Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Dora Holzhandler I feel absolutely great. Listening to my Daily Mix 6 on Sportify which I have decided is my favourite Daily Mix with Seafret, Lisa Hannigan, Iron and Win and Siv Jakobson... Just really chilled, 2010s type of acoustic, lazy, sexy and detatched. It makes me so happy. I realised I have not sneezed at all this morning... but it could be the low pollen count. Yay! Chatting to Emma last night is always great. Always. We were talking about the hypocrisy of the Greens in Ireland. It is interesting how people don't understand it is about doing a good job as the Opposition rather than doing a bad job as the ruling party. You have to take the chance. The Greens will be swallowed up and spat out by the end of this government. whatever it may be.  It is cool today - the summer chilled down to its min. I love it. These days of saturation and abundance. Everything is bursting at the seams. It is breaking out and uncontainable. It is perfect. Decay and decomposition. I love the i...

Ghin with straight hair There is no doubt I am getting older. I feel it. 50 is a real Rubicon physically. The skin changes, the body changes, the energy levels alter. It is now a real effort to make sure that I operate at the level I am used to. It is tough work sometimes. And I know that all the years of looking after children have taken their toll. The sheer repetition and drudgery required to do this wears you out. But the trick is to keep moving, always to keep moving. I thought of drawing from the universe... ah yes, I remember what the breakthrough was... that I am standing on this precipice. I am beginning to see how things are in this new land. I am in a new land and I must adjust accordingly. I can't pretend to be an ingenue. This was brought into sharp relief when I was with someone in their 20s recently. It is delightful to feel that sense of wonder at the world, seeing and understanding things for the first time. But that is not where I am. I am somewhere which is about...

Today's harvest It has been a sultry hot two days. I have gone for walks with friends to Helen's Bay mostly. Today it looked like the Mediterranean Coast. It was so beautiful. The last report... and I can't bring myself to do it right now. So I am delaying and faffing about... the last report... it has been wick trying to remember the kids and thinking about what we would have been doing.  I am now alone in the house - the first time I have been alone here for a long time. It is gorgeous... why didn't i blog yesterday, I can't think? Why? I got up ... yes I got up early then fell asleep and then it was writing reports all day and then I went running... and then after that I was cooking a lot... and I remember I went somewhere - don't remember where now. And I had an early night, well sort of... i sat in front of the TV for three hours then I went to bed. At midnight. It was a strange night. Ah yes it is coming back to me... elections in Singapore. I ...

Bacchante by Courbet Here is the reckoning. The severance. The understanding and accepting with a heavy heart and deep sadness and painful acceptance that it all has to now go. All the hopes and dreams and all the wishes that were never realised. All the time which went nowhere. So, here it is. That is what the selling up now means, that some part of me died. That some part of me never made it, and she will have to forgive the me of now. I wish I could tell her, the young woman who wept all by herself, who stupidly gave up what she had to follow a promise which was never kept, could have never been kept, that it all panned out in the end. After twenty years of trying, of throwing good money after bad... that she should have divorced him now, not wasted her time, the heartache, the awfulness... that is the one piece of advise I'd give her now if I could. If I could bang down the walls of time, if I could walk through that door, that young woman who thought, if only I put enough in -...

I thought I'd upload some photos from my camera which I haven't seen in forever... The pictures on Strangford were taken in January - 1 Jan actually. Who knew that we'd be where we are now?

This morning, something wonderful happened. As I lay in bed, I felt utterly, incredibly happy. Like happy like I had never felt before. Happy as if something I reached down into my heart and given it a squeeze of delight, Happy like I have for very long time not allowed myself to feel. For ages, I had been to saying to myself, I must now feel equanimity. I must feel zen. Balance the emotions so that they don't go one way or the other. I sort of did this more out of fear - like if I felt too happy I would end up feeling very sad. So, yes irrational shit. Then more lately, it has been trying to find my feet in everything. As things were thrown up in the air over the past four months (can't believe it has only been four months because now I just want the lockdown to continue forever since the world has clearly not learned its own lesson), and I watched where it landed, I was basically like a woman on the deck of a listing ship, steadying myself and the people around me. My sons, t...

Time of the dragonflies It is now 10 am. I have spent an hour chatting on Messenger. I do feel like a total fraud I have to say. I just have to accept I am never going to be able to understand life. Never. The mysteries of why people are so weird. Why I am so weird. And what is the right thing to do. I don't understand it anymore...  I am just gonna have to stop looking around and trying to understand the world and do my own thang. I must go for my run today. I think I'll do that after this... then 11.30, 1.30 and 2.30 and in between that report writing. I must go now. The rains have stopped. ================================ OMG the blerdy Piritin... It is the work of the devil. Just found out that it was used as an anti depressant and also makes you more susceptible to Alzheimers. Just been for my run and the sinuses are cleared out. Will see how long this lasts. The body wobbling all over in the summer heat. Definitely find the heat makes it far wobblier.  But to finally be ...

