Goodbye & Good Riddance 2009

Goodbye 2009 - I'm glad you're finally finished. It was quite a battle there between you and I for a while.

You have pushed, pulled and nearly torn me apart, sometimes you nearly succeeded but I'm so glad to see you gone.
I can only hope your successor 2010 is a lot kinder to my family and 1 than you were.

Goodbye and Good Riddance!

How do I describe a ‘vacant’ feeling?

I move, I speak, I interact with others but there is a huge part of me sitting in reserve, untapped and dormant.

I have today, celebrated Christmas, my first without my Husband by my side.

Looking back on the day I seem to have been operating on remote control as I don’t remember a lot of what has gone on before this moment.  Home alone now I can think clearer and feel so glad that ‘Christmas’ is over for this year and I can now prepare myself to deal  with  a whole new set of challenges and anniversaries.

I haven’t been ‘excited’ about Christmas for many years, since my son was little, remembering well those halcyon days when Santa was a real person  and the 3 of us enjoyed Christmas morning so much – they were a pure joy. - Not so now with a huge void in my life.

I hope that one day I will feel more at ease with my current lifestyle – It’s a goal I have to work toward – I have a long way to go.

New Wheels

My New Wheels - not yet one week old and I'm enjoying the experience of a brand new car. This car signifies so much to me but I'll go into detail at a later date. I'm off for a drive :)

The Strength of the Human Spirit

This beautiful little creature, a Kingfisher called into a friends camping site at Wollondilly River Station last weekend to perhaps rest and decide what to do next whilst he was searching for food.  He sat on this branch for quite some time which gave my friend plenty of time to reach for his camera, get a few shots and as a bonus inadvertently gave my friend time to relax and to ponder his life right now.

We all have times don’t we when we feel the world is against us and that our obstacles are so immense we will never see over or around them.

How beneficial that this beautiful creature chose that branch and that particular time on which to alight almost forcing my friend to concentrate on him and nothing else for a few moments.

The strength of our spirits, when, seemingly at their lowest always seems to find a way to lighten our load, even for a few minutes by losing ourselves in the sight and wonder of nature.

This little Kingfisher is testament to that.

Eternity's Sunrise

To have the gift of being alive and knowing it, seems
such an astonishment, that it would be churlish to spend
one's time being miserable because one knows it's got to end sometime.

From: Eternity's Sunrise by Marion Milner

if suddenly you do no exist.....

If suddenly you do not exist, if suddenly you no longer live, I shall live on. ........... No, forgive me. If you no longer live, if you, beloved, my love, if you have died, all the leaves will fall in my breast, it will rain on my soul night and day, the snow will burn my heart, I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow, my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but I shall stay alive, because above all things you wanted me indomitable, and, my love, because you know that I am not  only a man but all mankind. From: 'The Dead Woman' by Pablo Neruda

From: Fare Well

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days. 

Walter de la Mare

From: So many Different Lengths of Time

So, how long does a man live, finally?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret, and ask so many questions -
Then when it comes to us
The answer is so simple after all.

A man lives as long as we carry him inside us,
For as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,
For as long as we ourselves live,
Holding memories in common, a man lives.

Brian Patten

Quentin Crisp

Neither look forward where there is doubt, nor
backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask
yourself not if there is anything out in the world that
you want and had better grab quickly before nighfall,
but whether there is anything inside you that you have
not yet unpacked.

From: Resident Alien:Quentin Crisp Explains it All. by Tim Fountain

'quote'

If you are alive you've got to flap your arms and legs,
you've got to jump around a lot. For life is the very
opposite of death and you must, at the very least, think
noisy and colorfully or you are not alive.

Mel Brooks

If I should go before the rest of you

If I should go before the rest of you,
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone,
Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves that I have known
Weep if you must.
Parting is hell,
But life goes on,
So sing as well.

Joyce Grenfell