Another Lifetime: Touched by her Magic Wand

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Touched by her Magic Wand

What you don't realize Nadia, while writing and illustrating these beautiful fairy tales for us, is that you are the main character. We have fallen in love with the person crouching behind the camera, the one whose fingers get in the way when she impatiently translates the themes of her mind into words.

Most of us have never heard your speaking voice but can imagine the way you exclaim when you stumble upon a perfect leaf in the snow. We can imagine what it's like to sit at your table just in time to see dusk settle in and bathe that absolutely perfect teapot in a sacred light. We understand that the gift of seeing overwhelming beauty in everyday life is coupled with the ability to see sadness and pain, and that this is why you understand us so very well.

You may spin stories and dreams with great ease, but you are simultaneously the beautiful hero of that great Russian novel, one you have read a million times and still don't know how it ends. We love you because you are both artist and muse, and we draw endless inspiration. It is for that reason that even though I am the ecstatic winner of the spoon bracelet contest (!!!), and could write paragraphs about the beauty of the item itself, I have decided to dedicate this posting to you.

If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting her blog yet, please do so at http://laporterouge.blogspot.com/

6 comments:

Bonbon Oiseau said...: well said...nadia is so special!; January 25, 2009 at 9:17 PM
Maria said...: These images are beautiful, what is it about white? The 1st one is mesmerizing, so much to be seen in a horses eye, love the way it's framed. Also your words are enchanting, what an incredible picture you have painted. What is Nadia's blog, I don't think I've seen it but now I must?; January 26, 2009 at 8:45 AM
in another lifetime said...: I've added the website to the post now. If you like images, color, and enchanting words, just wait.....you are in for a real treat at La Porte Rouge!!!; January 26, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...: THis is so lovely, tear came to my eyes. i have read it six times in one sitting...thank you so much. I was so excited when he said number three.. but it looks like i am the winner of the giveway, you words are like
secret happiness i can play over an over even on the darlest of days!!!

lovethe pictures, i so found of horses!!!!; January 26, 2009 at 11:22 AM
Anonymous said...: There is a different dimension to Nadia indeed. She keeps you guessing and at the same times can say things in such a universal way. Love her. And I'm also glad to discover you.; January 27, 2009 at 11:58 AM
kendalee said...: I couldn't agree more! Nadia is a constant source of delight - so much beauty, a hint of melancholy and mystery... Very special. And this is a beautiful tribute to her.

So thrilled that you are the winner of the beautiful bracelet too - it's transformed nature seems so apt an expression for your current journey... Perfect outcome to a giveaway!; January 27, 2009 at 11:07 PM

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What I'm Reading

Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb

The Bookseller of Kabul, Åsne Seierstad

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
"Esme stares at the spiked rocks. She stares and stares until they begin to lose their third dimension, until they begin to look unfamiliar, insubstantial. Like the way words said over and over become just a slurry of a sound. She says the word 'word' over and over in her head until she hears only 'dwur-dwur-dwur'. She is aware of those numbers, the two and the eight, trying to find a place to slip back in. They have been lurking at the edges where she pushed them and they are mounting an assault, a break-in. She won't have it. She will not."

The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
"But as for the old structure of our story, its white-oak frame, and its boards, shingles, and crumbling plaster, and even the huge, clustered chimney in the midst, seemed to constitute only the least and meanest part of its reality. So much of mankind's varied experience had passed there, -so much had been suffered, and something, too, enjoyed,- that the very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of a heart."

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
"She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things"

The Life You Can Save: Acting now to end world poverty, Peter Singer
"In the United States, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV. Three quarters of them own a car. Three quarters of them have air conditioning. All have access to health care. I am not quoting these figures to deny that the poor in the United States face genuine difficulties. Nevertheless, for most, these difficulties are of a different order than those of the world's poorest people."

Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My search for love and art, Gene Wilder

Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
"I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in a security mirror's reflection. In that moment my brain did an odd thing-it fired off this split second message: 'Hey! You know her! That's a friend of yours!' And I actually ran forward toward my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was so familiar......Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend"

The Kindness of Strangers, Katrina Kittle

The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho, translated by Alan Clarke
"'Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him,' his heart said. 'We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, towards its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them- the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place. So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts.'"

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
"For this is the truth about our soul, he thought, our self, who fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities threading her way between the boles of giant weeds, over sun-flickered spaces and on and on into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable; suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves;"

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
"The room hovered around me with great gentleness, as if the chairs and the tables and the walls were witholding their weight out of sympathy for my sudden frailty"

Another Lifetime

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Touched by her Magic Wand

6 comments:

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