In this house...I'll stay little forever

The house of my Czech grandparents has always been precious to me.

Spending Christmas over there made a good oportunity to capture the impression I always get of that place...like a magical house full of secret treasures, stories and memories.

So I spent my free time playing with my dad's camera. And this is the result

In this house...I'll stay little forever from Lucy Banana on Vimeo.

I remember as I got my first Narnia book for Christmas in that house and would spend the winter evenings covered in a blanket under the lamp light up in the attic and would watch the snow falling in the street lamp light through the window. Good times! Since then, Narnia has always felt somehow personal to me and through the pages I was getting closer to C.S.Lewis, always a huge inspiration of mine, but especially as the Narnian storyteller, who made every little word sound cosy and every cup of hot chocolate so contagious. You can imagine me reading it right there, in an old cosy room with an old wooden wardrobe filled with vintage coats, in winter.

It seems as ages now though.

There is a beautiful Postscript in my version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe written by Douglas Gresham about the childhood years when he and his brother (because of their mother being very sick) found their home in the house of Jack(as he preferred to be called by friends), a place which made him feel as near to Narnia as he could then imagine. "Jack and Warnie too were characters who might have been of Narnian origin. Men of immense kindness, goodness, charm, courage, and integrity. And Jack had an enormous sense of fun."

Douglas says he still comes back to that place and lets his mind carry him back to the Narnia of his childhood and adds: "As you read the Chronicles of Narnia, let them carry you too to a place that you know well and store it in your mind. There will be times when you will need to go back to your Narnia to seek the kindliness and comfort of this magical land; when you do, you will find Aslan waiting for you."

I was wondering whether I had any place like that but it wasn't until the last summer, when I was sitting at the attic window and quite overwhelmed needed to capture that special invisible something about the moment, I wrote into my journal that this, at last, was the place I had read about in the Postscript.I could see it this Christmas too.

It was snowing so much on Christmas Eve, we went outside and got almost blown away but it was beautiful. Then we watched White Christmas, musical from 1956 with Bing Crosby.

It was quite a needed time for me. I have surely found the kindlines and comfort of my magical land.

This picture was taken in the C.S.Lewis Reading room in Queen's University of Belfast.

I am Lucy.

"Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour--of youth!...A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and---goodbye!---Night---Goodbye!"

Joseph Conrad was maybe equally melancholic about growing up as I am.
No goodbyes for me yet! On the contrary, I, an eager wayfarer put on my travel hat and set out towards the adventure, the sweet and the bitter...."the time to remember."
(I was just trying to match the words with the photo:))

(It reminded me of my favourite civil war film Cold Mountain, which is just wonderful and the familiar song from the soundtrack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70_3ho_j0yk

"I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger

I'm traveling through this world of woe

Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger

In that bright land to which I go"

Exactly :))

Kolja

I have almost forgotten about one of the most beautiful films ever made.

It is strange and beautiful that it just cannot be translated into any other language not to lose the special meaning and that no one outside the country and generation can truly understand all the hidden symbols.  

I remember watching it as a little child with my parents...and I didn't even notice any of the political hints...but I loved it, simply because it's so beautiful.

(It deserved the Oscar)

last pieces of autumn

So it is almost one week till Christmas but there has been no sign of snow so far..well, just a hint maybe. But it doesn't feel like winter. That counts as an excuse for me to share some pictures I took back in November with my dad. They are random but I like them. Everyone made a big fuss about senior card pictures and I was asked to provide them for a lot of my friends, which was as much as a big honour a little load too so I didn't really care much about mine. On the way to Saturday grocery shopping, we just stopped off at the park for a moment and those turned out to be pretty nice pictures. Lucky me to have a photohrapher-dad. These are only the "behind the scenes" ones though...

Listening to this while writing...it's got the energy

 a pretty sweet video

Like sand...2004-2012 and my most favourite class

"And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?"

Edgar Poe

 

 

We've spent the last few months thinking about our senior ball, arranging, rehearsing, argueing, laughing, wondering...It had occupied our minds all the time. All the way from sharing the hopeless view of no ideas of any program, through last moment classdoor decorating....to the enthusiasm and expectations the day before.

