Christmas ~ Augusta E. Rundell

"Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance.  It may weave a spell of nostalgia.  Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved."
~ Augusta E. Rundell

Why, this is Christmas Day ~ David Grayson

I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day.  We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.  As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year.  And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself. "Why, this is Christmas Day!" ~ David Grayson

Passage from Village Christmas - Laurie Lee

"We tumbled downstairs, three steps at a time, into the kitchen's glow.  The fire was ablaze, and Mother had already started the breakfast, frying great pans of eggs and bacon.  We sat down to the finest breakfast of the year, which included real cream and porridge.  'Hark, children!' cried Mother, suddenly cocking her head, 'Isn't that pretty? Now fancy that.' With our mouths full of bacon we ran out into the yard and stood listening in the snow.  Then we heard it, the pealing of Painswick bells, the traditional and joyous sound, coming faint but clear over the distant hill like icicles stirred by the wind, ringing Christmas in the valley." ~ passage taken from Village Christmas And Other Notes on the English Year by Laurie Lee.

A Christmas Dinner - Charles Dickens 1835

A Christmas Dinner
Charles Dickens 1835

Early Dickens Christmas story describes a Christmas dinner at the home of Uncle and Aunt George. Originally published in Bell's Life in London in 1835 under the name Scenes and Characters No. 10 Christmas Festivities.

As to the dinner, it's perfectly delightful - nothing goes wrong, and everybody is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be pleased. Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of the turkey, with a slight digression relative to the purchase of previous turkeys, on former Christmas-days, which grandmamma corroborates in the minutest particular. Uncle George tells stories, and carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with the children at the side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making love, or being made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humour and hospitality; and when, at last, a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding, with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting, and clapping of little chubby hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy legs, as can only be equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into mince-pies, is received by the younger visitors.

The First Fall of Snow

Passage from Lanterns Across the Snow by Susan Hill

"And then the Christmas table, with its snow-white cloth and polished glasses winking in the light, and the handsome, best silver that made Fanny clap her hands and laugh.  And on the sideboard, a white dish on its stand was piled high with fruit, green and gold, purple and orange, yellow and red, and another held nuts, and a third sweetmeats, sugared almonds and egg-yellow marchpane, and jellies covered in sugar crystal.  Then they all sat down and the food came, smelling of richness and savoury juices, and steaming hot.

The skin of the roasted fowl was crinkled and golden brown, the gravy ran like a thick, dark river; potatoes were fluffed up in the dish like mountains of snow.  Fanny felt her mouth pucker up with hunger as Father said the grace and carved the bird and poured out the glasses of purple-red wine.

Then Fanny caught Father's eye and he smiled at her, so sweet, so tenderly loving, so happy a smile, that she thought she might melt all away with happiness.

"Christmas," she said abruptly, out loud, "oh it is Christmas!"

And everyone laughed. ~ passage taken from - Lanterns Across the Snow by Susan Hill

Christmas Day - Wednesday 25th c. 1900 by Ernest Charles Rodgers

Clara, Florrie and I went this morning to skate on Edgbaston Pool and very much enjoyed it.  The weather was all we could desire for a Christmas Day and everyone looked bright and joyous.  We returned home to goose, plum pudding and mince pies, I spent a jolly afternoon and evening with the Satchells at our house.  It snowed nearly all afternoon, but of course as we were all indoors with the shutters up, and sitting round the fire, this was most seasonable.

Christmastime ~ Charles Dickens

“I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round...as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
― Charles Dickens 

I Sometimes Think I Am Living The Wrong Life

Good Descriptive Writing ~ from The Infinities by John Banville

• 
• He sees it in raw April weather, a rinsed blue sky with smudges of cloud, ice-white, bruise-grey, fawn.

• Spring winds flow through the streets like weightless water.  The blued air of April.  The trees tremble, their wet black branches powdered with puffs of green.  A strong gust pummels the window-panes, making them shiver and throw off lances of light.

• Reclining on a strew of pillows in the morning's plum-blue twilight.

