden elf, with split, fluttering ears and the eyes of a barn owl scrawled in of one of my textbooks and asked (with a bit of a spooked expression, I thought) – did you write this? I denied it and from now on make sure I erase these things after transferring them somewhere else like my “writing diary,” which is mostly empty except for about five pages filled with nothing but first sentences.

is for fluorine, fermium and francium and the fantasy that writing a story, unlike chemistry homework, happens like magic. That it happens like jewels spilling out across a blank page.

Well, only in your imagination, and mine. Imaginings are pretty much stuck in the head and for me, since I’m too lazy or fascinated to interrupt, I just watch them play out instead of putting them into words. Especially in this light where I can make out miniature people crouching behind the candle and my cup of pens, asking each other what they think I’ll do next. At the same time there’s a huge human eye watching me from behind the window, bigger than the entire wall. It’s so enormous that all I can see are the wavy lines of the iris which only look like colors reflected in the glass.

The thing is, I have to decide which one I am when I write – the small one that things happen to or the big one who makes things happen to the others. Because I can never make up my mind, all I’ve got is a collection of magic words.

is for fabric, feline and foolscap and the first letter of those magic words that come when I see a cool or pretty drawing, the way a genie drifts out like swirling steam from a lamp. Or a coffee cup.

I look up at a miniature tapestry of a king and queen on horseback that hangs on my wall and try to remember how many first sentences that picture set off. Probably at least ten, all gibberish because I don’t know very much about kings and queens and all I do remember about the Middle Ages (from 7th grade History class) is the word tithe. Definitely not a magic word, tithe is all I have because I got it wrong on the test.

So, where was I? Moving on to the calculation of atomic mass which I have to memorize – only because my teacher will most likely give us a pop quiz this week, and not because I’ll need it anytime soon. But when I wonder in what kind of world the average person NEEDS to know a thing’s atomic mass, I’m back to imaginings of pink skies, genies and tapestry ladies on horseback somewhere in a place that looks like ours but isn’t, because there all the impossible and more interesting things are true.

F is for finally finishing my frightful fact-finding and adding a few more beginning sentences to my writing diary – which, even if they don’t go anywhere, will at least dance around the page in a forever fascinating way.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2011

Book illustrations by Adrienne Ségur and Elisabeth Nyman

The year 2010 has flown by with a swoosh and it seems to me that not a lot has happened.

Or maybe it has, but my memories are sketchy – like trying to see through the frost on a car window. I scrape it with my fingernail but truthfully, I can’t make out too much.

There was school of course, which took up most of the year and most of my free time. Not that it was all bad, I mean I’ve got friends there, but it’s all one blended up memory and except for the class trip and the date on top of my exams, I don’t know what happened when.

Then there was the long list of books I planned to read in 2010. Actually, I do remember those,

And then there were the books I actually did read in 2010 (no need to comment, thanks).

There was the day I took some cool photos with my Nintendo. I’m not sure but I think that’s a friend of mine standing there or if I’m lucky, a stray alien or poltergeist even.

Then the summer came which was short but hot I remember, and stormy. It’s hard to imagine now with all the snow what the quick clouds and bright light of a summer sky looks like, but I think it was like this –

There were definitely some really exciting times (about what I’m not sure, now),

And some trying times too (which I was pretty patient about, I think).

Then a new friend came along who I found out has got more energy than the whole family put together and doesn’t feel the cold like us, either.

She must’ve looked like an alien to our old friend who demanded more attention than usual and got it because he’ll always will be the king of the troublemakers no matter who’s around (and that’s why he’s bigger in the picture, too).

It was a year of this and that, like all years since I was ten years old and actually started paying attention to them. I noticed then that the path ahead wasn’t always clear or sure – except for my school schedule – so it probably won’t be for next year either.

That’s cool, though.

I know there’ll be more books and school and friends and aliens and long walks in the snow, and we’ll  keep trudging on through it in 2011 like we did this past year. That’s just what we do and it’s okay I think if our memories are a little sketchy or swooshy, so, what? It’s about looking ahead that really matters, anyway.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2010

Lucia Celebration in a Swedish Church by Claudia Gründer, 2006

by Cara Fürst

Once in another life, I heard stories from a group of folk who hailed from the north, somewhere in a candlelit tavern on a typical winter’s eve.

It was made all the more memorable there – sheltered from the ice-frosted woodland – to learn that every year in their land on the 13th of December, a young Lucia is done up in a scarlet sash and crown of burning candles.

