Seizing the day is...
A strange heat wave has hit the Netherlands; for a week the days have been marked by heat, blue skies and orange leaves covering the bike paths. The latter is the only indication that it is in fact autumn, not summer. If the progress of seasons wasn't bound chronologically you would think that July - September was autumn and that it is now summer. So it happens that it's the first week of October and most Dutch people spent their weekend at the beach.
And I spent my weekend having a couple of those perfect summer nights - in autumn - spent with friends, drinking and telling stories under a starry sky. 4, 5, 6 am passed by, we shared hardships and good times while swatting at mosquitoes and went home buzzed on cheap whiskey. It felt like highschool again when time could be bought with coins minted in youth. They say that all good things come to an end, but also that good things come to those who wait. The first suggests living in the moment and the latter waiting patiently. I'm better at the former...
Horace told his love Leuconoe carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future). Those immortal words have become the motto of many people, trying or wishing to live in the moment. My preference goes out to another poem with the same message, also written to a woman: poem V by Catullus:
We should live, my Lesbia, and love
And value all the talk of stricter
Old men at a single penny.
Suns can set and rise again;
For us, once our brief light has set,
There's one unending night for sleeping.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
Then still another thousand, then a hundred;
Then, when we've made many thousands,
We'll muddle them so as not to know
Or les some villain overlook us
Knowing the total of our kisses.
What most people don't know about Catullus - he's best known for his love poems for Lesbia - is that a) he called Caesar a 'poofter'; and a 'shameless sod', b) you need a special Latin - English dictionary to translate his rude poems because they contain so many swear words. Catullus will always be my favourite poet for his hopeless love for Lesbia and his brutal, scathing honesty.
I want more perfect summer nights in autumn...
And I spent my weekend having a couple of those perfect summer nights - in autumn - spent with friends, drinking and telling stories under a starry sky. 4, 5, 6 am passed by, we shared hardships and good times while swatting at mosquitoes and went home buzzed on cheap whiskey. It felt like highschool again when time could be bought with coins minted in youth. They say that all good things come to an end, but also that good things come to those who wait. The first suggests living in the moment and the latter waiting patiently. I'm better at the former...
Horace told his love Leuconoe carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future). Those immortal words have become the motto of many people, trying or wishing to live in the moment. My preference goes out to another poem with the same message, also written to a woman: poem V by Catullus:
We should live, my Lesbia, and love
And value all the talk of stricter
Old men at a single penny.
Suns can set and rise again;
For us, once our brief light has set,
There's one unending night for sleeping.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
Then still another thousand, then a hundred;
Then, when we've made many thousands,
We'll muddle them so as not to know
Or les some villain overlook us
Knowing the total of our kisses.
What most people don't know about Catullus - he's best known for his love poems for Lesbia - is that a) he called Caesar a 'poofter'; and a 'shameless sod', b) you need a special Latin - English dictionary to translate his rude poems because they contain so many swear words. Catullus will always be my favourite poet for his hopeless love for Lesbia and his brutal, scathing honesty.
I want more perfect summer nights in autumn...