POSTCARD #239: Chiang Mai: Seasons greetings blogger friends. No snow here, only the memory of it falling in the silence of mind, like a dream I can’t wake up from pulls me back, over and over. Tree branches without leaves, black figures in a white landscape – image invert.
Words come out in gusts of steamy vapour puffs. Reflected light seen fading to zero white, pixelated edges of peppermint, menthol and bright electric blue-turquoise. Thinking of ice-rinks, chilled nasal passageways, and cranial cavities discovered in the sharp-edged inbreath. The cold is motionless presence. Little hanging earlobes are slowly freezing, teeth are cold, lips are a rubbery fumbling.
Eyes water in the looking-out between scarf and hat, but inwardly removed, seeing instead, the sunshine of some future time where I’m presently situated, at a table on a hotel balcony, remembering the past as we do, brought into present time. Coconut palms shwish-shwoosh in the benign climate of warm winds and the sea.
All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. [Toni Morrison]
dhamma footsteps 
Merry Christmas, my friend.
…to you too Sue!
Happy Christmas, Tiramit, ‘peace and presence’
Thanks S, peace and presence, it’s a good one…
Beautiful. Merry Christmas Tiramit.
Thank you David, best wishes to you…
Happy holidays, Tiramit! 🙂
The memory of snow forever with us watery beings.
Thanks Tom, yes it’s only the memory of snow for me. Now that you mention it, there’s also its association with the deep sense of fluidity we human beings are conscious of. Thanks for reminding me…
Loved this, Tiramit! Lots of memories of my once favorite time of year. Hope you are having a good holiday!
P.S. Toni Morrison is a favorite and the quote captures the theory behind homeopathic medicine although I know she and you meant it more poetically.
Thanks for the good wishes Ellen, interesting what you say about the theory behind homeopathic medicine. I read a Toni Morrison novel a long time ago and cannot remember the name of it right now. Someone must have mentioned this strange mystical quality of water or I read about it in passing somewhere because it was exactly this that pulled me towards the Toni Morrison quote I found on the internet as a result of a search on one word ‘memory’.
Oh, so that’s how you find these great quotes!! Tom’s mother loved Toni Morrison and he gave her a signed copy of “Beloved”. I got it when his mother died and loved it. His mother had given me “The Bluestone Eye” which I also loved and someone else had given me a poetry book by her, also great. About water, well, more to come on the mystical qualities of water…
Yes that’s how I source the pieces of wisdom at the end of each post, and I remember you asked me how I do that some time ago, but I forgot to answer – sorry about that. I’m not sure if this quote is from Beloved, I have a copy but have to say I never finished it, the narrative got a bit lost for me in the poetry of word images.
Thanks for the water ebook you sent separately, I shall download that at the first opportunity.
You seem to have remembered those frosty feelings very well Tiramit, and expressed them beautifully! 🙂
Thanks for pointing this out Jude, ‘frosty feelings’, a sense of the time of year. Turns out your comment is quite revealing for me; the closeness of family and friends, usually associated with Christmas, is not there.
Strange in both ways because I didn’t describe my thoughts very well and had meant the physical feelings that frosty weather incurs! You picked up on something quite a different! ❄❄❄🙆
Hey Jude 🙂 sorry mine was more of a kind of an observation and revelation, on living in a country where there is no Christmas. You described it very well and I didn’t express it properly, I know that’s what you meant and I’m grateful for your reminder… thanks and best wishes for 2017
Have a great 2017 Tiramit, with no headaches. 🙆🙋🙍🙎
Lovely use of language here.
Thanks Ben, I find that minimalism reduces feeling right down and squeezes it into the form taken by words that best suit the purpose…
Love those frosty reflections T ❄️
Seasons Greetings my friend 💛
Thanks Val, and Best Wishes to you, of course Jack Frost has never ever visited these parts, and I’m trying to describe it to my niece M who is going to New Zealand for an English course…
Belated Xmas greetings, tiramit. The notion of a country which Jack has never visited is novel…
Same to you Stuart, I do miss it, the enhanced memory of logs burning on an open fire and Jack Frost turning everything into diamonds…
Dust to diamonds…