Retrospective

It's late in the evening of New Years Eve, at the end of a strange and confusing year which has brought a total upheaval in almost every quarter of my daily life. I've left a lot behind me, discarded a lot of excess bagage from my previous life whilst picking up inspiration and doing battle with conflicting world views. Neutralising an addiction, getting a grip on a failed relationship, analysing myself and my motives and re-establishing relations with a couple of confused and unhappy teenagers who just happened to be my daughters, have been part of a total overhaul that I hadn't thought possible twelve months ago.


It goes without saying that it's been worthwhile, it's been dead tiring and it's not over yet. Divorces and life changes have a habit of doing that with you, they go on and on and on and drive me to distraction. Never mind though, the only thing that really matters is the knowledge that 2009 will see an improvement in life that I'd only dreamt of and never been able to experience. Doors have closed behind me, new ones are opening all around me and the choices available are bewildering to say the least.


I've been badly distracted recently, to say the least. A lot of what I would like to do has been put on hold while I'm preoccupied with other running issues. For better or for worse, important people in my life have drifted away in the same way I've also done. Perhaps it's a natural thing, change being the major common denominator in any sense of human activity but the changes hurt and leave me behind with a sense of loss and disappointment although the moments of connection and happiness will be cherished forever.


This New Year will be the last one celebrated in the old fashion and whilst I'm glad it will be over soon, I'm just a little sad that all the hopes and promises of years past are dissolving into irrelevance in such an offhand way. I can't talk to my soon-to-be-ex-partner about this, she figures it's a problem of my own doing and I need to deal with in my own way. So I do, I've given up trying not to tread on sensibilities and proscribed modes of conduct, the only way out for me in a life on my own terms.


I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year, one filled with promise and happiness despite the occasional downturns and moments of despair. Life will get better, it always does once your perspectives move in the right directions and you get the right people around you as well.


Keep well...

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Different perspectives

I've been trying to do some more work on portrait photography recently, with mixed results. As usual, practice makes perfect and I need to develop a little more patience with both myself and my surroundings occasionally since things worthwhile take a little time to appear or be seen.

Enjoy...







Keep well.

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Intermezzo

A little fooling around with fractals on a day off... need to go and do something productive now ;-) (click on the images for an enlargement)



Keep well...
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Learning to let go

Sunday morning, still very early. I'm thankful for the silence and the moments of reflection in a period of much turbulence.


In a few hours I'll be off to visit a lady who has been special for me in the almost 30 years of my having lived in the Netherlands. She, her husband and their family of six children were almost next-door neighbours to my mothers family from about before the war years until 1956, when my mother emigrated to Australia. She was almost like a second mother to my own mother, offering practical support and encouragement in the darkest of times after my grandfather died in 1944. My grandmother and my mother have always maintained contact with her in the intervening years, and even though my grandmother passed away years ago, my mother still maintained a sense of extended family with her which she (an only child) has treasured all her life.


When I came to the Netherlands in 1979, she and her husband didn't hesitate to offer me a place in their lives and in the strange country I'd come to. It was a strange and wonderful time, I was floundering in a culture I didn't have a clue about but the sense of security and being home I was offered has left an enormous debt of gratitude. I learned to see people at their best at that time, I learned to understand that the brave new world I'd landed in was totally different on the outside to the one I'd encounter in the living room. It was a formative and defining period for me, painful at moments when I was growing up fast.


Many years have passed, time has brought much but also taken away in equal measure. The vibrance of middle age, the composure and serenity of old age have been replaced by disability and confusion, almost as if one is to be punished for surpassing the three score and ten years allotted to them. Hardly a dignified way of ending a life filled with compassion, dignity and concern for all who needed assistence. It doesn't seem fair, and perhaps it isn't, but that's all we have to work with I guess.


I wonder what today's going to bring with it. I'm curious, are you? Keep well...


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Coming up for air (again)

The year draws to a close, a new chapter in my life begins. Although the divorce is not yet settled completely, the broad outlines are clear and are being filled in an orderly and equitable fashion.


