White and blue / Bijela i plava

I love rereading books. Why? Perhaps because I know I will probably like them (once again). That certainty  (or high probability) makes them as precious as old friends. Furthermore, just like with old friends, we can always find something new and wonderful in them. If we keep our eyes open, we are bound to find something new to admire and love. What have I been rereading lately? I've been rereading Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad for the third time. That's what I've been doing with my free time lately. Once again, I found myself mesmerized by the descriptions of the sea. This writer is so good at capturing the spirit and the essence of the sea. Despite the fact that I was never a mariner, I can relate with his thoughts about the sea. Naturally, this novel is quite profound and not merely a collection of description but I won't get into that just now. Today I'm sharing photographs that I took on one ferry ride from Split to Starigrad. I don't know what it is about being on a ferry that makes me so happy. I always get this wonderful feeling of freedom. Especially so when it comes to one special ferry ride. Maybe it is in the familiarity of that route I took so often. One day last April I took that Split- Starigrad (island Hvar) twice in one day. On that particular day I spent as many hours on the ferry as I did on island Hvar (where I went to visit family) but it was worth it. It was a fine Sunday. It was a good month. Now May is here. We'll see what May brings. Fingers crossed. Happy Monday everyone! 

Volim ponovo čitati knjige možda zato jer znam da će mi se vjerojatno ponovo svidjeti. Ta izvjesnost ( ili visoka vjerojatnost) čini ih dragocjenim poput starih prijatelja. Kao i kod starih prijatelja, uvijek možemo pronaći nešto novo i divno u njima. Držimo li oči otvorenima, sigurno ćemo pronaći nešto novo čemu ćemo se diviti i što ćemo voljeti. Što ponovo čitam u zadnje vrijeme? Čitam roman Lord Jim Josepha Conrada po treći put, time se bavim zadnjih dana u svoje slobodno vrijeme. Još jednom, posve su me očarali ti opisi mora. Doista taj pisac zna uhvatiti duh i srž mora, opisati njegovu čaroliju. Iako nisam nikada bila moreplovac, mogu se povezati s tim njegovim opisima mora. Naravno roman nije samo o opisima, zapravo je jako dubok, ali neću sada o tome. Danas s vama dijelim fotografije koje sam uslikala na vožnji trajektom od Splita do Starigrada. Ne znam što me toliko veseli kod vožnje trajektom. Uvijek imam taj neki divan osjećaj slobode.  Pogotovo kada je u pitanju ta jedna posebna trajektna linija. Možda je to familijarnost te rute koju sam tako često prošla. Jednoga dana prošloga travnja išla sam iz Splita u Starigrad dvaput u danu. Toga dana provela sam otprilike isto sati u trajektu i na samom otoku Hvaru (gdje sam išla posjetiti rodbinu) ali vrijedilo je. Bila je to divna nedjelja. Bio je to dobar mjesec. Sada je svibanj ovdje. Vidjet ćemo što će nam svibanj donijeti. Nadajmo se najboljem. Ugodan ponedjeljak vam želim!

After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure. He made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence between sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread—but whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work. This reward eluded him. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

                                                              Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (Chapter 2)

A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with the serenity of their rays, seemed to shed upon the earth the assurance of everlasting security. The young moon recurved, and shining low in the west, was like a slender shaving thrown up from a bar of gold, and the Arabian Sea, smooth and cool to the eye like a sheet of ice, extended its perfect level to the perfect circle of a dark horizon. The propeller turned without a check, as though its beat had been part of the scheme of a safe universe; and on each side of the Patna two deep folds of water, permanent and sombre on the unwrinkled shimmer, enclosed within their straight and diverging ridges a few white swirls of foam bursting in a low hiss, a few wavelets, a few ripples, a few undulations that, left behind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of the ship, subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circular stillness of water and sky with the black speck of the moving hull remaining everlastingly in its centre.

                                                                                           Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (Chapter 3)

Parallel rulers with a pair of dividers reposed on it; the ship's position at last noon was marked with a small black cross, and the straight pencil-line drawn firmly as far as Perim figured the course of the ship—the path of souls towards the holy place, the promise of salvation, the reward of eternal life—while the pencil with its sharp end touching the Somali coast lay round and still like a naked ship's spar floating in the pool of a sheltered dock. 'How steady she goes,' thought Jim with wonder, with something like gratitude for this high peace of sea and sky. ( Chapter 3)

 At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality. They had a gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face.   Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad ( Chapter 3)