Back

so I'm back again :~) finally!!

The day after my last post was a life changing day/night/event that I can only say I survived and my friends and family somehow dragged me through. The most terrifying event I have ever been witness/victim/survivor of.

As a result,
I learnt above anything that I have some of the most awesome friends in the world that really are there when I needed them.
I learned that I could go to the very edge of the cliff and teeter on the brink and not fall off ~ though heaven knows why I didn't.
I saw the fear in my parents eyes, and my friends about me, and because I felt it too I couldn't do anything about it. For once I was too vulnerable to protect them.

I saw fear translate into anger in people around me and I was scared. I was too scared about me to feel anger until after it was over.. the whole thing - court and the press...
I gave up alcohol and couldn't eat, couldn't swallow.. and yet I could just about function in the workplace. Odd!

I wanted to die and yet had very little choice but to continue to exist.. without seeing a future.

I have never been so scared in my life.
never been so scarred,

and yet I lived.. and my family lived.

That to me is a miracle.

I learned that the end of life isn't always measured in days, or hours, or minutes, but in seconds... the most terrifying moment of revelation ever...

I learned that I was lucky.

That somehow we escaped... and with faith in ourselves and our family we could learn to live again, pick up the pieces, and carry on
that I could trust people, even strangers again, even though it took courage to do it.

That in December I couldn't imagine that June would exist and yet here we are
and that the essence of me is still me...

that my kids have been amazing, that we have literally been to hell and come back again..
through sheer determination and belief in ourselves and one another.
Through talking, sharing, helping one another, being sensitive to one another's needs... and persistently refusing to let anyone take our vital life force away from us...

we discovered and relearned that life is indeed for living

I'm not so daft that I don't know we have hurdles ahead - anniversaries, the unexpected encounter and things we haven't considered...

and yet I do feel that we have found our footing again... thanks to so many people - some who know and some who I have yet to thank for their part.

We aren't strong on our own...

sometimes we need our friends and family and connections to hold us when we can't hold ourselves...

BUT at the end of it all, I'm still here, and life is good...

There is colour and fun, and fire and beauty, and friends and sparkle, and a now for us to enjoy in freedom.

That even though perspective can, and most certainly does wane over time, life is all the sweeter for what could have been - and thankfully wasn't...

That the rainbow is indeed still there... :~)

Rest in peace my friend...

"I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged.
Their feathers are just too bright and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice, but still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone.
I guess I just miss my friend."

Red in the Shawshank Redemption

For a friend who was in my life for way too short a time - but who taught me much about all kinds of things.
I know she is free now, free of all pain and finally at peace.
Still very sad and I do miss her - thats selfish but human.

And yet on another level, it is true for us all I think - we all need our freedom, and clipped wings are just cruel
no bird is meant to be caged, and if we leave the door open we may find some colourful visitors come to roost with us a while, maybe even often.
They may leave behind evidence of their prescence, a soft downy comfort, or a bright tail feather as a reminder while they adventure, but whatever they leave, we are blessed to have had them with us and shared with them.

While they are here we get used to their presence, to sharing our food and water and our tales, to caring for one another when they are around. We certainly do miss them when they are away, and may even anticipate their return, expect their return, which invariably they do.

It may be that this may be their perch of choice, that they are always here, but they will always have wings.
It is part of their beauty,
part of what we liked about them to begin with when they flew into our lives from nowhere - they chose to stop a while and admire our plumage and our home too...that made us feel good.

Wings are
vital
compelling
integral to who we are.
We all may choose where we go
and noone has the right to clip them
or to close the cage door.

And surely they are at their most spectacular and glorious when they are spread and in flight... and even more so if we see them coming home :)

Just read this... and had to share :)

Steps To Happiness ~

Everybody Knows:
You can't be all things to all people.
You can't do all things at once.
You can't do all things equally well.
You can't do all things better than everyone else.

So:
You have to find out who you are, and be that.
You have to decide what comes first, and do that.
You have to discover your strengths, and use them.
You have to learn not to compete with others,
Because no one else is in the contest of *being you*.

Then:
You will have learned to accept your own uniqueness.
You will have learned to set priorities and make decisions.
You will have learned to live with your limitations.
You will have learned to give yourself the respect that is due.
And you'll be a most vital mortal.