• Through gaps in the hedge he catches glimpses of gorse bushes yellowy aflame on the low hillsides, and in the hollows there are lingering blurs of morning mist.

• I am admiring the gorse blossom:  it is truly glorious, a froth of buttery gold over the hillsides and along the hedgerows.

• She recalls the dampish light, the smells of moss and musty water, the sunlight a spiked glare of white gold and a swarm of tiny, translucent flies busily weaving an invisible design above the water of the well.

• Outside, the air has turned to the colour of inky water.

• It's long past noon and a hazy stillness has settled over the fields.  The trees stand seething in the heat.  The air is grey-blue and lax.  Everything shimmers.

• From the shaded within, all that is without the high awning of glass, the trees, the sunlight, that broad strip of cerulean  sky seems a raucous carnival.

• When Adam cuts into the chicken a sigh of steam escapes from the moist aperture between singed skin and moistly creamy flesh.

It Takes Two to Tango

 

I love Tango music.

It makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.

Shopping the other day  a busker was playing the Tango on his accordion.  It was all I could do to stop myself dancing as I passed.

A Mothy Nightmare

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I slept with the window open - the day had been hot, the night humid.  A moth must have flown in.  It landed on my face.  I have a thing about moths - a childhood fear.  I swatted it away in the dark but it landed on my chest.  I lifted the covers and shook them.  It's gone, I thought, and drifted back to sleep.

Later I woke and felt its tickling feet and fluttering wings on my stomach - I sat up in alarm and threw the covers back once more to allow it to escape.  Uneasy now that it was still entombed under the covers.

I must have drifted off again.

The next morning I looked for evidence of squashed moth - surely it couldn't have survived a night under the covers with me.

There was nothing, no evidence that it had ever been there.  No moth dust or squashed wings.  Nothing.  Had I been dreaming after all.

I check the ceiling - there is a moth up there, wings closed, snoozing - could that be the one that had caused my sleepless night - if so, how did it survive my nocturnal thrashings.

Please don't do it again.  My nerves are in shreds.

As The Crow Flies

Mama Crow spends a lot of time in my garden, perching on the apex of the greenhouse roof or on the head of my little boy statue.  Sometimes her two offspring come with her, noisy and raucous.  I guess she is teaching them about survival; that this is a place to come for food - a piece of bread to dunk in the bird bath, or a few dropped seeds around the bird table.

She visits several times a day, hoping for more titbits.  It is in her territory now after spending the winter on my lawn carrying away apples and bread; bringing  with her a few companions.  Just her, then two more, then five - word having got round that there were easy pickings.

Looking totally out of place amongst the smaller birds - she is too big for my little patch; but she waits patiently, sometimes flying off to perch on the runner bean arch - but never far away.  It only takes minutes for her to realise I have left breakfast out for her - and there she is - appearing out of nowhere. 

I watch as she scratches her beak with pointed claw; then stretches her wing and leg simultaneously like a ballerina at the barre; shuffles her feathers which settle black and glossy into their proper place; sleek and close fitting. 

I look out for her - and she looks out for me.

Freewheeling

midnight poem tumblr

The open road calls.  I have a new pair of wheels.  It is a while since I rode a bicycle - my old one is pretty much clapped out.  After years of service it has finally been given the boot.  As I mount my new 'steed' I feel a little tremor of excitement and nervousness that shivers through me.  I wobble a little at first, apprehensive as cars drive past - too close, too fast.  But soon I get into my stride and remember the feeling of freedom and space as I pedal along - the leg muscles recall how it used to be and serve me well.

The test drive went pretty well considering.  I had to dismount once or twice while my beating heart settled into a steady rhythm after the exertion of the hills - but I managed to keep going despite the setbacks - it felt good to be back in the saddle again.

Hopefully I will become a familiar figure once more - pootling along the lanes on my mint-coloured bicycle - what larks!

