3:18. So much easier not to have to come up with a title.
The car seat dog cover arrived today. Installed it and thought, getting a dog will be somewhat like having a baby (not that I'D know!), our lives will never be the same. We've bought a car to accommodate The Dog. We've yet to ditch the truck and buy something which will have room for the dog and hay that won't be exposed to rain. I'm barracking for a VW Caddy - a small delivery van with commodious storage for horse feed and dog. Not there yet in convincing R. Think he needs a few more weeks of wrapping tarps around horse feed and removing same, leaden and awkward with rain - or, better yet, the arrival of the greyhound who watches us with sad brown eyes while we drive off to feed the horses.
Sat on the deck the other night watching the rain and mist transform the rainforest into something mysterious and otherworldly. Even the sound of the rain, like a delicate chorus of whispers, made it more exotic and foreign feeling. I didn't pinch myself. I just took another sip of wine and smiled.
3:27pm
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Day 3 of 92
4:21pm. Typed the title and wondered, will I, can I keep this up?
Took the day off today. R went to the Men's Shed. I was supposed to go to Life Drawing but had a pitiful night, 3rd in a row, and just didn't have the energy. Drawing like that, 3 hours of total concentration, takes a lot of energy. At least from me. Come home wrung out. Sometimes satisfied and wrung out, sometimes disappointed and wrung out.
Worked on the fussy face of the nude. Lifted the details with blue tac and have suggested where before I drew. Works much better. It fits in with the rest of the picture now.
Funny to be working on nudes. I do have another drawing, coloured pencil, which is more my usual stuff - starting out one way, a little surreal with a bird and an arm, but if the past is any indication, what I have on the paper now will be vastly different by the time it's finished.
Spending these 4 hours on my own is nourishing. Don't have to be doing anything. In fact I try and not do anything constructive like too much housework, or berate myself if I don't work on a drawing or do yoga. If all I do is read or watch mindless tv, somehow that's enough to recharge something in me that needs recharging. 4:27pm.
Took the day off today. R went to the Men's Shed. I was supposed to go to Life Drawing but had a pitiful night, 3rd in a row, and just didn't have the energy. Drawing like that, 3 hours of total concentration, takes a lot of energy. At least from me. Come home wrung out. Sometimes satisfied and wrung out, sometimes disappointed and wrung out.
Worked on the fussy face of the nude. Lifted the details with blue tac and have suggested where before I drew. Works much better. It fits in with the rest of the picture now.
Funny to be working on nudes. I do have another drawing, coloured pencil, which is more my usual stuff - starting out one way, a little surreal with a bird and an arm, but if the past is any indication, what I have on the paper now will be vastly different by the time it's finished.
Spending these 4 hours on my own is nourishing. Don't have to be doing anything. In fact I try and not do anything constructive like too much housework, or berate myself if I don't work on a drawing or do yoga. If all I do is read or watch mindless tv, somehow that's enough to recharge something in me that needs recharging. 4:27pm.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Day 2 of 92
3:49pm. Spent the last couple of hours working on a nude study begun in life drawing class. As usual with me, some of the drawing I quite like while other parts, mainly the head, which has become too busy and fussy, I heartily dislike. Bah!
Had a call from Lisa of Friends of the Hound (FOTH). She will be making an appointment to come and assess us and our home to see if we are a good prospect to adopt a greyhound. Lester finished the dog run which includes access to the Aframe and it looks a treat. Would've been nice to fence the entire yard but way too much money.
Had a lucid dream last night, probably the first I've had in 30 years. A lucid dream which I made into a flying dream...carrying a small grey and white kitten. Even though I was flying, I couldn't gain much height. Wonder what that says. I sailed over hedgerows and fields but flying up into the stratosphere was beyond me. I realized that in the dream but couldn't seem to do anything about it.
The dream became lucid while dreaming a very complicated dream of lots of people coming over and sitting in my (strange to me) living room. I didn't have any food for them but offered to feed their dogs. Everyone was sullenly crowded together on the furniture. What made it worse was I hadn't invited them so if they didn't want to be there that was their problem. Not sure at what point I realized that I was dreaming and decided to ditch the stuffy living room to go fly over field and paddock.
And it's 3:56.
