Friday 20 November 2009

Moon River..

Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style someday
Oh dream maker,
you heart breaker,
Wherever you're going
I'm going your way...'


Change comes. Long years pass, and seasons fade, and you wonder when, and then it comes. I followed the crescent moon home tonight after my first teaching session in four years. The moon was smiling for miles and miles, almost as dreamily as I..
My feet seem to have found a rhythm of their own since my last encounter with hospital. Hos-pit-al. The word feels alien to me, like it belongs to another time, an old skin I am waltzing cleanly out of.
In that age past, I was once the traumatised patient of Dr Ly, a skilled Vietnamese acupuncturist, who with the patience of a Bodhi Sattva, helped bring me to this moment, when I can offer my own help in teaching English to Dr Ly's grand-niece Trang. Trang will be a skilled physician in her own time. I know this. And perhaps she will remember the day, when she and I wrote a poem together. A poem that began, 'My mother, my mirror'...
Change comes. And I will be ready for her!

(Lyrics and image from Breakfast at Tiffany's)

10 comments:

Sara said...

My favourite film, my favourite song (of my favourites!) I love this post :)

Unknown said...

Oh yes, how lovely to follow the dreamy moon and let it take us home:)

Ruth said...

The moon is the stone inside - where we can remember our changes!

We can never completely be removed from our mothers - even the negatives shape us - maybe more than the positives.

It's nice to hear about your rhythm. I'm so happy.

Tess Kincaid said...

I'm glad to hear you're crossing her in style, Shaista! :^)

Jeanne-ming Brantingham said...

Ahhhh, the sliver smiling moon. I am writing you from the hilllands of Northern Thailand. Near Chiang Mai. I have a home here that has been empty for a year since I have had no time to come visit. So I arrived from the airport, dropped my bags just inside the door and picked up a rag and have been cleaning, airing, laundering, and opening this old house up. I collapsed in bed last night to the sound of bull frogs and crickets as loud as city buses. But I dozed off with aching legs and just before I was awash in sleep I saw the sliver moon smiling back at me. I love that. Same moon smiling over both of us.

Mariana Soffer said...

Wonderfull! that song is amazing it is incredible sang by caetano veloso, so romantic. And I like it also by check backer

Maxine said...

How wonderful that you are well enough to teach again! Long may it last.....

Anonymous said...

Your resilience is inspiring. I'm so glad it brought you back to teaching :)

Renee said...

Shaista you are incredible and I love how you notice the pit in hospital.

xoxo

Maia said...

I love breakfast at tiffany's, and all the moreso because the novella was so much harsher than the film. One is forever overlaid on the other for me, making them doubly poignant. The (only slightly dark) fantasy of the film always underscored by the much darker, much seedier, much harsher truth of the novella.

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