choosing...

I am finding that life exists at the moment in two extremes... there doesn't seem to be a happy medium, a balance, to be found anywhere just now, even in the space of a day, and it is almost a conscious choice which I choose - both would be honest and true...

I can choose to be sucked into the miserable depression that exists and seems to be multiplying all around me.... with more and more tragic stories surrounding me... and demands tied in with the time of year competing for my emotional energy and time, or I can choose to focus on the happier things around...

So onto the happier things....which in turn help me with the more tricky side of life...

Tonight I'm aching from a deep tissue massage earlier today... he said I would ache, and I do... it was truly wonderful though, my neck and back melted as his magical hands worked on the tension and knots, freeing the muscles - I walked out after the hour on a different planet, incapable of logical thought but in a far happier place..
He came highly recommended by a friend at nightclass.... I have waited for a long time to try and find someone really good... and it's not unusual for nightclass to provide the answers to many unrelated questions...

I have almost finished updating my contacts in my new mobile phone - in a very small act of defiance I changed make of phone and deliberately chose a model for it's looks as opposed to it's practicality.... and now am suffering - but not minding too much either - because I am really not technically minded and the transfer of my messages and contacts wasn't done properly so I am inputting them all again one by one...
It does look good though - even though S said one of her friends (age 10!) has one the same...

Oh and it will save us money each month too - I have other bits of rearranging to do that will help with saving pennies too - scheduled for tomorrow now...

I also splashed out on some serum and cream that will supposedly make me look younger... I doubt it will work - nothing does - but it made me feel good....and I got a free gift which was so much fun to unwrap... :) and I might even use the cosmetics that came in the gift... I have one bright pink thumb nail just to try... not my colour but could be S's...

Work was good this morning... we were massively short staffed at the last minute so those of us there had to just get on and do.... suddenly the atmosphere changed to one of comraderie and pulling together... when it matters people can work as a team... we should be doing that regardless.... sad that it should be an unusual experience in this particular environment...

I am still grinning from the unexpected e mail from my skateboarding new friend who thought enough to get in touch just to catch up...

And the icing on the cake - today the sun shone all day... as far as I saw anyway...

Sculpture...

came across this guy at the opening of a local exhibition - one of his pieces was in the corner of the room and if I had money I'd certainly be spending it here... click on the videos to see how these move - they are fantastic...

keeping it simple....

After a spell when life has been hard to keep buoyant, bouncy and holding everything together - keeping all the balls in the air at once, I've noticed there comes a time when I realise that possibly I have made it all far too complicated.... that in fact it's fairly simple...

surely there are a very few important things to live by, and hanging onto those should, in theory anyway, make life easier....
perhaps it's only in stripping away the unnecessary and focusing on the essential, that it becomes manageable...

and thats why sometimes life seems so straightforward when I sit in church.... there is no skirting around the edge - when I was out in the vast snow with beautiful people who lived simply and basically, it seemed clearer...when friends and family are ill and people close to me have died all the trimmings seem irrelevant.

What does it take to see the wood for the trees?

I wonder if sometimes we make life too difficult and then we get caught in the tangled web we have made for ourselves....

though of course I am not accounting for feelings and emotion which so often stir things up...

Some things are hard. R just said this to me about the transitions we are facing at the moment... and he is right...on one level we're heading into foreign territory and we're supposed to know what we're doing... on others we have been here before...either way it's hard... and exciting - a grand adventure with scary bits that test nerves, and offer up as yet unknown rewards...(I'm looking forward to those!)

Perhaps accepting that something is hard somehow makes it easier - instead of sinking energy into either denial, or into trying to make something it isn't, it's better to accept it as it is, and use that energy to deal with the reality....

Perhaps if we can accept that things aren't easy - that in fact they are tough, they somehow become easier, because we stop trying to fight against them...

In the end there's not much we really need to make us happy... so I wish I knew why I make such a mess from simple ingredients...

some of the other thoughts....

woke up today to it being really blustery and windy ~ really horrible winter weather...
I quite like it in some ways ~ somehow it keeps things real ~ the forces of nature at work.
Somehow it makes me feel more alive.

