Poem

The rain on the 30^th April

came down as if on order.
I had watched the woman in the apartment across the yard,
meticulously wiping her window sills.

Meticulously.
And I thought – now the rain must come.

the rain must come the same way it always did
when dad meticulously washed the car.

The rain on 30^th April came with slowly building fury.
with teasing, drawn-out precision
easing-falling-easing then pouring.

pouring as a beat-drum-beat
of a landlocked city rhythm
and the tattoo of
tripping seasons.

On the other side of the yard,
under a pile of sad old bricks,
a sheet of elegantly rusting tin is
transformed into the percussion

of spring.

The beat of tiny droplets
the army of precipitation
and the bluegray shadows

breaking the broken light
deftly defying the colour of evening

The rain on 30^th April
came down without warning
and warm skin turned cold skin
heat evaporated like so many
forgotten headlines:

“Spring is here”

but that was just media hype.
and the rain, on the last day of April
came like ancient creeds carved
in concrete and dust

the blue light, the tear lights
split light
that sometimes breaks in waves,
and sometimes comes as rain.


we're off to Szekesfehervar this evening (well, this night actually, as the bus leaves at 11pm) and then Szombathely for Agi's ballagas tomorrow morning. And although there are all kinds of garden party plans for the long weekend, I would really like to come back to Budapest and get the flat in some kind of order and also try and get through the ton of work I've got on at the moment. Jutka and Cyn are also out to dinner this Friday and i long for female company of my own. I really feel the tug of trying to please too many people all at the same time, while not managing to please myself.

I gave the psychologist a miss today- with good reason- I had to take Pista to the vet (with a taxi driver who reminded me uncannily of Pascall) but I don't think I want to go see him again. I need to think more on this and get a more definite idea of what I want...

B's birthday is drawing closer - 25 can you bloody believe it!?!?! - not to mention my birthday - yes, 28!!!- and I'm really looking forward to both.

By the way - the poem - it just suddenly came, and it was lovely to feel that urge to write again. I shall never ever ignore it. No work can be that important.

a walk in the woods...

it's a quiet Sunday.

this morning i woke around 8, tiptoed out to the kitchen, put the coffee on and began a poem. It's for the guardian website poetry workshop...even if I don't send it in, I want to have a go at crafting them again. it has been too long. Also, I owe B about 12 'first thursday of the month' poems :)

then i finished a pastel/pencil drawing of some drooping wattle flowers, and then I even did a bit of work. yesterday's trip out to visegrad and then my phenomenal sleep afterwards seems to have given me a load of energy.

hooray it's asparagus season - so guess what we had for lunch? and what will be for dinner? and to accompany the lamb tomorrow? kathy brought kilos and kilos of the stuff up from csongrad, and gave me a bagful when i had dinner with her and jutka on friday night.

It was quite an amazing evening really- it reminded me of those times back in 99 and 2000 when life appeared a lot more carefree and I was feeling my way along the path of living in budapest... It's hard to put into words how important those people are, that don't change.
That are the handholds you come back to, time and again, and they don't say 'why haven't you called?', they're just there and they're just the same.

Right, it's time to put my new IKEA shelf together, and then a run, and then tonight another dance performance. MUPA with Szabi and Livia and B, a performance by Szeged ballet...

A non-pathetic Don Jose

I've just come back from MUPA having watched a trio of dances by the Godollo ballet company.
It was French themed: Bolero, De ja vu and Carmen. I hadn't ever heard of the middle piece, but anything by Bizet has me hooked, so off i went, happily on my own.

The Ravel dance was red and black and sexy; lots of lifted skirts and skirts discarded and parted legs and boys with delectable bums.

De ja vu started with a couple on a chair on a table with the sound of the roar of the waves. it was simple, unfamiliar, yet once they began to move, achingly familiar.
With the music- first piano, then violin, then tinkling piano again, the rugged ground of a relationship was explored incredibly sensitively.

And Carmen: when it began I thought: whoa the arrangement might not sit well with this particular Bizet lover, but then....well then the familiar tenets of the story, the familiar lilts of the music, the memory of the lyrics and the knowledge of the whole story, really, like the back of my hand...
There was a part where I cried, but it was followed immediately by a part where Escamillo, in this case a ginger in sunnies, gold satin pants and an aqua bolero pranced out on stage. It was a wonderful mixture of joy and jealousy.... an added artistic touch was Don Jose's hanging at the end, a beautiful suicide, if it can be called that.

