I had been lucky enough to buy a copy of her book, View With A Grain of Sand: Selected Poems, several years ago at a local bookstore.  Later, I found that my sister also owned a copy of her Poems: New and Collected, which contained basically the same poems as in my book, but including newer works.

A former member of the Polish Communist Party, Szymborska later turned away from her early “Stalinist” work.  She was also an essayist and translator.  Shortly after winning the Nobel Prize, she said in a New York Times interview that although “life crosses politics… my poems are strictly not political. They are more about people and life.”  Many of her poems that I have read deal with the aftermath of war, of people rising from its ashes.  Her words can be stark, but manage to convey hopefulness and sympathy.

I wanted to share here two of her poems, which I enjoyed reading:

CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT

Die — you can’t do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
In an empty apartment?
Climb up the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there’s more space.
At at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they’re new ones.
The hand that puts fish in the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn’t start
at its usual time.
Something doesn’t happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here
Then suddenly disappeared,
And stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet has been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken,
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
Just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do with a cat.
Sidle towards him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.

NOTHING TWICE

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
That we arrive here improvised
And leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is offered only once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though, you’re here with me
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose?  A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

(translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh,
from “View with a Grain of Sand”, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1995)

There are more translations of Szymborska’s poems online on the Polish-American Network, Poets.org, and the State University of New York (Buffalo).

(Click on the photos for a closer view.)

Sometimes I look for particular fountain pens to add to my collection.  Sometimes pens find me.  This is one of those pens – I am honored to be its current guardian.

This beautiful and iconic Art Deco lever-filling fountain pen is the Wahl Eversharp Doric.  Its celluloid cap and barrel each has 12 sides, and it sports the very unique adjustable 14k gold No. 5 nib.  The slider on top of the nib can be moved to any of 9 slots, which determines how rigid or how flexible the nib’s tines will be.  The closer the slider is to the writing tip, the more rigid it is; the closer it is to the barrel the more likely the nib is to flex and produce writing with shading and flourishes (if you know how to write Spencerian or Copperplate script.  Here’s an example on Youtube).

Wahl Eversharp was one of the top 4 fountain pen manufacturers of its time.  This particular Doric was manufactured circa 1935 (later Dorics are plunger-filling pens).  It is a standard-size, “Popular Price” Doric, which was sold in those days for USD5.  The bigger “senior” or “oversize” Dorics had a Gold Seal above the clip, which indicated a lifetime guarantee (which my pen doesn’t have; but it is no less beautiful to me).  My pen also sports the plain clip, not the earlier roller-clip of the first-generation Dorics.

This green marble celluloid is named “Kashmir”, one of a number of lovely colors.  Unfortunately, Kashmir is one of those unstable colored celluloids that has shown a tendency to discolor, craze or crystallize (a condition where the pattern becomes somewhat transparent and colors tend to flouresce and create tiny cracks under certain temperature/storage conditions).  Luckily, this pen does not exhibit any crazing or crystallization, although the barrel’s green marble now has a faintly olive tinge.  This may be due to the fact that it may have been stored through  the years until its original latex rubber ink sac had deteriorated and released gasses that changed the color of the celluloid.  I removed the section from the barrel to check the condition of the existing sac and was pleased to find that it has been fitted with a silicon sac, which should last for a good length of time.

Here’s a writing sample, using J. Herbin Lie de The ink on a Clairefontaine notebook.  I have little experience with flexy writing, so this is what I could manage.  I have a gold-filled Wahl ringtop with a No. 2 nib that is perhaps quite a bit softer and easier to flex than this Doric’s adjustable No. 5 nib.  (I try to be cautious and not write with such a heavy hand that I may inadvertently spring the tines.)  The nib has a slight kink in it, as if someone tried to flex the nib in the past without moving the slider.  This does not detract from its writing performance; I am able to write rapidly with it.  The Doric feels good in the hand.

The cap band is somewhat brassed (the gold plating has worn off in some areas), but this does not bother me much as I acquire pens to actually write with rather than to display. There are faint use scratches.  But yes, the Doric is one of those pens worth restoring to its full glory, as it is not that easy to find.

(For more information on the Wahl Eversharp Doric, please visit The Fountain Pen Network’s Wahl Eversharp Forum, moderated by Syd Saperstein aka “Wahlnut”.  Other information for this blog came from Penlovers.net, Richard Binder, and Rick Conner.)

I had a place in the team, a role and a goal, and I tried as much as possible to achieve it.  The sense of belonging and pride in the team was exhilarating.  For once I was the doer, not the watcher.  Many people prefer to just watch, and never give themselves a chance to do.

