Three Wishes

for Sunday Scribblings

To start, my selfish wish:

More time.

Then, I would do things like lie under a tree, gazing up at the sky. I would see my family more often, I would read more, write more, cook more, clean more. What a life I would lead if I had more time...

This picture taken on a lazy day in high summer.
View from the ground, up to the sky,
through the leaves of a magnificient Moreton Bay fig.
Orleigh Park, West End, Qld.

Wish number 2: (also selfish)

My own home. My own place.

I have always wanted my own space - when you are the youngest child of eight, you never have much that is all yours.

My own home would have idyllic contemplation space.

This is Tu Duc's reading house - Viet Nam's notable and literary emperor.
It was large enough to be my house.

Last wish -

Happiness for all my loved ones.

It's a big wish, because I have a lot of loved ones.

And I expect the wish-granter to listen to my loved one's notions of what constitutes happiness for them.

Picture taken somewhere at Ayuthaya, Thailand.
Sorry I can't be more specific - I was on a tour and completely disoriented.
I don't much like tours...

There is an excellent movie, Stalker, by brilliant Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky.

Tarkovsky is a simply brilliant film-maker.

It is sort of a science fiction movie: about a young man who works as a guide (Stalker) into a somewhat mythic world where there is a room. Every person who steps into this room has their innermost, deepest and most heartfelt wish granted. Stalker has never himself stepped into the room because he is afraid of what his innermost wish is; because, as he tells one of the current set of people he is guiding towards the room, one of his previous 'clients' stepped into the room, only to return to find - not his extremely sick brother healed, but - a pile of money.

The big question of the movie is how well you know yourself.

Would you step into this room?

Is this what wishes are about? Ourselves? When I make my three wishes - bland as they are - I am revealing to you who I really am - the things I aspire to. But what if someone else were to pluck from me my three true wishes - would they align themselves with what I wish for, for myself?

Happy Sunday.

Books!

In case you are wondering, this photo is just because.
It's unrelated to my ramblings, which are soon to follow.
Ceiling of a Wat (temple) in Thailand.

Cee has started a collaboration - and she's hit on a favourite of mine: Lists. Oh, how I love lists! So, though I cannot promise that I will consistently post a list on each Monday, I am most enthusiastic about posting lists.

And she's chosen a great one to start: books.

Just before I start, here's another tangent:

The wonderful Judy Horacek has a great cartoon with the caption:
"Behind every great woman...
There's rather a lot of lists."

In no particular order:

Book I:-
Thea Astley's It's Raining in Mango
Gorgeous and evocative writing, so pungent with the sense of North Queensland.

Book II:-
Roberto Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus & Harmony
I read this instead of studying for my exam on Classical Mythology in first year university. I got exceedingly high marks on that exam ;-) When I grow up, I want to write just like Roberto.

Book III:-
Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller...
A thoroughly thought-provoking and quite hilarious book of twists and turns, swings and diversions.

Book IV:-
Duong Thu Huong's Paradise of the Blind
I would read everything by this most humane of authors. This work struck me most powerfully.

Book V:-
Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood
Isn't it good?

Book VI:-
Milan Kundera's Immortality
and almost everything else by Milan Kundera, but reading this always makes my throat catch.

Book VII:-
Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon
This novel swims as you read it - the lines are blurred through your tears.

Book VIII:-
M John Harrison's The Course of the Heart
Heart stopping magic.

Book IX:-
Margaret Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead
A wonderful read for (want to be) writers everywhere.

Book X:-
Martha Nussbaum's Poetic Justice
Because I hope to be an ethical lawyer and I believe literature will take me there. Martha Nussbaum seems to believe so too and she's a much more complex thinker than I ever will be.

I find it difficult to limit myself to ten books - and I usually recommend to people based on what I know of them; this List is the ten that would undoubtedly appear if you kept at me about what book to read ...

What ten books would you recommend?

Coffee

Coffee in Viet Nam was fantastic. It very rarely looked like this:

Really, it only looked like ludicrously dark coffee in a pristine white cup in the hotels.

In street cafes, a metal filter sits atop an itsy bitsy glass half filled with sugar and your highly caffeinated tar drips steadily down. As soon as you were ready, you discarded the filter with aplomb and downed your coffee in one (or two) gulps. I take my coffee strong, black and without any sugar. Unfortunately for me, I kept forgetting to ask for coffee without sugar and felt restrained by politeness to return my coffees once I got them. I had enough nous to ask for "ca phe phim" to ensure I did not get awful instant stuff but only once managed to ask for coffee with no sugar.

Ice coffee is also better in Viet Nam because there's no milk, ice cream or cream! Heaven for we lactose reluctant types. Ice coffee is "ca phe da den" - which is literally coffee ice black. Again, you have to ask for no sugar which most people interpret as "a little sugar". My Viet language skills are wanting but I thought I go "no sugar" correct and polite; and yet the waiter responded with "a bit of sugar?" I was flabberghasted. My politeness overwhelmed so I just smiled and nodded.

I did not take a photo of ca phe phim. And I did not buy a Vietnamese filter either.

Looks like that's two more reasons to return.