Working on becoming a stoic

While I may have been born with analytical abilities, I was definitely not born a stoic. I heard about stoicism, the term is often used in everyday Polish language. Funny that, Poles are typically not blessed with stoicism. Emotions rule too often. For some reason and after many years being emerged in Swedish culture, I though it would be good to learn more about the stoic philosophy. I started to read. It may sound very highbrow; nevertheless it has been a genuine interest. I started with Don’t Worry, Be Stoic by Peter J. Vernezze and being encouraged I moved to more difficult reading. Marc Aurelius has been on my night table for a while but I have not managed to read it to the end. I may come back to it one day, who knows. However, I managed to read and understand Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius. My impression was that the advice given to the young Roman politician was a sound one and current it its message. I could even apply it to my XXI century life. Twenty five centuries after Seneca. Amazing.

When one is interested in a subject, one picks up more sensitively from information radar. Listening to a podcast from a Polish radio I came across an interesting discussion with an author of a book about stoics. It must have been one of those synchronicity coincidences. The talk was interesting and I thought that I’ll buy the book when I am back in Poland. My favourite niece studied philosophy. How clever and impractical of her. I envied her the courage to chose such subject.  Talking to her, I asked if she heard of a new book about stoic ideas. By that time I forgot the title and the name of the author. Martyna thought a while and then she said – It must be Pete, he lives around the corner from us. I know him. This came as a bit as a shock. Book about philosophy written by a neighbour who must be in his very early thirties or even younger? Would the book be worthwhile reading? Such a young person has not have a chance to experience life, I pronounced. I did not buy the book at that time. However, talking to the mother of my philosopher niece, I changed my mind. The mother has been reading the book and she liked it. And I respect my sister in law opinions. Apparently the book is nicely structured and the young Pete who is really serious Piotr Stankiewicz (sorry Piotr for earlier lack of confidence in your writing) does not try to teach elders to suck eggs, but presents excerpts of Seneca, Mark Aurelius and Epictetus which he comments. He does it very well.  The book is like translation ever current ideas, even if formulated 4 B.C., to current language and situations. Now the book Art of Living According to Stoics is on my Sydney night table. And I read it systematically.

As my life is full of challenges at the moment, I am remodeling my kitchen, the book is a great help. I am diligently working on understanding what I can influence and act on and things I cannot influence and stop worrying about them. Since worrying is one of my inborn talents, working on getting rid of it will take a while. I am optimistic that I will manage one day. This is Work In Progress for me. I follow Seneca's advice and keep learning how to live.

Am I writing feuilletons?

I have been blogging for a while now and from time to time I wonder what it is that I actually write. Wondering about my writing genre may be a presumption. This term is for literary folks and I am only a person who likes reading and writing and at times needs to clarify thoughts and believes through blogging. Nevertheless, I notice that my blog covers varied subjects. Book and film reviews, traveling impressions, events from my personal life, my observations on varied subjects.  My mind seems to need a better structure or a justification why it is OK to write haphazardly as I seem to do. If I have constant readers (one can always dream), they may want to know what to expect from my new posts. And I am all over the place. Should I change it? Maybe I should, but then it might not be authentic or spontaneous.  And after all I am writing mainly for myself.

One day the long forgotten term feuilleton came to my mind. This is a popular term in Poland, but I can not remember hearing it for some time.  Apparently, even if the term is used internationally its meaning varies from country to country.

Wikipedia says:

Feuilleton was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles. The term feuilleton was invented by Julien Louis Geoffroy and Bertin the Elder, editors of the French Journal des débats in 1800. The feuilleton may be described as a "talk of the town",^[1] and a contemporary English-language example of the form is the "Talk of the Town" section of The New Yorker.^[2]

In Polish press terminology the term feuilleton (Polish: felieton) meant a regular, permanent column in a magazine where episodes of novels, serial press publications  and other items on entertainment and cultural issues were published.

The Feuilleton is a writing genre that allows for much journalistic freedom as far as its content, composition and style are concerned; the text is hybrid which means that it makes use of different genre structures, both journalistic and literary. 

                                                                       
                                             

I like the highlighted bit best – much freedom is my thing. Freedom is even one of my core values, most likely causing some problems in my personal life. Looks that I need to pay the price, for sticking to my values, without complains. On reflection, I decided that what I write could be called feuilletons. I rather like this classification.

Further the Wikipedia says:

The tone of its writing is usually reflexive, humorous, ironic and above all very subjective in drawing conclusions, assessments and comments on a particular subject.

