- Purple and red. Both very bright. Both very together. Why have I never seen this before?
- Snowing downdrift of chestnut-coloured plane-fluff on titian curls.
- The view of Canary Wharf from C’s window last thing at night and first thing in the morning.
- There are many paths but only one mountain.
- Using whiskey then, when that doesn’t work, a glowing match to remove a tick results only in the strong reek of flambéed fur. And has no effect on the tick. In fact it might make the tick cough crap into the dog. Tweezers are recommended. And don’t crush the arachnid using any unprotected part of your anatomy – the crap might get into you too. But how come, I wonder, my brother and I were de-ticked every evening in the bath when we were in the Isle of Man using neat whiskey?
- “I am feeling more stable and happier than I have done for years.” Me, out of nowhere, to my father.
- Penny Serenade has to be one of the most excruciatingly bad films ever. His Girl Friday is much better, one of my all-time favourites, but I fell asleep.
- Dead Man, on the other hand, is one of the most brilliant films ever. And, serendipitously, is on offer in the Virgin megastore.
- The smell of incense and the sound of sirens while meditating in a central London church.
- “Why is it that we regard positive sentiments and phrases describing happiness as trite while misery and suffering is seen as more ‘real’?” Thought-provoking question indeed. Maybe another manifestation of Milton’s Paradise Lost v Regained syndrome.
- Champagne. First Moët then Nicolas Feuillatte (I still have the corks). Later in the week a palette of champagne cocktails chosen and given by a friend: the pale pink of champagne, cointreau and cranberry juice with a delicate spirogyra of orange peel in a poinsettia; glowing orange-yellow of a Bellini (champagne and peach juice, the cocktail of Venice); the golden russet of a vanilla champagne cocktail.
- Leap and the net will appear: Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, lent by a friend.
- Second-born: “I thought I was going to have a nightmare last night, but I thought of something lovely, a happy time, and it went away”. Astonished mother, knocked sideways by this step-change in the aforementioned spawn’s unremitting negativity: “How fantastic! And what was the happy time that you thought of?” “Our camping holiday in Cornwall.”
- Cooking for friends from Delia’s vegetarian book.
- Hospice at Home charities and the fund-raising party a friend had to honour her mother who died, at home, a year ago.
- Comforting a friend’s child after he fell over when she wasn’t there. Loving the trust and depth of our relationship that allowed me to hold him and calm him and wipe away his tears.
- The crashing to the floor onto a metal object of my camera and splintering of glass… the fall destroyed the filter and left the lens unmarked.
- Pale dry sherry and cheese-and-chive pretzels. Powering this post.
- Loop. Again. With a loyalty card. A fabulous pattern for looooong fingerless gloves (buttercup armwarmers) in pure silk Alchemy Pagoda yarn which I’m making in Pablo’s Solace (aka purple) which was 50% off in the sale. But I’m going to modify the pattern a bit and make a thumb and thread a red ribbon (see list item number one) round the wrist.
- I *am* a dirty old mystic. A term of abuse coined by the ex. Ok, I’m not dirty, but I’m an old mystic. And I love it. I absolutely love it.
- Great minds. Great Minds.
Loathing manacles
The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.
800 years
Mastering your own mind
Charting
I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.William Blake
We think we know our minds but our knowledge is like the experience of a landscape gained through a map. Two dimensional, contour lines only. To know thoroughly we must venture from the plane of the map to the reality of earth and rock and water and stone.
frizzyLogic 