An aroma of freshly-baked saffron buns accompanied the tale and lingers still when I think of it now – though I was frankly never near a saffron bun – they had merely been described so lovingly.

This Lucia was not Swedish herself, but a Roman maiden who brought food to persecuted Christians in the catacombs during the reign of Diocletian around 300 AD, bearing a crown of candlelight as a kind of miner’s cap to see by. Whether for aiding the Christians or her refusal to marry, she was blinded and martyred by the Romans.

That was one story told. Another was of Lussi, described as either a Nordic witch-demon of mediaeval legend or Adam’s first wife who had consorted with Lucifer, bearing fairies, goblins and other “infernals” as offspring.

She is believed to have flown through the night sky on the same December 13th – a date once linked to the winter solstice – and descended through chimneys to punish the mischievous and negligent.

One event in history came first and then the other, but gradually I think, they evolved side by side and entwined into present tradition.

As I came to know Santa Lucia as it is celebrated by my Swedish friends, I saw as little resemblance to the beatified martyr as to the demon Lussi – and nothing at all of the sublime Pre-Raphaelite depictions – which must be forgiven for their touch of romance and (almost too) seamless blending of good and evil.

Instead, the modern Lucia is tempered into a hopeful figure of light and leads a procession of spirits whose songs defy the long black hollow of winter. I can feel the pagan in its symbolism but also a distinctly Christian order in its ritual, so that it neither stirs too much, nor offends.

Saint Lucy's Day (Lucia) procession, Sweden, by Fredrik Magnusson, 2007

In places unreached by sun,
the shadows brood
Into our dark house she comes,
bearing lighted candles,
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia

Maybe we’ll dress Lucia again in new clothes again one day – to fit whatever modes and morals come into style. She will always be about the struggle of light and dark though, – a timeless subject of life’s foundation which pays no heed to fashion of any kind.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2010

With thanks to

Stig A. Eriksson’s Christmas traditions and performance rituals: a look at Christmas celebrations in a Nordic context, 2002.

and

Agneta Lilja’s Lucia December 13th, http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Traditions/Celebrating-the-Swedish-way/Lucia/

I tried drawing trees once here, now I’m trying again, from the memory of this tree I saw a while ago.

I didn’t try copying the photo, but remembered that the tree had a swing in it which reminded me of a hand. Or an octopus. Or a bent old woman. I forgot there were other trees and bushes around it and that its thumb stretched out over the stream below, like a crooked bridge.

This is how I remembered it,

and like this, too.

Lately I’ve been thinking about our own trees and how just a few weeks ago it was as if someone strung yellow bulbs through the leaves, they were so bright. The layers of yellow and orange and the patches of blue or dark sky behind them turned our neighborhood park into the open pages of a pop-up book.

Now the wind and rains – and the men in orange coats from the city – have brought down all the bright yellow and red leaves so that when I look down the street today I see black spindly branches against a white sky. But for the first time I don’t find it grim or bleak, but just another stage on the road to somewhere else.

I tried to imagine this when I drew these pictures – first the deep ruby red of an autumn forest,

and then dark branches caught by icy November rain, in late afternoon.

In the back of my mind were thick heavy tree roots I saw in the Düppel Forest, the hidden homes of elves and gnomes. But this I didn’t want to try and draw – it’s too perfect as it is.

So with all my physics homework pressing and the dark cold drizzle in my face on my walk from the U-Bahn, I’m somehow comforted.

Soon the rain will turn to snow and glisten on the branches and people will hang fairy lights and place candles in their windows to brighten the short days.

I know that winter is coming fast.

But inside it, in the dark spindly branches live invisible spirits – weaving, watching and working their spring magic all the long dark months of moon.

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2010

It’s nearly the same every year, I know what to expect,

like the bright red, yellow and orange leaves on the trees as I walk

through the neighborhood and visit every 

door, to say trick-or-treat and then pass by

strangers dressed in costumes or just neighbors

hanging around the yard until I find

a peaceful place to rest and at last, after the sun sets

I return home again, to where I know

a jack-o-lantern will greet me at the door and inside,

old friends and relatives await, and maybe even

a surprise guest rushing toward me – and making all the unexpected difference.

Happy Haunted Halloween!

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2010

As autumn deepened, I drifted away from the light to a brooding, less certain place and for this reason I finally agreed to meet the fortune teller.