And now, all of a sudden, it has flashed by and our last official event is over.

I was looking forward to it but at the same time I felt some strange need to stop, capture and realize everything before it was over. Because actually, it wasn't only about the ball itself but it someway expressed the whole period of our life spent together as a class, which to me seems as since ever...although it's been 8 years now. Now I know that 8 years is a good deal of time. And I think we all are a little scared of getting closer to the end. The ball was the last official ceremony we've gone through together and it was wonderful.

I think the whole preparation brought us even closer together and we had a lot of fun and great moments as a class that we will remember for a long time. It just added to the plenty of memories we'd already had...we've grown up together!

And the ball? It was wonderful. All of us still foolish kids dressed up nobly, accompanying our parents and teachers to their seats, raising up the glasses, slipping in the heels at the Waltz steps, singing in latin...and finally fighting with lightsabers, dancing half naked, spilling the champagne, dancing and more dancing...

There was something invisible that was the most meaningful. It was love. Thoughout the whole night we kept showing each other how important our class has been to us, how we love it and can't imagine it to be over. A big part of it was our teacher who has been sharing it all with us, being quite close to our age and especially hearts. We had videos of memories, of private jokes, of thankfulness(check them here and here), group hugs and really loads of fun together.

She had a lovely speech for us...which made us feel very sentimental and tears rolled down the cheeks...It was the perfect speech for me, it felt very personal, it expressed all I'd been carrying on my mind for the last year. It was in a "little prince" style(which is my favourite book) and included my closest touchy quotes. She also reminded us that we had just crossed the line between childhood and adulthood, now it was officialy.

I am just so thankful...to have been a part of this community of people, to have had all these experiences together and to have been just in this class and not any other. I am happy the ball was not the ultimate end and I can go back to school tomorrow to my dear friends who seem even dearer to me now that there's only little time left for us to share. It is like the sand....it creeps through my fingers and I can't grasp it. I guess, we can just try to use it well. Let's make it memorable!

Check out our beautiful amazing incredible door!

Photo workshop is over for now but the friendships last

We had the last photo workshop session this week. It was a good one. We snapped a few seasonal pics, got all comfortable on the Escape couches with some tea and chocolate and watched the documentary film about Annie Leibovitz called "Life though a lens"

check out the trailer here

I took the leadership of the workshop because there wasn't anyone else and also it was a little challenge but I didn't really know what I was going to do. There were times I found it a little hard but I kept on learning on the way (and I still have a lot ahead of me).

But now when it's over, because there's not much light in winter evenings and because busy graduation months are about to take place soon, I am really glad I could do it. It was an enriching experience for me and as the reason why I did it, I am thankful I could have been used to take part on the whole Escape thing. I think we had a great time, maybe learnt a little about photography and hopefully even more about ourselves during our workshop sessions.

Castles in the air

“Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?”   
  - L.M. Alcott, Little Women

Little pleasures of the hard week

So this has not been a very restful week but there have been a few little nice things I kept coming back to when I got a free moment and lots of others that were joy to see but will only mention these three.

1. Conor O'Brien of Villagers and his folk songs made the soundtrack of my week

Set the tigers free

 "True love feeds on absences like pleasure feeds on pain

So no matter where I'm standing I still love you all the same...

...I'm leaving for the great wide open plains
Leaving while this holy spark remains
I see you've written promises to make me stay
But it really doesn't matter now anyway
I'm leaving"

and Becoming a jackal

 "Lending me your ears while I'm selling you my fears
I was a dreamer (I'm selling you my fears)
Staring at windows (I'm selling you my fears)
Out onto the main street (I'm selling you my fears)
Cos that's where the dream goes (I'm selling you)"

 2. I tried to save time for reading and for this week I dived into the pages of experiences of the lost generation of 18-year-old boys at the front of WWI "All Quiet on the Western Front. "  Other times I just opened my Little Women which I'm going through slowly not to be finished too soon. And borrowed two more of the classics(Kerouac's On the Road and Woolf's To the Lighthouse) for the holidays.

3. Mince Pies by Marks&Spencer brought my evenings a hint of Christmas which I'm impatiently looking forward to but don't even have time to realize it.