It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us.  Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they're out on a bike.  Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made.  Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving so much as a footstep. ~ Gurdon S. Leete

Extract from England for all Seasons

 

 

The best kind of rain of course is a cozy rain.  This is the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam, and look out the streaked window with complacency. ~ Susan Allen Toth

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Quote from Veronique Vienne

The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things. ~ Veronique Vienne

Summer in a jar

What could be better on a rather chilly summer afternoon than to boil up a batch of loganberry jam.  The house is suffused with a fruity fragrance - I sit and listen to the hubble and bubble of the preserving pan vigorously 'plopping' as the jam thickens.  Everyday I have been gathering a punnetful of fruit from my small patch of canes; far too much to eat fresh.  So after giving some away for other people to enjoy, I decided jam was the thing, summer in a jar.

Life's little miracles

The kitchen garden is a riot of colour - flowers in glorious profusion - hardly any room the  vegetables.  This is no accident - I plant them along the edges of the beds on purpose.  Companion planting - something I have always done - mixing everything up, and it seems to work.  Although to the vegetable garden purist it may look a chaotic mess.  Today I gathered the first of my crops; finger-sized courgettes and lettuce and a couple of cucumbers - from plot to plate in a couple of shakes.  Even after many years of growing my own food I still get a thrill when I go to the top of the garden to see what I can find - almost like foraging for free food.  And you know what - it all tastes darned good.  You can't beat it. 

The day was very hot so as it cooled a little in the evening we went for a stroll by the lake which was as flat as a mirror, the sky and trees reflecting in the water.  Just us, and a family of swans floating by. Perfect.

Extract from The Still Point by Amy Sackville

Following the trail of it through the dark house, we will find her once more in the garden; how different now in the twilight, no longer scorched by the sun.  Pause now with her on the lawn and breathe in; listen to the insects and the rustle of plants, leaves furling, the fluff and settle of feathers, earth shifting under tiny paws and turned by pallid grubs and worms; the garden easing into the blue darkness.  Night flowers open cautiously, quietly, the warmth of the day transformed into deep sweet perfume.  More vibrant blooms are dimmed without the sun to brighten them, and give up their glory to the pale, fragrant flowers of the dusk.  The night-scented stock, innocuous by daylight, releases its essence.  Honeysuckle, cupping its hands to hold nectar for the moths to sup.  The scent of the garden, the tiny white blossoms like stars fallen on the lawn, and her bare feet white against the grass, and the white sheets; and the moths, intoxicated.

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Holiday Writings

 Briar rose and bramble - enduring memories of a summer hedgerow entwined with honeysuckle - soft fragrance and sea breezes.  The whole week a wild flower safari - prolific and abundant wherever you turn.

Some graveyards are beautiful places - mainly left alone, inhabited by wildlife; rabbits and foxes - even in the middle of a town.  Shafts of sunlight through the ancient trees; flowers, wild and rampant; cherry trees full of ripening fruit.  Lopsided grave markers of people long dead; untended; the lettering wearing away after hundreds of years of rain and hard weather; ivy, moss and lichen, returning to the soil.  The church stands sentinel, its stained glass windows watching over the graves, no longer visited; long forgotten.

--ooOoo--

 

Thunder rumbled through the sky; electric blue flashes of lightning illuminating the horizon - slowly fading away as it moved along the coast.

 

--ooOoo--

 

Weekend trippers wearing garish clothes and unsuitable footwear.  Strolling up and down  looking into shop windows buying trash that they don't really need.  Bewildered dogs with lolling tongues straining on their leads, breeds of every kind, sniffing each other warily.  Children carrying crabbing buckets, dangling their lines over the harbour wall, catching the same crab over and over again.

 

--ooOoo--

 

A walk  along the coastline with views so vast your eyes can't take it all in.  The incoming tide filling the creeks; sea birds hovering in the wind effortlessly.  Walkers pass two by two, shorts and backpacks, sturdy walking boots; serious and determined to get to their destination.  Old people strolling with sticks and swollen ankles.  The wind is strong out in the open, but the air is warm.  Clouds are white and billowing, sailing along; everchanging.  The path is edged with mustard plants, shoulder high - a river of yellow as far as the eye can see.