Dare To Believe:
That you are a wonderful, unique person.
That you are a once-in-all-history event.
That it's more than a right, it's your duty, to be who you are.
That life is not a problem to solve, but a gift to cherish.
And you'll be able to stay one up on what used to get you down.



just loved it and wanted to keep it safe and also to share it here..
am thinking, feeling and should be writing
but too busy with the living bit at the moment - haven't forgotten any of you though...
love to all
x

feel like I must have read this before..

but can't place it..

The Invitation ~

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to
be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can
disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Inspirational...awesome...respect ~ Johnny Budden aka "Sticky"

Just had to come by to post about a remarkable guy doing something incredible for a fantastic cause...
Johnny Budden aka "Sticky" who is about to set off on a 1000 mile journey (actually 1300 miles) from John O'Groats to Paris using parkour -
his journey begins on Sunday
and it's all to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease, which is something that possibly scares me more than any other disease.

You can learn more about him and his journey on his web site
The videos of him are amazing...
and you can track his progress as he makes his way down the country.
There is also an interview he did with someone caring for someone with Motor Neurone disease
plus if you wnat to donate then there is a link on his site for that too

I have lots of thoughts / feelings about MND, and also about parkour (and how it touched our life briefly) - loads I could blog about, but I'm not sure it's really that relevant.

what seems most important is a very generous souled guy doing something special to help other people..
Oh and he's also got a wicked sense of fun...tonight he reached 1000 followers on twitter and is going to run ten miles of it naked!

Dreaming of a hobbit house...:~D

oh and one more thing...

I fell totally head over heels when I was told about this house - stunning.

I hope the link works and takes you to the most beautiful hobbit house - low impact woodland home...magical
Perhaps it just sits so perfectly with all my childhood dreams, perhaps it's the romantic notions of woodlands and living outdoors, perhaps it's tied in with looking after this planet, or a mix of all of them.
For whatever reason, I'm left hoping that maybe there will be more like it in the future... and that maybe there will be a woodland hotel or similar sometime soon too :~D

Happy...soul smiling :~)

Have been missing writing here - which probably means I should drop by more often -
Soon I'll be moving upstairs to the bedroom with the laptop - we have visitors for a couple of weeks and just maybe I'll find escape-time up there to unwind before sleep.

I came across these wonderful clips - from the world of happy :) and as they made me smile I thought I'd share...
I'd like to think I was the pink drumming cricket, but I'm not as good...!!

And on the happy note, so many moments lately have made me happy - moments when you stop and you can feel your soul smiling,

remembering

the colour of the sea as I drove past
the new shoot on the bird of paradise plant which I know one day will flower... I know it will!!
the angel who gave me a lift between hospitals on my last check up in England
the cute cyclist who smiled and waved but I haven't a clue who he is
the consultant who told me it was absolutely fine for me to 'go climb a mountain' as long as I took back a photo next time I saw him :~D

and lots to do with children and friends...

and sleep and
team work
and people who stretch me and show me possibilities and who are exciting and teach me new things... and the fun of learning, and discovery
and making connections and links and wondering at the way connections are made, and at how serendipity plays a part in life and that surely there is no such thing as coincidence...

and for all it's flaws once again wishing I could just freeze time so I could breathe in these moments a bit longer...

The latest project...

This years project from R, ten years on from the original one - a painting every day of 2010 - those on facebook will already know about it, but those who aren't please take a look - you don't have to be registered on Facebook to view the group and the paintings... :o)

It's been a while since I sat and wrote here - daily contemplation takes many forms I guess and I've been busy doing other things too, learning new skills, aswell as dredging up some from the past which have been hidden in the recesses of my mind since school days!

music has a habit of making time travel possible, and earlier I listened to this from a long time ago - fun filled, youth fuelled, sparky, out there ready to take on the world memories, oh and hard times in there too...bitter sweet!



Just got me thinking, while I was at the gym, where I am 'upping the ante' and working harder in preparation for the Playtex moonwalk in May, about how being able to raise our game when we are called to, can be far more effective than wasting energy from being in a constant state of expectation - that being able to meet life face to face as it presents itself is a quality worth nurturing all round...

and yet how human the fight response is, especially in youth, and how conditioned we get to the expectation of things always remaining the same, which can so easily blind us to the true picture...

