Setbacks

(I thought you'd like to see the beautiful city where I live)

Some setbacks health wise which have upset me.

So there.

I was too complacent perhaps with how my abysmal health for the past two years had turned around and allowed me to walk without George my stick, and Wally my wheelchair used for longer stretches. Does the Catholic guilt ever leave me, I ask myself, all those instructions from the Holy Nuns about not being proud, which covered a multitude of missteps, never taking pleasure in anything or God would turn around and smite you before snatching it away. Vanity. Victory. Holy God is in charge and will always knock you down a peg or two.

So last week was one of those weeks where every single doctor (three) visit had gloom and doom written all over it.

Finally, on Thursday, I sat in my car and hauled out the pity pot and sat on it for about 30 minutes in the backside of a parking lot which seemed appropriate rather than an ocean visit. What else can one do (unless you're lying to yourself).

Daughter and Niece cheered me up. I am so grateful for them both in my life. I haven't shared with friends, I feel quite on the verge of tears, and only with one dear blog friend directly. I am, as they say, processing. 

I will write more of this when I can.

Meanwhile the Writing Workshop keeps me busy and engaged and quite out of myself which is excellent. Niece has planned a mango curry dinner for me tomorrow night and Daughter is taking the day off next Friday and coming in to have lunch and a bit of Solstice shopping (we do books only).

Life is as life is. Acceptance and a carrying on spirit is needed.

We all have unexpected downers, don't we? 

(Another shot of St. John's - we are right on the Atlantic ocean)

Miscellanea

 I had a most lovely surprise on the shelf outside my door. A lovely pewter Irish candle. Anonymous.

I immediately put it to good use honouring the two dear ones I lost this year.

I posted the pic on FB and anonymous announced herself. What a lovely thing to do.

My eldest brother has Covid. He is double vaxed and boostered. So there is no relaxing with this thing. He is masked at all times. He believes he caught it on a flight to Dublin, (plane washroom?). He's recovering in isolation now. Fingers and toes crossed.

Writers Workshop is fantastic. The group is now cohesive and having wonderful fun. Great talent is on display and some excellent writing. A huge pile of work involved for me but it's all such a joy.  

An interesting sideline out of this is that I was asked to do a series of sessions with a very sharp 98 year old veteran to extract his extraordinary life story. I am really looking forward to this new enterprise and putting together questions that are easy and meaningful. I am so very grateful that I am entrusted with this and perhaps can do some more with the elderly before they pass on, their stories lost forever. I say elderly with a snort (I is one!). 

I am reminded of an article in that great lamented defunct magazine "Saturday Night" where this dance teacher visited homes for the aged and taught them basic moves and encouraged them to have more creativity and endurance when dancing. She said she loved helping the elderly embrace a fresh activity. As she climbed into her sports car after a class , the interviewer asked delicately how old she was. "92" was the response as she zipped off. That story stayed with me, nearly 40 years later.

I see many elderly reliant on their families for entertainment and inclusion with nothing else on their platters. All outside interests suspended, personal development a thing of the past. All their friends like themselves, trapped like a fly on a spiderweb of expectations which, of course, are never met. Sending out depressing guilt-o-grams to adult children about not seeing enough of them. 

Never has it been more important to "get a life", keep stoked, do something new, get out, feed the birds at the lake, take a drive, get a colouring book, a jigsaw, take a photography class, get more plants to look after, talk some new ideas. Be realistic with the time one has left (short).

What are you going to do with what's left of your one and only wild and crazy life?

Stuff

 Stubblejumper was bemoaning her lack of finding a proper 2022 Planner. Seems she and I are very, very fussy about our planners. They have to be workhorses.

I found a beauty a month or so ago at a dollar store (who'd a' thunk it?) Unbounded joy for $4.00 approx.

Week at a glance - huge amount of room for every single thing. I like to slot in stuff beforehand and book time off, a day off preferably.

Pages of To Do lists and pages of notes - I use these for movie and book recommendations. And Important Thots. And my never ending to do list.

Special see-through section at the back with a zipper for those bits.

After two years of frozen friend and family meal drop offs I am back to cooking again and had to brag about this marvelous old recipe meatloaf with sides of kale and carrot/sweet potato. I gave leftovers to Daughter along with my home made soup. Quite a switcheroo. So happy about this.

And finally I was in a thrift store (buying men's PJ bottoms, thanks for asking) and found this great ginormous clock to hang above my toilet. I love clocks. Always have. This is so vulgar as to be sublime. 