Many years later, I watched my goddaughter Jassie play girls’ Little League Softball.  Their team won the right to represent the Philippines at the International Little League World Series that year.  I cheered myself hoarse that day, and was so proud of my friends’ little girl.  I remembered thinking that when I was a little girl I could never hit anything on cue even if I tried.  I was hopeless at shooting a basketball or returning a volleyball serve.   The only thing I knew how to do was kick a ball in certain directions and block it with my body.  I thought it was great that kids nowadays had all these organized activities that gave them opportunities to discover physical and social skills, activities that weren’t available or fashionable when I was small.  All we had then was a choice of learning dance, or a musical instrument, or art, or kiddie cooking class.  Very few little girls then participated in team sports, unless you counted school patintero and Chinese garter games at recess.

Last Saturday I watched my niece Lilo play Little League T-ball.  It was a very hot and humid day, but families gathered around the El Circulo Verde field, cheering on their kids.  There’s something so appealing about watching 6-year-olds running around a diamond trying to catch a ball.  Each of them had a job to do.  Lilo batted twice; later she had to exit the game due to heat exhaustion.  They only played for an hour in the sweltering heat, but they all got their exercise, which is one thing kids always need enough of.

When Lilo started out with the International Little League Association of Manila‘s Major Holdings team, she was the smallest girl (and one of the youngest) in the group.  They practiced once a week on a weekday and played virtually every Saturday in the school year.  In the beginning she didn’t understand the game rules.  She cried whenever she was tagged out.  Eventually she learned to hit a ball on a tee strongly, even hit a coach’s pitch, and to catch a ball. And she learned to run as fast as she could.  There were days she didn’t feel like playing, but she played anyway.  There were days she was more interested in daydreaming while in the outfield. But she played anyway.  Her teammates didn’t all go to the same school, but they all became friends.

A year later, some teammates moved into the next age group.  Some stopped playing in favor of other pursuits.  This year Lilo plays in a mixed boys and girls group.  (More new friends!)

This sort of experience is so important.  It’s not about dressing up to look sporty, or so you have something to brag about (although some people do that).  It’s about learning to work with others, and to do your job the best way you can so you can contribute to the team’s success.  For most little girls, it’s trying out what you initially think you’re not inclined to do, with the hope of finding out that you really like what you’re doing.  And becoming the better person for it.

The last time I participated in a team sport, it was in Philippine airsoft, from 2001-2003.  I was a member of the PPG, an all-girl assault squad of Team Wyvern.  We participated in the first Kalis competition, where we had to successfully complete an assault module, a defense module and a hostage rescue module.  We held a respectable middle place in the competition, not bad for first-timers.  Here’s a couple of photos from those days when I was 20lbs lighter and had sharper cheekbones:

That’s Ria Miranda-Regis and me clearing out the first room of the FTI warehouse in Taguig.

The PPG disbanded at a time when some of us became wives and mothers.  Those are important roles, too – except your team is your family this time.  As for me, I passed my airsoft gear on to my godson Raffi, who uses it mostly for cosplay.

Those with young children should take advantage of opportunities for team sport.  If you’re thinking about things like the expense and the time it takes up, believe me, it’s worth it.  Let your children join something, have fun and learn to play well with others.  There are many, many lessons to learn from experiences like this, but playing well with others is one of those skills that you may not realize means a lot when it comes to living well in this world.

My 6yo niece has a very vivid imagination.  She’s wanted to be Medusa  for the longest time.  Last October 22 she had her fantasy realized – thanks to Mommy Joy’s crochet skills.  Joy found the free crocheted yarn snakes pattern by Lucy Ravenscar at Craftster.org.

The 14 snakes are made up of combinations of yarn colors, crocheted over four days.  The eyes and tongue are sewn on.  They are attached to a plastic headband, along with black yarn “hair”.  The “black” lipstick is eyebrow pencil rubbed over lip gloss.  The rest of the costume was a black sleeveless dress.

Lilo was even more thrilled when she won a special award for her costume!  Even now she’s thinking of a new costume for next year…

Our group of pen lovers, Fountain Pen Network – Philippines, is three years old and keeps growing.  It started with a handful of enthusiasts in a thread on analog writing instruments at (oddly enough) a local tech forum.  It now has about 20-30 active members, many of whom are also members of the Fountain Pen Network forums.  Our yahoogroup moderator, Prof. Jose Dalisay (“Butch” to his friends, aka “penmanila” on FPN), has written about fountain pen collecting, and the group, several times in the Philippine Star.  Anyone who enjoys writing with fountain pens, wants to try them out, or collects them, may join.  We meet about once a month, for lunch or coffee and pen talk.

