Wonderful Moment In Time...

For the first time in years do I get to celebrate Christmas with children.
There is that wonderful atmosphere in the air, the one that the mind of a child brings to this time of the year - the sense of utter enchantment and anticipation and that special joy that the adult mind lacks.
Yet the one that is so very contagious...

Sneaking away from the busy preparations, I would like to wish you all, my dear friends, the same moments of wonder and joy that are saturating my world today.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU

from my home to yours

The Sunday of Summer.

August Bloom In Our Garden

August is much like a Sunday. It is still weekend, but the threat of Monday is imminent. In the case of August; it is still summer, yet autumn is approaching fast.

The second season this year was a total disappointment weather wise, going down as one of the coldest and rainiest in history. Luckily, its ultimate month did granted us a few warm days, even if they came a little too late. That unmistakable finale hangs now in the air, while the sun lies ever so low above the horizon and its shine grows golden. The atmosphere resonates with maturity, as crops grow heavy and all the fruit and berries ripen, getting ready for the harvest at the onset of fall.

Although I am saddened by the fact that my favorite time of the year is concluding, the seasonal changes are nevertheless reassuring and simultaneously alluring. The natural circle mimics the events in our own life, where the good and the bad alternates, creating a vital balance.
The older I get, the more I begin to realize that everything, whether it is positive or negative, has its purpose to play. So many times in my past have I seen my dreams crushed and that which I have hoped for pass me by, yet in hindsight I know that the doors that eventually opened led me to better places.

Heart Formed By Our Candle

This is how I met my husband - after a period of tragedy, disappointment and personal loss, feeling discarded and abandoned, I painfully watched as a door slowly closed forever on an ineradicable dream. Yet as I picked myself up, gathering the last of my strength, ready to continue living again, refusing to give into despair and resignation, for once I decided to walk through the gate that was opened  -  and there he stood, the man of my dreams. The one I have been waiting and feverishly searching for my whole life, offering me hope, love and new dreams. I will forever be left wondering how this came to be and only a belief in the spiritual and divine offers any explanation.
Very soon I will once again gaze into those steel blue eyes of his, deep and enticing like the North Sea, holding so much love and affection, as I once again fall into his embrace - the only place I feel completely safe and sheltered.

Until then, I see those same eyes in his children, while they laugh and rummage through the house, having kept me company this week. Thus my own, however deeply embedded parental instincts are brought to life. I am glad to notice how relaxed they are now around me, as compared to the initial few encounters - they behave currently very much the same as when their father is here with us. A time span of a year is certainly much longer in a child's perception - at this point my presence in their reality is something constant and comforting.

My Pasta Salad

I am therefore becoming more sensitive and experienced in areas I have not needed to before. Being thrown into parenthood, never having to raise my own children, I am excelling in other parts of life, such as improving my culinary skills. Considering myself at all times a disaster in the kitchen, I have come to the conclusion that this might not necessarily be the case. I just need some practice and perhaps one day I might even enjoy cooking - and be really good at it.

So much change has taken place in the past year and a half. As I briefly return to read my old posts, I can feel that I have changed too. All the challenges, alterations and new encounters of the past sixteen months have created a novel me.

Whether I am better or worse than before is impossible for me to asses, all I know with certainty is that I am the happiest I have ever been. Every change takes something from us as well as it gives.
The best life however is the one which is a work in progress, an unfinished painting, a diamond in the rough. A blank page to be yet filled with sentences describing new adventures and life altering reflections.

Old Reflections Upon New Windows.

My life is slowly returning to somewhat routine tracks, yet again, not quite. I have entered a novel existence and I guess it only dawned on me first very recently that I have truly moved on.

I have lived in my new home for almost five months now, however it was first after I removed all my possessions from the white house, seeing it become a home to someone new, when I realized that the familiar and safe has been left in the past. It is as if I have waited for a very delayed departure and am finally preparing to lift off. Being now beyond the point of no return, it will be endlessly exciting to learn whether my new found wings will indeed bear.
I am not alone though. For the first time in in a very long while do I not feel alone. I have found a partner, who is like a steady and strong jet stream in the sky and who will keep me airborne.