Two of my daughters and I went out to dinner last night. It was a good moment for each of us, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and there was a freedom in our conversations that we aren't able to have at home. My eldest daughter wasn't with us since the difficulties she and her sisters have been having with each other for quite some time have poisoned relations sufficiently to warrant two separate "dinner dates" for them. There has been some improvement recently, but there is still a lot of resentment and unfinished business which needs attending to, but for the moment I think that everyone besides my soon-to-be-ex-partner is guardedly optimistic about the future.


For my part, I've been through a rather rough and depressed period which is slowly improving but can't and won't be hastened by any effort of mine. My medication is fairly weak, based on homeopathic principles and works well generally although the darkest months of the year tend to be difficult for me at the best of times. I'm so glad though that the frosts have set in now, that the skies are open and clear, and that I'm able to feel the light running through my veins, refreshing and invigorating me.


I'm hoping to be around a little more frequently from now on, and let myself catch up on my own sanity and the writings of others which I've sorely missed for too long. I can't promise all that much and although the next few months are still going to be somewhat rocky riding I've managed to find a more solid basis for my life than has been possible during the last half year.


Keep well.

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Fractals on Friday

At Christmastide, when the days are short and cold, when darkness surrounds our daily doings, we remember and reflect on the way we were, how we are and what we would like or need to be. In the end, all that is needed is one pinpoint of light to dispell the gloom and sadness, replacing them with hope and confidence in a better future.


Remembering that there is beauty in the small, often overlooked and even more often misunderstood, can help make the world a better place.


I wish you every happiness in this holiday season, that you may gain the peace and the insight to make the coming year one in which you can be happy and fulfilled.

Keep well.

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Fractals on Friday

It doesn't really matter what you do, as a parent. Chances are you'll probably get it wrong anyway.


Trying to convince myself that one or several of my worst nightmares aren't real, hoping that tomorrow will be better.

Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

The worst is over for the time being, the world becomes a less dark and forbidding place, the optimism grasped fleetingly a week ago is returning hesitantly to warm me in the coldness of days confused.


The demolition of my old, comfortable and complacent world is continuing at full pace, often leaving me with the feeling that I'm hanging on for dear life and not quite sure what to expect next. All I know is that life is getting better, in the midst of the confusion I've brought upon myself there's a semblance of order evolving toward a more peaceful frame of mind, one that lets itself be hinted on occasion to give me just that little bit of encouragement to keep on going.


Last week's blood test was dishearteningly inconclusive on the one hand, on the other I'm now almost positively sure that there's not much of a problem with me physically which can't be tackled with a modified diet and an exercise routine. Ideally I'd be in a job which doesn't require me to sit for longer periods of time, in which I can keep myself in motion to prevent the "freezing up" I all too often experience nowadays.


I used to be able to get by with seven hours sleep each night and often less with no ill effects, yet nowadays I need a minimum of eight to even be able to concentrate on a mornings work, after which I'm feeling as tired as death itself. My doctor puts it mostly down to the mental processing of the major shifts in my life, combined with my inherited propensity for depression, the one tangling up with the other to create unpredictable and sudden shifts in mood and motivation. Sometimes days can be disarmingly short, whilst others drag on for a painful eternity until I allow myself to go to sleep and let the images and noise fade for a while.


All things considered though, I see that life is getting better in many different ways. As is said, "no pain, no gain" or words to that effect but I wouldn't mind a little time out soon, just to quieten the nerves a little. Right now though, time to tackle the business of the day yet again.

Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

Following on from a theme set in last week, a couple of new variations which I felt happy with.


I liked this first one particularly because of the odd, spiral symmetry which seems to be leading me on to something new and exciting, yet also dark and dangerous because I have absolutely no idea of what I can expect.


This second one was a surprise, with a distinctive "neural" quality I could appreciate. The contrast between a dark and brooding background, and the optimism of colour in the foreground is heartening at a moment in my life in which I'm not coping all that well.

I've had a blood test done this morning, to try to discover the reasons behind the excessive tiredness I'm experiencing at the moment. Although there's been quite a large stress component present in my life for some time, I'm now also having to cope with continual cramps in several muscles as well as general stiffness/soreness after only 15 minutes of inactivity. A couple of possibilities have been mentioned but no conclusive evidence in any direction has been found to date. I'm due for a follow-up test in an hours time.

Time to get moving again. Keep well...

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