 

It is the longest day of the year and the motorbikers arrive noisily and in force on immaculate machines in full leather gear, looking hot and overdressed.  Toddlers lick ice creams and babies in pushchairs squint their eyes in the glare of the bright sun.  So many people of all shapes, sizes and ages, sitting on the sea wall eating their fish and chip lunches out of polystyrene cartons; gulls crying out overhead waiting for dropped food and trying to beat the starlings and ducks to their awaited prize of vinegar doused chips.

 

An afternoon snooze as holidaymakers drift by, their conversation rising up and into my daytime dreams accompanied by the chattering of the jackdaws sitting on the chimney pots.

 

--ooOoo--

 

Going away for a break is an essay on simple living.  You can only take enough with you for a week - so you pare down.  What to leave and what to take - decisions have to be made.  Holidaying in England is rife with problems.  Account has to be made of all types of weather - all packed into a small suitcase.  In one week there was rain, strong winds, hot sun, grey skies, thunderstorms and soft breezes - sometimes muggy and sometimes cold.  Clothes need to be short-sleeved, long-sleeved, thick and thin, waterproof and light, jeans and shorts, skirts and tops - to cover all eventualities.

 

Before packing all the clothes I like were laid out on the bed, and one by one, put back in the wardrobe - till just the essentials were left - each item able to match with the other.  The thought struck me that this selection would actually see me through the whole summer - and that the clothes left behind in the drawers and wardrobe were actually surplus to requirements.  Food for thought.  Dare I ditch it all!  No more stressing over what to wear each morning - no more sifting through piles of garments  - I mean how many white T-shirts do you actually need!

 

 

--ooOoo--

 

A storm was brewing.  Black clouds gathered and the wind gained speed.  The trees trembled and shook and crows and jackdaws scattered, shaken from their roosting places.  They wheeled and circled, dipped and dived - the wind blowing them according to its whim.  The sky blackened, dark as pitch, angry and hostile and the flock of birds seemed to panic not knowing where to go - swerving and re-forming as if by some invisible thread holding them all together.  They tried to get back into the trees but the wind had other ideas and shook them free again.  Gradually the wind lessened, the storm passed and the birds returned calling to each other that it was okay.  For a while though the storm caused a spectacle not to be missed.

 

 

--ooOoo--

 

Winding paths through trees and wildflower meadows down to the swift-flowing water.  A secret sort of place where characters from Wind in the Willows would be quite happy to sit in their row boat meandering downstream.  No formal gardens here just a natural kind of disorder. 

 

--ooOoo--

 

Hot sun and cooling breeze.  The beach - long, white and beautiful - stretching as far as the edge of the world.  Surf rolling in - hissing and swooshing over the pebbles.  The tide line a mass of razor shells crunching beneath your feet.  The sounds are soporific and rhythmic as the water ebbs and flows - holding your gaze as it mesmerises - the sun glinting off the water dancing sunbeams like water sprites -  luring you in with false promises.

 

Back inland a little we come across wildflower meadows alive with bees and butterflies and many species of flower.  The insects ignore us as they collect pollen, oblivious to our presence - intent on their purpose they go about their business.

 

--ooOoo--

 

By the water, by the sea, in woodland, open spaces, big skies, soft clouds.  Walking the headland through rivers of mustard plants - blurring into the distance.  Surrounded by green fields and hedgerows; grazing pigeons and rabbits.  No internet connection - no distractions - just being in the moment, recording my thoughts in the evening - taking pen to paper recalling and remembering.

 

--ooOoo--

 

We parked the car up on the heath above a pretty village.  The gorse is no longer in bloom; below us a patchwork of fields, some cut for hay, others planted with crops.  Further away the lagoons and saltmarsh of the reserve, sparkling water and soft mossy greens of grasses and plants.  Beyond is the thin blue line of the sea on the horizon.  The only sounds in the heat of the day a whitethroat singing its single note with repetitive monotony.  I feel the need to record it all, everything I see.  The feeling that time is running out - how many more summers will I see - how to spend my time to make it more meaningful, how to record it all when there is so much to see and feel.  What should my priorities be to prolong it as long as possible.