Ecstasy for $10.

Cognitive Decline in the Elderly

I won't get into the link business here as there are far too many essays and articles on the topic of cognitive decline during these hazardous times.

Elders have been adversely affected during Covid, due to lack of social interaction, normal leisure activities, large family gatherings, etc. I would add the appalling new layers of climate change (which is quite horrifying out in British Columbia at the moment), here's a link to that for readers outside Canada. BC has been cut off from food delivery and is totally isolated with highway washouts and mudslides.

I am witnessing a situation first hand here in the building with a friend who has virtually pulled down the shutters and refuses to come out. I've tried my best over the past week or so to get her to come to the beach or out for a meal or even a coffee or even to come here for a chat in her PJs or me to visit her. I believe the Black Dog (or perhaps a pack of black dogs) has got her firmly in it's grip. I can't get through to her and it's alarming.

She's let many activities go, even her driving. Another friend tried to coax her out to a prime beef dinner on Saturday night at the RAF club ($15.00!!) and she declined even though our table will be just people who know her well. 

I texted her today that I didn't want to be a pain in the arse trying to break through to her and said I was always available for a chat. All I got was a little heart emoticon in return.

I am really concerned. The Black Dog was my familiar in the past but thankfully, gratefully, he took off some time ago and hasn't shown his slavering jaws in a long while.

I believe this is a rough time for many of us (children, seniors) And the future of this wee planet is looking grimmer and grimmer and Covid rates are through the roof in Ireland and the UK again. Masked will be part of our daily existence (forever?) and I have little faith that politicians will sort out and correct the trajectory of the acceleration of devastating weather conditions due to advancing climate change.

As an Australian prime minister said a few years back (sorry can't remember his name) when the fires were chewing through his country "You're on your own."

We are all on our own basically. 

There is no magic wand.

So There

 

So There

I wish there was a heaven

With everything promised

Without the fires and judgement

And resurrections of bodies

And where we didn’t have to sing

Praises and question why

I’d add my mother’s arms around me

And a white grand piano

And meeting Beethoven

And Emily Dickinson

And so many others it would take

All day to name them

But I’d have eternity to sit down

And chat with them one by one

We’d all be our old selves

Not new selves who sound boring

But how would we find each other

With all the billions already there

Would we get a kind of GPS

And a magic plane or train or car

I couldn’t live in heaven without the

Ones I loved being right there

And the ones I didn’t love not so there

It all sounds so complicated

And unmanageable and undoable

But I can dream

Of my own kind of heaven

Can't I?

MM 11/16/21

Lana's World

Outside of her new home.

Some of you have followed my posts on Lana, my long term friend who descended into the long goodbye of Dementia/Alzheimers. She is younger than me by 2-1/2 years which makes it all the more poignant.

Up to about a month or so ago she was still driving which alarmed me greatly. I kept in touch with her son and another friend of hers who checked on her regularly.

Then a few weeks ago she wasn't answering her phone and her son found her on the floor of her living room with a massively swollen right leg.

Community area of her new home.

He sprung into action. Got her to the hospital (she had blood clots) and immediately arranged for her to be admitted to a care facility. A very fancy care facility. Unaffordable to most but it turns out he's one of those quiet millionaires (real estate, stock market). Her house is worth a lot but he hasn't seen the need to sell it yet. She is very fortunate.

I call her once a week and enter her brand new world. She surprises me with her sharpness at times, asks about my writing, wants to hear all about the workshop but I'm very much in the now with her. All short term memory is wiped as with a blackboard eraser from her mind within a very short length of time.

It humbles me. She speaks of her surroundings - a chandelier in her room, a brand new TV screen installed by her son, a selection of framed pictures and photos from her former home. She laughs. "I wouldn't have chosen any of these myself" and she describes them to me. Her leg is shrinking. And she's walking the halls. 

Every floor is carpeted - a long cry from most "care" homes. It's like a luxurious hotel" she says. A privilege denied to many. And she knows it. She is incredibly grateful to her son who stepped up to the plate, so to speak. Their sometimes fractious past long forgotten.

It's extraordinarily peaceful talking to her for about 45 minutes every week. We are very much in the now. I never question her. Even asking her about dinner would be stressful but now and again she'll talk about the menu and I am astonished at the choices on offer and her memory in recalling the items - a long list.

She asks me to give her some memories which I do. Trip to Ireland, trip to New Brunswick, a couple of trips to Newfoundland and to her parents when they were alive, weekend retreats, volunteer community work we shared. She delights in each memory recalled for her.