Unlike other common journalistic genres, the feuilleton such is very close to literary. Its characteristic feature is lightness and wit evidenced by wordplay, parody, paradox and humorous hyperboles. The vocabulary is usually not neutral, and strongly emotionally loaded words and phrases prevail.

I like it even better. Maybe I am not there yet, but this is a great guide to follow. It gives me freedom without feeling like I do not know what I am all about. So, now I have a label - I will write feuilletons. Ufff….

P.S. I received a couple of comments saying that there is no need to analyse a nature of my writing. I objected mildly as I like analyzing, such is a little weakness or strength of mine.  Then this morning I came across a statement by Laurence Sterne - to define - is to distrust. Really? It made me stop and think (analyse???). I never heard the name of Laurence Sterne before so I checked and found out that I have another hole in my education to fill. He was an Irish novelist of XVIII century. The portrait was painted by Joshua Reynolds, so he must have been famous in his times. But how about his rather unsettling statement. I obviously tried to define my writing, or maybe even myself. Hmm..... Something to think about. Or maybe comment?

Henry Strassburger

I said my final goodbye to a friend today. I do not like changing friendships almost obsessively. There were many situations in my life when I was reading signs that a relationship ran its cause and that it is time to file it into memories. It was never acceptable to me to proceed on such signs. Not soon enough at least. However, there are situations when this is unavoidable. Such was the situation this time, Henry Strassburger passed away, today was his funeral and I am sad.

I saw Henry last time not long time ago, two, three weeks ago. When I went to his room, he was sitting back to the door. I touched his arm to catch his attention and through his sweater felt his strong shoulder bone but no flesh. It frightened me. However in the future I will recall different pictures of Henry, like the one of strong Henry during the ride across the Pitt Water with me and my dog as passengers. It was dark and the lights on the water created a very special almost magical atmosphere. This is how I will remember Henry.

Today was his funeral. It was moving as the situation was moving for those who cared for Henry. I wrote about Henry in the past. He was indeed a man of style which was so difficult for him to maintain in the recent years. Visiting him in the nursing home was always heart breaking. Such a degradation of his health and lifestyle. Most of the times however, he was able to be his old self, Henry from the good times. Always generous, kind, cultured. Man of style and dignity. Many things deteriorated due to illnesses, but his taste buds were always in good order. I often thought that I was never able to experience taste to the extend Henry did. Today some men with whom and for whom he prepared their Escoffier Society meals were in the church. I wonder what memories of Henry woke up in them.

There were people who Henry met over many years. We all knew different Henry or rather we were familiar with different parts of his persona. He was a complex person and we have our own filters through which we see people and reality. This means that we have different pictures or Henry in our minds and hearts. I do not have any doubt that if we all put all our memories together a beautiful and complex composition would emerge.  

Henry loved music. We both were born in Poland and there were times Henry asked me about Polish music. On one particular occasion he asked about Górecki’s Totus Tuus. I was so happy when I found the CD in a Sydney shop. Henry was a religious man taking solace in prayer. I believe that Mary was particular object of his attention.

Totus Tuus was Pope John Paul II's apostolic motto. It is a Latin phrase meaning "totally thine" and expressed his personal Consecration to Mary. 

  

 Henry liked this music, this is my prayer  for Henry’s peace, Górecki's Totus Tuus.

One Christmas in Melbourne

This is the last of my Melbournian reminiscing, at least for a while. After this post my memory bank will be depleted of Melbourne memories.

The memory, I will write about, was triggered by my friend, blogger Pharlap, who on the way from Sydney to Melbourne, traveling by car, stopped in Gundagai for the night. This reminded me of my first trip to Melbourne, also by car. It was a long time ago, the time when we had a new dog Argus. Argus – All Eyes, my guardian. This is perhaps another story. He was one of the very important appearances in my emotional life.

At the time when we traveled to Melbourne, he was just over one year old and since we bought him only two or three months before, we did not know what to expect from the trip which we decided to take in one stretch.  Long journey, but we were in a hurry to reach our Swedish friends in Melbourne for Christmas celebrations. For Poles and Swedes Christmas Eve is the most important and we were working people. We did not have much time for the journey.  Argus was already a very important part of the family and taking a plane and putting the lovely dog in a kennel was not an option. So we packed our festive cloth, presents, essentials for Argus and set for the long journey. Argus was not a complaining dog, but he was a bit of a wimp and I was an overprotective dog’s mummy. It turned out that Argus without showing any dissatisfaction decided to travel standing up. There was no way we could convince him to sit. I am not sure about the dog, but I suffered anxiety the whole trip. And this was a very long, many, many hours trip.

