Love Hurts .......Truth is kinda of scary

* Probably one of the best teachers ever portrayed , and here he gave a real message:



Well, I... I don't know how to answer you, except to say that I teach you truths. My truths. Yeah, and it is kinda scary, dealing with the truth. Scary, and dangerous... Mark Thackeray ~ To Sir With Love



I seriously think humanity has always been in a period of questioning it's life here on Earth, it's purpose and reason for it's existence. It is only now that as we age and get closer to the other side that everything becomes more in perspective and gets examined under a magnifying glass with quite some zeal .


My life, our lives, have been turned upside down in the last month , and although I hate to be writing this all gloom and doom, I find it a must to relate my feelings openly in black and white, even if no one reads it. Relating a moment of life in diary ,a simple brief release of emotion written in ink but really written from the heart.


I have other means of elevating emotion and rendering my body and soul some space for healing but words today are my escape, more like , a temporary patch to remedy my problems. Writing is a form of art, an immediate way to express what one feels inside ; painting maybe it's parallel but I've chosen to use the keyboard.


So here is what has transpired and is transpiring at this time. It may make you feel sorry and sad for all affected and perhaps give you a clearer picture of your own life ; for better or worse, hopefully for the better.



There has been many health issues in our immediate family and extended families but 2010/2011 has got to be the worse! Looking back a few years ago I was hospitalized for endometriosis with entangled organs having to undergo a hysterectomy. Then knee surgery followed and was diagnosed with Rheumatic Arthritis , rampant cholesterol and diabetes not to mention dealing with a herniated disc which now I have learned my aunt who is three years younger than myself happens to have as well . Needless to say , in both our cases they are inoperable. Then last fall, after holidaying in the Dominican Republic my mom contracted an ecoli infection and suffered innumerable set backs and was hospitalized for quite some time. While all this was happening my husband was diagnosed with some form of heart ailment which to this day is still under investigation , possible ARVC , now both our kids and my husband's two sisters need to be tested .


In October my son suffered a concussion a day before hubby was going in for eye surgery. Thankfully he was okay. The following day my husband had a Pterygium removed from his retina ( a growth caused by uv radiation) but a week later suffered a retina detachment in the other eye . After gas bubbles didn't work he was admitted that same week for emergency surgery and both his eyes were operated on. He still needs cataract surgery, what he initially had gone in for in the first place. Then in November our friend and neighbour suffered an aneurysm and died leaving behind a wife and three boys; his boys lost their first mom 14 years ago. My dad was diagnosed with cancer on his nose and was also operated the same month but quickly fell ill a few days later with double pneumonia and water under his heart and lungs, remaining in hospital for over a month. And my sister and her partner both have had their share of troubles and tribulations.My sister's partner also had to have a partial hysterectomy , while my sister ,for some time now has been dealing with severe depression. But out of all these problems the big one hit us January 4 /2011. My stepdad was taken by paramedics to hospital when his speech and reasoning seemed incoherent, prognosis Glioblastoma. Needless to say after a lengthy operation to extract the tumour (6 hours) I was unaware that my blood pressure had surged to a very dangerous level and was told to stay home, rest and take medication to elevate the anxiety. So I have followed doctor's orders , you're no good to anyone if you yourself is incapacitated and at the moment there are so many more underlining issues that are also of concern but I must push them aside for now in my best interest, a little selfish I know, but I have no choice if I want to be here for my myself and my family.


And so , just being able to write this is a start to healing from the initial shock of what has transgressed in our lives and like I quoted Pasternack in my previous post "You must never, never despair, whatever the circumstances. To hope and to act are our duties in misfortune. To do nothing and to despair is to neglect our duty."


is something we all must always remember to do, even as hard as it gets. I promise that for myself and you the reader my next post will be one of positive nature and hopefully give inspiration and joy, until then God Bless.

Dr. Zhivago .....leaving it's imprint in my imagination

"You must never, never despair, whatever the circumstances. To hope and to act are our duties in misfortune. To do nothing and to despair is to neglect our duty." 

When David Lean undertook the project to tell Boris Pasternak's saga he never forgot to keep the poet's eye in focus. His mastery was immense and the combined efforts and artistry of the writer/poet, filmmaker,composer and cinematographer along with the unmatchable actors created an unified chemistry empowering a movie to the status of "Classic" , the mould was broken. 

Boris Pasternak Russian author of Dr.Zhivago

I was eight when I first saw Dr. Zhivago. I suppose some of the reasons why the movie made such a vivd impression on me was the fact of how I myself was a dislocated immigrant in a foreign land. I had change come into my life involuntarily and it was scary. I was vulnerable and only had my mother to whom I was most comfortable with since the two of us had travelled far across the sea to make a new home with my dad who to me was then only a stranger. I never knew him till I was seven years old. Now, here I was a little kid between two parents, all so foreign to me, watching a child around my own age looking down at his mother's coffin being hammered shut  and lowered into a cold and frozen landscape , so very, very sad and so desolate; snow and ice, bitter cold and losing his mother, I could relate. It remained there forever imprinted in my mind.

 Another image that took hold of me was when Lara and Yurii with their daughter are travelling to Varykino to the FairyTale Ice-Palace. How magical and how so very beautiful, like a dream. Even in the icy loveliness of their escape from the chaos of the world they were a family bound by strong love. And when all else failed there was the promise of a new tomorrow , of growth and rebirth…."a host of golden daffodils".The panorama Lean created of Yurii walking in the sun-kissed garden filled with golden daffodils of Spring was unforgettable.

