When You Get This, Please Respond With Five Things That Make You Happy! Then, Send To Your Last Ten People

if you're feeling bored, do this little experiment and tag with your score! you link 10 words together that are as different as possible

“Taking refuge in the abandoned terrace, forsaken by all but me, an odd squirrel or two, a lone bird, watched the crippling ivy of despair wound itself around the child of sorrow I had let in to warm herself by my slowly smouldering hearth. Gently she knelt, oh so softly she sang, bewitched me into thinking the house was freezing, coal upon coal I blindly shoved unto the fire, and whom was the blazing house to blame? for t’was never a home.”

April 13,

Islets of grey amidst a sea of coral and azure. I could breathe in the beauty of the evening and spend a lifetime in its transitions from russet and gold to the dimness of twilight. Poetry, happiness and peace are in the air for those who care. Beautiful. Beautiful. I can’t repeat it enough times. I am lost and found again. Redemption is sweet.

do you ever get that really hollow feeling when you show someone something you like and they don’t necessarily appreciate or like it that much and it’s like you’ve just revealed the secret to retrieve the library of Alexandria to a hunchbacked old woman from the Victorian era who doesn’t know how to read?

Behind the portraits

It was afternoon, a dark, wet afternoon. And I was sitting at the foot of the large oak wood bed, glaring at Marie Antoinette.

“Let them eat cake”

I glared more.

“I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.”

I sighed and turned to Sappho, as if to ask her to help me in my predicament. But Sappho wouldn’t speak, she never did. My gaze shifted to the fluttering white curtains which veiled a painting of the Bal des ardents, illuminated by the old fashioned candles on the mantle piece. My frown returned as my eyes fixated themselves on the crockery in the background.

“When?” I questioned.

“January 28, 1398.”

“Joan, the duchess …?”

“The duchess de berri.”

“D’orleans…1407, isn’t it?”

It nodded.

“How?”

“Assasinated.”

“For the throne of the mad king.” I murmured and sank my head into my knees. After a few moments, I threw up my head and exclaimed, “I cannot go on like this anymore, I live as in a nightmare! Freedom I want and Freedom I shall have!”.

“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: some things are within our control, and some things are not” The thing quoted.

Despair seized me; I let out a half wild, inarticulate cry and buried my head in my arms as tears drenched the sheaf of parchment in my lap. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the thing stare at me coldly. “Do you blame me?” I demanded. “Do you think me weak to shed tears like this?” It pursed up its dried, hag like mouth. “Tell me, Do you hold me responsible for all of this?”, I clenched its wrist and asked. It silently shook its head. “No”. I loosened my hold and let go as it gave me a look full of reproach. It shook its head again, “No, I do not place the blame entirely on anyone in this matter, but thou must know that thou hath not played an unimportant part in bringing this about.” “Oh, I know! I know! And that just makes my burden a hundred times more heavier to bear.” I said, as the picture of Andromeda’s anguished face as she watched Cetus ravage the coast of Aethiopia flashed across my eyes.

“Was she very beautiful?” My voice sounded wistful.

“Who?”

“Her. The daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia.”

“Yes.” The thing’s eyes lost focus. “Very.” It said.

I rolled the parchments and placed them in a small brass trunk underneath my bed. Marie Antoinette’s picture slipped inside too, but I was past caring.

“Why didn’t hope leave when it could have?” I enquired.

“Zeus willed it.”

“Didn’t Elpis want to leave?”

“Perhaps.”

“I am sure that the only reason the sprite stayed was because pandora shut the jar before it could escape. I wish it had.”

The thing shrugged.

“When do thy leave?”, It asked.

“Midnight.” I replied, trying not to let a suppressed paroxysm of sobs get the better of me.

Night fell, I lingered near Henry V’s portrait, fiddling with the tapestry. I looked out the window and saw the moon emerge from the shadow of a black cloud and throw light upon the vase of white roses upon the windowsill. “The moon looks like a careworn old face.” I remarked, more to myself than anyone else.

I looked about the room with a strange wistfulness as I drew the sheets close. Something seemed to warn me. “But about what?” I wondered. I was woken up at midnight by the thing knocking over the rose vase. “Is it time?” I asked, silently praying that it was not. It nodded. And then there I stood, beneath the elm tree and among the shadows.

Little did I know, that it was the last time I would set eyes upon the elm. I stepped inside the quaint carriage, huddling my trunk closer to me. I felt the chilly wind of the night nip my face. We had not made it ten feet across the old wooden bridge over the chasm, when I heard a sickening creak and felt the bridge collapse under us. The ropes had given way. The carriage toppled over, smashing my trunk open and spilling all of its contents. I plunged into the abyss along with the vehicle. Feeling that I was about to die, I frantically tried to hold onto something before we hit the ground. And what should be the thing my eyes finally beheld at the end of my life but the face of … Marie Antoinette?

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

The mild breeze twisted over the cloud of sunset,

Poised as though the sea had taken up

the form of her capricious admirer,

To stretch out her arms and reach for her

untouchable muse.

The pearly light of the moon twinkles

with the light of heavenly solace

Upon the ceaseless wave wandering in confounding

aimlessness,

All while the depths of the untouched ocean

rumble with the disturbed murmurs whispered to an

empty heart, wherein the first star at twilight

and the final star at dawn, will be united in a

yearning embrace, someday.

2022-06-18

Hydrangea

Canon EOS R3 + RF50mm f1.2L

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