And in the glistening wet black night, as I clip-clopped in my vastly uncomfortable heels to the taxi, I realised again, how very very much I love the theatre.

that hike from hell

well, first it was the Blumau dream and then B and I, together with Robi and Aniko and about 1000 other people, drove out in the rain to Galyateto, in the Matra Hills.
Once there, we vacillated for a while - should we go, and hope for better weather, or should we stay - after all 26km's is a long way ...

Well, we decided to go. The first 5kms were nightmarish. Foggy forest and dripping rain, and slicing cold. My floppy Freo fisherman's hat was a huge help, but nowhere near help enough, and as we scrambled up to the first summit where the checkpoint was, I wholeheartedly regretted taking part.

But then on the way down, amidst rolling rocks and slick vegetation, the clouds parted and the sun began to dry our way. For the next 3 hours or so we strode on in absolutely breathtaking scenery - tall lanky trees with luminous leaves and moss covered rocks beside bubbling streams... my spirits were high and I had energy to boot. I won't mention how my kneecaps were aching, because other than that niggling pain, everything was great.

And then, over the last 7kms it began to rain again. No, not just rain - pour. Bucket down. But still we were smiling. That is, until we got to the last measly kilometre, where we had a 30degree descent which was simply a mud slick down to the stream at the bottom. Sliding down bums and hands and knees was fun in its way, holding onto thorny bushes not so fun, but the climb up the other side was what totally broke my spirit. I face planted twice, having nothing to hold onto to pull myself up, and i was wet and cold and pathetic.

Had it not been for the rain, the hike would have been 100% incredible and I really want to do it again in better weather. Back home we indulged in good pizza and wine, and spent yesterday and will spend today also nursing our sore muscles and feeling smug and sorry for ourselves (if the two are possible simultaneously)...

First, the dream that was Blumau

we set off from Budapest on Monday, packed into the little suitcase (3 pairs of new bikinis) and after a small change at Szombathely, we arrived in Graz on time (oh those Austrian railways) to be picked up by (enter name we didn't catch) from Bad Blumau, dressed all in black and holding a zany yellow sign, in his sleek black VW.
I had slept on the train, so I could gaze awake at the spinning countryside which was just beautiful. Everything is so clean!

Already at check in, I knew we were in for a fine time. They had prepared a Hungarian info pack, and the service was just impeccable.
After flinging the suitcase and it's contents all over the room we had a beer and a glass of champers and then set out to explore the pools.
Really, for one not used to luxury, words are difficult to find. A lot of the time there I felt like I was in a movie. Which pool, which sauna shall we go to, or hang on, should we sit for a while in the whirlpool just here?

A word on the saunas, of which there were 8 different ones: they were nudist. I hadn't realised this at first and was duly shocked when I saw so many willies. The shock soon subsided though and it has to be said there is something liberating about being naked. And, although I know it's not correct etiquette to look, I couldn't help it. So while there weren't supermodel buff bodies there, it really made me think that the human body is bloody amazing, and also that there is something beautiful in everyone. There were big bellies and varicose veins, but also sculpted muscles, or long eyelashes... it was all quite an experience.

Dinner was served in a buffet restaurant with a wonderful selection - i managed to choose the most expensive wine on offer, but we only had to pay for the drinks, so you can imagine how much cheese I consumed for dessert.
And on Tuesday, when we sauntered into the breakfast restaurant in our togs and bathrobes, imagine my joy when I saw chilled bottles of prosecco lined up beside the juices.

On our last day I went for an aromatherapy massage and wondered why such luxury had to end. I've been thinking about it ever since.
We slept better than we've ever slept before, we were relaxed and I felt pretty happy the whole time.

Due to the vagaries of the Hungarian railway system, we decided it would be easier to go home via Vienna (as it turned out, this was not the cheap option) - the train ride was like a dream. It's a wonder how Austrians have it figured out- no graffiti on trains or in stations, and countryside that is so pristine it almost hurts.

In Vienna we caught up with Bea briefly, and then home, which was such a rude shock to the system that I still haven't properly unpacked and sorted things out.
I would recommend unadulterated luxury to everyone, but perhaps I appreciate it so much because it's not everyday.

Gum trees and big skies

ooh, there is something. some rounded textured hope, that despite my ridiculous fatigue today (oh the night was bad) is tenaciously holding on. But how to keep it, that is the question?

last day at the embassy today, and I'm glad because after last night's maybe 2 stolen hours of sleep, I feel like a dish rag.
My mind kept ticking over, thinking about flights and home and chucking everything in and legging it... but seriously. And then I got up and played on the internet for a while, until about 2, and then read Murray Bail and then slept in fits of 30 minutes or so.
I heard noises go bump in the night, and my counting backwards from 1000 got as far as 590.