"My grandson has my car!" she suddenly announces to me.

"You loved that car!" I answer.

"It was time," she says, "I'm OK with not driving again."

I am profoundly affected by this. She adored driving. And knew far more than I about cars.

I dread the day she forgets me but right now when I call her, she is bowled over with love for me. As I am for her.

A Sheltered Life

 

I was buying groceries on line when this item was thrown at me as an under $10 bargain. I had no idea I'd been walking around never, ever knowing I had stones in my throat. Did you? 

This is a really handy gadget as it also does double duty for plucking crap out of your ears. What a bargain! I'm sure they must carry a stitchomatic (or ear glue) for patching up those pierced ear drums and that accidental tracheostomy too. 

Here's the blurb:

"A soft silicone cap to scratching your throat for a better touch feeling.
With a transparent storage case and a stainless steel ear pick.
An useful tool set for the removal of annoying tonsil stones.
Come with a LED Light for a clear vision, convenient to use.
Can also be used as a Ear Wax Remover."

You can tell the grammar is from foreign parts. 

I am now going to work really hard at being annoyed at my tonsil stones.

My Happy Place

I held my first writing workshop in years yesterday after the fallow years of The Plague. 

There was a very satisfying turnout and I held it in the large two storey community room of my building which worked out very well. As I kept the workshop private, we had no "spectators" which happens frequently if tenants are aware of something interesting but only want to observe and not participate which I discovered to my chagrin at another group meeting. Discomfiting to say the least. 

The ambience there is quite lovely with a huge library, a propane stove in the corner, and large windows and glass doors over looking the garden and golf club behind it and upholstered window seats with a piano and a well supplied kitchen and bathroom. I will take photos next week.

I took most of  a week to get everything ready - it's a group sharing effort with prompts from me, a 10 minute exercise to flex those writing muscles and reading of individual pieces which are distributed to each other for critiques to be presented the following week.

There's a ten minute break half way through for tea and buns and getting-to-know-you interaction. 

It went far better than I anticipated. Some written pieces were extraordinary in their emotion.

The group - some of whom had never met before - seemed to get along really well. The relaxation was almost visible.

There's a lot of trust involved in sharing writing. And I observed the empathy develop. And the enthusiasm.

I truly love doing this. And I'm sure it shows.

I took this picture of my dear late friend R playing in the sand. I presented him with the bucket and spade when he stayed with me out here on The Edge. I love this image as his outer demeanor was normally so serious.

 

Tradeoffs

It took a while for it all to sink in.

Here I was with 2 years of disability, chronic pain, no energy, lack of oxygen and underperforming blood running through my system now behind me. Well almost behind me. I am feeling much better than I had been. So I plunged into a busy life with a lot on the go.

SOS: We had put out an anonymous survey in our building in an effort to ascertain the monthly income of seniors, what items they were lacking, what changes they'd like to see made in their current situations, etc. And also, if comfortable, please donate as we were not government funded. The response? Less that 10% of residents responding. A solitary donation of $5.00.

A request on the SOS page with its 600 members across Canada asking for donations and volunteers to help with our SAD day (Senior Awareness Day) on December 1st, resulted in zero.

As I was working on the SAD pledge poster and participant form which was the major fundraiser - all participants agree to live on the $7.00 per day impoverished elderly seniors live on - the lightbulb lit up in my head. My one assistant was deteriorating with an incurable tremor condition so can't keyboard and her tech abilities are diminished along with her voice on the phone.

I asked myself if I was living in joy or stress. And the answer was loud and clear.

I had to stop. And after 4 hours of graphics wrestling, I laid down and thought. Enough, already. Stop this nonsense. And the relief overwhelmed me, almost immediately. This was like a full time job that was a painful reminder of other positions I positively hated and couldn't wait to bail from.

I had let go of all the things I loved, blogging, writing, knitting, workshops, music, even repotting my plants. No time. It consumed me. And for what? The sound of crickets with every announcement, survey, pleas for help.

I met with my partner, and she agreed. Her health is failing. She told me she couldn't sleep with the stress of not performing even the simplest tasks. 

We gave it our very, very best. And would have given more. But the universe has a great way of showing us that even all that wasn't enough.

So we are each sleeping better. 

And my tradeoff is a return of all the joys I had let go.

A beautiful card of Dingle Beach Horses and a handmade linen star sent from my sister in Ireland.

TW3

Feel free to join in on That Was The Week That Was. 