 

 

--ooOoo--

 

The woods were full of colonies of foxgloves - a beautiful sight of deep rose, pale pink and white spires standing tall amongst the trunks of the pines.  Later that evening a last stroll down to the quayside - our last before returning home.  Dusk was falling - everywhere quiet, the streets empty but for a few other strollers.  A few sea birds were still cruising the harbour skies but most were beginning to settle for the night.  The tide now ebbing and the moored boats tilting as the sea disappeared leaving bird footprints in the soft mud.

 

 

--ooOoo--

 

Returning home after a hot and sticky journey, retracing the road we had taken only a week ago.  The nearer we get to home the more familiar everything becomes.  Walking into the garden was like an explosion of colour - during our absence nature had taken care of it all - everything just carries on whether you are there or not.  



Blogger Burnout

I read quite a few blogs during a normal week; some I comment on; some I don't.  But, the good thing about blog-hopping is that you come across some crackers.  Of all the gazillion blogs out there - only
a handful, to my taste anyway, are beautifully presented, exquisitely written and worth returning to.

On the other hand; there are some that fascinate me with their awfulness.  Terrible layout; bad photographs; obscure topics and generally a rather bad attitude. But I keep returning to them and so do other people if the number of comments is anything to go by.

So what is it that attracts us to some blogs and not others.

Most are pretty boring, the same as many others, with nothing to distinguish them - run-of-the-mill.  But some people have the knack - writing seems to come easy to them; they are always interesting no matter how few words they use.  They are the sort of blogs that make me want to give up blogging altogether because my blog posts could never compare.

We are told by the blogging 'professionals' that we should always use our own voice, blog about something we are passionate about blah-blah - but it isn't always that easy.  How do you put your own twist on a subject that has been covered millions of times before?

Sometimes I look back at my old blog posts and find that I have repeated myself without realising it, so narrow is the niche into which I have cornered myself.  One blog that I used to write had plenty of original posts that I always felt a little excitement about as I wrote them.  Nobody was doing the same thing - they were quirky and totally me.  But I gave the blog up because I kind of ran out of steam - but really I should have kept that one going and discarded the rest, because it really was written in my voice about what I enjoyed - but there is no going back - things have moved on - I have moved on.

So, where does that leave me in the blogging world - that I have yet to find out.  I have become bored with myself - struggling to find originality and the right words.  I am probably thinking too hard about this and should just go with the flow and I guess it has become a challenge now to keep coming up with the goods.  But the thrill of knowing I have written a good post has gone, where is the excitement that I used to get when I pressed Publish - for the time being that has gone too.

extract from The Story of My Heart written by Richard Jefferies

It is enough to lie in the shadow of green boughs, to listen to the songs of summer, to drink in the sunlight, the air, the flowers, the sky, the beauty of it all.  Or upon the hilltops to watch the white clouds rising over the curved hill-lines, their shadows descending the slopes.  Or on the beach to listen to the sweet sigh as the smooth sea runs up and recedes.  It is lying beside the immortals, in-drawing the life of the ocean, the earth, and the sun.

I want always to be in company with these, with earth, and sun, and sea, and stars by night.  The pettiness of house-life - chairs and tables - and the pettiness of observances, the petty necessity of useless labour, useless because productive of nothing, chafe me the year through. I want to be always in comany with the sun, and sea, and earth.  These, and the stars by night, are my natural companions.

extract from Ambush of Young Days by Alison Uttley

The home of my childhood, eternal and green, appears before my inward eye, and I live again in the 

 brightly-coloured circle of hills where I was born.  No matter where I am, I seek unconsciously for resemblances to that beloved spot.  A draught of spring water, an uncut hedgerow, a broken wall, these bring back visions so real that I cannot tell in which life I am living, the present, or the crystal-clear past, when as a child I ran with arms outstretched to catch the wind down the well-known grassy hillsides.