Last night we were looking back through photos of our trip to Finnish Lapland several years ago and yearning to return...we all have different memories of the trip. We took the children over Christmas itself to meet the man in a red suit and a white beard on Christmas day... that was magical - the whole holiday - from leaving here I have never seen two more excited and awe inspired children....

but I fell in love with the place itself...

extreme cold, extreme beauty - when icicles formed on my eyelashes at less than -30 degrees I realised how quickly life could be taken in such a place and conversely how real life is, and when we had to leave the vast white forest it felt as if I was leaving part of me behind there. Something soulful anyway...

Food, drink, warmth, love, people, laughter, and the magic of just being alive and living.... the things I associate most with that trip - and when I returned home some things changed as a result - life decisions...

perhaps it's no coincidence that I revisit these memories now - with so much illness and death around... (yes it's getting worse!) and waiting for things to change, and yet not putting life on hold while I wait for a new direction. Living and feeling each moment, trying to stay in the present while yearning for the future and learning from the past...

We talk about the weather so much - yet sometimes it does really have an impact on how we feel and think...

Thoughts...

So many thoughts vying for space in my head they are almost on a roundabout ticking round at an almost acceptable speed right now...
all the practical things that fill each day, along with the triggered thoughts that send me off on a tangent that is quite connected as long as I'm not asked to explain to anyone how that thought was relevant...

Today we watched S's play - The Jungle Book - her last one in junior school - the scenery was stunning, the costumes fantastic (she was a monkey!) and the girls were brilliant.... all of them, although of course we all watch our own more intently than the rest...
I am going to miss this school - she has been happy there - and I realise more and more that that is all I want - I want them to be happy. I also know that soon we are all leaving some kind of security blanket of familiarity and that I am preparing myself for it...

That takes me elsewhere to son R and his new girlfriend, to msn and to dares and scary thoughts of past stories related by his father from his youth that are neither helpful or reassuring, but boys seem to find highly amusing...
and that R is really quite similar in many ways to his Dad, and perhaps I am justified in worrying, but suddenly I also feel accountable for whether we have equipped him well enough to make choices that even if they aren't totally sensible, are at the very least safe....


My brain is busy and full... I need to sleep to process things more, there is plenty more....

Thanks to Dana over at awareness and gracenotes, I have been given an award.... to be honest I'm not sure what to say... and so I'm just going to say thank you.

In turn I have to pass this on to someone else who makes my day, which leaves me with a conundrum of sorts...
everyone in my sidebar is there for a reason.

For some reason or other they are all special to me and I choose to have them there so I don't lose them and I can click straight to them when I feel like it.

I don't get to visit everyone every day, although I'd like to, and I don't always comment, but that's just because I am nearly always on the run somewhere else... and comments take me time unless they are on the tip of my tongue...

However, if I am going to play by the rules.... although I fully subscribe to rules being made to be broken....which I did consider.... I should pass this on.

And so I shall - to Jayne at Journey through grace.
She has been with me in blogland almost from the start it seems - I can't remember how we linked up...
Her love of life and her family and her surroundings shines through - she posts the most wonderful photos, mainly, but not exclusively, of the birds in her garden... and I always leave her site feeling uplifted in some way...

She is a kind beautiful soul and well worth a visit... please drop by and say hi from me...

Winter retreated for a day...

Winter retreated for a day at least...
so wrapped up against the wind we headed out to the beach.
The surf was good - these guys thought it was good enough to carry their boards across the rocks to find their perfect spot for riding those waves....
I do love watching the surfers....
am not sure this photo enlarges - have never worked that one out, but they are there...

When I was smaller faces in rocks used to scare me... there is still part of the coast line that gives me the creeps when I pass it... but this face seemed friendly enough... :)

Rock pools fascinate me - and the light was beautiful...

one girl found her seat - perfectly sized for her too - shame the sun was in her eyes...
that'll be her Mum taking the photo...!!

