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And I had to know. I had to know. How else could I make arrangements to protect myself, to gather all the devices for use in extreme emergency and take things calmly so that I would know which to use?
Janet Frame, Faces in the WaterI have to know. There is no emergency anymore. Just a vague threat, who lingers on since my childhood, lingers on from the extreme emergency my parents had to face, decades before I was born. With it comes an inner tension, an urgency to be always on the go. There may be fatal danger in the idyllic pasture.
And like everyone who couldn't escape, who bashed against walls, I developed my ability to wander within my mind, exploring foreign lands of art, history, biography, science. Within my mind I am free, die Gedanken sind frei.
So I am still on the go, if it seems better to run away, but also able to fight with all my courage if my knowledge and consideration advise me to do so. And yes, I will wear fatal colours as I did in the last 43 years.Tags: autobiography
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Listening to her, one experienced a deep uneasiness as of having avoided an urgent responsibility, like someone who, walking at night along the banks of a stream, catches a glimpse in the water of a white face or a moving limb and turns quickly away, refusing to help or to search for help. We all see the faces in the water. We smother our memory of them, even our belief in their reality, and become calm people of the world; or we can neither forget nor help them. Sometimes by a trick of circumstances or dream or a hostile neighbourhood of light we see our own face.
Janet Frame, Faces in the WaterThere is not much I'm afraid of. But I'm afraid of deep water. With every step into a lake or the sea, my aversion grows parallel to the water line. When the water reaches my ribcage, my heartbeat hastens with every wave that pulls at my ankles. If I lose ground, I hyperventilate, panic and swallow water. For this reason I never learned to swim, although they tried hard to teach me. I also avoid to tread on the ground of boats, but I feel safe on ships where the surface of the water is not that near. I don't know the reason for this fear. I like the air, I love to fly. But I abhor the deep waters which pull you in and never let you go.
Later in life I discovered that other members of my family also suffered from this phobia. What a strange kind of heritage. Maybe it's endemic in coast dwellers like us, who know very well the risk of drowning.
 Tags: autobiography, death
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Sie sind Ihrer ganzen Länge nach aus Seidenpapier herausgeschnitten, aus gelbem Seidenpapier, so silhouettenartig, und wenn Sie gehen, so muss man Sie knittern hören.
Franz Kafka, Beschreibung eines Kampfes.
The entire length of you is cut out of tissue paper, yellow tissue paper, like a silhouette, and when you walk one ought to hear you rustle... I listened to this rustle. To the turning of the pages, the unfolding of the tale.
The world bursts open with my discovery of books. One of the most fascinating books in my early childhood was an illustrated, tattered encyclopedia. With this guide I learned the way of the world. Later I read stories, novels, biographies. With them I learned the way of people.
I always search for the storyline in others. People are like books to me. I am irritated when I don't find a way to open them. Or to close them. As I like it, any time I like it. I didn't understand - and still not do - that they lead a life beyond their pages. A life without me reading them. A life beyond my room and my imagination. Tags: autobiography, solitude
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