 There are curling hedges which hold protecting arms round odd little fields, and dark lichened stone walls cutting and dividing the green, and everywhere there are woods, beech woods, a flaming fire in the back end of the year, soft as clouds in Spring, oak woods, rough and sturdy, plantations of dark fir and tender larch, and mixed woods of many colours and sounds, sheltering fox and badger, woods full of enchantment.

A portion of that land I know so well that I can see the contours of the hills, the patterns of the fields, the irregularities of the diverse landscape as plainly as if they were painted before me.  I know every flower-filled ditch, leafy hedge-bottom, and daisied bank, better than I know the lines of my own hand, for during all my earliest years my senses had no distractions from the daily scenes of wood and field and hillside.  They became part of me, like the cold air I breathed, and I had no conception of other lands beyond our own farm and its neighbourhood, the country side which filled the crumpled circle of England displayed before my infant eyes.

Diary Entry: Container Planting

I finally finished all the container plantings yesterday - what a chore.  It has taken many hours of my time - plus the expense of filling so many containers.  Homes had to be found for all my impulse buys - when will I ever learn - never, it seems.  Every year it is the same "next year I'm cutting down" I say, and every year I revert back to type - my greed for container planting knows no bounds.  But they do look rather fine don't they.

extract from The Still Point by Amy Sackville

"The butterflies, then, heave and clamber; the bees bustle and hum; Tess is up and prowling, licking the last of a juicy bluebottle from her teeth with luxuriant tongue.  Everywhere the creak and sigh of growing things, of life, but there is only a rumpled blanket, a discarded book, where we left Julia.  The air stirs, lifting the pages until they hesitantly turn; the words grow faint until there is only regret remaining, 'I cannot go on' whispering across the garden, and then the merciful breeze turns on to the ending, where there is only unfilled white."

Lilacs

Lilacs smell like they look.
They could have no other scent of colour, the flower simply smells mauve,
that haunting naïve purple, mysterious and sweet, just this side of decay.
When you think about it, the combination of hue and scent is first correct,
then perfect. ~ J. Carroll

a garden in france

the womens room

found memories

sarah manguso

The essential problem of ongoingness is that one must contemplate time as that very time, that very subject of one’s contemplation, disappears.
[…]
The best thing about time passing is the privilege of running out of it, of watching the wave of mortality break over me and everyone I know. No more time, no more potential. The privilege of ruling things out. Finishing. Knowing I’m finished. And knowing time will go on without

seneca

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

leo tolstoy

Spring arrived – a beautiful, kind-hearted spring, without spring’s usual promises and deceptions, and one of those rare springs which plants, animals, and people rejoice in together.

Anne Lamott

Trappings and charm wear off… Let people see you. They see your upper arms are beautiful, soft and clean and warm, and then they will see this about their own, some of the time. It’s called having friends, choosing each other, getting found, being fished out of the rubble. It blows you away, how this wonderful event ever happened – me in your life, you in mine.

on ageing - ursula mcguinn

I know what worries me most when I look in the mirror and see the old woman with no waist. It’s not that I’ve lost my beauty—I never had enough to carry on about. It’s that that woman doesn’t look like me. She isn’t who I thought I was.

Who I am is certainly part of how I look and vice versa. I want to know where I begin and end, what size I am, and what suits me... I am not “in” this body, I am this body. Waist or no waist.

But all the same, there’s something about me that doesn’t change, hasn’t changed, through all the remarkable, exciting, alarming, and disappointing transformations my body has gone through. There is a person there who isn’t only what she looks like, and to find her and know her I have to look through, look in, look deep. Not only in space, but in time.

[...]

There’s the ideal beauty of youth and health, which never really changes, and is always true. There’s the ideal beauty of movie stars and advertising models, the beauty-game ideal, which changes its rules all the time and from place to place, and is never entirely true. And there’s an ideal beauty that is harder to define or understand, because it occurs not just in the body but where the body and the spirit meet and define each other.

