Animatedstardust

Life, dance and love

In the days since Sunday I have been busy endeavouring to just stay upright if the truth be known. There have been full on falling over moments, swaying with intent to fall moments and too many swaying to throw up moments to find myself managing to sit in front of computer and tap away with any ease. The important emails have been replied to and that has been it really on this technology, which is fine as it is not an umbilical cord and life here gets lived with or without it.

However, I know that this machine has offered me places and peoples to get to know that I would not have even known about let alone felt I have met and for that I am a little bemused and a lot grateful.

Having what seems often to be my own personally created copy of the National Geographic with animation and sound accompaniment often attached is wonderful, that I get person insights from people who I have ‘talked’ to about these places is magic indeed.

Then there are the people who smile and wave hello as they pass across by blog-path who often come back to say hello my name is and so a connection built on communication begins.

Sunday Smile 33

In the last few days I have gradually been working my way through hundreds of digital snaps held on my camera printing, deleting and saving. It's been something needing doing for months but life and living has been taking most energy and it's only when even that day to day becomes a little too much that I find myself looking at photo's taken eight months ago onwards. There is Rhys and Banon as small enough to go in one cat basket - oh those were the days:0) there's my 50th chocolate birth day cake carried hundreds of miles by land and air in the hands of far from well friend who insisted in the face of dreadful lurg in carrying out her plan of celebrating the moment with me, I have the photo's to prove how ghastly we both looked that week but they will stay between the two of us and our various microbes that were in full 'play' mode:0) There are photos of the campsite in the sitting room when pups learnt their new home was occupied by mad woman who slept on the floor and inspected the u-bend loudly and on through the months of small happenings and large discoveries which is my life. Some of the snaps mean absolutely nothing to me as I look at them so are deleted quickly, others tug at a corner of a shaded brain so I file for another look then there are others that have been printed to make a paper copy of a time I want to share with another in solid form.

This morning I found a snap I took of myself, one of those hold the camera as far away as your arm will stretch selfportraits and it made me smile. Not because of the beauty and georgeousness of the model, goes without saying that ha-ha, but it reminded me of a kindness, of friendship and laughter and on standing feeling like absolute shit but finding colour and love all around me even as I froze slowly.

As you'll see there is snow in the background so definitely back a few months. What really made me smile was the person who I took the photo for has actually never seen it I realised. I took it to show her what a present given to the worng hands can be transformed into:0) The coloured fringe around my head is actually a scarf which I discovered I could burrow into and create a hat and scarf but I know this designer garment was not designed for such so at the time I decide not to show my creativity to the person who had generously given it to me as birthday present but maybe looking at it this morning I should have shown it as it still makes me smile to think about the delight I gained and still do from this scarf and I suspect she'd be pleased about that if not my fashion sense.

Women

During the comings and goings with Rhys and Banon back and forth to the vet, midst the worry and plain awfulness of what seemed like a month when we spent as much time at their hospital as mine I had a hilarious reminder of how much my view of the world I live in is still outside the norm even when I appear to be interacting like the next person – well I might be but the statistics tell me that may be a long shot:0)

When I rushed Rhys to the vet with gashed foot, it was out of normal hours by day – bank holiday and time - after 6pm, so any of our usual faces greeting and dealing with were not there but I knew that given the standard set by the whole operation there would be no sense of second team being shoved forward, which proved to be the case.

However, we had to go back later in the week so the wound could be checked and redressed etc. Smiles and hello’s from familiar faces and we three being led into the consulting room by the vet who had actually looked after Mr Bryn so gently right up to the last moment. We chatted about the how and what of Rhys’s wound and the vet became a little agitated when she discovered no notes written up about our emergency visit. It was then that hilarity broke out as she asked what the vet who attended had looked like and I could only manage the facts of elephant cord trouser and coloured shirt plus oh yes it was a man but I realised could describe in detail the female receptionist/nurse and the operations nurse almost down to colour of eyes which I admitted through the laughter.

Expressing light

I spent yesterday marking the light in various personal ways. Rhys Banon and I spent time in the air both warmed by the early morning sun and cooled by the later high winds and cloudy sky. I breathed deeply and was thankful to have the gift that is my life on such a day.

Yes there are days and sometimes weeks when all is a struggle but even if this is true which of course I know as I write, it is not, for the weight burden or whatever negative I might care to attach to my small day to day life is never total even if my mind may often insist it is so.

There to prove it each day is a heart that lifts for a moment on catching sight of the first indication of the sunrise that laughs at the indestructible joy of two small dogs even as they are scolded for their destructive powers. A heart filled with love and connection in a myriad of tiny ways even as the distinct feeling of a life unravelling and fragmenting beyond repair overwhelms.

