of my son aged around 6 years.hes wearing big furry slippers, black leggings and a long sleeved black tee shirt. his hair is spiked with gell and he's smiling that beautiful unselfconscious smile young children have.
my heart leapt when I looked at this image and then just as instantly broke.
that baby boy has gone - encorporated now in the engaging 18 year old young man he has become.
I love my son - love him dearly but I miss and mourn that enchanting child who exists now only in my memory.
is that why we love becoming grandparents??
((ps I just realised my daughter will most likely read this and will sniff and look at me with those clear blue eyes of her. the unspoken demand - where am I in this?? and my reply to her....
The image I have in my heart of you, my Love, is lying on your back on the small raised lawn outside the musuem; making stars with your outstretched arms and legs. You were conscious of nothing but the joy of your moment and the blue of the sky. I love you!!))
I am fascinated by the idea of hoarding and I must state here I'm a bit of a hoarder myself.
I always used to think Im a chronic hoarder but now I know I'm not!
I collect books, I collect old tapestries, old fabrics and fibres and I have two work rooms that are knee deep in assorted crap at the moment; so badly so Im employing a girl I know to come help me tidy them.
My study and book rooms on the other hand are tidy. All books, CDs. cassette tapes and DVDs are ordered alphabetically and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to see them so.
My hoarding is controlled but what about people who cannot throw anything away - not even the packets coffee beans are bought in - I understand and at the same time cannot understand that.
I know my mother was fascinated by this as well. As a small child she would recount to me books she was reading rather than read my bed time stories. Every now and then i find one of these books and its always curious making to try and work out why she read that book and why she recounted it to me.
the last one I found was called 'my brother's Keeper' by Marcia Davenport. In this two elserly brothers are found dead in a house filled with hoarded rubbish. One was killed when a pile of news papers fell on him.
I love these ((often less than)) simple things both connect me to and help me understand my mother!
I've been away from here for a long time - and mostly fairly busy.
this afternoon Im going to start the saga of my adventures!!
One of the things I'm most pleased with - actually 2 of the things - are my knitting group at the local library and my friendship with X.
I wanted a knitting group and I couldnt find one so I asked the local library if I could start one in the library. they were very keen and now every Wednesday at 1.30 I set up in the reading room - we make a lot of noise, giggle a lot, share chocolate cake and odd balls of wool. they think I'm in charge but I know Im just sitting there talking to new friends while we all go about our knitting business.
Some people dont come to knit, they just come to be with new friends and talk. Some start knitting in spite of themselves!
The librarians tell me that some time group memmbers arrive when the library opens and stay all day. it pleases me the library see this as a good thing!
We talk about books and the news - people anything and everything.
I'm constantly asked why I do this when I dont get paid for it and I answer because want it to exist and I like doing it.
People often want me to make rules about and for the group and I refuse - what if we dont come? they ask me to which I reply, 'I'll be here anyway.I come here because I like doing this'
My other new adventure with my friend X came about because of my knitting group. I was contacted by a local group that supervises the pastoral care of the intellectually handicapped elderly. specifically people who were born intellectally handicapped rather than those who have been injured - they wanted a knitting buddy for X. i offered because it seemed sensible.
I meet with X every Thursday morning. We walk down to the local library, change our books, stop at the local pet store to love the kittens and puppies and then stop for coffee and cake. After this i walk her back to the hostel where she lives give her a hug and come home.
Over the months since I becam X's friends I have grown to value our friendship more and more - she's a sweetie and I love thursday mornings as much as i love Wednesday afternoons!!
My next plan is to start reading out loud. Do you notice how many people love to be read to and how rarely that happens once you arent a child.
im going to grab a book sit in the library entrance and just start reading - the librarians tell me they cant wait!!
I have less than 20,000 words left to write to complete my Phd. I seem to have been working on it most of my life now and frankly it scares me witless.
the regaining and restoring of my intellect after my aneurysm was bewildering. I wasnt sure which bits didnt work until i found them not working! The good thing is - the whole thing seems to function pretty much the same as it did before.
I was frightened I would not be able to think the thoughts I needed to think to finish my work. I find academic thought requires a lot of mental bandwidth - the process of synthesising various ideas into a seamless sentence is for me a delicate process of construction.
So I hid from it! For a long time!
But this week I went back to work - organised access to the university library, revisited my supervisor, put in place what needs to be done to re-enrol and began to write!
My supervisor said I needed to write at least 500 words a day and not be concerned about them - just to initiate the process of writing.
It occured to me Im already doing way more than that! My journals allow me to play with words - both linguistically and visually - my handwriting is still a little tenuous - my hand gets stiff very quickly and my handwriting isnt as pretty as it was - but it is readable and I know the more I write the easier it will become.
Yesterday I wrote my first 500 academic words!!!
not perfect words - no footnotes nor bibliographic references but addressing the text I was reading and interweavig my own thoughts - my brain still works!!!
Im still frightened but its dealable!!!
Currently
listening
:
Released
By
Nina Simone
Release date: 18 November, 1996
I love my tattoo - love that it sits on my back and that sometimes i forget that i have it and the sight of it surprises and delights me again!
