I Changed My Blog's Name

I decided to change my blog's name to something perhaps a little more personally fitting.  The end of 2013 I finally read all of The Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon's collection of observations of the people and places around her. Her writings have a different tone than mine, more upbeat. She make even the boring sound delightful.  I can write in an upbeat tone, but for me it requires more effort.  

I decided to come up with a name for my blog that has personal significance. It doesn't necessarily go with the tone of the writing I do on this blog, but I like it.  However, I would like to start writing less dreary posts, not sentimental, but more uplifting.  

Not only do I like the appearance of roses but also the taste.  You might wonder, "How can you eat roses?"  But they really are edible.  

Roses have a lot of meaning and uses in Middle Eastern cultures. I've worked and lived in a Middle Eastern country that doesn't always see itself as Middle Eastern, Turkey.  It's a country that is a mixture of East and West with something of an identity crisis, but that is another story. The first time I learned that roses could be for more than just the visual was one day when I passed a candy shop in Istanbul with a friend and she pointed out the rose flavored lokum or what we call in the West call Turkish Delight.  I knew of Turkish Delight with hazelnuts, but rose flavored?  I was intrigued.  

Thus began my love affair of things flavored with roses.  I learned about Sweet Rose Tulsi Tea on Facebook which later I purchased at EarthFare.  We always have some roses in our yard. This past school year a little Mexican boy gave me this yellow rose at work.  

I hadn't received any flowers from a guy in some years, so this was kind of special to me even though it was from a little guy.  There is just a special feeling that comes with receiving a rose.  

I used to think that roses were only about floral beauty, romance, and poetry, but in the East and in Islamic culture they have long been a part of the culinary world along with the medicinal. Last week the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet English ran the article Taste of the rose. And last year Iran's PressTV broadcast this cultural segment about rosewater distillery.  

I would like to learn more about the art of the rose.  For now I just have some assorted lokum in the refrigerator with some rose flavored mixed in.  It's really not mine, but some I bought for mom on Mothers Day. Mom doesn't mean sharing though.  She actually loves Turkish Delight more than I do.  I also have this "rose" blog.  I am not making any promises since I am now working on becoming a real writer offline, but  I would like to post a couple short posts per month.  I probably won't be able to keep this promise to myself, but there are many interesting things that often occur that deserve more than a micro-blog post.  

Bursting the Bubble... Among Other Things

I like bubbles.  Last summer I was thinking about buying a nice bubble blowing set from The Dollar Tree, a store where everything is just $1.  Yes, I was thinking about doing this and I'm 49!  I'm a little eccentric though some people might not notice. ;) This particular bubble set had a huge wand and came with a big bottle of sudsy liquid.  Back in the day when I was a kid, most of the bubble blowing sets same with a tiny wand that was small enough to fit inside the small bottle of bubbly liquid.  The liquid didn't last long, so I would make up for it by taking some of my mother's Joy dish washing liquid and make my own sudsy water, placing it inside the bottle.

I like bubbles because they are harmless and innocent, floating glass orbs reflecting the light, hints of pink, blues, greens.  Bubbles can be burst too.  We have our bubbles, the illusions and fairytales we like to hold unto. Some of us do this into middle and old age, but hey! life is tough, so I can understand.  Sometimes...  It's even tough for the folks who appear to have it all.  They REALLY don't have it all though, believe me. I gather this from my observations.

The other year I read a novel called The Tale of Murasaki about a Japanese court lady who lived over 1000 years ago and who is believed to have written the first novel The Tale of Genji.  In the Tale of M. a character is mentioned named Sei Shonagon.  Like Lady Murasaki Sei Shonagon was also a court lady who became a celebrity, but unlike Lady Murasaki, who was a reluctant idol and would have rather been left alone, Sei Shonagon bathed and luxuriated in being popular.  Her character did not have a large role in the novel, but even though she didn't I was intrigued by the mention of her collection of writings called The Pillow Book.  It was a collection of lists, observations, poetry, gossip, and other fragments.  This style of writing is referred to as zuihitsu. I recently found out that Sei Shonagon was a real person.

I haven't actually read Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book, but I've read a few portions online.  I have a copy of it on order right now.  Even though I haven't read it yet, I felt I could go ahead and create my own Pillow Book online, and it will deal with the now, my now and a lot of other things.  So it begins...  I have never done a blog of this nature.  Usually I have written about others lives and what I put down was fine, but in some ways what I wrote was safe and impersonal.  So it begins... Let's see what happens. :)