Anyhow, 'up the ante' is called for seriously here, as an ankle operation looms in a couple of days and I have no real idea of what the result will be - my brain says a few sutures and a sticky plaster.. whereas older and I tend to think wiser folk say a big bandage and crutches as a necessity instead of optional extra.. so we will see!! I am keeping my purple killer heels well in focus throughout this regardless though :o)

The new skill? African drumming... huge fun with new friends, great for stress release and harder than I'd thought!!
and the old skill...blanket stitch for darning pointe shoes ~ a true labour of love!

A wonderful prayer - thanks Tim

Just wanted to keep this here at hand - sometimes what I read online speaks way more than things I hear spoken in church here - there is much wonderful wisdom out there.. this is a most beautiful prayer for Christmas... please take a look.

complete escape... :)

Hey, I am around - the kids are back at school tomorrow so I should have time to catch up time I hope.

Happy New Year :)

From me there are no resolutions as such, more wishes perhaps.

New Year started cut off on a tiny island, only accessible at low tide, which meant we had it completely to ourselves. For two days it was our very own island...full of it's own unique treasures.

A perfect escape with some great people ~ a chilled out, beautiful group of creative, expressive, thoughtful, fun loving friends, some old and some new ~ eating, drinking, walking, playing games, relaxing, just being. Forgetting time and enjoying experiencing the moment.

It was ~
A new start,
a clean slate,
a new day,
a new year ~ full of possibility, potential, dreams...

I returned refreshed and renewed ~

perhaps the wind blew more than cobwebs away,

the stillness focused the soul aswell as the mind,

and the beauty did more than inspire and re energise...

It was a couple of days to step out of this life, and at the end of it walk back across the causeway into a new year and ready to face whatever wonder 2010 holds.

For a while we stepped off this world and came back a year later... with new eyes perhaps...

thoughts, words and feelings

There are thoughts,
there are words,
there are feelings....

sometimes they don't all come together cohesively.

Words lose some of the feelings and thoughts in their construction, and generally seem inadequate.
Feelings that are best expressed without words, but instead with eyes and hearts and touch.

At the moment I am
grateful ~

that life is a journey,
that sometimes - often, and almost always, if we strive, things do turn around, work out..
that perhaps instead of watching with bated breath I can maybe now start to breathe a little easier at the end of what has been the most difficult year of my life so far.

I could have, should have trusted after all... maybe...
yet trusting in the unknown future is so very hard to do.

I am aware that even when things get easier we are never given the respite to fully recover but have to do it 'on the run' when in fact we'd quite like space to sit and do it all properly...

Recovery doesn't happen overnight, although sleep does heal, but the body takes it's time to catch up and we must be patient :)

It really is true that the more you love, the more you care, and so the more you hurt when they do, and the more you feel for and with them ~ how cruel is that?
The price we pay for love.... that we wouldn't be without.

Thoughts, words, feelings... caught up within living... and constantly in colourful flux.

The tree is up, and once again we have hit the festive season. I am aware of the world around me, both on a small scale and far wider, further afield...
I find I get lost in thought, in a place where words often fail, and the heart yearns and hopes.
A tangle of thoughts words and feelings... and hope for so many's unknown future.

head for the skies

It's been a long time since I sat and wrote here,
Movember has been and gone, friends have grown 'taches and shaved them off again in aid of prostate cancer awareness
Motivation and unity have struck me watching this growth across the island, a public display of support and commitment which has made me smile more than a few times and been the cause of at least one double take before I realised what was going on!
All around me people are achieving and making progress.

A few weeks ago our moonwalk group was born for this year ~ 'too hot to trot' made it off the starting blocks and all being well we'll be 'not trotting' around London in May for 26.2 miles overnight.

Motivational moments are contagious ~ reasons to celebrate ~ the small things aswell as the big.
Nourishing the seeds with praise and recognition and encouragement, and watching them grow.
Filing the less fruitful experiences in a separate place ready for archiving at some point...