I took this one for the colours - the line of light to dark, but it also shows just how far they had to go across the rocks to get to the sea...
The other sandy beaches had surf too, but were crowded which was why we headed this way.. presumably they did too...


I knew there was a reason I loved living here...

Something you can't touch or see...

Yesterday I also met up with a remarkable lady - sadly she had fallen and so I went to visit her in hospital.

It's always been a bit of a mystery what makes this lady so special, so remarkable.... but all those who know her, talk about her in the same way.

This year she will be 99, and she is still as alert, bright and observant as she has ever been. Her face was as open and loving as ever... her eyes shone out as she took in the fact I was there and she took such pleasure in the snowdrops and violets she had been brought by other visitors - the first violet of the season she told me... She is calm and strong and exudes a serenity and wisdom that is hard to place. She listens and you get the feeling she has far more of a grasp on reality than you'll ever have. Her questions are quietly thought out and caring.

Her age makes her remarkable but I'm not sure it is just that. Certainly I won't mind reaching such a fantastic age, as long as I can live as fully as she does. I know that isn't totally my choice to make though - the years bit anyway...

I also wonder how much of how she is, is to do with her faith, a steadfast way of being, lived out in her life, but not forced onto anyone else, apart from not allowing us to buy sweets from her shop on a Sunday - we had to wait through till Monday to pay her... (that was when I was a child, and we would ride our bikes down the lane to her house, and along with the sweets we would get to look after the goats, and any other animals on the farm at that time)

She talks about things that matter, not trivial chit chat...
And perhaps because of that - each minute felt like a gift - precious and carefully chosen...

Somehow I left feeling that I was perhaps a little older and a little wiser... that although I had gone to visit her - in fact she had given me far more in return....

That is a mystery.... I wish I knew it's secret..

any plane out of here...

Breakfasts on tv always look so civilised - I used to believe that was how it should be...
But our house isn't like that...

Mornings are chaos, and with hormones kicking in there is nearly always some conflict caused by a simple request, or a question like "have you done your teeth?"
It's totally amazing what can cause one or other to flip out irrationally.

This morning's episode was related to wet hair...
It sounds trivial, but I made a comment that perhaps it would be good to dry it, I get a grunted response..and the attitude... and it's just one attitude too far...
I react, I shout, and then I stop, and find myself in tears...
and then the other sibling wasn't ready, and we were late.. yet again.... timing is crucial in the mornings...

I hate the inbuilt response to be mad at them, I hate the fact I shout, and I hate the fact they will do this to me...and yet I know they wouldn't do it to their teachers, or their grandparents.
I hate feeling invisible, disrespected, ignored, ineffectual and inadequate. (I guess that would be a general statement - not just related to this...)
I know they love me, I know they care, and I know when they say they are sorry they do mean it - at that moment at least.... it just never seems to last...

I also know we have good kids who do respect each other, and us and themselves... they are kind and loving and do care...

but they are also the reason I was ready and prepared to book a flight - any flight, and get the hell out of here this morning... escape has never seemed a more reasonable option...

I know the theory, I know what I should be doing, I know how I could do better... it's just not always that easy... I flipped and I shouldn't have done... well maybe not quite as loudly or melodramatically as I did... I know I was just as childish as they were being in many ways...and I bet I looked foolish too...

However, I didn't book a flight.. I was going to go and sit at the airport and imagine doing just that...but there wasn't time.
Instead, I imagined it and knew I would feel dreadful as soon as the plane had taken off...
I escaped in my head and it wasn't actually as good as I thought it would be...

I did go and have my hair cut...and my wonderful hairdresser made me feel so very much better - he is a real gem...
I also had lunch out and then booked myself in for some IPL treatments so I never have to shave or wax ever again... shameless indulgence... but I'm sure it'll be worth it...
and I talked to a couple of friends who have children of a similar age.. only to find they are having similar episodes... I'm not alone... we are not alone...