 

My mother died at eighty-three, of cancer, in pain, her spleen enlarged so that her body was misshapen. Is that the person I see when I think of her? Sometimes. I wish it were not. It is a true image, yet it blurs, it clouds, a truer image. It is one memory among fifty years of memories of my mother. It is the last in time. Beneath it, behind it is a deeper, complex, ever-changing image, made from imagination, hearsay, photographs, memories. I see a little red-haired child in the mountains of Colorado, a sad-faced, delicate college girl, a kind, smiling young mother, a brilliantly intellectual woman, a peerless flirt, a serious artist, a splendid cook—I see her rocking, weeding, writing, laughing – I see the turquoise bracelets on her delicate, freckled arm – I see, for a moment, all that at once, I glimpse what no mirror can reflect, the spirit flashing out across the years, beautiful.

That must be what the great artists see and paint. That must be why the tired, aged faces in Rembrandt’s portraits give us such delight: they show us beauty not skin-deep but life-deep

Oscar Wilde - Moonlight quote

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
Oscar Wilde

Review of Jonathan Carroll by Neil Gaiman

There are a few writers who are special. They make the world in their books; or rather, they open a window or a door or a magic casement, and they show you the world in which they live.
Ramsey Campbell, for example, writes short stories that, read in quantity, will re-form your world into a grey and ominous place in which strange shapes flicker at the corner of your eyes, and a patch of smoke or a blown plastic shopping bag takes on some kind of ghastly significance. Read enough R.A. Lafferty and you will find yourself living in a quirky tall-tale of a world in which the people have all stepped out of some cosmic joke, if it is not a dream.
Jonathan Carroll's a changer. He's one of the special ones, one of the few. He paints the world he sees. He opens a window you did not know was there and invites you to look through it. He gives you his eyes to see with, and he gives you the world all fresh and honest and new.
In a bookstore universe of bland and homogenised writers and fictions, the world that words from Carroll's fountain pen is as cool, as fine and as magical as a new lover, or cool water in the desert. Things matter. You can fall in love with his women, or his men, worry when they hurt, hate them when they betray or fall short, rejoice when they steal a moment of magic and of life from the face of death and eventual nothingness.
I had dinner with Jonathan Carroll, with Dave McKean and with some friends, about eight years ago: what I still remember is not the meal nor even the conversation (although I do recall Jonathan telling us some incidents of his life that I would later encounter in Kissing the Beehive): what I recall was the process of becoming a Jonathan Carroll character among Jonathan Carroll characters. We were witty and wise and lucent; intelligent and beautiful men and women; artists and creators and magicians, we were.
It was a couple of days before I noticed that I had become a mundane grey person once more.
Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry. But a new book by Jonathan Carroll is still, as they used to say on the back of the book jackets, a cause for celebration.
He has the magic.
His most successful books and tales defy genre categorisation. They've more life, more balls, are more true than pretty much anything else you'll encounter out there. They call some fantasies 'Magical Realism' to try and lend them respectability, like a whore who wishes to be known as a lady of the evening. Jonathan Carroll's work, however, has every right to parade under the banner of magical realism, if you have to call it something.
I call them Jonathan Carroll stories, and leave it at that. He is one of the handful, and one of the brotherhood. If you don't believe me, pick up Outside the Dog Museum, or A Child Across the Sky, or Sleeping in Flame or The Panic Hand, or, any of his other works (you'll find a list of them within, I have no doubt) and find out for yourself.
He'll lend you his eyes; and you will never see the world in quite the same way ever again.

Blog Wisdom

DO's

1. Write original, universal, funny, and amazing content.
2. Update frequently.
3. Keep your blog clean and pretty.
4. Network with other bloggers.
5. Keep your blog positive.
6. Use proper grammar.
7. Write in a conversational tone.
8. Show your personality.

