Beach date, 1950s
This is my paternal grandparents’ wedding day, May 22nd, 1957. I went through my late grandmother’s collection of photos this morning, had a good cry, then photographed some of them because scans are for losers. I adore her expression in this one, both of their expressions, really, they look so blissful.
Then I had another good cry because I found a book of poetry she gave me, which is one of my favorite books of poetry - it’s by a 19th century Serbian poet called Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj, who is a golden god and easily my favorite Serbian poet, perhaps favorite poet period. He wrote a lot for children, but this one’s called Djulici - Djulici Uveoci (Djulici is an old dialect word for “roses,” so it would translate loosely to Roses - Wilted Roses, only much more poetic), and its first part is all bliss, joy, happiness and love for his wife (whose name was Rose) and five children, and then the second part is all abyss, misery and helplessness caused by him surviving all of them because they all got ill and died. It’s terribly poignant and incredibly sweet at the same time and I can only go through a couple of those poems without tears streaming down my face. One of this world’s greatest injustices is that there is no English translation of it, or at least not one that I am aware of, so its genius is left untappable for most of you. Soz, guys. If I ever get confident/insane enough, I might try my hand at translating it, but don’t hold your breath.
Anyway, I’m off to either watch Batman Begins or catch up on blog reading I abandoned something like 8 months ago, and also to bathe in my own sweat and wait for the sun to go down so I can get rid of the blinds and get some fresh air in here. Which just happened (breaking news, I know). Ta-ta!
