A BLOG BY DANA

A BLOG BY DANA

FINALLY, the time has come to come out of the shadows and make my small voice heard...that is if anyone is listening...of course, these days EVERYONE from Twitter to Facebook to Blogs....everyone is chattering away thinking that he or she will make a difference in this world gone mad.

Many people are seeking political power, many people are seeking financial power....many people are seeking power with arms, missles, etc. etc.

Word power can be dangerous because, oddly enough, words can often trigger disputes which end in calamity.

That is why I have tried to steer away from poitical commentary and leave that up to "the experts" and keep in the realm of poetry, romance, short stories.

If these can keep the attention of a few die/hards, then that will be enough for me to continue...anyway, nothing is lost (just recycled) and perhaps my words will float around on other peoples' tongues and got lost in the wind.

No matter...we are all here on this planet for such a short time, that what we say or do CAN create ripples...for better or for worse...but , most important, is that we ourselves seek an inward happiness, a spiritual refuge where we may be ourselves and only allow those who understand us to be welcomed within.

If anyone has tuned into my page, welcome ... and may you enjoy a few of my entries.

OVE STORY

Cosmic love story spanning a twenty year period.

French Marxist and American Capitalist fall in love in Paris 1978. Unbenounced to him, the American girl, who is older, conceives.

The heroine heads for Spain, her baby on her breast and her daughter from a previous marriage in an old Citroen truck.

Mother and son, representing the purest form of love, experience many adventures. Beneath the surface, however, there is a thread of love which, somehow, magically, endures between the parent couple.

She writes poetry and tries to live her dream. He sails with friends to India. When he visits her on her magic island, he is like Ulysses visiting Penelope. Being parents they are abit confused, but they remain friends throughout the time.

Their separate lives combine, but on the night before her eviction from 11 years residence, the three sleep in a triangle of mattresses while the Holy Ghost breaks windows and slams doors.

Father, son and Mother laugh together at their predicument. They are knowledgeable that their time together is precious and their love impossible in the eyes of society.

JUMPING INTO THE VOID

At fifty, Lyra was an integrated foreigner in Spain. For her past eleven years , she had been renovating an old finca, a carcass of Spain´s heavy history.

As her son Mitra was in school, Lyra could open the doors of her abode to foreigners and locals alike.

Nevertheless, after eleven years of hostessing, it was time for a change. Having reached an impasse she had unwittingly painted herself into a corner. The only alternative that remained was to jump...like a symbolic death...culminating one chapter to begin another.

Lyra´s trusty son Mitra, fortunately, loved and respected his nomadic/poetic mother. She could confess and cry to this young man who, in spite of being too young to understand her predicument, was consilliatory and kind.

Afterall, true poets become suicidal at critical points in their career. Like dying stars, they often become black holes having reached the point in which they can no longer shine. They are faced with the decision: self destruct by turning inward or explode by casting off their creative material.

Lyra chose to explode, leaving almost all her earthly possessions behind to start a new chapter in her life´s story.

JUMPING. AN ANTECDOTE

Mitra, Lyra´s sixtgeen year-old son, was often her guru. He and she climbed the steep slopes of a rock island which emerged about sixty meters above the surface of the blue Mediterranean.

“I am too old to jump,” whimpered Lyra, being afraid of such a drastic change.

“That´s why you have to do it, Mummie,” retorted the little one.

As Lyra jumped, her mind cleared. When she felt the cool water slap her feet, she kenw that she had survived.

Her symbolic act had given her the courage to continue her life after the crushing blow of social defeat.

At the very least, Lyra was determined to not reach her own level of incompetence.

Life went on .

Miss Temple says in JANE EYRE by Emily Bronte:

Intelligence and a proper education will give you independence of spirit and that is the greatest blessing of all.

The only thing that matters in your life is to be in harmony with God.

ON STARTING AS NOVEL

I suppose the first thing to do when starting a novel is to sit down with a big mug of coffee, cigarettes, something – perhaps illegal – to help you think, and get on with it.

