I want to paint but...

I want to paint...but my painting box is stuck under the bed and I cant get it out.

Better

If I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all

Born like sisters to this world
In a town where blood ties are only blood
If you never say your name out loud to anyone
They can never ever call you by it

If I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all

You're getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder
And I don't understand, and I don't understand
But if I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all
Anything at all
Will you feel anything at all
Anything at all
Will you feel anything at all
Anything at all...

Regina Spektor

I am...

I am frustrated.

My mind is filled with a thousand thoughts to say and as usual, they stay beneath the surface.
I cant assimilate them into words. It should be easy. I am a woman of many words - but just as long as I can write them down.

I feel that every time I take a step forward I am pulled backwards by two.

I summon just enough bravery to do something and I am walking in the dark with only a small glow of an idea. It is scary and I don't have the strength to do it yet. Something has stopped me doing what I want to do. It is crippling me.

I want to say so much.

I want to say the things that I want to say.
I want to say that I am happy more times than I am unhappy.
I want to say that arguing frightens me.
I want to say that all that I am meant to say, and not crumble in a sigh of unattainable conversations.
I want to talk more than I listen.
I want to be understood.
I want to say that criticism, however small, truthful or appropriate chastises me into being half the person I am.

I know who I am. I see myself trapped in a little jam jar with the lid screwed tightly on. I look at myself sitting inside, dying to get out, dying to say the words on my lips, dying to explain them so that they can be understood and really understood for what they are.

And then the moment overwhelms me, and I say nothing. And I know that the words sink deeper and deeper and they are hard then to retrieve.

And I am writing this and know I have nowhere to run or hide. I am exposed. I am vulnerable. And I am angry. I am angry for all the things I cannot say. I need time. I need sleep. I need sleep.

A poem

I love you,
Not only for what you are
But for what I am
When I am with you

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself
But for what you are making of me...

I love you because you,
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern, but a temple
Out of the works of my every day
Not a reproach, but a song

-Roy Croft

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.
None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

by Elizabeth Bishop

Why is it hard to let go of things.

I am finding it hard to say goodbye to my plastic white Ikea chopping board.
FOR GOODNESS SAKE....ITS A FLIPPING CHOPPING BOARD! I know, I am shaking my head at myself!

Its broken and so therefore qualifies itself to be thrown away and no more discussion on the matter. However, its been a part of this home for years. Its seen me through some good sandwich and toast making days. It has provided wonderful facilities for chopping an array of vegetable and many other things.

But now, this chopping board has come to the end of the line. It has a massive rip down the middle, and although you can still use it, when you bend it, it looks like it could talk! Its not like I don't have anymore. I went to Ikea and bought some more the other day. Its just hard for me to say goodbye to somethings. Its the things that have the most randomness that I form the greatest attachment to. I have no rhyme and no reason.

Maybe this isn't about a chopping board. I am working hard at saying goodbye to the different parts of my work life. I have spent 7 years building up my job and working in a place which has changed so slightly over the years, that I hardly recognise the place I walked into all those years ago. I started with nothing - literally - and I built and built until I has something to be proud of. I stand back and gaze at my creation and know that it is good. But how can I let someone else fill the role that once I had?

I know that it is time for me to go. My heart is seeking other pleasures. I feel trapped in a profession where I cannot create and yet, it is all my heart seeks. I used to be so happy spending hours on end on the computer doing a variety of different things, and now, I get cross because I feel it is stopping me doing all the things my heart wants to do. And once again, i find myself looking at the clock. 9.30pm, with no more time left in the evening, but have a shower and get ready for bed. And I sigh, because today has gone, and I will never get this day back again. It will be filed with the countless of other memories that I have lodged deep in my soul.

And for all the time I want to play, I cant help but feel sorry at the things I am going to leave behind. They are my creations. Will anyone love them and nurture them in the same way as I did? Will they push so that they become everything I had hoped them to be.

One thing is sure. I know I cant look after them anymore. It is someone else's turn.
I have to learn to say goodbye.

Maybe the first step is to go into my kitchen and say goodbye to my plastic friend.
And then maybe it will be easier...

The View

The view you have depends on which way you are looking.

Today I was driving to work. ordinary day, ordinary January morning trying to promise goodness, but delivering dreariness. I looked into my rear view mirror and noticed the most intense pink sky. It was as if it was telling to to 'hang in there'. A place of hypocrisy in a place where there should be none is making it hard for me to do things with the same fervour as before.

And then I looked forward and then up. Before me was a rainbow. Not an ordinary rainbow, but a pink cloud one. I looked with intent to check that I wasn't imagining it, or even wishing it. But there is was. A full arc of stunning cerise. I had to pull over. It was brilliant. It had been created with brilliance. It was wonderful. It was a gift. And I accepted it gladly.

