A Continuation of Reflections

Hi pa, I had strange conflicting  feelings this year . I felt an excitement about moving into the new year and embracing it wholeheartedly. Conversely I was reluctant to move into 2013 because it took me further away from you.It is funny how you think you are unique and different from everyone else, while knowing you are really the same and in many wanting to be the same. I have heard people talking about their grief and this feeling is quite common.Yet it feels unique to me.It is now two years since you died, since you left us. (not really till October , but in year dates it is indeed two years) that is scary ,there is is feeling I will forget you, won't miss you so much and there is a guilt about that, although I also know that is healthy. If I have allowed my self you mourn your loss I will spend less time missing you as time goes on. I am developing a sense of gratitude for having you in my life( trying to focus on that rather than the loss) but I do feel deep sadness at ...

“There is a picture of me in their heads, a picture of someone I don't know yet. She is not the chubby girl with the braces and bad perm. She is not the girl hiding in the bathroom at recess. She is someone new, a blank slate they have named beautiful. That is what I am now: beautiful, with this new body and face and hair and clothes. Beautiful, with this erasing of history.”   Amy Reed , Beautiful  

  Walking the Bog Road It came to her that happiness would feel like a lark rising from the pit of her stomach to her head to explode in a song only she would recognise. That her heart was a walled garden tended by gardeners called Prudence, Constance and Faith, but her life bore a closer resemblance to a hilltop bog and the people in it, eggs laid by song-birds on the ground, invisible to the human eye yet utterly exposed. That relationships were all about picking steps across that bog without disturbing any nests, and the possibility of joy somehow hung on an intimacy with frailty only known in wildness; like the lark’s eggs, it was something that could not be grasped, something perpetually to be hatched.

Hello Blog, we  have  a blank page, a new year!  We are still in the Christmas season, Matthew and Marie and Matthew Alexander are on their way here as I type. :-) we have had a lovely Christmas season. We had a party for students which was fun. We had a party for our friends, and we got lovely feedback from everyone. I think people are surprised that we encourage them to share poetry ,songs, readings, tell stories. Yet when people experience it, they love it. They also love a real tree, and home cooking, makes people feel cared for. We also had a three day event. here over Christmas, Christmas eve,tea and cakes for the Phil's then drinks and nibbles later when Andrew joined in. Christmas Day we did the lunch for Phil and the boys too, It was lovely , especially to be here in our own place.Lots of food wine, games readings,all good fun. St Steven's Day, Brunch and crosswords ,then Andrew left for Warwick. The Phil's and John had a siesta and I went for a walk...