The odd thing is that when they came home, and throughout the evening, and all through bedtime, they were far calmer, more peaceful with each other. We were much calmer - it would be so lovely if we could keep it like this indefinitely...

Perhaps we all learnt something from it. Perhaps it didn't do any harm...

perhaps peace can reign..
and maybe we can have a civilised breakfast time...

Or maybe thats just one request too far...

It's damp and cold and grey,
can't wait to snuggle up by the fire...
love staring into the flames and feeling the heat on my face...

One of the perks of this time of year...

a touch of winter luxury...

Observational...

if I step outside my body momentarily I see a girl fired up in anticipation, yet losing the heart to work...
it's so long between odd shifts here and there.

Why does waiting for something specific take so long... yet other moments pass all too fleetingly?

Time filled profitably though...
Filing done...
CV ready...
accounts done...
lesson plans ready...
old paperwork sorted...
tax return... pending...

all ready for take off....

observed reduction in desire to make effort to go in to work...
obsessive and compulsive scanning of paper and web sites...
delusional state of having applied, been for interview and successfully started and thriving in new environment..

in fact not merely delusional - absolutely convinced it is reality... and exceedingly happy whilst in delusional/reality state...


but still know alarm clock is set for early tomorrow morning to wake me from my dreaming...

oh well... it's good to dream... :)

Good intentions...

January is my least favourite month, but I had a cunning plan...
head down, eat sensibly, reduce alcohol, up the water, back to the gym, get rid of the flab and emerge in February like a butterfly from it's chrysalis...

we're two weeks in - and a little bit... and I'm still in fat caterpillar mode...
events have overtaken me, health and funerals, but today was the day....

delayed by a call from a friend reminiscing over our double dates we had with our first boyfriends... roller discos, and first kisses... cringeable stuff.... prompted by R junior spending the afternoon in town with his girlfriend...

I feel old... and somewhat unprepared ~ it's all innocent - but I want it to stay that way for a long time yet.... years please..

Can't remember when I last thought about my very first boyfriend...
not knowing how to kiss... how do you learn? He was dreadful....bit my lip!

Could have put me off for life.... ( but didn't - not sure why..! )

who tells you these things? How do you know?


I don't want to have to think about it... my children...not yet...
ok, so I'm in denial... thats fine... :)


and then when I finally make it to the car, to head to the gym, I turn the ignition and the flashing warning light means I don't even make it out of the driveway...

a new catalytic converter on friday should have sorted the noises but obviously there is something awry - perhaps they never tightened something - I don't know - all I know is that now the idea of an indian takeaway and a bottle of wine sounds very enticing...

so the fat caterpillar can logically lay the blame at the foot of my first boyfriend and the garage...
and I'm also hoping the chrysalis stage won't then take too long... :)

Blessings...

I'm back - and it would be wrong to say it wasn't hard.... it was, not always for the reasons I thought it would be...

So, my thoughts as I return to a familiar place, a comfort zone, a place of my choosing...
although I leave a part of my heart yearning for those I have left in various parts of England...

one message before I went wished me blessings on the journey... and strangely they found me ... blessings appear when we need them, or is it that we are more open to the kindness of others when we most need it...? is it that when we are most vulnerable, we are more sensitive to others, and so can either be hurt more easily OR can appreciate the small kind gestures that people offer...

so....

blessings en route....

NOT having to sing at the funeral I went to before I flew.... hymns are a killer when I'm trying not to cry...

Listening to "amore" at my friends Dad's funeral... and watching people swaying in church...

the air hostess who stopped to chat to me... about my book, which prompted unexpected conversation...

choosing the right book to take with me, "Tuesdays with Morrie".. because it fitted in my handbag as much as anything... I'm not sure what kind of recommendation it is but it was perfect for the situation...

reading the quote "Death ends life, not a relationship" at just the right moment for me...


and while I was there...

I was in the right place for me at that time - not comfortable because it was so sad... but I was with family...
a familiar tug at my childhood - people who I never had to explain myself to... and who never have to explain themselves to me...