Eventually, we arrived in Melbourne. Our friends had a beautiful big home with exceptionally big garden and two grown up, confident, biggish dogs. Argus was a Welsh springer spaniel and, as I said, a wimp. The local dogs were rather boisterous and got interested in my sweet baby. One showed a lot of aggression barking, growling and snapping at Argus and the other took a fancy to him. Normally, sexual preferences do not play any role in my judgment, but this time I was worried about emotional effect of these amorous advances on Argus.

Yes, I was overprotective and silly, but first month of love makes one so, and I loved Argus with such a fresh love. He was a beautiful dog, too. Kept for one year by the breeders together with Apollo and Aphrodite (it was an A litter) to make an assessment which one of the three is the best and should be kept. Maybe they made a mistake, maybe not, but for me Argus was the most beautiful and clever dog in the world. It just came to my mind that it happens sometimes with people not being sure who would be the best potential partner, so they run a couple of them for a while for later selection. This is rarely such a good idea and for the subjects of such selection may be annoying. However, people are capable of acting in their best interest and move away. Dogs do not. I would like to think, however, that even if Argus’ canine career finished on a Best Pup in bread ribbon at a Royal Easter Show, he had a good happy life without fame, but with caring master and dotting mum.

One can imagine that it was not one of the most harmonious Christmas ever, but it certainly was memorable.

Relieved that the Christmas was over, we wondered how it will be for Argus to travel back, standing up again for so many hours. Me, sitting in the back seat with him did not help the matter. He was determined to travel his way. We decided that and we all need a rest on the way and stop over for the night. The choice was Gundagai, the same place as Pharlap chose. For us it was partly because Gudegai is half way to Sydney from Melbourne and 

partly because The Dog on a Tucker Box. 

   

It was only fitting that the place with such monument is the right place for us. The motel we stayed in did not accept dogs, but well behaved Argus, quietly sneaked in with us into the room without giving a peep and he illegally spent the night in the motel room. He was a worldly dog. But if one would think that he slept in bed, I must disappoint. My silliness did not go that far.

I love my current lifestyle that includes spending few months in Europe. This means no dog for me for while. But when it changes it will be bliss!

Memorable meals in Melbourne

Food has become an important interest of mine.  Not only eating but cooking, trying new things and experimenting is fun. I have notice that this happens to some people with passing years and passing good looks. This may too harsh assessment, but it is strange that food did not interest me at all when I was a child and quite a few years after that. My first interest in food was awakening while living in Paris and cheese was the main fascination. At this point of time I was learning to do things in the way the elegant western people did and I found out that the way to serve a cheese platter correctly is to have five types of cheese on it. I obeyed the rule perhaps even too religiously, but it was so nice to have the leftovers for lunch the next day.  Now, since I have relaxed a lot about some rules, I serve sometimes a single cheese and not necessarily after the main course. My French lessons are not followed any more. In any case, I am not sure if the rule does not apply only to restaurants cheese platters.   

                                                        

                                   

It has been a long introduction, but thinking of the meals in Melbourne re-awakened the old memories.  I should, perhaps, call my blog My Meandering.

The lady of the house is a seriously good cook and the first night I was able to watch the full preparation of the fantastic meal - a Chicken Tagine. I was rather surprised to see how many spices went in and the big amounts of them. The result was outstanding and I will give tagine a go myself once my new kitchen is installed and an appropriate dish purchased. I had my little contribution to the preparation but only in a role of the kitchen hand chopping herbs  so this experience will not count for much and I will be challenged cooking it.

                                                 

The next day I was taken for tea to Hopetoun Tearooms.  The place is located in a very nice arcade, similar to Sydney Strand. Once one faces the tearooms one becomes blind to surroundings. The place is excessive. The displayed cakes are excessive, ornaments are excessive, number of people wanting to be there is excessive. One can get dizzy from all of it. We were lucky with our timing and we did not have to queue, but I heard that this is what one has to do to get in. To make a choice of tea and then a cake was quite nerve wracking. Too much of everything and all looking extremely good. We managed to do our selections as two professionals used to making difficult decisions should and can. It was fantastic! I recommend the place to potential visitors to Melbourne.

 

This was not the end of the culinary delights. My last night in Melbourne, we went to Pomodoro Sardo, a Sardinian restaurant with a great atmosphere, friendly service and fantastic authentic Italian food.  I can not remember what dishes I had, but it was great and too much of it. The Sardinian wine also met with our approval. By the end of the evening we all were really chummy with waitresses and felt like a part of a Sardinian familia. I am saying in my mind Arrivederci Pomodoro Sardo and Melbourne.