It is somehow so refreshing to be at last in a relationship with a man who is so relaxed in his own skin and who makes me feel safe and secure.  I have realized today in retrospect that all the men I was ever seriously involved with - however great they all were - never really knew what they wanted - with their own life or with me.
More sadly, they all had strange and hidden insecurities and they own agendas and even though an infatuation, I was not really ever their priority. Thus I kept on struggling (sometimes for years) to make it so, trying to make something out of nothing, until I eventually realized that I had to walk away. Each time I kept wondering whether a man existed to whom I simply would be enough.

Today, in the light of my new reality, I can conclude that relationships when they are right, take no effort whatsoever - no matter what people say. As with anything that is alive, they will only strive if nurtured and cared for - but that is in my eyes not effort but the essence of being in love. And additionally a great deal of fun, despite some challenges.

It is amusing to watch how we humans adapt. I have been through many changes in my life and today I am so aware of the process, paying so much more attention to it, then I ever did before. We are all creatures of habit and thus I too am slowly adapting certain habits and routines in my new home, as I have done in some many homes before. There is a difference this time around as I have never before lived with children.
They are not my children, yet I love them more by each passing day. I endlessly enjoy the time when we are all gathered around the dinner table and I listen to their vivid story telling and laughs, watching them with their father. Their occasional presence in our house brings into my life that joy that was missing in it at all times, that innocent perspective and a fresh outlook. I savour those stolen moments, when I get a glimpse into what could have been, if my destiny wanted otherwise. At times it leaves me with bittersweet tears, but ultimately, it brings my way a sense of endless happiness and the realization that a family comes in all shape and sizes and that our children do not have to be our flesh and blood.

This in its turn has made me realize that everything in life unfolds the way it should be and that all will eventually

BE FINE. 

I worry less about petty things and as I relax, events simply unfold, setting everything in the right direction, without my effort. There is something in the saying "to go with the flow". On several occasions recently have I found myself in certain dispositions, but I simply refused to let these situations bring me down. Eventually they all resolved on their own, to my great astonishment.

If we keep thinking positive, positive things will come our way - I have touched upon this subject before, but as of recently this is becoming the foundation to my thinking. My old reflections now viewed upon new windows make me see my life in a truly new light.
And at last I like what I see.

 Images: Photobucket, except top one

Just A Child.

There are always lots of campaigns and promo ads on the television encouraging us to help. To help those less fortunate. To save the environment. To help preventing animal abuse and to help protect the nature. On daily bases I feel I am bombarded with images of starving children, abused animals and environmental disasters.
I usually dislike this kind of approach. I feel it is unpleasant, often staged and perhaps emotionally exhausting at times, at least to me. I might be very wrong, but that is my perception.

Recently I caught a glimpse of such an add, or campaign, if you will. However, this one was different. It was real. Or rather, it felt real. It touched something in me, that I can not adequately describe. Unfortunately, while watching it, I was oblivious to the message and therefore, before I knew what it was all about, it was gone.
The image I saw kept returning to my mind forever. I kept thinking about it for days after. It was disturbing and touching in more ways than one, as it depicted a small child in a refugee camp. The child looked abandoned and it was struggling. What was very apparent to me most of all, was the the perception of an adult in the little body. A result of the unimaginable hardship of its every day life. One that leaves little room for toys or play or any kind of childhood; only the hard reality of a terribly disturbed present and a hopeless future. Images like these seem to put my life into quiet a different perspective.
I took me weeks to finally track down the movie clip.
I still think about it every day.

The Prophet.

I remember seeing this printed as a poster long time ago and I have always liked the meaning behind these words. Not having any children of my own, I can not say if this is indeed true, but I like the following excerpt from "The Prophet", by Kahlil Gibran:

-Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday...-

Tagged by Stevyn.

I have been tagged again, this time by the very talented Stevyn, for the "fourth of fourth".
As explained so well in his eloquent post, this means one should choose the fourth picture in one's fourth picture folder and describe it, plus tagg four more people to do the same.
So, in my 4th picture folder, called "June trip 2008, visit with my sister" was this photograph:

It is a recent picture of me and my almost four year old niece, when I was trying to explain to her how old I am. There was not enough of fingers to go around, I am afraid.:)

I have never tagged anyone before and this is my first try at it. I am tagging my absolutely new best friend and a very gifted writer Diane, Hilary, the most talented and evocative photographer, the extraordinary creative Holly and last, but not least, Hazel, who makes incredible jewelry.