Monday, I had a long chat with a brother who has the same condition(s) I do. He was hospitalized and put on intravenous antibiotics as one of his symptoms was high fever. So infection for him and chronic anaemia for me. But interestingly, no pain for either of us.

Tuesday I had a spyhole installed in my door to avoid the cranks that this snarly hermit tries to avoid at all costs. Started compiling a writing workshop layout for a series of eight workshops I am giving for another anthology.

Picture is of Fogo Island, Newfoundland from a few years ago.

Rolled with two cancellations of social plans on Wednesday. I am never bothered by such things as I have masses of plan Bs to amuse myself with.

Thursday not much, several books arrived, two from Ireland and one picked up at my local charming library.

More on books later, my books read list is waaaay overdue.

Friday, we had a meeting with local bank to start legitimizing Support Our Seniors, the group I founded. I am always amazed at the emotion showed by young people including my CBC interviewer and now the bank manager, when they learn about the dismal poverty many seniors are in, living way below the poverty line in a "wealthy" country. More awareness is needed. More on that later.

Had to cancel today, Saturday, though not much was planned as I had dizzy spells this morning which discombobulated me. Now thankfully gone. But had a long nap in the afternoon to recover.

Tonight. I was alarmed at not reaching my friend Lana (read about her here) for the past month so contacted her son and she has been put into a luxurious assisted living facility. Something she, like many of us, never wanted to happen.

She had been ill with clots in her right leg and her mental stability had worsened, so he made this decision and caretook her all the way through it. He gave me her number and I was so delighted to hear her - so accepting of her new situation. She is rapturous about the care she is receiving and the incredible meals which she told me about. And how the staff chase her down, laughing, to give her her pills as she walks all over the building to get her exercise. And how she is accepting she is there forever, so to speak. I cried I was so happy and moved. She is younger than I by a few years but one never knows when life can change irrevocably.

This dear friend died during the week. She lived to a great age (94) and this was a study I took of her for a painting by an artist about 6 years ago. He wanted her eyes downcast as she had a "saintly and modest demeanor". He didn't know her obviously, as she could swear and curse with the best of us and had endless talents.

Some lovely conversations with Sherkin Island aficionados, sharing memories and with one planning a trip to Newfoundland.

Sherkin - a part of my heart resides there. Always.

Randoms

 I managed to squeeze in an ocean restoration trip during the week. I was delighted to see a drummer practicing his craft at the shore. And even more delighted to find I could walk (with George, my cane, just to be safe) down to the waves and marvel at how life has changed for me.

I finally had the energy to walk in the glorious back garden of my building and snap these two shots of the tenderness and long shadows of autumn.

A lunch snap one day. Sour dough bread with gorgonzola cheese. Who else likes weird cheeses?

And finally, this made me laugh so hard - for all you cat lovers out there.

TW3

 I remember a BBC show called "That was the week that was". Also known as TW3 and I thought perhaps to start a meme, though I don't wish to clash with other end of week memes like Sunday Selections.

With a health status that I really thought would never disappear (never mind returning to more energy and no worries about the daily smidgen of spoon stock being depleted, etc.) I was able to return to some activism and also re-ignite my writing workshops with funding in my grubby little hand.

I awakened SOS (Support Our Seniors) from its Covid-19 slumber and found someone to take over the office mundane tasks while I concentrated on ideas and promotion and media presence. I pay her a pittance out of my own pocket until we can get some funding. 

While thinking (which I did all through the week) I came up with a plot which should get us massive attention (I hope) more on that later.

I went to a new café, affiliated with its neighbour book store.

I got so involved and forgot to take pics. An old friend, a baker, is supplying the gorgeous goodies, so we had a long post-covid chat after her delivery. (I hope I'm not jinxing us all with that remark).

Then another patron who was listening to myself and friend chat about memoir writing over our cappucinos for the upcoming series of workshops interrupted us quietly to say excitedly "Writing? Workshops?" and bingo we were off. While with us she sketched the inside of the café in pen and ink and hung it on the wall as a gift. Genius. Forgot, again, to take pics.

She and her friend (who is also a writer but wasn't there) will attend the workshops so I'm now at full capacity.

Three cherished long telephone calls during the week, two dear friends from Ontario where I used to live and my sister who lives in my home city of Cork.

A loss of a childhood playmate and wonderful adult host in his farmhouse from Sherkin Island hit hard. Parkinson's.

My to do list has loads of items still on it. I'm a devil for to do lists, even for the simplest tasks. My head has always been in the clouds.

And how was your week?