Because of that euphemism “personal circumstances” I have a day to day life very much ordered by me, that is not to say it is often in my control:0) The ordering does involve a certain amount of self imposed discipline but in honesty it is as selfish action not some sort of mortification that I impose upon myself a daily outline.

Solstice Morn

After days of storms, of both weather and body, the light burst through and envelops everything bruised battered and not a little soggy with its calm, clear and infinite gift of hope and my world smiles along with heart and soul. Reaching out with joy and longing finds a moment that banishes all echo of the dark and fills me up with music of stars holding firm midst the impenetrable dark laughing at my despair not in derision but in understanding it is founded in nothing but shadow and the light has power to stretch that into new form and knowing if I only let go and laugh along with the stars.

May the light always flood the darkest places and give me the courage to walk forward even as my foot disappears into shadow.

The weather is destined to be wild and wet again soon I suspect so this gift of sun bursting into my early morning was all the more intense and noticed. Maybe that is why the Earth seemed to toss and turn yesterday and cloak itself in the grey mists high winds cool temperatures and of course heavy rain. This morning I am given chance to know that midst all the storms both eternal and internal the sun will still rise and even batterd, bruised and soggy life will glisten and shine when early morning rays touch it.

Have just realised I wrote eternal not external, was about to rectify the typo when I stopped to look at the two words, just the x missing and it changes everything. It seems to me that many people would say the the eternal is all about the x factor but truth stares me in the face and tells me that hearts and minds know the x factor is needed here and now in the external touchable world I find my life and living happening. The eternal is after all only this moment writ large:0)

Time to come

On many levels I count myself fortunate to have a body that reacts as it does for it leaves me with little room to imagine other than the bald messy truth. That I may wish that the mess wasn’t quite so messy and that it was not always only me that gets the delight of disinfectant and mop bucket, either actual or metaphorical is true but not a truth unbearable.

If I stand still or am sat comfortably then to another’s eye I am sure I just look like a curvy grey haired probably smiling woman it’s when I stand up and sway past or better still get out of the chair by sliding to the floor and then climbing up the furniture that maybe the drunk in the house is spotted:0) That of course is the mildest ‘trick’ that this body may perform. I am used to much of what genes and microbes concoct but realise it is sometimes a little disconcerting for those on the outside and do try to temper the effect with humour not actually just for the other but for myself too as even in the most messy, painful, protractedly debilitating moments there can be found a chink that offers a way in to a smile even if it is somewhat wry or even awry.

The smile is such a powerful tool in combating and creating that it’s something I feel that needs be encouraged and praised in the child who’s natural unhindered instinct is to smile, that the young adult could be encouraged to find the smile a much more powerful response than the sneer and the adult discover that a smile at the face in the mirror first thing on a grey Monday morning may well set a completely different tone to the day the week and their heart.

Of course as young adult I had a good line in dumb insolent smiles I am sure but funnily enough I remember that smile crept into my mind and heart and found me giggling inside even if the façade was held long enough to pique which ever adult I was in the midst of winding up.

Copper to Gold

Sitting out on the yard this morning around 4.30am I enjoyed the relative quiet of the valley and was enveloped not only by the perfume of the mock orange but the scent of the climbing rose which is beginning to mingle and match this. As yet the roses are spread thinly but I know within days the bush will be weighed down with pink finery and the bees and I will be smiling widely.

Summer certainly feels as if it is filling every space with bounty and beauty and I am filled with new sights and sounds each day as we head towards Summer Solstice.

Today has involved a long drive, a challenging situation and questioning myself about the deep sense that I have so far to go before arriving in this daily life of mine. Driving over one of my favourite mountain ranges always gives me space to think as well as need to concentrate on the winding road:0)

As I sat this morning drinking in the morning and my ginger infusion I read a little Rumi and came across the following words which got jotted down so that I might carry them with me during the day and have them to hold at the end of the day to offer guidance into the night and the dark ahead I may find blocks my way from time to time.

“You wouldn’t be able to see red or green or gold without light. But you’re so dazzled by colours that they’ve become a light-shade. Without light there are no colours. If you don’t believe me try seeing then in the dark”

I loved this, my first response was ‘but there is always light even in the dark if only in every third beat of my heart’

Then I read this – “Nothing is certain until you burn. Do you want to know for sure? Then sit down by the fire” and it made me smile as broadly as the sight of the sun breaking through the leaves of the climbing rose filling the rose with a fire and purpose that raised its beauty beyond expression or capturing with a camera but still I tried.

Style

Lists, lists and still more lists adorn tables, notice boards and are stuffed unceremoniously in bag and pocket in this life.

