(does every post have to have a title?)

There is a sweet melancholy about sunday afternoons. The kind that makes you gaze out the window as if looking at something -when in fact your eyes are turned inwards. The music is playing, you hold a cup of coffee and, all of a sudden, there they are...all sorts of memories. No use fighting them off. So you go with the flow, curious where this journey will take you. It usually revolves around all the things that went wrong, the happy moments that could have been, the possibilities that never became reality, the dreams that turned to nightmares...

I've spent many sunday afternoons like that. Each and every one has been unique in its own way. I cherish them as a part of who I am -my very own necklace of small depressive pearls.

Today was different, though. The usual memories came, in all their colored glory. Yet in a completely new dimension. Through the sadness rose a smile. Suddenly, I realized. There is always a reason to be sad- but, if you look hard enough, and this is the tough part, you will find many reasons to be happy.
The first snow after weeks.... Being alone when you want to be alone... The smell of hot coffee... Your favorite song coincidentally playing on the radio.. Small things, things we have elaborately learned to ignore... and the list goes on forever...

The bad side of reality is very easy to look at. We hardly ever miss it. But, while we spend our time observing all that is or has been wrong with our life, there are a thousand little presents today has in store for us; all we have to do is open our arms and accept them. And the best part is... who knows what presents tomorrow will bring?

The whole universe in a glass of wine

A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!

- Richard Feynman

All that is gold does not glitter

Το να δεις την ομορφιά δεν είναι δύσκολο. Το δύσκολο είναι να τη εντοπίσεις εκεί που δεν μπορούν να τη δουν οι άλλοι. Να βρίσκεις μικρα κομμάτια της μέσα στο κάθε τι. Να την αφήνεις να σε αγγίξει.

Παντού υπάρχει κάτι όμορφο -αρκεί να μπορείς να το διακρίνεις. Μάθε να μην αρκείσαι στα αυτονόητα - αυτά είναι για όλους. Όμως η ομορφιά που μόνο εσύ μπορείς να δεις... αυτή θ' ανήκει πάντα και μόνο σε σένα...και θα σου κλείνει πονηρά το μάτι όταν οι άλλοι θα κοιτάζουν απορημένοι ;)

Shinigami only eat apples...

The Balrog is dead...

...I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.
Then... darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell...

(The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers)

You did it. You fought off your nemesis. You gave it all - and were victorious. Everyone marvels at the victory - yet no one ever wonders what it costs. 

It is then, right after the moment of defeating your innermost fear, that darkness surrounds you. It is you and you alone, left there to... I don't want to say die, but it's as close as it gets. Exhaustion, uncertainty, a feeling of nothingness. You used to dream about this moment, your triumph, and now that it has come, well.. it's nothing like you imagined. You have not transformed into some superhero or even a slightly better version of yourself. On the contrary: you don't have the slightest bit of energy left.

So you just lie there, helpless. Until the nightmares come - to take you down the roads of darkness. Into the inner depths of what you are, of what you have been. Nightmares unknown till now, they speak the truth, though in a language you don't understand -yet. Don't resist, just follow them: for it is not the victory you won that will give you back the self you so longed for. It is this journey through the ruins of your soul that will do it -after utterly destroying you. The fight and many other fights before this one have taken their toll on you. Now, as you unconsciously wander through your pieces, is the time to cut off everything that cannot be healed. Some parts of you are so corrupted and withered that can no longer be saved - no matter how much it hurts, you have to let go. You must ignore the demons and temptations that  inevitably appear after each turn of the road, offering you replacements for the parts you 're leaving behind. They are but  illusions -usually disguised as someone dear... Don't give in. Just wander on, throwing away everything that holds you back. It is not a pleasant journey, yet it is a journey you must take.  

And so you stray out of time... for what feels like a thousand years....

...You are right. This does not feel right. This does not feel like you anymore.  You feel... estranged.. You are right. This is not you. At least not what you were before the great victory that brought you here. But this is how it is supposed to go. You let yourself get lost - to be found again. And when you rise - rid of all that's been keeping you a prisoner for all this time - you are transformed. Remember the gray wizard with sympathy and understanding. It is who you have been for so long. But he has sacrificed himself to save you. It is the white wizard you are now.  

'Yes.. that was the name. I was Gandalf.'