As luck would have it, coffee made me sick, I was unable to smoke at the time and didn´t have the money to buy anything illegal.

So...that left me alone in a small dark room with an antique typewriter.

It was as good a time as any...love had splashed its energizing light on the writer...the lamp was lit , but the pain was strong...no better way than to turn it around.

PARIS, 1978

A SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL

A poetic love story in an historical context, spanning three countries and two decades in Europe, roughly 1970-1990.

Based on my life from leaving a secure nest in Paris where I had been a wife, restaurant owner and eventually a photo-journalist with the French press, to falling in love and giving birth to a child without marrying, finally moving to a semi-desert island in the Mediterranean where I could breast feed while writing and photographing the inspiring beauty of my surroundings.

The story line follows a cosmic love story to a final showdown in an abandoned finca which, at various times in history, had been the seat of the three major Mediterranean religions: Catholicism, Judaism and Islam.

All present day themes are covered: cosmic spiritual love, carnal love, motherly love...in an intertwining story of real and yet, by nature, impossible loves set against the backdrop of historical and political Spain, France and England.

Dana Holland WRIGHT

Geneva 2006

something about the author

For many years the author lived on the margin of society...mainly because she had been an American living in Europe.

As a single mother, raising a son outside of the mainstream was a difficult task.

Essentially the author was classless and stateless (quite Marxist). eventually being obliged to find a niche in writing and art in which to find refuge.

By keeping a journal, the author was free to cry into its pages, make comments, project the future...all that. For nearly 30 years that is what she did.

As an outcast.. the author was left to drift around the social sea of Europe, unattached, a wealthy American woman with an illegitimate son trying to make her way in the world of writing, perhaps literature...turning lonelinesss into poetry, turning separateness into creative output.

I don't NEED anybody..."just somebody to love..".

Many mistakes were made, but that is what life became...trial and error...a woman seeking her sexuality, her identity, her niche in a world run by men.

Many years would transpire.

... almost driven to the breaking point...the author was able to create from the ashes of her disasters, mistakes, and misadventures...anything so that she could escape the bourgeois trap of an unhappy marriage which would compromise her writing, art, madness, as well as any basic necessities...

Formentera

Formentera , the smallest of the Spanish Balearic Islands, was a haven for single mothers in the hippy days of the 60's and 70's and that's where my life led me. . Other strong survivalist women were there, some on their own with more than one child, some on their own with more than one man , women who had forgone marriage to do something with their lives....

So, leaving Paris in 1978 with a my seven year old daughter and a baby boy on my breast was the first step of one of the many chapters which would ultimately lead to final eviction from a stately finca on the island of Formentera, reunited, if only for a speck of time, with the father: mother/father/son...and the Holy Ghost. (a long story)

* * * * *

It seems like light years have passed.

Nevertheless, those years were packed with incredible sensations, experiences, visions...a life intensified by the lack of material excesses.

Those almost twenty years that were spent on Formentera would blurr except for the fact that I preserved magic moments with a myriad of photos , a myriad of poems and a myriad of tears shed from being far from family and old friends....

but, it had to be done...

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Can Marroig...a contemporary art work

“Las cosas interesantes son las que producen ideas, no las que son productos de ideas.” Miguel Barcelo , artista contemporaneo de Mallorca.´

If one could regard my eleven years in Can Marroig as the equivalent of a contemporary art work, then it was a great success on a low-cost budget.

In those days 1000$ a month was an incredible fortune and, instead of spending it needlessly on designer drugs, I invested in experience – the experience of living in the last sigh of the 20^th century when intuitively I knew we would have to return to the source to get our priorities right in this world gone mad.

The decade of the eighties represented the last of the utopian dream time – a time when a few of us thought it was still possible to live in harmony with one’s neighbor.

A few of us “locos” were interested in alternative living styles and looking for our niche.

Destiny wove me into her pattern and took me to Can Marroig where an eleven year roller-coaster ride of emotions and happenings nearly drove me to insanity.

Being a semi-religious spot, the house and environs inspired a nation-less poet on a quest for the mystery of man.