Had a call from Lisa of Friends of the Hound (FOTH). She will be making an appointment to come and assess us and our home to see if we are a good prospect to adopt a greyhound. Lester finished the dog run which includes access to the Aframe and it looks a treat. Would've been nice to fence the entire yard but way too much money.
Had a lucid dream last night, probably the first I've had in 30 years. A lucid dream which I made into a flying dream...carrying a small grey and white kitten. Even though I was flying, I couldn't gain much height. Wonder what that says. I sailed over hedgerows and fields but flying up into the stratosphere was beyond me. I realized that in the dream but couldn't seem to do anything about it.
The dream became lucid while dreaming a very complicated dream of lots of people coming over and sitting in my (strange to me) living room. I didn't have any food for them but offered to feed their dogs. Everyone was sullenly crowded together on the furniture. What made it worse was I hadn't invited them so if they didn't want to be there that was their problem. Not sure at what point I realized that I was dreaming and decided to ditch the stuffy living room to go fly over field and paddock.
And it's 3:56.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Right I'm inspired. Read an article about devoting two minutes to something you felt you didn't have time for. Just two minutes. About the time it takes to brush one's teeth. And giving that daily two minutes for 92 days. It takes about 10,000 repetitions to form a new habit but heck, 92 days is a good start.
If more than 2 minutes is used, all the better but two minutes minimum.
So, I've filled in an adoption form for a greyhound but haven't sent it yet as I want R to read it first. R has begun physiotherapy specifically designed for people with Parkinsons and it is already making a difference. We bought a new used Skoda Yeti (christened after a PG Wodehouse character, the newt loving Augustus Fink Nottle) and gave Jeeves, my darling loyal little Yaris, to a friend and her daughter.
And there's my 2 minutes.
If more than 2 minutes is used, all the better but two minutes minimum.
So, I've filled in an adoption form for a greyhound but haven't sent it yet as I want R to read it first. R has begun physiotherapy specifically designed for people with Parkinsons and it is already making a difference. We bought a new used Skoda Yeti (christened after a PG Wodehouse character, the newt loving Augustus Fink Nottle) and gave Jeeves, my darling loyal little Yaris, to a friend and her daughter.
And there's my 2 minutes.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Just read something horrendous in a piece entitled 13 Things You Must Give Up to Live the Life You Want by Zdravko Cvijetic on Uplift (http://upliftconnect.com):
On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become. — Anonymous
If that doesn't light a fire under my backside....
Have been at odds with myself for a while. The quote above plus a post from a friend (thanks KS) have inspired me to write here. I've been silent too long.
Partly because of not wanting to dwell and therefore make more important the negative things that I live with (and to not inflict those things on others) but also just not making the TIME to write.
I make busy. I make work. And there's always work; cooking, cleaning, washing, blah blah blah. So I can feel good about myself by keeping up the appearance of usefulness, of keeping up my end of things, of earning my right to be here. Yet, by ignoring the things which make me ME, the things which I and I alone can create, I nullify the gift of my life. I become just one of the herd; without individuality, without joy, without spark.
And now, more than ever, I need the gifts I was born with because other aspects of my life which are out of my control, assume and consume more time and energy than before. To keep sane, I HAVE to cherish and use the truest part of me.
And there's another bit, a harder bit, the bit about being honest. Other people seem to have their act together. I feel like I'm fraying at the seams and that my 'act' is held together by force of will alone. Heard a phrase from a song by Pink (and I don't follow modern music so have no idea what the name of the song was) where she said I don't want to control, I want to let go.
Well, yeah.
Is that the secret? To let go so that I sink into the person I might become rather than spinning my wheels maintaining the illusion of this person I suppose myself to be? It's hard work, dishonesty. Oh, but the courage required to let go....
On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become. — Anonymous
If that doesn't light a fire under my backside....
Have been at odds with myself for a while. The quote above plus a post from a friend (thanks KS) have inspired me to write here. I've been silent too long.
Partly because of not wanting to dwell and therefore make more important the negative things that I live with (and to not inflict those things on others) but also just not making the TIME to write.