Yurii at his mother's grave -opening scene in Dr. Zhivago

Yurii, Lara and Tonya arriving in Varykino at the Ice- Palace

Almost obscured from view secretly concealed under the Russian winter

Imagine...walking into this frozen castle ....time suspended...everything accentuated in it's glorious beauty

But all of this infallible beauty was many times more compounded by the lingering plucking of the Balalaika strings riding on the breeze of my mind's imagination for 45 years to this day. My parents may have without knowledge given me some moral lessons that day when they decided to have me tag along to the cinema to watch what would later become a classic in our world and in mine. 

Love, death, war, peace, change, rebirth, choice and acceptance all made their presence to me that night in a beautiful unforgettable story. I walked away with much learned knowledge even as a young child of eight and a part of who I am today is partly due to a movie that totally moved me and imprinted its stamp within me.


Even to this day Pasternak gives some potent messages ……..

"Never, never, not even in their moments of richest and wildest happiness, had they lost the sense of what is highest and most ravishing - joy in the whole universe, its form, its beauty, the feeling of their own belonging to it, being part of it." 

"The riddle of life, the riddle of death, the beauty of genius, the beauty of loving - that, yes, that we understood. As for such petty trifles as re-shaping the world - these things, no thank you, they are not for us." 

And of course I know what you were expecting was ….did she get inspired from this movie as well? The answer is yes! Working on it.

A bit of trivia which may enlighten you…..Did you know the film was mostly shot in Spain in Soria ? 

David Lean couldn't get the weather to cooperate , no snow or ice to work with so they improvised and created the icy effects with hot wax, marble dust/powder and water for the ice-palace and other winter scenes.Some of the landscape shots were taken in Finland and Canada.

And after writing this little post I learned the child Yurii at the beginning of the movie in the funeral scene was no other than Omar Sharif's own son Tarek….eight years old,

same age as me when I first saw the movie.It maybe one of the reasons why that scene was so memorable to me then. In any case this is one film I will always be inspired by, in both it's strong messages of life and it's wonderful visual scenery in lending a hand in my artistic creations of which I have recently begun.






The Poetry of Yurii Zhivago - by  Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

 "13 Stolen days out of time , out of history" Yurii and Lara escape to Varykino.

During this time  in the early part of his retreat with Lara, Yurii  is inspired one night and begins quietly writing his poem ( Skazka ) "FairyTale" while everyone is soundly asleep; only the distant howling of the wolves are his waking companions.

Fairy Tale

by Boris Pasternak



In a land far away
And in days long ago
Over stubble and steppe
Rode a warrior bold.

From afar he espied
Through the dust of the plain
A dark forest rise up,
But he rode on a-main.

Uneasy feelings
Gnawed at his heart:
"Beware of the water!
Tighten your girth!"

But no heed paid the horseman
And spurred on his mount,
And he galloped full tilt
To the wood on the mound.

With a turn at the barrow
He rode into the vale,
Crossed over the hill
And skirted the glade.

Then into a hollow
With wild animal trail,
Down a path through the wood
To a watering place,

And paying the voice
Of his instinct no heed,
He rode down the ravine
To water his steed.

* * *
Fording the stream,
The knight came to a cave
Whose entrance was lit
By a sulfurous flame,

His vision was clouded
By thick crimson smoke,
But a call of appeal
Rang out through the grove.

The knight gave a start
And spurred on his horse
And rode down the gorge
To answer that voice.

At the sight he beheld
He clenched firmly his lance:
The head and tail of a dragon
With scale-covered flanks.

The flames from its maw
Cast a glow all around,
And round a fair damsel
Its coils had been wound.

And over the shoulder
Of the hapless fair maid,
Like the thong of a whip,
The dragon's neck swayed.

By local tradition
In form of a ransom
Fair girls were delivered
To the lair of the monster.
By paying this tribute
The folk of the region,
While living in hovels,
Could purchase their freedom.

And as it tormented
Its newly won victim,
Round her arm and her throat
The snake slithered and twisted.

In prayer to the heavens
The knight raised his glance
And for the battle
Made ready his lance.

* * *
Eyelids tight closed,
Fords, rivers and streams,
Cloudy height of the heavens,
And ages and years…

The knight fell from the saddle,
Losing his helmet.
With its hooves his proud steed
Meanwhile trampled the serpent.

Then both horse and dragon
Fell dead on the sand:
The rider lay swooning,
The damsel in trance.

Bathed in blue light
Was the vault of the heaven.
Who was she? Tsar's daughter?
Or princess? Or peasant?

Oh, excess of gladness!
Her eyes brimmed and wept,
Then she collapsed
In oblivion and slept.

The knight's strength returned
And then waned once again.
His pulse from such bloodshed
Scarce beat in his veins.

But their hearts were still pounding.
Now maiden, now warrior
Strove to wake up,
Then relapsed into slumber.

Eyelids tight closed,
Fords, rivers and streams.
Cloudy height of the heavens,
And ages and years…

Boris Pasternak secretly had his book Dr.Zhivago published in 1957 (same year I was born) in Milano Italy, not too far from where I was born, Genova. Before then he tried to have it published in Russia but was denied  based on his political viewpoint which was opposed by the Russian government. Pasternak was much like Zhivago himself, being more concerned with the welfare of the individual than of society as a whole.

He received a Nobel Prize for literature in 1958. He died in 1960 .Doctor Zhivago was finally published in Russia in 1988.

BORIS PASTERNAK Videos courtesy of IgorRussland























Oh and yes, I did ask my mom and dad to buy me a Balalaika which of course they did ( from a pawn shop) one day while shopping on Young Street in Toronto although sad to say I never did learn to play it.These days, I just listen to the film's soundtrack quite contently and am always inspired. Now tell me , how many movies can do that???