I scanned a book on birthdates on Saturday. It said, people born on the 9th of March lead lives comprised of disparate chapters. I think I just closed one. I'm not quite sure how the next one will be written yet, I'm having a sort of a creative block at the moment. I don't know who the characters might be, will they be new or if the old ones I've loved so much may stage a comeback. But I know for sure I need a break, I don't know how long it will take, it will be a while.
And I've started reading Stieg Larsson. There is a sort of morbid romanticism that piqued my interest in this writer. Not so much his books, but his story. You know, this Swedish writer had planned an epic 10-book thriller, only to die halfway through his fourth. I'm on his first: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". So far, so good. I intend to read all three, and if they finally decide to release the fourth, as the original manuscript is or completed by someone else, I'll pick that up too. But I'll never know how the next chapters will be written, or rather, would have been written by Stieg Larsson.
Today, I'm introduced to controversial Iranian director عباس کیارستمی `Abbās Kiyārostamī, who was celebrated at Cannes as the festival closed yesterday, who is a master at visualising Persian poetry so beautifully in his films. In The Wind Will Carry Us, Kiyārostamī reflected on the connection between the past and the present, between continuity and change.
They promise of houries in heaven,
But I would say wine is better,
Take the present to the promises,
A drum sounds melodious from distance
I immediately connect, as I reflect on my own story's crazy chapters, sometimes disjointed, sometimes coherent, but eventually they all come together. This is what I told DA. We talked about our tendency to make up stories for ourselves, and then try our darn best to fulfill them, even to the detriment of our own sanity. What I told him, we do what we think we ought to do at any point in time. The story will work itself out, everything will somehow come together in the end and make sense. It's all part of the journey, right? Only in chapters.
