10.11.16





posting an invitation to our next book club meeting
certainly does feel like a very privileged, living-in-a-bubble thing to do right now
when so many people seem to be living with so much fear and discontent they chose a hateful leader
to help them out of their misery by blaming the very weak for all that seems wrong
causing even more fear and anger
.

"later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere."

living in a body that does feel a lot like the world Warsan Shire tries to comfort in her beautiful poem
(found it yesterday in one of the many instagram post rushing in after a long eery silence)
i can understand how you might reach out for the crudest solution to ease your pain,
follow the obscurest path for a promise to ease your suffering, to make you great again
blaming someone/thing else for your despair
but this never has, never will be a solution to make it not hurt anymore
everyone wants to be heard, their voice acknowledged and respected
and we have to do our best to not look away from the anger building up all over the world
that makes people choose the most inhumane radical directions
there must be other ways, broader horizons
like i said - i am fortunate
i have taken education, safety and equality for granted 
and never feared someone might take anything away from me 
what has do be done i do not know
since i too feel anger sometimes and the wish to punch someone/thing
i know this is a acceptable human feeling and that my anger always rises when i feel hurt or overwhelmed
but sometimes there just can´t be anything done about the things hurting me
and all i can do is ease the sting and be okay with the fact that perhaps all will be good again sometime
but not great
so i wish for everyone to be seen without having to cry this loud
and i do hope for the basic rights for everyone, the soil to plant the seed for a life in equality and peace




.
BUT: we´re actually having an other BOOK CLUB meeting
and this time it´s all about the book everyone has been raving about the last couple of years
a story about the joy and pain of friendship
book one of the neapolitan novels - MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by the (former) mysterious writer ELENA FERRANTE
we´re meeting up on 30.11., 7.30pm
in case you want to join - let me know and i´ll send you the details
(including lots of interesting links and such - also we´re doodle-ing by now, such fun)
.
also one of our members (HEIKE CZERNER) will tell us a little bit about her work on book covers
and i can´t wait to hear about some of the behind the scenes´ stories 
THE MAKING OF THE SQIRL COVER
MAKING A MAGAZINE COVER
.
so sorry, but i´m currently not riding a very creative illustration wave
all i came up with was red wine and a classic italian font

because Italy, blood, passion, violence and such...
i asked my mother if i could use that picture of her and her classmates
for this post hinting that the children in this book are not very nice
and she was like "sure! that picture is an excellent choice - we were a really mean bunch!"