(Well, if we’re including everything…. here’s the girls again)
“Only two ways to live life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
You’re a miracle too, Mairead.
photography
Getting forgetful?
(Morning! Or afternoon?)
As I sit here at 8.30am on Monday morning I wonder why I don’t sit here at 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon. Why wait until the last minute? Why set up a habit that doesn’t support the good and the healthy? Why not set up a habit that makes life and the living of it easier? Why indeed?
(One of my buttons on my art project)
It’s something I’ve considered previously, with some success too. There was the walking for twenty minutes a day habit, the drinking three pints of water a day habit, the blogging at 3pm every day habit, the photography every day habit, even the drawing every day habit. But for some reason it’s much easier to let those kinds of habits go and forget that they were even a consideration.
(Focus on the important things….)
Now I’m considering…. and it seems like this might be the perfect time to reinstate some useful habits. I’ll have to be ruthless when I’m deciding which ones to reinstate. Probably best if I ask myself what I want to be doing in six months time (when my habits have taken hold.)
This could take a little time, Mairead.
Friday Quote – Choose Happiness.
(Roisín and Caoimhe – happy cousins)
“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” – Aeschylus
Go on – make the effort, Mairead.
My dark January.
(From winter in Cashel 2010)
It’s January. For me that’s the time of year when my energy is at its lowest. When the winter has been long enough and I want some spring….. now! I want it now like my two-year old self wanted chocolate…. but Spring’s not ready yet. So I have to practice patience.
(Spider art)
I thought this year it would be different. I am occupied and preoccupied by my course and I thought that would help me forget it was still winter. It hasn’t. Instead it’s shown up further “issues”. When I’m lacking patience with winter I also lack patience with everything else I meet. I am lacking patience with the accounts (my old foe), with my latest assignments, with housework, with bills, with Denis, with myself.
(The lovely side of winter)
I had forgotten it all started with January and I was thinking, “these blasted accounts again”, “how can I ever get this history of art done?”, “when does housework finish?”….. but these are not the problem. In fact there is no problem, I just miss the light. I miss getting up after sunrise and having dinner before sunset, I want more time with the light. So I must choose… between making problems out of normal life and accepting the season called winter.
I want to choose to accept winter…. how hard can it be? Mairead.
Friday Quote – You make a difference.
(Every brick in the wall…. makes a difference)
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
Your life has an impact, Mairead.
Happy New Year
(Way too much chocolate….)
Is it morning already? I’ve been away in the land of Christmas and I have jet lag (or… sleigh lag.) So just enough time and energy to wish you a Happy New Year – it’s 2013 – and encourage you to consider your hopes and dreams and wishes this year. For a start scribble something you really, really want on a bit of paper and stick it in the back of your purse or wallet. Don’t look at it again until 2014.
(Way too much food…)
Or if you’re really brave…. send your bit of paper to someone who will encourage you; or send it in an email to lots of encouraging some-bodies; or do what I did and set up your own team of people to encourage you! That’s why I’m off out the door now to draw and paint at this un-holy hour (well 8.30am…) instead of lying in bed. And even though I’d rather be lying in bed at this moment…. I am very glad I started this journey.
Happy 2013 and start scribbling, Mairead.
Christmas Eve, the seagull.
(The doubly recycled Christmas Tree from Paris, last year)
It’s Christmas Eve! Just saw a huge seagull flying over our house. Even though we live near the sea they don’t fly over our house very often. I think it means “storms ahead” when they do. Anyway, I was thinking, the seagull doesn’t know it’s Christmas Eve. She doesn’t know today is any different to any other day, except maybe for her internal storm warning…. She’s not worrying about tomorrow’s dinner, about the table decorations, about the perfect gift or the perfectly thoughtful email she forgot to write… She has no worries about the future.
(… and a real Christmas Tree)
The seagull flying over our house is called Eve. Well to be exact she’s not flying over our house now, now she’s getting closer to her safe place… and her full name is Christmas Eve but she likes Eve better. She flies off to her safe place whenever she gets the message there’s going to be a storm. Then she stays there until she gets the message the storm is over. At every other time she fishes with her friends off the rocks in Greystones. There’s always enough fish for today so Eve has always been very content to carry on as if there will always be enough fish every day.
(Santa Clause getting ready to round-up the little reindeer…)
She has almost arrived at her safe place, it’s miles inland by the side of a lake. Years ago when she was a small seagull she got a message to follow the other, older gulls. She was so young she thought it might be a little holiday and she was very happy to follow them. But it wasn’t a holiday, there were lots of other seagulls jostling for a place near the lake and Eve got shouted at a few times. She couldn’t wait to get back to the rocks by the sea. Nevertheless, after that whenever she got the message there was going to be a storm she flew to the lake.
(Candle in the window… Happy Christmas everyone!)
As she got older and bigger Eve didn’t get jostled so much and when she found a spot near the lake no one tried to move her along. Nowadays she’s one of the strongest seagulls by the lake and she sometimes wonders if she really needs to leave the rocks in a storm. Maybe someday she won’t leave but today she’s on her way to the lake heeding the message. What if humans had an internal message system? What if they learned how to hear it?
What if they began listened to it? Mairead.
Friday Quote – Go on, go on, go on…..
(From the summer garden – Love in the Mist doing its insignificant thing)
“Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Do your thing! Mairead.
What’s Christmas?
(Christmas is warm…)
It’s almost Christmas, just another week and I’ve had very little time to prepare in the usual way, but I’ve had a lot of time to prepare in a different way. The usual way involves copious grocery lists and gift lists and household maintenance lists. It involves long, tiring shopping trips. It involves guilt over un-sent cards and undone tasks. It involves a smattering of anger and a large amount of self-talk (aimed mostly at the injustice of labour division over the happy season!)
(Christmas is in the attic…)
In drawing class last week we were given a brief for a Christmas Project, it doesn’t have to be completed until after the Christmas holidays… so there’s lots of time to think about it….. The brief was fairly vague (or at least it seemed that way to me) – What changes over Christmas? In order to get a handle on it I began thinking about what Christmas meant to me… before it became a shopping/cooking/cleaning feast.
(Christmas is a tree… )
I remembered childhood Christmases, running down the stairs with my brother to see what Santa had brought. I remembered my little boy and girl doing the same. I remembered the bedtime stories my mother told. I remembered the crib story. When I began taking down the decorations from the attic I thought… this is where we keep Christmas. I put the lights up on the tree and they worked. When I turned off every other light in the house I remembered… I love how the lights shine in the dark at Christmas.
(Christmas is mince pies….)
And I remembered what all my preparation was about…. It’s about hope. Hope that all will be well, that all is well. Hope that we will have enough. Hope that there will be joy. What changes over Christmas? At Christmas more people believe their hope will come true.
Right, I have twelve drawings and a ceramic visual statement (don’t ask) to do before the new year, no more thinking for me. Mairead.
Travel stories 