Language of Love

I'm not  writing of actual language here. Though in some cases that is true.

I'm writing of the acts of love which speak far more than expressing a sentence or so, which is fine and dandy. But language expressed in other ways.

Daughter went off to Ontario to visit her father and daughter and various long term friends. Before she left she quietly put some homemade soups in my freezer. Carrot and ginger. I was so keen to dive into this I nearly forgot to take a picture.

I always had difficulty in feeling loved, rooted in childhood, of course. But lately, with the help and care and compassion I was shown through my baffling and lingering illness I've become more aware, that yes, I am loved. Gifted food is a manifestation of that. Grandgirl voluntarily cleaning up a bathroom which was an awful mess before one of my procedures was another.

A friend downstairs brings me a hot Jiggs Dinner when she cooks it.

Another sends in home made jam or bottled moose from the country.

A blog friend and I share the details of the challenges of our health on an almost daily basis via email which is comforting and gives that feeling of not being alone with pain and lack of mobility and often zero energy.

Niece provides delicious family meals complete with boxed leftovers to take home and her daughter bakes delicious pies. 

Her special blueberry cheesecake.

Niece also had a crack at her mother's Yorkshire Pudding, which was marvelous.

And here is the turkey and Jiggs which was wonderful

A cousin taking the time to write me after reading one of my articles was another. (You'd be amazed at the lack of response I get when I send my articles or essays to those I think would be interested). But yes, one or two out of ten or twelve can be enough.

A gift of knitted socks, endless cards in the mail, muffins left on the shelf outside my door, the laundry service gifted by Daughter, streaming services gifted by family, and on and on. Every day the language of love is there if we look for it. 

The kind and caring words of blog-friends are especially dear.

If you'd like an actual mailed personalized card from me, email me at wisewebwomanatgmaildotcom with your snail mail address.

There's nothing like real mail is there?

And please feel free to share your language of love experience(s).

Thanksgiving.

Different to the US date. So have a happy one as we forge into winter and remember all that was good in the spring and summer. And the harvest. I think we're due a harvest moon soon. Out here on The Edge, it signals oyster hunting. Best time apparently.

I am here to report that my health has shifted mightily into comfortable hemoglobin and iron levels. So thanksgiving abounds in my small world. A combination of some stomach pills and iron every day. Some healing has occurred or some restored balance. And as my GP says: you are one of the few we can definitely say has no cancer or ulcers. 

We continue on this path in spite of the diagnosis of diverticulitis - a not uncommon condition of us elders due to age-thinning of the linings of our nether regions. I am relieved and grateful for the incredible medical procedures and superb care I have. I am now awaiting a report on the right eye blindness which seems to have been caused by a small stroke during one of the procedures (stress). So I had an MRI on my neck ordered by the retinal specialist to see if there was a blockage.

So there you have it. The organ recital.

In other news, I was on CBC television and radio chatting about the impact of recent price hikes on seniors, plunging some into poverty and looking at foregoing their cars due to unbelievable gas prices. My activism, in light of my renewed energy, has been re-ignited.

I also received unexpected funding for a series of writing workshops which excites me no end. It's the process I love and not so much the end of the journey where, last time,  we had an anthology published and launched proper-like, with food and signings and reading and joy.

I'm on my way to Niece's to gorge on turkey with all the trimmings and celebrate much with her lovely family.

My gratitude list is enormous.

How about yours?

On Grief and Condolences

 

I'm old. It's expected. People have been dying around me though since I was five when a classmate, cute little Geraldine with her shiny black hair and fringe, died of meningitis.

I lost Eithne,  a sweet friend, when we were nine. She was in the kitchen early in the morning and turned on the electric fire and her nightie caught fire. Pre fireproof clothing days. A terrible, agonizing death. I was devastated. Every Tuesday after school we caught the bus together into the city, she for piano, me for elocution. She was quiet and so was I.

And on through the years, death becomes more of a familiar as we age.

One of my closest friends out here lost her identical twin sister a few weeks ago. Due to my health and The Plague, we hadn't gotten physically together until this evening for dinner.

She is destroyed. She is 8 years younger than me. I had brought her some potted fall flowers, a little custom of mine for any dear one who loses his or her beloved. Flowers are for the living and not for the dead. 

I told her I couldn't understand her loss, not having a twin. I asked her to be real with me after I gave her one long hug. So then she cried and cried and talked all the minuscule details of her dear sister's death. And I listened carefully. Not interrupting. She was executor of the significant estate and her sister's adult children had fallen out. And she was finding it a tough balancing act. 