I make busy. I make work. And there's always work; cooking, cleaning, washing, blah blah blah. So I can feel good about myself by keeping up the appearance of usefulness, of keeping up my end of things, of earning my right to be here. Yet, by ignoring the things which make me ME, the things which I and I alone can create, I nullify the gift of my life. I become just one of the herd; without individuality, without joy, without spark.
And now, more than ever, I need the gifts I was born with because other aspects of my life which are out of my control, assume and consume more time and energy than before. To keep sane, I HAVE to cherish and use the truest part of me.
And there's another bit, a harder bit, the bit about being honest. Other people seem to have their act together. I feel like I'm fraying at the seams and that my 'act' is held together by force of will alone. Heard a phrase from a song by Pink (and I don't follow modern music so have no idea what the name of the song was) where she said I don't want to control, I want to let go.
Well, yeah.
Is that the secret? To let go so that I sink into the person I might become rather than spinning my wheels maintaining the illusion of this person I suppose myself to be? It's hard work, dishonesty. Oh, but the courage required to let go....
Thursday, April 27, 2017
The Faint
Ten days ago R and I were having lunch at our local on the river. R was yawning, as he often does, and I urged him to walk around, myabe get us a glass of water which he did. Lunch came, we ate, all seemed well. Then suddenly Richard slumped forward in his chair.
I propped him up and unlike a 'real' faint, he stayed upright. Also unlike a real faint, his eyes were open, his head was up, his posture 'normal'. But he wasn't there. He didn't react to touch, to his name being called, he barely reacted to his eyes being touched. The blink was slow and delayed.
The scariest thing was the yawning. Often when attending the euthanizing of dogs they have agonal breathing where the jaw opens wide and then closes again. It is unconscious and I don't think they are breathing, it is just the last gasp of a life leaving. Richard was breathing but he was also doing this frequent very wide open mouth yawning. He was also incontinent which he has never been before during his two previous faints.
It took him a long time to come around, far longer than the previous faints. This episode resembled a seizure more than a faint.
We went to two hospitals, the local and the Tweed. Bloods were done twice, he had a CT scan as well as urinalysis and being hooked up to monitors the entire 8 hours we were there. Again, everything was fine. No anomalies at all.
Two days later (we were both pretty blah the next day) he was whippersnipping.
Last night I had a dream. We were walking down a town street. An auction of a deceased elderly woman's possessions was just about to start. Her things were displayed along the sidewalk (although the sidewalk more resembled a tunnel). I saw a beautiful basket with a medallion design on one end, a deep blue brocade coat and a carved wooden sculpture of three lions heads.
I looked over at Richard and he had that look in his eye, the look like he was about to faint. I told him to get up and walk, to pull himself together. He did get up and half fell onto the laps of the people sitting opposite who were waiting for the auction to begin.
We managed to stumble down the street, me half supporting him while I exhorted him to hold on, to stay with me. The last part of the dream I remember is of him propped up on the bank below a bridge.
I realize a part of me is frightened of the unknown. I suspect the major stroke of a friend's mother recently has fueled this fear. When we were at the restaurant I thought he'd had a stroke, that either I'd lost him completely or our lives would change forever from the consequences.
Nevertheless the dream has stayed with me. Today, for the first time in months, I have a headache I cannot shake. It's only fear. Tomorrow will be better. In the meantime, all todays are precious precisely because we do not know what tomorrow brings.
I propped him up and unlike a 'real' faint, he stayed upright. Also unlike a real faint, his eyes were open, his head was up, his posture 'normal'. But he wasn't there. He didn't react to touch, to his name being called, he barely reacted to his eyes being touched. The blink was slow and delayed.
The scariest thing was the yawning. Often when attending the euthanizing of dogs they have agonal breathing where the jaw opens wide and then closes again. It is unconscious and I don't think they are breathing, it is just the last gasp of a life leaving. Richard was breathing but he was also doing this frequent very wide open mouth yawning. He was also incontinent which he has never been before during his two previous faints.
It took him a long time to come around, far longer than the previous faints. This episode resembled a seizure more than a faint.
We went to two hospitals, the local and the Tweed. Bloods were done twice, he had a CT scan as well as urinalysis and being hooked up to monitors the entire 8 hours we were there. Again, everything was fine. No anomalies at all.
Two days later (we were both pretty blah the next day) he was whippersnipping.