I had been told that people rarely only have one tattoo - that the marking of the body the first time leads to other markings - but I was determined to have only my dragonfly. the mark that it is speaks of a ending in my life - the end of my marriage and the loss of the husband I loved. he chose to love another and in that doing became someone i didnt know. My dragonfly marks that moment - the double edged sword again - the loss balanced by the reclaiming of self, curious how that works!
When my sister started chemtherapy and I shaved my head so she wasnt alone I discovered two things. the first that I love not having hair and prefer not to grow it and secondly that i yearn a little for another tattoo.
the one I want is different from the subtle and hidden dragonfly - I want wings on the back of my head - I want the protective wingsof Ma'at - the egyptian goddess of the soul and the soul's journeying - wings to celebrate my self's survival.
After that thought - of bright and coloured Egyptain wings curled around my skull from ears to the spine's summit I thought of a tree - again a mythic image, Yggdrasil - the earth tree with his roots at the base of my spine and his truck stretched to my head. the power and force of natures stregth, my strength made visble on my skin.
I dont know if I am brave enough to wear these markers but in my mind they are there. It reminds me of a friend I knew in my teens. He liked to get stoned, take his clothes off and paint his skin - he would sit naked in a tree in the rain and watch the patterns as they emerged on his skin. he told me that sometimes he wouldnt paint but sit naked in the rain imagining the patterns that would be there if he had painted.
been away so long I forgot my password!!
Current mood: perplexed
Its been an incredibly hectic time - but I'm back now. My darling sister couldnt beat the HER2+ breast cancer that attacked her and she died early in december.
I was lucky enough to be with her along with my other sister and my sister's husband.
We sat with her and told her stories, massaged her hands and kissed her goodbye. And she left.
I miss her profoundly.
heres the first of my mourning haiku
so quiet and still we dressed you as a princess you are gone away
I live in Norath part of the time. Its a computer game at its most basic level but its also a place I know very well, inhabited by people I am acquainted with and some of whom i have a shared history and shared memories.
When I think of the place I have internal maps to many of the places I visit. I know my way around!
So Norath is a land, with people, wh do things.
You get to Norath via an avatar - which means you have to choose what race and class of individual you wish to become to explore the world. I have chosen various avatars and explored their different characteristics - I do not care to be a magic user althugh in many ways they become the most powerful inhabitants of this place. I have historically preferred a more hands on approach and so have often been a warrior.
Rght now my main avatar is named Regn and she is a druid - I like the concept of a relationship with the world and its natural inhabitants - I also like the ability to translocate myself to a variety of destinations. warriors, it seems, get to walk a lot and armour chaffs!!
Regn is a drakkin - this means she is part dragon and whilst have yet to explore that heritage its a curious and interesting one and gives me a skill called 'dragon breath' with which I can hurt and kill.
So, in the form of this avatar i get to explore this world and it is a truly glorious place. The lanscapes are beautiful and often dangerous - you need your wits about you to survive I need to think more abut what to write here but i will finish with two points. Firstly, I often intermingle my worlds and secondly here she is - my regn
I was standing at the bench in the kitchen this morning drinking my coffee, eating porridge and writing in my journal - its a new habit and one I'm liking very much - the combination of thought, word and views on the world enchants me!!
I wrote this sentence, 'My last week seems to be burgening into something' - I stopped there! Firstly I knew I had spelled burgening incorrectly and secondly I didnt exactly know what it meant. i was sure it fitted - but I needed to check. I looked around the kitchen for a dictionary. there wasnt one and I had to come into the study - choosing a dictionary is a tricky thing - you need one with enough words to make it worthwhile but not too large to fit its circumstances - I decided on an elderly copy of the concise oxford - its served me well and is beginning to hold annotations!!
Briefly, this is what it told me about burgening I had spelled it incorrectly - its burgeoning and it means to spring forth as young buds do - to begin to grow - and its origin is unknown.
It was the right word for the job but in a curious way!!
My behaviour last Thursday evening has had interesting repercussions. I have been asked out by 3 men - tentative, gentle little enquiries as to my desire to go to an exhibition, to drink coffee, to walk.
Ofcourse I will!!
But my choice of word points to a fecundity I have long left behind and that makes me smile
I woke early this morning and since its a public holiday thought to read in bed for a while. But my mind on awakening was alive with thoughts and i tried to catch them in my journal. i failed mierably - as you do - those complex and delightful thoughts are tricky to catch..
But I did get a taste of my thoughts and i will copy what i wrote here
***
11/6
first thoughts of the day.
What is it the goddess wants and what s she prepared to accept to get it?
Is this relationship the fundamental one involved in tragedy?
In all good intentin we can never give/get what we want
It was a fleeting thought held in the imagery and comfort of the just wakening daydream. But text was there - prose both and poetry. i will think it again
****
and then I got up into a gentle world of puppy conversations, duck philosophy and strong coffee.
I went to Norath to take photos to show you
Currently
listening
:
Zip Style Method
By
John Cooper-Clarke
Release date: 25 January, 2007