One ‘list’ is really notes to myself of things needing to be found bought or borrowed when out and about, I tend to jot things down as I realise I am running low or the idea for a meal or project flits through the brain and I know that some element is actually missing from the resource bank I call home. This means that each time I am about to climb in the car I think about where I am going and try to make the why mean something other than using fuel or time. If I am shopping at the local supermarket whose car park has an array of recycling bins and skips I check on my various bags of bottles, paper etc and combine shop and drop. If I look at the note list before I go out I am much more likely to discover what I have written down, sort of an aid to awareness.

This does mean I am as likely to pull car over to the verge and pick something up as I am to walk into a shop and buy it.

The hundred cars that had probably speeded past the small wooden box that had been unceremoniously dumped with a small pile of other ‘rubbish’ only saw a fly-tippers handiwork, if they even saw that. I on the other hand saw a small chair side table able to accommodate fibre, needles and other on the go sitting in that chair projects.

Finding a path

The mock orange is beginning to flower and send its heady perfume across the yard much to my and the bees delight. This shrub is a mystery to me as it can often look as if it has died and I am sad at its demise but each time I think I should cut it down or grab it out of its position something either takes my eye and concentration elsewhere or I just decide to wait and see. Thus again this year I am presented with a myriad of headily perfumed blooms and air is thick with this clinging aroma in the evenings and it wafts gently through the day. The bees really love it too and their industrious buzzing is accompaniment to breakfast on the yard when the weather is fine and warm as it has been these past few days.

The rest of the garden has also burst into full on life, which means the abundance is overwhelming alarming and just plain wonderful by turns. Keeping two small dogs quiet has meant little being possible in the garden, which could be frustrating and it has been. That physically there would have been little I could have managed anyway could also be frustrating and it has been, but, in ways unimagined and unexpected I have discovered much to smile about which is resplendent with possibility and promise that I feel I may still touch if not always achieve in ways I may have imagined once but the imagining continues in its way and that is enough.

For the time being I need mainly to just let the garden go its own way but in the waiting come ideas for the days ahead which feel a little overwhelming but I take comfort from watching the riot of growth become and know I’ll become in my own way too and maybe once in a while glow with as much Earth vibrancy that this small oasis does.

Finding Gold

There are promises in the air that summer is possibly going to make an entrance. This morning though there was a definite chill which encouraged jumper and socks but by noon knees were being aired and bare arms enjoying warmth, that the wind is still blowing and it’s from the north west means that by four the jumper and socks will have probably been donned again but for a few hours I can dream under my wide brimmed hat and gardening gloves that this is tatse of days not hours to come. Of course this being Wales it will probably rain tomorrow but living in the moment is best I find:0)

The moments have been a little tough over the last days following Rhys and Banon’s operations to make sure we have no ‘puppy moments’. Rhys breezed through his snip and has basically picked up where he fell asleep with no chewing or trying to take stitches out and being the laid back self he is. Banon has and is having a much harder time. The operation turned into something rather more complicated and major than was anticipated which meant that little dog who was due home at 3pm Friday did not get home till past 11pm and then only because she would only settle when I was sat on the floor with her.

Friday was a very long night but she was still decidedly alive so that was positive when I talked to the vet first thing Saturday. The days that have followed have entailed much lying on the floor– me, much snuggling– her and much kissing– Rhys. The order has been to keep her quiet and calm, easy to say but with two delighted and thrilled dogs it’s not the easiest of tricks. Another week of quiet and TLC before the vet thinks that a corner may have been turned so a very watchful eye in these next days too. Banon looks as if she has been kicked with hobnail boots she is bruised extensively from both surgery and complications and we are just hoping the bruising does not get any bigger or colourful as that will mean further complications.

I am very tired, so nothing new there, nose bleeds sickness and vertigo happening, so nothing new there, arthritis dancing merrily in spine and all joints, so nothing new there then, blood vessels bursting cysts erupting and infections going about merrily, so nothing new there then. Midst all the ‘sameness’ there are always moments of the new, the unheralded but magnificent, the gift freely given, the love shared and understood as lives so disparate as one woman two dogs and a cat find a harmony and rhythm that echoes light and sings of life even if a little out of key and often not in time the total is harmony formed out of acceptance and forged with a purpose born of stars and unending.

The days have been long but they have given me much space to think, to discover and be thankful for the joys that two wee dogs offer me, the love that is purred towards me in a small shy cat and the abundance of green leaf and bursting bud found in my garden.

Nights of thought have led to many a discovery about my self, about day to day living about future directions and signs. There will be time enough to share what I have discovered, decided and delighted in but for now I thank those who took the time to send good wishes to myself and Banon. If an email is still to be answered or a link added here please be patient as this next week is further complicated by needing to take someone in to hospital for day surgery some hours away from here so that energy and logistics are two words at the forefront of my mind oh yes and hens, but that as they say is another story.