M introduced me as her "other daughter"..
family isn't all about blood relatives....
well, mine certainly isn't....

R said I was always around as we grew up... then we realised I wasn't always around.. not physically ... but I was always there... somehow I was... and so when I turned up it was as if we had never been apart... growing up without blood brothers and sisters, it means so much to know that the same feeling is reciprocated...

Knowing I wouldn't have been anywhere else at that point other than with those people I love who are hurting so much... knowing I was in exactly the right (painful) place

Making contact again with some people.... holding hands, hugging, smiling, winking, touching, exchanging e mail addresses.... being physically close to say I love you...and I care... and I'm here...

and meeting people in the family I hadn't met before...
this family is full of charm and delight... a breath of fresh air.... love his web site too.

and managing to travel with my parents without falling out on what was a long and stressful journey... and even managing some laughs...

There were blessings...
not of my making... they most certainly found me...

is that what they call grace?

"You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles inbetween you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you. You are a world. All of those men were worlds in their time with their whiskers on their chins, some of them, their clean shirts, their steel rimmed glasses, their freshly polished shoes..... Each carried his world on his back the way a snail carries his shell..." Frederick Buechner

I'm away in a few hours, before then I have another funeral to go to - a close friends Dad. That makes two in two days...

I know I'm finding it hard - mixed in with all the emotion are the what if's and the how would I cope - how will I cope - the situation turned around in my head, then put one side until I have to deal with it, looked at and discarded until I need to pick it up, knowing one day I will have to. It's the nature of living - and loving...

I'm asking people for support - not like me at all - it's a vulnerable place. I know I am retreating into that snail shell...
It feels like a snails shell - my world...

I woke up on auto pilot - things to be done, needing to rise to the occasion, getting through - the body can function independently of the mind.
I wonder - I think thats how it's going to be - the next few days perhaps...
Can I leave my mind behind how it was yesterday, when it was free and happy, and pick it up on the flight home?
Because if I don't think and don't feel, then maybe I won't feel hurt and then maybe I won't cry... and then maybe I will actually be of some use.

Defences are there for a reason and just as it's good to let them down, and let people into our worlds, there are times when they protect and help...
and yet they come up without our asking.
We are not always in control - perhaps never in control of how we feel.
We learn how to be in control of how we react externally to our feelings - but not how we react internally...

I ask for help and support and yet I know that ultimately I am alone in this - each of us can only ever cope with our feelings alone - yet the knowing that there are others around when our processing is done is perhaps more what I am asking - asking for them not to leave me alone with this - to still be there when I get back. It helps if you know what you're asking for in the first place...but how often do we really know what we're asking for when we ask for it - we just know we need something...

Perhaps thats all the reassurance anyone can ever ask for - noone wants to be left alone with just their world - their snail shell - even when it's tough - it's good to know there are people around

Dance like no-one is watching
Sing like no-one is listening
and
Love like you have never been hurt...

It's a good maxim for living... letting people share the beautiful shiny colours on the inside of our shells - reflected through our eyes, our smiles, our words and our touch - and maybe just our tears.
Showing that perhaps although we may be alone with our worlds, we're not so very different - our eyes, our smiles, our words, and our touch and tears connect us.

Love hurts, it's inevitable, inescapable... but I'm pleased I loved - and love still - guess we carry on loving and hurting and being hurt...
thats how we keep feeling and keep living...

Stories...

Thre have been many stories recounted these past few days.
Adding pieces to the jigsaw my children have of my life, life when I was a child visiting John and his family and when they would come and visit us - that was always fun because they needed a minivan for all the kids...
and we would head down to the beach - rock climbing was popular and there were always the boys to look after me...

fascinating insights into the past for children who are always curious about their parent's exploits when they too were children...
baby kate dragged up because she wouldn't be overtaken by the older kids... fear didn't exist - if they did it, so did she...
It was great, a game... and the bigger the slide the better...
somewhere to learn confidence and to shout as loudly, or louder than, the next person if you wanted to be heard...
I learned some real lessons with this part of my family.