What do we do at our pen meets?  Eat.  Talk.  Make new friends.  Doodle (that’s Caloy Abad Santos doodling on the Amici restaurant placemat above). Show and tell.  Try out each other’s pens.  Hold raffles of pen, ink and paper products.  Buy.  Sell.  Trade.  Exchange information – where to buy pens and inks, care and maintenance of pens, pen repair, info on collectible models, where to find quality stationery, etc.  In short, we are a bunch of enablers!

A friend of mine in the US said, “I love looking at your pen meet pictures on Facebook.  It’s all so geeky.”  Yes, geeky and we love it.

Some members’ collections focus on a certain brand and model.  On the table in the photo are Parker Vacumatics.

In this photo, teddy bears Ivan and Trekker guard pen cases containing Pelikan M800 limited editions, Toledo models and “Originals of Their Time”.

Here are some beautiful celluloid and silver overlay pens.

A number of members have special frankenpens created by honorary US member Tom Overfield.  These are pens that are cobbled together with usable parts of other pens of the same model, even if the colors don’t match.  They each have special names – there’s Frankensnork, Bride of Frankensnork, the Bridesmaid Pencil, Tuckenstein, Frankenthein, Thinenstein, Rafflestein, Pencigor, etc.  Mine is the grey, blue and maroon Parker 51 Demi known as “Demistein”.  It’s second from right – I love it because its parts have been rescued from somebody’s cabinets and it writes a nice, broad, wet line.  If ever there’s a token of deep friendship and love of pens, it is that.

Colorful pen wraps!  These were made for me by May Zayco (fuschia and aqua) and Hazel Gazmen (olive green).

We like to hold raffles at Christmas, and during anniversaries.  Keeps the attendance up!

Here’s Leigh Reyes, doodling.

And more doodling, this time by Jenny Ortuoste.  Featured is my Swan fountain pen with the semiflex Eversharp nib.  Isn’t it inspiring to be able to write in all those gorgeous ink colors?  If you wanted read a good ink and paper review, then visit Clem Dionglay‘s blog, Rants of the Archer.

I even got a lesson on how to resac a Waterman 0852 1/2 BCHR ringtop from the 1920s, from Butch Palma, at the first anniversary pen meet.

Here we are at the second anniversary pen meet.  And that’s not even the entire group…

Photos by Chito Limson, Leigh Reyes, Jenny Ortuoste, and Mona Caccam.

I found out about Theo & Philo from my friend and neighbor Karlo, via Google+.  He recommended I get it from Echo Store in Podium, which sells sustainable, eco-friendly, proudly-Filipino products.  Now I am a sucker for quality local products – I comb trade fairs for products like this.  The website says the cacao is from Davao and the sugar, from Bacolod.  I just HAD to try it.

On my first purchase, I chose Dark Chocolate and Labuyo (chili) flavors.  The Dark Chocolate was of very high quality.  It had depth, and a delicious, bittersweet flavor.  The following day we tried the Labuyo.  It was Dark Chocolate with an appealing, spicy end note which everyone (with the exception of my 6yo niece) enjoyed.  Apparently it’s one of the bestsellers in the Theo & Philo lineup of flavors.  On my second purchase a week later, I got Milk Chocolate and Green Mango & Salt.  I’m not a very big fan of generic milk chocolates per se, but was glad that this version had a high cacao content and wasn’t very sweet.  The Green Mango & Salt was a happy surprise.  There were dried bits of green mango interspersed with occasional rock salt crystals in a Dark Chocolate matrix.  I loved the contrast in flavors and textures!  On my third purchase a couple of weeks later, I bought TWO Green Mango & Salt bars, and one flavored with Barako coffee.  Embedded in the Dark Chocolate were crushed bits of roasted Barako (Liberica) coffee beans.  Crunchy-gritty, with the full flavor of coffee.  Another winner!

They make wonderful gifts, don’t they?  Christmas is coming and I’m already thinking of who to give them to.  I’ve posted about them on Facebook and by now a number of my friends have tried them too.  I’ve already given some balikbayan friends a selection of flavors.  In fact, I’m looking for Calamansi and Ginger for my next purchase.  Echo Store doesn’t always carry all the flavors (it depends on the delivery, and of course some flavors are more popular than others), but you will be able to find them in these stores.  Each bar is PhP 95, and so worth it.

I’m so happy with such a quality product – it’s definitely worth our support.

——-

I’m not affiliated with Echo Store, but am a regular customer.

I once attended a seminar on bookbinding, but it didn’t include coptic binding.  I knew how to do kettle stitch, but not how to attach the cover boards correctly.  So I browsed tutorials on Youtube.  I found DaphLife’s tutorial friendly and easily followed.

