A second is worth a dime 

You are wasting my precious time

All your fancy lies 

over my muffled cries.

It was a lonesome road 

The one you led me on. 

Your fortified heart lies beyond the moat

A place that I can never go.

April rushes in the fools

I turned around and the joke was on me.

The summer days were long and cruel,

And with you I am all that I cannot be.

Ocean at the end of the lane-Neil Gailman

10 oct- 11 oct 

I thought I quite liked the story but it got a bit creepy in the middle. I also thought I was losing my memory when I couldn't recall the protagonist's name. Alas, I realized it wasn't mentioned throughout the entire book. 

Things started becoming weird for the protagonist, a 7-year old boy, when his family car was stolen and their tenant was found dead (carbon monoxide poisoning) in the car. The protagonist wandered into the Hempstock's farm one day when he found a coin lodged inside his throat and met with the three women (one had been 11 years old for a very long time) who lived there. It was there that they told him something wicked had been stirring trouble in the town by giving people what they wanted (which in this case it seemed was money, the root of all evil). Lettie Hempstock the 11 year old girl then brought the protagonist with her to set a boundary for the evil one, so as to protect the town. They failed to keep evil away as it had lodged itself inside the foot of the protagonist. A beautiful housekeeper appeared at his home one day and started to wreck havoc by seducing his father and sister. It was the evil one in disguise and she was out to get the boy as he was her link to home.

To cut the story short, all were resolved except that Lettie fell into a deep sleep after saving the boy from the varmints who wanted the boy's heart. The boy came back to visit the Hempstocks over the years but he never could remember what happened due to Lettie's grandma's snipping and stitching of his memories. He was made to come back to the farm just so Lettie could know he was worth her sacrifice. However, whenever he left the farm, he would only recall that Lettie had left the farm for Australia.

I liked the protagonist's character, an avid book-reader who found solace in stories rather than reality and who also found courage through his friendship with Lettie. 

Maybe someday you will understand 

All the words that I can't say

Sometimes I wish that you could read my mind

Coz with you I'll have nothing to hide.

If you could see my heart 

You will know for sure

That this love is true

As true as the night that will surely turn to day.

Perhaps tomorrow your heart will change 

And you will find another to love

And I know I will wander then

Back to the dusty roads I have always known.

The winding country roads,

Are long and lonely 

But I have the memories of you 

And the tunes from this old harp

And I know I will be lonely no more.

The cicadas chirp

Breaking the silence 

A cabin by the river 

A small light litted

An old man by the window 

Looking forlorn

He stares at a faded picture

Holds it close to his heart 

And he weeps.

Sorrows, they fill every space in his heart.

Sorrows, they fill the empty rooms.

Sorrows. 

Sometimes he wanders through the woods

Loses his way

And then he remembers her

She will lead him home

As always, as before, 

His never failing guiding light.

The dusk settles slowly into night 

The faded photograph catches the dimming light,

He remembers every moment,

Every smile, every tear, every word.

The days seem longer 

The nights ever more so.

He imagines her in the room

Dancing softly across the moonlit floor,

He follows her in her footsteps

One two one two three

The rhythm of their feet

One two one two

The rhythm of their hearts. 

Shadows on the wall

Once there were two

But now there is only one.

She asked him for a song 

When the nights seemed long 

And he would play her a song or two

The familiar old tunes,

They could hum together. 

Chicken soup for the soul-count your blessings

5 oct 2015 - 9 oct 2015

I used to love reading chicken soup when I was younger. Then I kinda grew out of it. Book was given to me by cousin and I think it is a good reminder to take stock and count our blessings. Honestly, there are so many things we are to be grateful for. Clean water, public transport, air conditioning, shelter over our heads, peace, harmony. 

Almost all our basic needs are taken care of and we are natural disasters free, free as well from political unrest, etc. All these allow us to pursue other things in life, the topmost things on Maslow's hierarchy. Yet it is funny that despite all the comforts that we have, a lot of us face depression, a sense of emptiness and loneliness. From the book, I get a sense that we need to give thanks constantly to God even in our darkest hours, believing always that he will never test us beyond our limits. This is how we derive a sense of peace. 

Epictetus

http://mobile.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/epictetus.html

Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov

Wanted to read this book after reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran". I really like the prose of Nabokov, the words he used, the manner in which he drew the readers into the mind of the perverse pedophiliac Humbert. 

Humbert fell in love with Dolores Haze (Lolita) the 12 year old child of a widow at first sight. After meeting Lolita, he schemed to "possess" her and it didn't help that young Lolita was similarly attracted to Humbert. When Lolita was away at summer camp, he received a note from Mrs Haze that she was in love with Humbert. Humbert decided then that the best way he could remain with Lolita was to marry her mother and so that was what he did. Much to Humbert's delectation, mrs haze met with an accident right after discovering his dark secret. And this was how he and Lolita began their aberrant and doomed relationship. For two years, they traveled on the dusty roads of America and with Lolita growing older and bored. She finally decided to run away with a man from her old hometown. This man was eventually killed by Humbert for stealing his one true love away. This was how and why the story was written. Humbert wrote to an imaginary jury to justify the murder. 

When Humbert finally tracked Lolita after several years, he said:"It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever ever sight." Lolita then was no longer the nymphet he knew. She was 17, married to an ordinary man, and pregnant. But Humbert still loved her and it was then that Lolita told her the about the man she had ran away with, unknowingly sentencing the man to his death.

I think this is one of the classic books that one must read and it amazes me how people would risk their lives just to read and discuss this book in Iran. 

27sep- 4 oct 2015