She was a wanderer with no one place she called home and earned her livelihood by foretelling the world’s deeds and accidents. She gave me her card and directions to an old place at the edge of a forest where she was now staying, assuring me that knowledge was a far better burden than the shadows of uncertainty.

I was cold when I arrived, and paused on the hill to take in the so-called old place. It was a castle, but more like the kind I’d seen in postcards, for it had an air of long ago, a different time and country. I meandered around the gardens a bit and looked up at the dark windows, when I caught the eyes of a gargoyle and his companion grinning down at me.

I resolved to get this experience over with and quickly found the front door, which opened slowly before I even knocked, as if by an unseen hand and,–drawing me into an empty foyer. It was a vast room with no staircase and just one door off the entire hall which stood ajar.

I entered into a chamber heavily curtained with thick velvet and damask, crimson walls veiled by cobwebs and candles flickering on tables in each corner.

A row of crooked chairs stood in the center possibly for waiting guests or clients, and although the room was clearly empty of any living person, an unmistakable hum of whispering came from somewhere unseen within it.

I walked cautiously around, examining the wonders at each table.

There, were all the ornaments of the occult –

a book of spells,

a hand of tarot cards,

a crystal ball and another, open book, this one –

of potions and poisons. Set beside it was a high table supporting a cauldron of bubbling, emerald liquor, diffusing a bitter scent into the air. That there were no waiting guests, was no surprise.

Still, I had made up my mind to see the fortune teller and so I persevered.

Looking around, I discovered another door besides the one I came through – hidden at first by a curtain, I tried the handle but it was locked.

Then my eye caught something bright on one of the tables, a key, a key that must fit the lock of the door I imagined.Sure enough it gave way as I fit it in, opening up to a more lighthearted place, a bright den strewn with pillows and scarves. There, the fortune teller sat at her table and looked up at me.

“Am I late?” I asked nervously.

“No. You are always on time,” she added smirking, a cryptic fortune-teller joke I supposed.She waved her hands around her own crystal ball, muttering questions and answers. Meanwhile, I noticed the whispering voices had followed me into the room and as they rose in volume, I was too distracted to hear the woman’s prophesies. She continued waving and gesticulating, her eyes rolling back in her head, but all I could make out was the drone of low conversation, as if a multitude of persons were there with me in the room.

And then at once the fortune teller had my full attention. Drawing a deck of tarot cards from a satin pouch, she dealt out several cards in front of me.Meaningfully, she held up only one – the devil – and with a frown explained its significance in my life as the shadow of doubt and darkness I’d lately been feeling.

To think I came into this house to find what I already knew was disappointing and must have shown in my expression for she wielded more cards and drew forth another, more optimistic one: the sun, a symbol of power and calm.She hinted this combination was the core of my problem – the forces of light and dark were battling with each other for supremacy.

“But I have no dark,” I ventured when suddenly from a corner of the room came a blood-curdling cackle, like a demon howling.

Stunned, I turned my head to catch a glowing figure retreat from the room. It disappeared as quickly as it came, into an obscured doorway.

“What was that?”“The woman in white? She’s here, you’ve seen her, before and she know about your dark and light,” replied the fortune teller.

Not in the mood for games, I felt it was time to go and I stood up.

“We all have darkness, though we don’t always recognize it,” she added more helpfully, gathering up her cards. “We have to work hard to keep it in check, and there is no lightness without it.”

Puzzles, I thought, and tricks of the light. I grabbed my bag, paid my fee and was off, through the door I came through and then realized it was a different one.

I was standing in a narrow unfamiliar passage, a tunnel with no end in sight. On either side were the vivid spirits of people I once knew and also of the ones I didn’t –  both droning on in endless argument and goading me with their grievances and banter. Not only did I hear them but I saw there glimmering outlines, and before I could think to shrink back in terror, a white light appeared at the end of the passageway, swiftly silencing them all.Shimmering at first like the play of light on glass, it took shape into a human figure – a woman in a bleached garment, like the one I had just seen. She seemed to float toward me, bearing a candelabra with flames flickering and wax spilling to the floor. I froze, catching my breath as she drew closer, moving toward me with a sense of purpose I didn’t want to imagine.

And then she faced me and I knew…she would lead me safely out of the castle. It was always the same journey and of course I knew her, for I had been there before. Always on time. And always with darkness trailing the light.The Halloween party continues at A Fanciful Twist and among her brood of blogging wraiths!

© Della D. Marinis, 2009-2010