Three of the major religions of the Mediterranean (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) had left their marks like invisible footprints within the walls of Can Marroig.

Going back to 3000 BC, one could closely identify with the Celts and Muslims.

My self appointed task was to clean the house of its past and get ready for the new 21^st century.

It was an ambitious task but by the time my sojourn of eleven years came to an end, the house was empty of past ugliness and ready to be refilled with 21^st century clean energy.

As I physically cleaned the house during the day, the night time was open to commune with the spirits, slip into the past and start paring away.

At that point in time, poetry was my medium.

I was inspired because I was getting to know myself as I came to grips with the energy that Can Marroig provoked.

To make the house vibrationally clean was almost an impossible task.

For one, the house was coveted by many who saw it as a symbol, beacon, a white house, a palace.

It was a place that inspired a kind of macabre respect for the past and present and questionable future.

Nevertheless, I persevered.

I spent hours cleaning, sorting, moving furniture. I played with light, colours. It was a changing set for any events…whether it was a yoga group or a rock band or a jazz combo. A few cushions and palettes, a table, a good lighting, and the house transformed itself into a night castle, complete with animals and children.

Basically, it was a small miracle in a world of greed and avarice.

The harmony basically worked and no one was injured.

Everyone profited.

There was a great coming together.

The John Lennon song COME TOGETHER was the theme song.... over me.

The animal world adapts more quickly to impending circumstances than the human.

If you remember the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean a few years back wiped out entire villages and killed hundreds of thousands. The elephants felt the impending danger and ran for the hills. The humans went down to the exposed beach to collect shells.

Here we have a cat playing the piano. No one is "teaching" the cat...he is playing for his own amusement...he is a creator...perhaps we humans would be smart to follow some of what the animals are doing.

Dorothy Parkier's poem

Guns are unlawful

Gas smells awful

Nooses give

Might as well live!

Dorothy Parker (American poet 1893-1967)

The Adventures of Lilttle Bird

THE ADVENTURES OF LITTLE BIRD

Dia de St. Carmen

16 July 1993

Dazzling explosions of sparkling lights lit the cool night air, shimmering lights, dangling . Rockets and bombs bursting. Breathtaking and earth shattering.

It was the fiesta de St. Carmen, the fishermen´s day.

Naturally, the great event was being held at the La Sabina port.

* * *

As I leaned over to retrieve my fallen napkin, I caught sight of a tiny creature…a little bird on long spindly legs. His eyes were wide with fear and terror from having been blown out of his nest in the middle of the night.

* * * *

I picked him up and cupped him in the palm of my hand. He was so frail, so tiny in this big menacing world with its pleasure being loaded with noises and great flashes of light in the middle of the night.

´´Little bird´´as he became known, relaxed slowly into his new-found environment. He didn´t try to bite; he didn´t try to escape. He, in fact, seemed to settle into his destiny with a kind of bird´s resignation.

Maxi came along with a group of his pals. I showed him my little treasure. Tenderly, he took the little one from my hand and made it walk up the ladder to his shoulder.

The little bird seemed to accept his new loft with a bird´s view.

All night long on this night of St. Carmen, ¨Little bird ¨ perched on Maxi´s shoulder. He accompanied Max and his friends on their adventures, passing to and fro and from hand to hand – getting a glimpse of the way humans of fourteen years old lived on this special night.

Little bird even ventured into the magic castle where he hung on tightly as Maxi and the boys jumped around in their air-inflated paradise.

Arriving back in Can Marroig, Maxi and I made a little nest for the bird with a basket over his head. We didn´t want menacing cats eating him in the night.

The following morning, Maxi awoke to the gentle chirp of his new-found friend. The little bird hopped to the window sill where he peered in all directions – abit wont for what to do.

He called again with his recognizable chirp.

As if from nowhere, a flock of his fellow tribe appeared on the gateway arch.

Little bird flew off to join his mates, lifting off to fly who knows where to find food and shelter and perhaps a good night´s sleep where he wouldn´t be awakened by man´s fireworks on a special day like that of the fisherman.

Dana 1993