I did two practice books, a “pocket-size” book (a page is half a legal-size sheet folded into two) and a “standard” (letter-size sheet folded into two) one.  They’re quite minimalist; I didn’t cover the illustration board covers with fancy paper anymore since I was impatient.  Besides, I was only going to use them for ordinary note-taking and not for journalling.  I’m frustrated that I can’t find in the bookstores quality bulk paper whose surface can take fountain pen ink properly enough that I can write on both sides of the page.  At least my book block paper is acid-free.  Next time I’ll do the fancy cover wrapping and all.

Coptic binding usually requires a thicker thread, usually of a color that contrasts with the paper and the cover board.  This makes sure the decorative aspect of the sewing comes through to the viewer/user.  I just used what I had at home, a 100% cotton crochet thread. I used the single-needle version (yes, there is a two-needle version, but I only had one needle big enough for the crochet thread).

What I like about this method is that the book opens flat, is stackable (compared to my comb ringbound notebooks) and is 100% biodegradable.

Yes, yes, I know, next time I’ll make prettier wrapped cover boards.

I am posting three of his poems that I like here, and am as of now actively looking for any of his poetry collections. The New York Observer says a number of Transtromer’s poem collections in English will certainly be reprinted following his win.  Wikipedia also lists his published books in English translation.  As a layman I find it easier to approach Nobel Prizewinning works in poetry since short but complete samples are available online for immediate appreciation.  I hope you enjoy the three I’ve selected:

THE TREE AND THE SKY
(translated by Robin Fulton)

There’s a tree walking around in the rain,
it rushes past us in the pouring grey.
It has an errand.  It gathers life
out of the rain like a blackbird in an orchard.

When the rain stops, so does the tree.
There it is, quiet on clear nights
waiting as we do for the moment
when the snowflakes blossom in space.

APRIL AND SILENCE
(translated by Robin Fulton)

Spring lies desolate.
The velvet-dark ditch
crawls by my side
without reflections.

The only thing that shines
is yellow flowers.

I am carried in my shadow
like a violin
in its black case.

The only thing I want to say
glitters out of reach
like the silver
in a pawnbroker’s.

THE COUPLE
(translated by Robert Bly)

They switch off the light and its white shade
glimmers for a moment before dissolving
Like a tablet in a glass of darkness.  Then up.
The hotel walls rise into the black sky.
The movements of love have settled, and they sleep
but their most secret thought meet as when
two colors meet and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent.  But the town has pulled closer
tonight.  With quenched windows.  The houses have approached.
They stand close up in a throng, waiting,
a crowd whose faces have no expressions.

All poems copyright Tomas Transtromer.  Many thanks to John Baker, Bloodaxe Blogs, and Transtromer.net for texts of these poems.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

This is my mother’s EPP herbal balcony garden:  organic sweet basil, bok choy, Himalayan spinach, tarragon, rosemary and chives.  Yes, the planters are converted plastic Coca-cola liter bottles.

EPP stands for Enriched Potting Preparation, which uses a “nutrient-rich compost soil extract, in a watering and aeration-efficient container”.  It’s award-winning urban garden technology developed by Dr. Eduardo P. Paningbatan, a professor of soil science at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos.

My mom attended one of his seminars and decided to start her own garden.  She even organized a seminar at our Metro Manila condo complex so that other unit owners could grow their own organic and pesticide-free herbs and vegetables, even ornamental plants.

EPP is distributed by:

Makiling Plant and Products Exchange (MPPI)
10001 Mt. Halcon St., Umali Subd., Los Banos, Laguna
Tel No. +6349-536-0054
Fax No. +6349-536-5536
Mobile +63919-804-7169

It came in its own cheesecloth bag, with some information in Japanese and in English.  There was also an extra elastic strap included, in case you wanted to add some refills to the existing one.

The leather cover is made in Thailand.  It’s the kind of finish that looks better and better the more used and distressed it gets.  The roughly 9cm x 12.5cm refill notebook paper is thin, but fountain pen friendly (if your pen is not an overly wet writer).  The orange refill in the photo is a DIY one I made out of 220gsm cardstock and 100gsm copy paper.

I tested my pens and inks on a back page.  While you can see the writing on the other side, there is absolutely no feathering or bleedthrough of ink.

You can fit two refills on the existing elastic.  To fit more refills/accessories in the Midori Traveler’s Notebook, check out the tips on the Scription blog.

I bought the Midori Traveler’s Notebook from Scribe Writing Essentials (3/F Eastwood Mall, Quezon City).  I believe they are the exclusive distributors of Midori products (including refills and accessories) in the Philippines.  It’s a little pricey, but I think it’s worth it, being real leather and handsome-looking.

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I am not affiliated with Scribe Writing Essentials except as a customer.