Last night I had a dream. We were walking down a town street. An auction of a deceased elderly woman's possessions was just about to start. Her things were displayed along the sidewalk (although the sidewalk more resembled a tunnel). I saw a beautiful basket with a medallion design on one end, a deep blue brocade coat and a carved wooden sculpture of three lions heads.
I looked over at Richard and he had that look in his eye, the look like he was about to faint. I told him to get up and walk, to pull himself together. He did get up and half fell onto the laps of the people sitting opposite who were waiting for the auction to begin.
We managed to stumble down the street, me half supporting him while I exhorted him to hold on, to stay with me. The last part of the dream I remember is of him propped up on the bank below a bridge.
I realize a part of me is frightened of the unknown. I suspect the major stroke of a friend's mother recently has fueled this fear. When we were at the restaurant I thought he'd had a stroke, that either I'd lost him completely or our lives would change forever from the consequences.
Nevertheless the dream has stayed with me. Today, for the first time in months, I have a headache I cannot shake. It's only fear. Tomorrow will be better. In the meantime, all todays are precious precisely because we do not know what tomorrow brings.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Squeezing in a few minutes of scratching an itch (writing) before going for a walk. The weather has been hot and intolerably humid - until today when it's just tolerably humid and not too hot. When it is as hot as it's been my brain melts. Even reading is too much of an effort. End up watching, mindlessly, television, with the fan on full blowing right in my face.
Not that I should complain. I walk around my new life here in the Tweed breathing gratitude. Right now, as I write, it is overcast. Windless. I look out a large window over the bitumen turn circle which is edged with the two large aviaries (covered in reflective paper and draped inside with sheets to deflect the heat). Beyond them is a wall of green bisected by a white trunked tree. The green wall is a mosaic of greens; pale new growth green, green tinged with yellow, vivid kelly green, deep forest green, soft greens, hard greens, greens webbed with vines and filigreed with pale fingers of dead twigs. Flashes of pale blue mark the trajectory of the fastest butterflies I have ever seen. They have pointed, almost triangular wings and describing their colour as pale blue isn't accurate. The blue almost glows. But they move so fast and with so many jerks and feints they are impossible to describe.
When we walk, Richard comes part of the way and then turns for home. For awhile I am alone. On the way up the hill I don't think about much except getting to the top. On the way home I realize, every day as if it's the first day, how quiet it is. I live in a rainforest suburb and cars drive past, lawnmowers growl, jets pass overhead, but there are long moments, even minutes when I hear nothing but the insects and the birds. Does the thickness of the bush absorb sound? My footsteps sound loud on the bitumen. My breath echoes off the underside of my hat. The silence serves to bring all extraneous thought to an end. It presses in until I am finally in the moment; in the green, under the blue. It is then I take a deeper breath, an appreciative breath.
And now it's time to walk!
.
Not that I should complain. I walk around my new life here in the Tweed breathing gratitude. Right now, as I write, it is overcast. Windless. I look out a large window over the bitumen turn circle which is edged with the two large aviaries (covered in reflective paper and draped inside with sheets to deflect the heat). Beyond them is a wall of green bisected by a white trunked tree. The green wall is a mosaic of greens; pale new growth green, green tinged with yellow, vivid kelly green, deep forest green, soft greens, hard greens, greens webbed with vines and filigreed with pale fingers of dead twigs. Flashes of pale blue mark the trajectory of the fastest butterflies I have ever seen. They have pointed, almost triangular wings and describing their colour as pale blue isn't accurate. The blue almost glows. But they move so fast and with so many jerks and feints they are impossible to describe.
When we walk, Richard comes part of the way and then turns for home. For awhile I am alone. On the way up the hill I don't think about much except getting to the top. On the way home I realize, every day as if it's the first day, how quiet it is. I live in a rainforest suburb and cars drive past, lawnmowers growl, jets pass overhead, but there are long moments, even minutes when I hear nothing but the insects and the birds. Does the thickness of the bush absorb sound? My footsteps sound loud on the bitumen. My breath echoes off the underside of my hat. The silence serves to bring all extraneous thought to an end. It presses in until I am finally in the moment; in the green, under the blue. It is then I take a deeper breath, an appreciative breath.
And now it's time to walk!
.
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