Up at 6 for English with Gabor and then work, then Livia and Emese in the afternoon, then dinner with Judit in the evening. Seriously craving sleep :)

I'm looking forward, though with some trepidation, to my appointment tomorrow... it's in my hands, must keep remembering that.

Waiting for the Storm to break...

heavy ... that's how the sky looks outside. Grey and leaden, and brooding. There's a full public transport strike today, so I've no idea how or if I'll get to work. I'm thinking I probably won't, because as I'm feeling physicall wretched anyway, I probably don't want to be walking for 2 hours in the smog.

It was Manna's birthday yesterday, and we only spoke briefly, but long enough to put a bit of warmth in my belly, and make me look forward even more to seeing her.

The weekend was alright. Good in bits, but mostly just alright. We watched Mickey Blue Eyes on Friday, and then on Saturday I worked from 7-11 and then we went to mum's to help her paint and move stuff around, had a ridiculously huge lunch, and then B came home, to clean up and I stayed with mum for a bit, talking, or trying to, and then we went to the solarium together. Daggy, but nice.

In the evening we went to Livia and Emese's place for dinner, which Szabi had cooked. It was a lovely meal, and I really enjoy their company but B said he felt something stilted in the whole affair. I don't think him and his friends do the whole faux fancy meal together thing. But it was lovely, crystal glasses and the works. I took a bottle of Penfolds, which I'm sure lifted the standard even higher :)

By the time we got home I felt a little deflated again, inexplicably, but we ended up talking till the wee hours and by the time sleep came, I felt good again.

Yesterday I finally made the trip out to Pilisvorosvar with B. I was a little nervous, but it was lovely seeing Robi again - I hadn't seen him since moving in with B last year.
We chatted and drank tea and ate the carrot cake I had made, and then very smoothly, when Aniko came home, she whisked me upstairs to talk and Robi and B got down to study.

What she had to say, while not quite life coaching as such, was interesting, there is an element of 'superman' in it, an element of perhaps even what Ayn Rand wrote about - and I don't think it's the right path for me. Learning, and learning how to learn and stripping it back to the basics is good, and probabyl important and undoubtedly useful, but on the train back (by which time i was under a frog's arse down a coalmine again) I said to B that of course I want to make myself better, but I don't think I want to be the best. Unhealthy amount of fear of failure of course.
But before I start bettering myself and honing skills like communication, I need to figure out what's making my soul sick.
Aniko said that to start on this course, one needs to feel that enough is enough. She asked what I had had enough of. Is the answer allowed to be everything?

Then she tried a different tack: She said a good core question, or leading question, is this:
What has happened? A question not anchored to time, but just a question in itself. I squirmed on the floor where we were sitting by the boxful of cats, and didn't know how to answer. She asked how the question made me feel, and I said uncomfortable. What has happened, after all?
Perhaps if I knew the answer to that ...

And now, slate-gray sky, the atmosphere pensive and tight... it certainly feels like Monday.

Futile

I needn't have worried about being in too high spirits and not having anything juicy to tell the psychologist on Wednesday. Yesterday afternoon the mood took a nosedive again and while it gave me great oomph in running, it made work difficult and I felt horribly tired.

B was gorgeous- he ordered me to bed, and stayed up till three helping with my work. I probably slept three nights' worth, because when the clock went at 6 I felt utterly refreshed. It lasted about an hour. Then I tumbled again.

I can't seem to find any hope. I know that we're taking all these steps, the plane ticket, the agencies, the visa, me with the psychologist, but I can't seem to dig up any hope to look forward to any of these things. I seem to have lost the energy to plan.

I re-read Winton short stories on the trolley ride to work and the words sat at the base of my ribcage, thick with longing and salt.

And I remembered, (back to the run yesterday) the reason why I had managed 14k's in 1997 with the cross country team- that afternoon, lovesick for Hugh, and hearing Jane Green gossip something with Sarah, and I misheard...I thought in my eager schoolgirl heart that Hugh liked Sarah and no one had told me... and there it was, all that pent up yearning came out through my feet, and I ran with Meg, who had legs like trees but I remember being so seized by this sadness over Hugh (before we'd even started) that I didn't properly enjoy the arrival at the Barwon Boatsheds where there was disgusting cordial and sandwiches....

I am really feeling Friday today, but there is so much work still to get through.

This sentence struck me the other day, struck me with familiarity "Through a suburb of roundabouts and artful dead ends..."