before the year ends

how a year can change ~ season, energy, direction:

it teaches you shit:

it SHOULD teach you shit:

I learned that gratitude and grief can exist side by side:

when my heart was shattered, I learned to be grateful for the pain because it means 

I’m alive and I know how to love deeply:

there’s no need to hide from life so I put my self completely into crazy messy hard but honest living:

I can still love the life I live and still ride those waves of emptiness 

navigate past questions that there are no answers to:

the paths I didn’t take and the people that are no longer walking that path with me:

my horse and cart, with my shit and no-one else’s:

the dreams I once had, needn't be abandoned but tweaked:

I've done it before and I can do it again:

remember this ~ we don’t know that the last time we do something is going to be the last:

it can happen unexpectedly or you don’t see it coming because you sweep the signs aside:

the raw truth too hard to face eye to eye so you divert and digress:

inevitably, you can’t avoid the last times but you can love what you have right now ~ more:

the heart can handle so much more that we give it credit for:

it’s far stronger than I realised and while sometimes I wish it didn’t have to be in situations 

where it needed to be strong 

I am truly grateful for it’s beat to remind me that I am still alive

I am still here

and in it’s chambers and ventricles and blood 

in the joy and heartbreak ~ it has known love

it knows love

the green green grass

it's been relentless heat 
so in the need to reset my inner thermostat:

one of my best friends moved to Ireland

3 years ago and for those 3 years
I have been promising to visit
so the time felt right to book a flight

hello Emerald Isle

gaelic words look so complicated

home for 8 days
all that green grass!

the landscape is breathtaking

little houses
sheep, cows, horses, peat piles

lakes

photos don't do it any justice

enniscrone

achill island

clare island

cullanamore

portavade

reminded me so much of the thames estuary

where I lived for most of my life

cockles, mussels, samphire, bladderwrack

driving through the lost valley

it really is like a place that time forgot

the wide open beach to the atlantic

to silver strand

the weather wasn't always kind

lashing rain didn't stop me walking up to 

downpatrick head

there are many legends about this huge rock

on the wild atlantic coast

hearing the sea crash through the fissures

and of course you have to visit one of the many

bars

and have a guinness!

a country rich in history

and still in touch with it's roots

it won't be my last visit for sure
~~~~~

to sleep perchance?

 here we are

in this time of strange

and I am wondering

have we forgotten to dream?

not the dream of sleep

but the dreams we have of something to achieve:

a place we would like to visit beyond that of home

of family or friends:

a notion of learning something outside of our comfort

or a big idea that has been perculating:

when did our dreams become so contained? 

most people dream a dream when they are asleep:

you have to dream intentionally

when you are awake 

*.*.* here, there and everywhere

it's been a month since I moved 
from the house I called home
to a temporary rental by the sea

living out of a suitcase

just the bare essentials
my belongings in a shipping container

my apartment is being built at lightning quick speed
 I have no idea when it will be habitable

I am feeling unsettled
I'm between places
I miss my own bed

some days are harder than others
but I know it won't be forever

 

|^^| let's create a living space

seems I always move house in October
except this time I have moved temporarily

into a holiday rental by the sea

sea, sand and mountain views

and treasure to be found

that'll do while the work is going on in my apartment

city living means small streets

but that's no worry for delivery drivers

they are used to hoisting heavy things up

we had to get permission to close the road

for our two huge deliveries

work is happening rapidly

first fix plumbing and electric 

tools tools

yesterday I laid the first block for the solid wall
that will be the ground floor bathroom 
and laundry room

today they begin the stud work

it's organic
the builder puts out his thoughts
I say hmmm can we do that, but with this extra
he rarely says no
he knows what he is doing
and I know what I want
a good team

 

\/\/\ when love breaks down

something happened yesterday
it had been building for a little while
I knew it
he knew it
I've been living a story for the last year or so
today, with a big feather quill
I'm dipping it into the pot of ink
and writing a false stop
.
no regrets, no sadness

“I believe that love is the indispensable fuel for us to go on living.
Someday that love may end.
Or it may never amount to anything.
But even if love fades away, even if it’s unrequited,
you can still hold on to the memory of having loved someone,
of having fallen in love with someone.
And that’s a valuable source of warmth.
Without that heat source,
a person’s heart would turn into a bitterly cold, barren wasteland.
A place where not a ray of sunlight falls,
where the wildflowers of peace,
the trees of hope, have no chance to grow.
Here in my heart,
I plan to use these memories
as my own little fuel source to burn on cold nights,
to keep me warm as I live out what’s left of my own personal life.”
Haruku Murakami

                                                                              Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey

=^..^=

one of the best gifts I have ever received
was this crazy little kitty

abandoned then found 

 so full of character
a vocal and playful cat
he gave so much love
and was loved so much 

he used up his 9 lives too soon
sail away
my sweet Astro
~~~~