Summer by Mucha I have now ended the anti-histamine experiment. It is OVER. I now have decided the following... I will take a paracetemol one every morning and then go running. It has been impossible to do anything this past week and it is entirely down to taking the medication for pollen. I have stopped taking this morning and I feel like myself again a bit more. It's mental really. That hayfever med - it DID make me sleepy - I could barely think. Now I'm back with more motivation. Right. After this - I DO need to clean the fecking house, but can't be bothered. Ugh. Yesterday's nice thing... being with the boys getting the food from Bangor. A great Yak's meal. We laughed and giggled and teased each other and recalled Singapore... oh Singapore... boo hoo hoo...  So, to being here. Normally I pay no attention to what is happening to me at this time of the year. It is a RACE to get to the finishing line - the end of term and then the reports and then off to Singapore!...

By Simeon Nijenhuis I wonder if my new development in hay fever has anything to do with me not being outside as much and therefore developing hypersensitivity to pollen... who knows? All I know is that I spend the morning taking supplements to help me get through the day. I feel like a proper old person again. So I take: 1. Gut bacteria 2. Iron  3. Hayfever tablets - because I can't be bothered to have drippy eyes all day 4. A painkiller cos the hayfever brings on a headache 5. Menopause supplements - natural 6. Vit C Yep, old person alert. Yesterday the boys and I went for a walk in Stormont Park. It really was so beautiful. The evening, the light, the boys laughing. Me laughing. And then after that we came home and did the dishes. I've realised how awful it is when someone is awful to me. It is like iodine in starch. It stays and stains forever. This results in spoiling the rest of the day - the sting is terrible. So what i must do now is just stamp it out as soon as it happe...

The Great Sea Horse by Isobel Anderson I am listening to a discussion about participative democracy. I think the world is fucked. We can't avoid war. Everything has to go to ground and be built up from the start again. The only thing I can do is make being here as meaningful as possible.  Right I need to get started on these reports. I used to love writing reports. Now they are so difficult because they are mostly meaningless as we haven't seen the kids for months now, literally. Some of them have completely disappeared. So it feels pretty much impossible. Everything is meaningless to be honest. Everything.  I have to get in touch with the solicitor as well. What a day. Can I do three reports before 1 pm? I think I'm going to have to.  ========================= Two and a half reports... It is very slow going. But I can't go any faster. My brain has more or less turned to mush. The pollen, now mercury in retrograde, a general feeling of crappiness. I think I'm going ...

Rocks of Islandmagee It has been a difficult time trying to recall the children and the work they have done. I am drugged up to my eyeballs with Lemsip and hayfever medication. The dripping nose and watery eyes and the headache - I actually had a migrane last night, it was mental. Awful really. In the end I slept because I was so drowsy and had the weirdest dreams about going to Singapore and taking lots of people there. Because of the internet I am now in contact with people all over the world. I recently caught up with an ex-colleague and it made me realise that my living overseas for dozens of years is something which probably happened on a wider bases for the people of my generation. By the time I was moving overseas, it was a common thing to leave Singapore.  This international lifestyle - quite Irish in many ways - was something which was just beginning in Singapore. And here I am, almost 24 years later... it seems so fast, like a dream. I am no longer young, I have worked in...

Those two... Well the day began with me making a choice - run or clean the house. Part of the reason why I escaped to Ma's house was because the house was such a mess. So clean the house it was. It took me just over an hour. And that was without laundry. Between clearing the table, the surfaces, washing dishes, etc... it was such a huge mess... But it was done and when it was done I could get work done. Having the day now cleared for things has been so good.  I had a great day yesterday - being out on Islandmagee. I felt a bit sorry for the people who have squished themselves into a kind of rictus. The man and his wife in his Porsche. The men in lycra. The beings of the wobbly legs. It's fine, they are on their own journeys. But it was ok to just laugh a bit at them. When I got back, I felt discombobulated. I had to do things for so much and I seem to have lost the thread since Wednesday. But it was ok. The house though was an almighty mess and I needed to sort it out but could...

I have discovered that there is not a lot that is more dramatic than the coastline of Islandmagee. Between drop dead gorgeous cliffs and beaches which are to die for, the place is Ireland in a microcosm.  I headed there today and the weather could not have been more perfect. The wind was minimal, the sun out from the very start and the elements were singing. I could practically hear them. The entire world celebrates on a day like this. To be at a beach like this, on a day like this... this is what people live and die for. I was never happier. This place heals. This morning when I spoke to Ma, I said to her I now suddenly realise how lucky I am. There is one massive problem in my life, but it will soon be gone. Apart from that I am filled with satisfaction. I can look back on a life well lived. If I died at this stage, I can look back at a life well lived. I didn't say the last part, but you get my meaning. I have lived a life which has only ever been about pursuing the truth even i...