365 Days, Day 183

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children (George Bernard Shaw)

What the daughter does, the mother did (Jewish Proverb)

And thou shalt in thy daughter see,This picture, once, resembled thee (Ambrose Philips)

Ahh, my little Ariél. A beautiful young woman, with the future stretching out in front of her. She will achieve great things. At the moment she is in a ‘resting’ phase of her life, regaining strength and vigour for the journey ahead.

When she was little, she loved being a princess. Dressing-up was a favourite activity. I think back on Birthdays she had: Barbie birthday, Little Mermaid birthday, princess birthday, tea-party birthday. For all of these she had to have a special outfit made. Luckily she has a Nan, aunts (Ada and Hanlie) and a mum who can sew! Before we left South Africa last year, I sorted through her dressing up box and gave some of the clothes to little Kayla (my niece), who also loves dressing up. I can’t remember what happened to the rest. There was even a jasmine costume that I had made with little beaded top and harem trousers and little matching ballet pumps covered in the same satin fabric and beaded! She wore this for the Character Parade I did with my nursery school class the year I taught Ariél.

I love dressing up. I imagine finding an old attic full of trunks of old evening dresses and wedding dresses… Or rummaging through the costume wardrobe of a theatre! When we visited the costume exhibition at the V&A, I was in heaven: so creative and so magical.

The pink wig is Ariél’s by the way. I had nothing to do with it being purchased: she bought it when she was in Cornwall!

365 Days, Day 182

A woman continues to do her duty, to carry out the obligations of her life from day to day while putting off her own inner desires so successfully that in time she no longer hears the inner voice that says that she would rather dance or dream or build bridges or wander through the woods. When a woman has ignored her soul voice for long enough it can grow very small, so small that it takes a lot of patience and stillness to make out the words that are being whispered (Leslie Kenton Passage to Power)

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.
How do you know this is the experience you need?
Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.
( Eckhart Tolle)

I am small and quiet. I have ignored my soul voice for too long. I cannot make out the whispers…

I am struggling with who I am at the moment. I have not adjusted to not being “Mom”. This was a major part of my identity. I am still Mom to Ariél, but the dynamics have been altered, especially after gaining awareness that I needed to adjust the mother-friend role to mother-in-the-wings. Sometimes our well-meaning behaviour is perceived and experienced in a way that we did not intend.

I am on this journey at present, because I need to rethink, and reinvent myself. There is wisdom that is whispering from within, that is calling me. I understand that I need to be patient, that what I am experiencing at the moment is part of the evolution of my soul. But it is frustrating at times, and a very lonely path. I strain to hear the whispers…

365 Days, Day 181

Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you'd look out your little window and think, "Boy, I'm glad I'm not out in that.” (Jack Handy)

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade (Tom Peters)

A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside (Denis Waitley)

The snow is melting. We are warm and snug inside looking out. The Christmas tree is up. Tom has hung the outside lights. We will start making the Christmas puddings, the mince pies and Christmas cake in the next week. Perhaps we might try a pantone too. We will be having two Christmases this year: one on the 25^th of December and one in early January when Kyle and Sarah arrive.

365 Days, Day 180

A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul (Franz Kafka)

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself (D.H. Lawrence)

When I got home from two pantomime performances last night, I was quite frozen and tired. I climbed into a warm bath with a book – light reading: Spud. (Am re-reading the first Spud book). I do not think this is the kind of book to which Kafka was referring, but it thawed my soul a bit.

365 Days, Day 179

Honesty is like an icicle; if once it melts that is the end of it (American Proverb)

Silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Sometimes

my heart

feels

like a slender icicle

Cold

liquid

emotions

dripping

then freeze;

slender dagger

frozen

void.

Ice cries:

drip,

melt

unheard…

The sun has started shining this afternoon. And icicles are forming: beautiful, elongated slender points of ice.

Lily’s walk today ending with her attempting to run home after being ‘accosted’ a large forest ‘wolf’. She bolted and did not want to come back to us. We had to chase after her. She knows her way home through the forest it seems.

365 Days, Day 178

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

This is our car cleverly disguised as a large ice cube. While it was in disguise we made our way to the shops, an hour's walk each way. There were loads of people out walking. It was hard going because you really have to concentrate on walking in the thick snow. Or where the path has been trodden, walk with concentration so you don’t put a foot wrong and perhaps slip on the compacted ice. Inside the supermarket is a Costa Coffee shop where Ariél and I stopped for a latte (Crème Brule) and hot chocolate (mint) before embarking on our shopping. We bought thermal undies! We were selective in what we bought as we had to carry it all the way home again. Tom and Lily met us on the way back, and we trudged the last bit together, 2 ½ hours later.

The first performance (tomorrow night) of the pantomime has been cancelled due to inclement weather! I was concerned as yo how I would get to the theatre as there are no busses or trains running at the moment in our area.

We put up the Christmas tree today, with Lily in her element to have a new ‘toy box’ filled with exciting silvery shapes and smells. She looked taken aback every time we removed one her new ‘toys’ from her mouth: but they are so pretty and shiny! Dog toys cleverly disguised as Christmas Tree Decorations…

365 Days, Day 177

One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints (Proverb)

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same (Author unknown)

Lily’s delight at yesterday’s cold and crunchy white grass turned into dismay this morning. The crunchy white grass was still there and seemed to be higher than yesterday. Mouthfuls of crunchy white grass later she realised she would never eat her way to the bottom of this.

Her humans tied her walking jacket around her belly, and took her out. The crunchy white grass reached her under-carriage and it was a sensation that Lily was not sure she liked. She could not walk through this crunchy white grass, she had to leap like a small buck, which thrilled her humans, but was very tiring for Lily.

Over the scitter-scatter bridge they waded. Every time Lily tried to resist moving forward she was dragged forward on her seated under-carriage. She felt a little chagrined at this. After frolicking and generally trying to please her humans, Lily shivered miserably and thought it was about time to return to the warmth of Home.

Almost back at the scitter-scatter bridge, Lily’s nose smelt a faintly familiar puppy-friend scent. Indie! Her favourite! Whilst the humans made their chitter-chatter noises, Lily and Indie dashed and rolled and leapt and licked and smelled and chased and caught and riggle-tiggled together. When the humans tired of their strange sound-making they parted and Lily’s humans encouraged Lily to follow them. Indie’s humans did the same with Indie. Neither Lily nor Indie seemed inclined to pay much attention to this until they saw their humans walking off without them. There was frantic licking and promises made to see each other soon.

Back over the scitter-scatter bridge, and down the crunchy white grass to the warmth of Home. While Lily tried desperately to get in through her dog-flap, but to no avail, her bulky jacket getting in the way – the humans did a very strange and inexplicable thing. They lay down on the crunchy white grass, on their backs and moved their front legs and backs legs up and down, giggle-gaggling and saying, “Snow angels”. Lily had no idea what they were doing. She frolicked over and sat on the warmth of one of the human’s chest. When the humans were covered in the crunchy white grass, they stood on their back legs and giggle-gaggled their way inside the warm Home. Leaving their bodyprints behind in the crunchy white grass.