DONT's

1. Plagiarize
2. Steal photos
3. Profanity
4. Don't leave your blog link in other bloggers comments

Victoria Erickson

Victoria Erickson

Victoria Erickson

Victoria Erickson

Awareness

We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are – as far as we know – the only part of the universe that’s self-conscious. We could even be the universe’s form of consciousness. We might have come along so that the universe could look at itself. I don’t know that, but we’re made of the same stuff that stars are made of, or that floats around in space. But we’re combined in such a way that we can describe what it’s like to be alive, to be witnesses. Most of our experience is that of being a witness. We see and hear and smell other things. I think being alive is responding. - Rilke

self acceptance

 

blogging tips

#1 The Power Of A First And Last Sentence

Your first sentence and your last sentence are generally your most meaningful moments in your post. The first sentence identifies a topic and usually pulls your reader in. Striking interest from the get-go is a great way to ensure your readers are hooked in. Take that opportunity to make a statement and be bold.
For example, “We spent Sunday at the zoo since it was such a beautiful day.” versus “I took my kids to the zoo this weekend and I thought about leaving half of them there.” See how the second sentence makes you want to read more? That’s what we’re going for!
Your last sentence will give your readers closure. Like a good book, you want them feeling glad they took the time to finish reading your post. If they leave your blog feeling satisfied then chances are, they’ll come back.

#2 Create Interest

Interest is in the details…look for them. Think about what you’re writing about: does it have a smell, a feeling, a memory attached to it? Words on a page are just words on a page unless you can find a way to breathe some life into them. Get people to relate to them. Make yourself vulnerable. All of this makes for good reading.

#3 Get To The Point

You don’t want to spend too much time prepping your story with a drawn out introduction. Sometimes a brief back story is necessary, but we tend to spend too much time working our way to the main point. Always re-read your post and cut out excess information (ie rambling sentences, off topic remarks, too much detail, etc).

#4 Keep It Concise

It is up to you to determine how long you’d like your post to be but a good rule of thumb is to not write more than you prefer to read when you visit other blogs. If you have a long story to tell, consider breaking it into parts and encourage readers to come back the following day for the resolution.

Veg Gardening by John Carey (1980)

As with most pursuits, one of the leading pleasures of veg gardening is that it makes you feel superior to those who don't pursue it.  The degeneracy of the pampered masses, propped half-conscious before their telly screens, becomes, as you toil on your lonely plot, a profoundly satisfying subject of meditation.

Coming to terms with who you are

In the blog intro, I asked the question “Who are you?”. Now is the time to evaluate yourself. Who are you? Who do people think you are? & finally, who do you want to be? For most teens, you’ll receive different answers for each question, which is OK! I believe a huge issue for teens is ACCEPTANCE. If everyone accepted themselves, less teens or all people at that, wouldn't resort to drugs, alcohol, self injury or certain behaviors used to cope. Acceptance isn't necessarily loving yourself, but COMING To Terms With YOURSELF & your situation. A person who accepts others would say something along the lines of "I don't like that you use substances or do harmful actions, I don't approve of it & don't accept it but I accept YOU". A person who accepts themselves would say something like the following, "I really don't like the things I do or how I cope sometimes but it's ok, I will not judge or reject myself, I accept myself for who I really am, not what I choose to do". Anyone who suffers from any of the obstacles listed should recognize that accepting themselves for who they truly are, not what others think is the first step to recovery. Being aware of who you are & coming to terms with your issues, it isn't the easiest thing to do but it's the most powerful. Once one gets the hang of acceptance, they'll begin to understand the true

Life Quote - Diane von Furstenberg

Book List

Etta and Otto and Russell and James
- Emma Hooper

Weathering
- Lucy Wood

All the Light we cannot see
- Anthony Doerr

September Quote - Susan Hill

From the book Howards End is on the Landing

Now, on a golden day in late September, I took two books out to a deckchair in the garden.  The first apples were thumping down.  The last swallows were dipping and soaring, dipping and soaring over the pond.  A dragonfly hovered, its electric-blue back catching the sunlight.  There had been an early mist and cobwebs draped over the long grass like parasols caught and held on their four corners.  The air smelled of damp earth.

Anne Lamott Quote

Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen. Repent just means to change direction — and NOT to be said by someone who is waggling their forefinger at you. Repentance is a blessing. Pick a new direction, one you wouldn’t mind ending up at, and aim for that. Shoot the moon.