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This last week has revolved around writing, chapters for two books and a conference paper. I haven’t been so immersed in writing since that summer of 2004, when the dissertation needed to be brought to an end. The anxiety of then has left, but still the process feels familiar: a kind of possession of the mind by how to string together thoughts and words and images and arguments and sentences till something emerges that flows with the need or desire that urged the writing of a particular piece in the first place. A possession which takes me into the writing bubble, with concentration for air and intensity for time. Stepping outside of the bubble means that, in no time, the writing oxygen disappears. Being inside the bubble means that the world around me fades a bit away. Except if there is someone to write with, and now there is Maggie. But basically i’ve been seriously neglecting friends and dear ones these days – even you, dear readers of this blog. And then there’s the body. Sacrificing of sleep, forgetting to eat – all indications of the mind’s concentration. And if all of this sounds like suffering, then let me assure that it is precisely that. Writing has always been suffering, i haven’t been able to do it in a different way. |
And then there was Giulia on the phone today. And as i described the mechanism of these writing trips, all of a sudden it became clear to us: suffering, transcendence of the body, sacrificing the body to the spirit, in order to touch a piece of truth – it is all about holiness! Sto facendo la santa.
After that revelation the poor body deserved a treat and i went into our jacuzzi. My first time in the rain. Light was slowly retreating from a very grey sky (à la belge…), rendering the branches of the tree of protection in our garden even more crooked and impressive in the back-light. A confused hummingbird came to a split-of-a-second stop in between two branches above my head – could it have mistaken our tree for a hummingbird-tree? – before it disappeared as fast as it had come.
Ha, my last comment of the day – I have done a lot!!!
I went to an exhibition at the Brussels Natural History Museum, and their was an exhibition about the heart.
There you could see your own heartrate – it already speeds up dramatically when you lift your leg! You could also see and hear how fast the heart beats of different animals. The bigger the animal, the slower the heart (elephant, about 30, human and pig 🙂 about 70 and the humming bird….)….
> copy paste!
The heart if the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (RTHU) and its relatives makes up about 2.5% of the bird’s body weight, making relatively the largest heart in the animal kingdom. Hummingbirds also have the greatest concentration of oxygen-carrying red blood cells (erythrocytes). As in mammals, the heart of the RTHU, is four-chambered, with the right side receiving deoxygenated blood and pumping it to the lungs, and the left side receiving oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumping it to the body. Hummingbirds are unusual in that they all appear to lack the fourth aortic arch, requiring that the right ductus caroticus transport blood to the abdominal aorta.
The RTHU heart, on average, beats about 250 times per minute while at rest, and about 1,220 per minute while flying. On cool nights, the body temperature of hummingbirds can drop from a daytime norm of about 40.5 degrees C (105 F) to an overnight low of about 21 degrees c (70 F). This condition, known as “torpor,” also allows the heart and breathing rate to slow and lowers the basal metabolism so that the hummingbird burns much less energy overnight.
Beautiful…
waaw, ik probeer het mij in te beelden, een klein hartje dat 1220 slagen per minuut bloed door heel het lichaam pompt, en tegelijktijd nog proberen te vliegen, onvoorstelbaar. tuurlijk dat dat beestje er een beetje verward uitzag, je zou voor minder…