It's easy for my children to get an idea of my life as a child here - they see my parents frequently and not much has changed in real terms - we explore the garden and the house and they hear tales of what I did and who was around - we look at photos and it's all in context.

This other part of life is new to them - I guess you don't talk about things until they crop up...

And when we talk - all of us, about what we remember the most, it tends to be individual times, evenings or moments that get recounted over again...

and it makes me wonder which moments will be the ones to stick in my children's memories as they grow up...

what is it that makes a moment special enough to last a lifetime?

unmarked milestones

You know when all the action is going on in the foreground, there's still a whole lot happening around the edges, it's just easier to miss it.

My son has been thinking about changing football clubs for some time now - plenty of reasons, but a hard decision - he's played with the same club since he was 5 and he's a loyal, sensitive soul. But week after week he's thought more and more about it, until last night he said he really did want to move.
I had just assumed that either his Dad or I would make the call to his coach to let him know...

Instead R said he wanted to be the one to tell him.
He picked up the phone and made the call...
A hard call to make, taking responsibility and being accountable for his own decision...
I stood nearby watching and listening - in admiration for his courage and witnessing a mile stone I hadn't realised existed.

Yet the transition from us thinking and making decisions for them, to them making and acting on their own decisions is exactly what it is all about, and being there for them in case it all goes wrong I guess..

milestones not charted anywhere, yet very real steps to independence and directing their own lives.

Not a good look...

OMG - just woke up and looked in the mirror...
feel better for sleep and for the antibiotics finally kicking in properly
but what a wreck looking back at me...

There is a price to pay for crying...

so today's question has to be do tea bags really work?

I hope so.. :)

Sad news

Who knows the whys or hows of anything..

I know that John and his family, officially Sir John, a wise, funny, brilliant, down to earth man, regardless of any title given to him or position he found himself in, a man of integrity, and his family, who always treated me like their own ~ all of them were in my thoughts, and wouldn't leave, all day yesterday and last night, and I couldn't have known why.
It is their old flat that Van Morrison's music takes me back to...

Turns out John died peacefully in his sleep last night / this morning...

I'm out of words, and full of thoughts and memories. I can hear his voice, and his laughter. I can remember being 'baby kate' to avoid confusion and then, when I couldn't really be 'baby kate' any more... we had both grown up...
when I was with them I was one of six, not one of one...
He will be, they all are, part of my family for ever...

if there ever was a man who lived, and squeezed every last drop out of his time living, it was him...

I am so much richer for having had him in my life, and yet again I am reminded that life is short...

so, from inbetween my many tears,
Thank you Uncle John...

The end of the holiday..

nervous butterflies, sad hearts, longing for just one more day...
please, just one...
the end of the holidays
dreams remembered, and many still to dream,

washing and ironing done,
bags packed...
tucked up,
early night...

Back to school,
Back to work...


Back to...?
The start of...?
Who knows...?

Nervous or excited...?
Both...?

Anticipation...

A quiet day reading...

The lurgy has finally caught up with me, but as long as I don't have to speak or listen or try and make conversation, if I can be in my own world, curled up, sipping on warm drinks to soothe my husky throat and taking regular cold remedies then it's not too bad...
So I have been granted the indulgence of a whole day to read one of my Christmas presents, a book from my wish list which first came to my attention courtesy of warps woofs words.

Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking


"Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity."

These are first words she wrote after her husband died... words she returns to throughout the book. She tells the story of her journey through the first year after his death, the same year their only daughter is seriously ill.


"It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it. I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred..."

The honesty of the way she shares her thoughts , feelings and observations make this a remarkable book. She doesn't shy away from the conflicting confusing and illogical - the magical thinking that some would have us leave behind in childhood.

Everyone takes something different from a book and some books have their time to be read.
Books can't be prescribed...
It doesn't offer answers or solutions, but it is a very human book.... beautifully written

and now I have discovered her as an author I'll be searching out her other titles...