I was living...and then I opened my eyes...

I was living, and then I opened my eyes and realised what life was.
I didnt want to close them again for all the naivity they held.
CB

The Secret Set within Our Hearts

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive.
There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.

George Eliot

Scattered Jigsaw Pieces

The pieces of our jigsaw are scattered across the living room floor.
It is a wonderful allegory of my present self.
Pieces of understanding that will fit together in time.
Understanding is what I seek.
Confusion is all I feel now and I'm trying to make sense of it all in scattered pieces.

The irony of it, is that it isn't a traditional jigsaw. A jigsaw would be easy, picture on the box matches the pieces of the jigsaw. Something to follow. Something to aim for.

The puzzle however is a wasgij. The picture on the box doesn't match the picture I am making. You look at the box, and there is a man in the picture, and the puzzle matches what that man sees. Its both crazy and brilliant at the same time. The pieces are all gathered together by colours and patterns and every now and then, 2 or 3 or 4 pieces are joined together and then that's it. Time to sit in a different position and gather more.

Never was there a more apt way to describe my life and the decisions I have to make, than this puzzle on the floor. So many decisions, or rather, the bravery it takes to make them, because the decision has already been made.

The opportunity has finally come. In days gone by, I held the key to opportunity without the door in which to unlock. In other times, I saw the door and my hand was empty, no keys had or, or method to unlock it.

I have both now and for a while the door is opened. I can see here, my present, but I cant see there, my future.

The journey begins with just one step.
And so, as I walk towards the open door, I wonder how much courage I have to walk through it. To walk through and start a new life.
To solve the puzzle, to gain that understanding.

The adventure begins.

(image by Mark Cappittella)

Book, books and books.

I am now sure when my love affair with books started.

I must have been about 8 years old, and my mum had bought me 'The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe'. I spent countless days trying to get into Narnia from my mum's wardrobe, and every time I didn't succeed, I would end up playing with her shoes and her jewellery box. A typical girl with an adventure in mind!

I remember waking up one morning after dreaming of my success and ran to the wardrobe, only to find that again, my plans were scuppered. I have never stopped trying. But as an adult, I find the wardrobe is is my mind.

I can close my eyes and disappear into worlds of flight and fancy and be totally consumed by a story that my cheeks are usually streaming with tears and I mimic any gasps or movements that the characters display. I am in love with the beauty and the tragedy of a story. I love the ups and the downs and the whirls and the sudden stops. My boyfriend has had his fair share of tears soaking his t-shirts after being so immersed in a film, I find it hard to separate the reality from the story. In that very moment in time it becomes my story.

I bought 5 books at the weekend and tried to sneak them into our home with no shame! I have so many books, most of which remind me how to live and love and laugh. I read them and then forget, and when I am reminded, I am so cross with myself for forgetting the message. I get caught up in the everyday of work commitments that anaesthetise my soul and numb my existence. And yet recently, I am beginning to discover that work without play does not make me happy. My dad used to tell me as a child that work came first. It's a hard mantra to break. I find myself as an adult repeating that to myself. And I have suffered as a result. Oh how I have suffered. Ironically, when I graduated and started work, my dad told me to start playing now I had worked, but I never did. Years of working and working and becoming the best in my career has left me bereft of playtime. My inner child stands for this no more. She wants to play, and she wants to play at EVERYTHING!!

So, is my love affair with the books, or the messages that they contain, or just to be an Innocent child again searching for the secret passages into another world? The words in my books certainly whisper to me, they tease me, they dare me, they fill me. The messages are starting to get through. I am plotting and planning my escape from this birdcage.
I am strengthening my wings little by little, and when that cage door opens again, I will be ready. I will fly!

I took the one less traveled by,

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost 1874-1963,
The Road Not Taken

The One Hundred

So, 100 it is then.
That is certainly an achievement.

It must mean the coming of dawn. The twinkling of a new chapter. A new beginning. A new start.

It is night now and I'm writing in the dark.
All I have are images in my head of what the dawn will bring and the new possibilities of the long and fruitful day. Night has been dark for so long now. It is easy to become scared and rely on false promises.
I am tired and easy persuaded.

I know that seeds of hope are planted in the dark. My life and happiness are proof of this. I once stumbled through the dark. I sat down and gave up. If it wasn't for the care and light of others, cold and there I would be still. I have seen so many people remain in times of bitterness. They say they emerge stronger, but they recreate themselves into a cold and half a person of who they are destined to be. They refuse to be hurt again. They put up walls. The close the door and the windows. I do not want to be that person. I am not that person. My strength comes from my brokenness. I am strong because I am weak, I am able to comfort because of what I have been through. I was planted in the dark. I grew. I am blossoming and soon will be my fruitful time.