Some people seem to get trips to the moon now and again, a hand reaches down, grabs theirs and away they go skywards...
We had one of those this week when S was chosen as a finalist for a local art competition, which opened today and is now awaiting the public vote over this month to see who wins. Winning really is secondary to the pride and excitement she felt, and the very real sense of achievement from her work (play) being acknowledged this way.

That rarely happens in such a wonderfully sparkly way. It seems that most of the time we spend motivating one another and ourselves to keep reaching upwards, bouncing on worn but trusty trampolines, yet upwards we go supported by those around us...
that was very much the feeling I came away with from the first group on a course I have just run.

I am humbled by many of the people I come across and their stories and incredible attitude to life.
There is no doubt life throws no end of challenges and difficulties our way, but somehow we always seem to keep bouncing , even when we are tired of it... persistence often pays off (am thinking health care systems and red tape at this point!)

and just maybe the trips to the moon we see around us keep us believing anything and everything really is possible...

Rewards

Rewarded with the glimmer of what may be,
and what lies ahead,
as opposed to looking backwards at what we have left behind.
Rewards for perserverence,
for faith and hope and love.

When suddenly light seeps through and possibility makes an appearance,
When all those never ending tiny steps seem to have made one smallish step in a direction somewhere, anywhere,

and we stretch and bathe in the warmth, as we remember the cold darkness.
Lessons learned,
wiser perhaps, maybe, possibly, we hope...

It's warm, it's bright, it's beautiful...

it's a new beginning..

all over again

The mix

It draws on tenacity,
is determined,
and creatively committed to finding a way forwards...
yet balanced with safe and comfortable,
is stretched and searching.

In another chapter, compassion eats away at heart strings, and asks questions there are no answers to,
the first close friend my age who has been seriously ill,

and sprinkled in between,
the magical fairy dust of friends
of fun, and plans and fantasy,
of music and dreams,
and play.

Sometimes barely perceptible,
sometimes glaringly obvious,
yet always evolving... and not always comfortable,
some would say never...

it happens regardless.

Am feeling it right now...

the life potion that spells

The inevitability
of Growth

Untangling the web - with a little help from my friends

My tangled web of thoughts the past few days ~

It started with the essence of individuality..
as John O'Donohue in his book 'Beauty the invisible embrace', says of a friend of his
"Through the blurred awkward surface the beautiful radiance of his son's soul becomes briefly visible. This view always recalls him to a sense of the hidden eternal light of his child's life"

These were important words when I read them, words I can relate to, and also of the transluscent moment, perhaps when a child is born, when we are maybe granted a pure glimpse of a child's essence. I remember that from my two children as babies - the most beautiful painful and magical moment ever.

what pure magic, what a gift to be given, a glimpse of something that is so elusive.

A gift to hang onto in the darker moments, when the essence is hidden deep below layers of growth and development and uncertainty, as they grapple to find it themselves... and perhaps as a gift for us to reflect back at them when they appear to have lost sight of it.

There is nothing quite like someone reflecting back something you once knew but had forgotten, had lost sight of ~

those lessons we learn in our younger days, and promise ourselves we will never forget, but that instantly go out of our heads and fly far away when we are faced with the reality of a situation we need to use them in... you know the ones when it would really be so helpful if we could just remember them and put them into practice, because of course once upon a time we were going to be cool adults and yet when we reflect back at ourselves what we hear is nowhere near as cool as we'd have liked it to be...
I constantly fail on so many levels, and none more than the cool one!!

Lessons we need to be reminded of now and again, when we really do need to see it as someone else sees it.
When astute friends with clear vision really are a gift, and are there to gently guide us back onto the path, to untangle us from the weeds that have grown along the way.

Maybe, perhaps, even with the best will in the world, it is just us getting older.
Does the wisdom of years rob us of something special we once had?
I feel I am constantly learning from children of all ages.
Are the ideals of youth so foolish, (I don't think so) or is it just we fail to remember because priorities change through life?

Perhaps the web isn't quite as tangled as I'd thought... perhaps it's all about a bit of time travel and xray vision, and friends and love...

Joining the dots

"And as is often the case with faith, I thought I was being asked a favour, when in fact I was being given one"

words that made me stop and think, only a few pages into Mitch Albom's latest book "Have a little Faith", which was one of several gems I gathered at the airport on my way back from a conference this week.
The flycover says :
"It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story."
I wonder if in essence that is why his books all leave an impression on me long after I have turned the final page. They speak to the universal in all of us.