Her last promise to her sister was that she would look out for her children. So she finally told all concerned to please allow her her grieving time (she's awfully good on boundaries, always has been). She asked me when the grieving would be over. And I just looked at her and said "Never."

And then she smiled at me through her tears and said as she held my hands:

"Thank you for that. Thank you!"

(I can only imagine how sick she is of the holy platitudes).

The barest minimum of words are often the best of condolences. And intense listening to every tiny detail. 

But my heart breaks for her.

Best Inventions in My Lifetime

 I'm going to ignore all the medical advances in my lifetime - there are far too many and I am incredibly grateful for all of them. 

So this is a very personal list of those made in my life time which have enhanced my comfort and efficiency. And yes, time management.

First of all:

Birth control! What a difference to my life compared to the life of my mother and grandmother and all before them. Choice! Career options! Independence! 

Automatic washing machines, dishwashers, dryers. Unheard of when I was a child. I do remember my mother's old hoover, a huge purchase when I was about seven or eight. Two small tubs, one a spin-dryer, in the same machine. Eased her workload considerably.

Calculators, mainframe computers, floppy disks, all the way to personal computers. And printers. And laser printers. Bye bye typewriters! At home! Home offices! The foundation of my own business! True independence!

Reel to reel tapes, recording music off the radio when I was a teenager. On to cassette tapes, not forgetting 8-tracks, on to CDs, on to Ipods and Spotify and 5,000 pieces of music on a tiny hand held device. To be played at whim. Anytime and anywhere. Mirabile dictu! And the miraculous VCR all the way to streaming today. 

And last, but not least (believe me, I can think of many more) cell phones, the internet, then the internet and world wide web on our actual mobile phones! 

I've seen many, many changes in my lifetime. Not least of which was the enormous radio with a huge battery my dad would listen to at a local farmer's when we children spent our summers on an electricity free island. It's aerial was strung up outside the kitchen window to the second floor as heaven forbid they might miss a hurling match from Croke Park in Dublin. Pre transistor. I was about 13 when I saw my first transistor - my cousin was gifted it. I was sick with envy. 

What changes have you seen in your lifetime? 

Windows

 As in sights out of windows. Memorable sights.

One of my first clearest memories was my father lifting me to a window in the second floor flat where we lived in Midleton Co. Cork. I'd say it was 1946 - I did a dive into the web but no further information on this.

Outside the window down below was this:

I want you to remember this, said my Dad, this is the last night where the gas lighter will come around and light the street lamps! Tomorrow it will be all automatic. I asked him what automatic meant and he explained that there was a switch in a building, just like our wall switches and when it was pushed, all the lights would come on together and not just one at a time. I was amazed.

Coming up to Christmas in 1955 when I was twelve, my father woke me up one night and told me to look out his bedroom window, where the sky was a deep terrifying red shading to orange. A frightening sight. He said it looked like Cork City was burning up (we lived in the spanking new suburbs of it).  Somebody banged on our door, late, and told him it was the Cork Opera house, where I had performed as a "Tiny Tot" tap dancing, when I was about 6.

A few days later we went down to see the ruins.

It was heartbreaking. It was built mainly of wood so it went up like a tinder box. I loved that place and enjoyed the pantos and plays that had delighted me.

Sputnik was a big thing in late 1957. There was a fussy great-aunt taking care of us in our home. I was 14 and my mother was in hospital.

She panicked one evening after sunset as the sky was 'cracking'. And again, I looked out my parents' bedroom window and saw a light travelling across the sky. It subsequently turned out to be the Russian satellite, Sputnik 2, with its cargo of the dog Laika.

I was terribly upset thinking of the fate of this wee innocent dog, though much was made of the fact that it was a stray mongrel found on the streets of Moscow. As if it didn't deserve to live. it still upsets me to this day.

Can you remember anything memorable from the windows of your life?

I am not my body

This was my morning meditation today. I needed it. I just open the book randomly and there they are, these nuggets of wisdom that I need to embrace to empower my day.

I needed the reminder as my failing body sometimes seems to dominate my personality.

My inner self is far, far different to my body.

She is creative, compassionate, caring, considerate.

And those are just the "c" words.

So in light of this lesson reinforced, I bring you these as a kind of Sunday Selections. Go visit Elephant's Child every Sunday for her take on this meme.  All pictures below are mine.

From the deck of my former home.

From the beach in front of my old home.

Every night was a different story.

Fishing boats coming in after sunset with their catch of the day.