Dont' go outside!

Don't go outside - everyone's going mad, or angry, or both! Today, this evening, stay at home and play in your den. At all costs avoid going out there...

Put on some excellent music. Cook great food for each other. Tell stories and fill each other with a lightness of heart. Do some finger paintings and potato prints, play black jack, watch Life on Mars, don't do the ironing but do eat loads of green and blacks, shut your eyes and imagine the sun shining in all warm on your face and so bright you have to screw your eyes shut.

Out this afternoon on some errands, I was just pulling away at a green traffic light and a bloke student figure skipped out in front of me without looking. A shocked fist on my car horn made him jump, but in his recklessness he shoved his middle finger at me with a truly violent expression then pulled back his other hand as if to demolish my car by chucking his coke can at it with major force. Ouch... but he's the idiot isn't he?

30 seconds later, a coach pulled out on a minibus in front of me, and there was another middle finger communication from someone else, more car horns, and lane squeezing.

5 minutes later, I tripped into the lab to pick up some films, warning Bob-Behind-The-Counter "Don't go outside, they're all losing it!" He responded with a time and date for the end of the world. "Brilliant," I thought, and ran home as fast as I could. I haven't dared turn on the evening news.

Do not–under any circumstance–entertain that thing which seems to be in the air today, the thing that's causing people to be vicious and vile and pinched in the face. I know I sound like a hippy, but for God's sake, love each other, please. February's hard enough.


{Today's soundtrack: The Shins - Wincing the Night Away}

A Rock and a Hard Place

"I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from?"

Just calculated it would take 36hrs to reach these particular hills if I left my home in Bristol right away, packing just a simple overnight bag, with a seat being available on the very next plane to Auckland and of course money being no object. (Oh, and of course aswell, carbon footprints being something we continue to ignore. Boo.)

Why this picture today?

It's 4.44am, and I can't sleep for thinking about a thing. It's a nice thing, but a situation I wish I was more involved with, and a situation I can do nothing about, and this continues to be the case despite it having been going on for weeks. It inspires me and frustrates me in equal measure, so I look to my great leveller, the hills.

Hills stop me looking down, I like them for that reason, and also the 'being tiny' phenomenon. If I had enough faith could I really move these very mighty statues of heaven? Either way, the being that sculpted form into those clay shapes has a pretty good clue how life is laid out so I try going with this for now. Anything of worth requires patience and strength.

Stuck a little bit between a rock and a hard place, and oddly I find the view beguiling.


{Middle of the night soundtrack: A nocturnal robin, and Justine Electra's 'Fancy Robots' - "put on your shoes, you know what to do"}

Nomads

Hello, I'm back.

With some very strong pairs of hands and persistent hearts to help, these wheels have been guided out of the ditch, at last! Thank goodness, and a tribute to perseverance. Thank you.

I'm really pleased to report that it is worth hanging in there. Don't give up, don't sell out your integrity, and be gracious in the face of it all. Although hard work, coming out the other side is a lovely feeling.

Keep moving.

Even though we wish life would stand still every once in a while, when it does so uninvited the frustration can be intense. But in the wilderness place I heard a little voice saying "keep going", so I did, and along the way learned things about growth, healing, becoming, as opposed to already being complete and having achieved those things.

A friend of mine talked at a wedding on Saturday and discussed how, as life is constantly changing, so are we, and we must therefore encourage each other as we grow, and seek to accommodate each other's changes rather than fight them. How brave, and generous, and it strikes me that you can't truly do this for another person until you can do it for yourself.

Someone once said, "Life moves pretty fast, and if you don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it."

We must keep moving with life because that's what it's there for, but if it should park up on you take a good look and see what's growing.


{Today's soundtrack: DJ Shadow - 'This Time' from The Outsider}