It would seem that the reading bug has been rekindled of late, a healthy sign I am more than happy to embrace ~ there are far too many times when I can't / don't read and it acts almost like an internal barometer to gauge both internal and external stresses...

Sometimes in life it appears to me we spend our time connecting dots that are already there, sometimes it seems we are waiting for dots to appear, and sometimes we are actually creating dots ourselves.

And then there are times when the dots just don't seem to join up at all... but I believe they will in time, or else they are the bright shining ones that stand alone and serve mainly to illuminate some of the others.

There are so many things going on that I am pleased to have the half term to take the opportunity to kick back, regroup, revive and prepare for the next half, and all being well we can indulge things we can't during term time, follow our hearts and impulses even more than before.

To take time to reflect and see if some of the dots do in fact fit well together ~ I sense they do more than I thought - and that is exciting, like being given a glimpse of what is or maybe to come... hope and possibility that keeps us forging ahead.

and pondering the favours I have been given along the way, even if they didn't appear as such to start with..

The power of Art..

This is incredible - and thanks to Shirley for bringing it to my attention... so powerful...

Tonight

Smiling at synchronicity... when the phone rings at exactly the same time as I pick up my mobile to text...

and feeling that somehow the strings that connect our souls together are really made of elastic.. they stretch and stretch over oceans and continents, and yet they always bounce back to one another...

feeling lots of things, and learning, or trying to learn at least, from far braver, stronger, wiser and very humble humans, who achieve so much without seeming to see that they are... in very difficult circumstances

Thinking about letter writing...with ink and paper, for words to hold close to hearts and keep safe

wishing I could somehow stop the world and rewind, not to replay it again, but just in case I didn't take it in as much as I should or could have at the time - in case I missed a bit... in case I'm missing so much at the moment when I want to absorb it all, and please don't lets hurry the future too much...


wondering about the few words or a thoughtful action(s) that alter how someone sees something or feels about something, the effect we have, that sometimes we don't know until maybe years later, maybe never
and wondering about the connections we make almost unknowingly

and what it means when someone thinks to tell us .... incredible!

and contemplating this long and arduous road ~ even though we've left rough terrain behind, it's the deceptive gradual hill that requires constant energy... and free wheeling can seem a long way off
sometimes it is good to look back and acknowledge that we are not in the same place as we were..
it's easy to forget how far we have come, and only focus on how far we have to go...

perhaps we should reward ourselves more often than we do, if only to encourage ourselves to carry on...?

However, tonight I think rest beckons
and prayers as my children sleep - one here and one in France...

Reality wake up calls

Life is very strange.. it is wonderful and mystical.. interconnected and entwined..with all kinds of wonderful humans all on their own journeys
and somehow they all add to our own journey.
It seems lots of things have been happening lately - there have been a larger number of young deaths than normal which have had an effect on my life - and also some wonderful new connections that have added extra sparkle and depth to my life in a very superficial and yet also very deep and incredibly secure way.. the very best way there can be...
another way of describing friends...they work on all kinds of levels depending on what you need from one another at any given time.

As another beautiful book (Tony Parson's "One for my baby") I am reading says..
"That is the way it starts. You look at someone you have never met before and you recognise them. That's all. You just recognise them. Then it begins."

beginnings and endings..

but along with any ending - if indeed that is what it is - on this planet anyhow..

there comes reflection and learning and sometimes maybe the reality wake up call that is very much needed about how we are living our lives.. about what is important
so many different strands of life existing alongside one another - and yet not always in harmony.
We need the fine tooth comb of life to separate them sometimes.

Tonight as I struggled with one aspect that has been bothering me lately I came across photos and reality from one life lost way too young, which brought me almost to my knees.. and with it a new perspective, a new reality.
Pain and happiness, sorrow and joy.. two sides of the same coin...
we can't really know one unless we have known the other I guess

somewhere there is a hand that guides, and sometimes I am sure these wake up calls are not nearly as random as they seem.. they are there to learn from and serve a very real purpose.. even if that is to keep hope alive and keep us keeping on.
In some way at the moment, that is comforting...