I do hope you enjoy my blog, as much as I have enjoyed writing it
I want my oak table to be restored, by sanding off the bitterness and anger that families allow to seep into the wood. Some of the grains will remain stained for some hurts cant be removed, but the wood can be oiled with happiness, so that the dark patches of pain fade. The four table legs must represent strength of character, respect, forgiveness, maturity – as they will carry the solid top of love and forbearance. I can then lay my table with peace, as it will be prepared.
moeksie
At last, winter seems to have released her grip, and the days are a bit longer, and a bit warmer. I looked outside this morning, and felt ‘happier’ for seeing clear blue sky and sunshine, and at the same time quite frustrated as I would not be enjoying the spring day outside, on my day off. For the most part I’m okay with staying in side when I’m at home, but it is quite challenging, as we live in a flat on the second floor, there is no outside space unless you go for a walk. My husband doesn’t understand my need to be out doors and get fresh air, so when I suggest that I’m going for a walk, its always a question of ‘why?’ ‘I never see you!’ and I don’t have the energy to differ at the moment, so just stay at home. We take for granted the fact that we can go about normal lives, of going to work and living, so I cannot imagine what he must feel like from not feeling the fresh air – be it warm or not, on his skin, or the sun on his face. He has not left the flat, besides a visit to the dentist, for close to three years now. [Read more...]
Famous Iron Dog Sonja, enjoying the Jenny Mill
We have always had dogs, and whenever I think back of them, I think of this poem by Rudyard Kipling – so will start this story with ……..
Four Feet
I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.
Day after day, the whole day through –
Wherever my road inclined –
Four-feet said, “I am coming with you!”
And trotted along behind.
Now I must go by some other round, –
Which I shall never find –
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind. [Read more...]
“All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about… We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.”
- Joseph Epstein
Mountains at Strydoms Tunnel, Transvaal SA
Kruger National Park South Africa
Well, its just over three and a bit months since we were given the ‘6 month’ dead line. Besides a few drama’s things have actually not been going so bad as I expected. I have had to take unexpected time off work on a few occasions, and these have been times when my husband has been in severe pain, and not wanting to be alone, as he is scared of dying alone, and wants me to be with him. On each of these occasions I will grab a taxi, and rush home expecting the worst. I always find him in bed, having not got up at all, and difficult to wake properly. His speech is a bit slurred, I then give him a morphine boost, help him to sit up and prop some pillows behind his back to clear his lungs, and eventually he will come around. Sometimes I will have been at home for ages, and when he is properly awake thinks I’ve only just walked in, or that I’m leaving for work. [Read more...]
Kruger National Park South Africa
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Pablo Neruda
I will leave this house, being tired of this house
And to much to talk.
I will walk down to the sea, Where the wind blows
The wave to chalk.
And the sand scratches like a silver mouse …
I will leave everything here and walk.
I do not know why grass, like stubborn leather
Wipped into strings.
Should quiet the heart, why this tumultuous weather,
This salt that stings
My eyes and eyelids, should heal me altogether –
I do not know the reasons for such things.
I only know that here are walls that harden
The eyes and brain,
I only know words hiss, and hurt, and pardon,
only to hurt again,
And that the sea is peace, an emerald garden
Dripping with crystal wind on candid rain.
Joseph Auslander
Okay so morphine doesn’t help for toothache – who would have thought? What would for the normal person on the street be a simple matter of going to a dentist to pull out or fill a tooth, turned into a manoeuvre of military proportions. After this experience I really do feel for disabled people, as some folk have no idea what your on about, and have no insight on what you dealing with at home – and these are people already in the medical field. [Read more...]