My passion today has grown and been nurtured. I want to put flesh on my words, I want to experience the sunshine heating my face, I want to breathe wind that caresses me and turns me and fills me and fills me and overflows with such joy that if I wrote for a thousand days it would only touch the surface of what it truly feels like.

My words are like music to my ears, with each letter a note, each word a tune, each sentence a melody, each paragraph a symphony. I want my soul to pour out and give life to the life I have.
My chapters have been full and inspiring and at times difficult, but now is the time.
It is the time for me to say yes.
It is the time to leave behind yesterday and welcome today.
It is time.

Happiness

Happiness is only real when it is shared

Christopher McCandless 1968-1992

I miss

'I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home.'

High Fidelity

Always carry a torch

It is never a good idea to walk in the shadows of the past unless you carry a torch.
Having a look around is a good idea though, it shows you how far you have come.

Without the look, would any of us really know what it is like to be really sad?
Would we really know what it is like to be truly happy.

I know I am on a swing through life.
I dip from moments of sadness and happiness.
I recognise them both for what they are.
Fleeting moments in my life that are here one minute and are gone the next.
I appreciate the happy times and ride the unhappy ones.
Neither will last, all will come to pass.

I am being called...

Its in the whisper of the moment.
Its in the déjà-vous of something that has just gone.
Its in the blink of the eye.
It is in the crescendo of a piece of music.
I am being called.
Called by who or what, I have yet to find out.

I feel like I am being drawn deeper and deeper towards a destiny which has already be planned.
I am in a place where I was not born, or even desired to be, and yet, here I am.
Most things that pulled me to this place have since gone, there are only a few left.

There are times I can see everything and there are times I see nothing.
In a moment I understand everything and then in a flash it is all forgotten.
It is as if it is not the right time as yet for revelation. There is something else to come. Something else has to happen before it can all be revealed.

It is drawing me slowly and slowly to look into myself and when I see inside I shall finally see my very soul.

Everybody

"Everybody dies but not everybody lives"

A. Sachs

The best bit of today?

When my BF decided to print something and when I looked to see what it was, he had printed
'I LOVE YOU :)'

Sigh...all is better now x

Brick Walls

Brick walls are there for a reason : they let us know how badly we want things.

They are not there to keep you out. It is to keep out people who dont want it badly enough. They are to keep the others out. Not you!

Professor Randy Pausch
Sept. 18, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo&feature=player_embedded

I have to write

There is something in my whole being that is telling me to write.
It is becoming more than a passion, more than the air that I breathe.
I feel that it is me. It every part of my being.
It is the blood pumping in my veins. It is in my heartbeat.
It is my secret.

I feel there is something in me knocking and trying to get me to open the door to my imagination.

I see a chink through the letterbox, and the gold glowing light penetrates my eyes and wipes away all the pretence of my world, all my fears, all my worries.

All I have to do is open the door, easy though it sounds, I have no door handle. The handle is on the other side. To open it, it must be opened on the other side by me. An impossibility I know, but I am so keen to find out how.

I no longer want to run from, I want to run towards. I want to crash down all barriers. I want to shout and sing and laugh and play and dance and live.

I am barely living now. I feel like I am on a life support machine. Keeping my in a place. Pretending that it is keeping me safe, making me think that If I move from this spot, I will die, worse still...that I will fail.

Why is it keeping me here? So that I cannot live.

And I want to live....I want to live so much....

When I need you.

I have a sense of being pulled towards a memory when I hear this song. I am a small child and I have an intense feeling of being loved and being safe. I dont know what year it is, or what I was doing as a child. But when I hear this song, it fills me. It fills me so that it overflows.

When I need you
I just close my eyes and I'm with you
And all that I so wanna give you
It's only a heartbeat away

When I need love
I hold out my hands and I touch love
I never knew there was so much love
Keeping me warm night and day

Miles and miles of empty space in between us
The telephone can't take the place of your smile
But you know I won't be travelin' forever
It's cold out but hold out and do I like I do

When I need you
I just close my eyes and I'm with you
And all that I so wanna give you babe
It's only a heartbeat away

It's not easy when the road is your driver
Honey that's a heavy load that we bear
But you know I won't be traveling a lifetime
It's cold out but hold out and do like I do

Oh, I need you

When I need love
I hold out my hands and I touch love
I never knew there was so much love
Keeping me warm night and day

When I need you
Just close my eyes
And you're right here by my side
Keeping me warm night and day

I just hold out my hands
I just hold out my hand
And I'm with you darlin'
Yes, I'm with you darlin'
All I wanna give you
It's only a heartbeat away

Oh I need you

Leo Sayer

If you dont know...

'If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.'
Lawrence J. Peter

Every one has a song inside them