Like Liesl Von Rhuman following the spring, my flight followed the morning sun.
Departing a stormy Manila in the pitch-black wee hours, a majestic Arabian sun greeted us in Abu Dhabi, from whence we followed it across the sky as ancient Egyptians followed Ra. We blazed a trail through the Middle East, chasing the morning sun as it crossed over into Europe. From there, it transformed into Apollo downshifting his chariot of fire into a lazy Parisian afternoon.
A lovely, sun-dappled Gallic summer afternoon which quickly became overshadowed by torrential rains that came out of nowhere. Heavy, punitive droplets of icy fury descended upon us with cold, pitiless vengeance the moment we alighted the airport shuttle, slicing us like liquid razors as we scurried like shivering rats to the hotel.
And after the drenching, the radiant sun smiled once more in the late afternoon like a benevolent - if mocking - Louis XIV enveloping Versailles with his royal luminance. A brilliance and warmth that was shortly and finally eclipsed by thundering gray and angry storm clouds that molded the remains of the day into an Ingmar Bergman movie.
There's a story about circles and cycles in all of this somewhere. I'm just too tired to see it right now.
Now Im humming The Windmills of Your Mind after reading this, yeah just humming because I suck at singing. And I want to sing it in French too! Kabog si Barbra.
ReplyDeleteMe, I remember Bjork's "Sun in my mouth" reading this entry.
ReplyDelete.
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"I will take the sun in my mouth
And leap into the ripe air
Alive with closed eyes
To dash against darkness"
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By the way, we see what we want to see Ruddie. So there...
enjoy your trip ruddie. come back revitalized! :)
ReplyDeleteruddie, get me some parisian oils.
ReplyDeletelolz
@ Ternie: I'm not going anywhere near Fragonard, so the only Parisian oils I have are the ones I wipe off my face.
ReplyDelete@ John Stan : You're a sweetheart. I hope to come back with a more positive disposition and outlook for the future, which is why I'm trying not to think about the backlog of pressing work that awaits devilishly for my return.
@DB: I've lost track of Bjork's work since that album where she looked like Queen Amidala on the cover art. I will look for this song.
As for seeing what we want to see, I won't contest that. Perhaps I merely cannot see the sun for all the clouds it hides coyly behind.
@ bienvenido_lim: Hello! Are you new to this part of the blogosphere? I haven't seen you commenting here before, so wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
I didn't like Windmills of Your Mind when I was a child. But now that I am grown, it resonates with me, as it does with you, undoubtedly. I would've loved to hear Nina Simone sing it in French, though, and not Babs. Strangely, I only like Babs when she acts; this may be blasphemy, but I've never liked her singing.
Make of it what you will.
thanks for the warm welcome rudeboy. i wonder if it is the joel grey kind or the alan cumming variety?
ReplyDeletesadly nina is gone.
and since you asked, no it's not my first time to comment here. i'm your reader formerly known as orallyours lolz.