That is the quality of the light today. It's brilliant outside - sunshine for the first time in several days. Illuminating the water and ice remaining from our first winter weather of the season earlier this week - there is a sparkle to the very air. There is quite the breeze blowing - carrying away those water droplets while the meager warmth in the sun begins its bid to say good-bye to the ice.
In truth - I love the winter. The cold air, the weak sunshine, the bleakness of the landscape...there is something soothing about it to me. Bundling up to go outside or, even better, staying indoors in front of a cozy fire in the fireplace, watching a good movie in the better company of The Oracle.
Ah - my loving husband. He sits across from me right now watching YouTube videos of chicken wing recipes. We are going to a New Year's Eve open house this evening and he is planning to bring some kind of gooey chicken thing - wings & drumsticks bathed garlic & honey - or some-such.
Not my cup of tea but there will be several guests there who will, along with The Oracle, gather around the slow cooker and groan & moan with glee over the ooey, gooey goodness contained within.
Men - happy around food and drink in the company of like-minded souls. When we gather with this group of friends it is one of my favorite things about them. Men with facial hair (as most have some), dressed in jeans & flannel shirts. A few cowboy boots in the mix, some LL Bean shoes and even a pair or two of slippers. Talking and laughing.
No drama. No, not even from the women. :-)
We gather together in joy, friendship and love. Everyone will bring something to complete the evening's food offerings. There will be laughter, loudness and even times for quiet contemplation. Small conversations between old friends. Larger conversations that will ring out with the happiness of our gathering.
It's the perfect way to say good-bye to an extraordinarily difficult year and to welcome in a new one - filled with the promise of a blank slate on which to write a new history.
One that has peace, serenity and good health in equal measure.
Long time...no anything. As mentioned in previous posts, life certainly was more than challenging in 2015. As the year comes to a close I have to be honest and say...
...good riddance!
I will be so very glad to see time move into 2016 that I might actually stay awake for it. I can't remember the last time I was awake for the change in year - it just hasn't mattered that much. One year moving into the next is just the passage of time; nothing particularly special about it. But the coming change...may be something I not only need to see but may take a picture of. Whatever catches my eye at that precise moment - could be a throwaway, could be profound. Either way - the artist within me will capture it in some way that resonates with me.
I'm not one to make resolutions but the coming new year may also be an exception in that regard. I've spent so long in a dark cave of depression that I have neglected my physical health. I'm seriously overweight, I'm ducking doctor appointments and in general ignoring myself to the point of danger.
So the first thing on the personal schedule in the new year - beyond getting back into the swing of working after a 2 week break - will be to make a series of appointments so I can get back on top of my health. Which should, in the long run, help with the depression, with general energy levels and desires to be productive.
And yes - we have been away from work for 2 weeks now. Part of it planned and part of it not. I got my every-few-years-at-the-holidays bout of bronchitis. Diagnosed 4 days before Christmas in fact; it came on fast and as part of this "New Life Resolution" thing I've got going on - I got to the doctor as fast as I felt the symptoms rising.
Drugs - are a good thing. By the day after Christmas I was starting to feel like myself again.
Of course that's quite the loaded thought these days - feeling like myself. I'm still not sure what that is exactly but I do know - unequivocally - that it has GOT to be better than the "myself" I've been feeling for years.
I lost my way a bit on the idea of allowing the artist within me to come out. Too many upheavals in the past year have been allowed to get in the way of any hope on my part of immersing myself in the sacred sounds of the piano, the spirituality of needlework, the God-given gifts of my photography.
The storminess outside of me became the tornado within me; consuming everything in its path without regard for health, well-being, mental stability or even basic happiness.
I have willed that storm to subside...and am focused on that artist within again. To the point where I am working hard on the piece above - one of Beethoven's most beautiful piano sonatas - the 2nd movement of The Pathetique.
This is significant my friends - incredibly significant in my life. Because this piece of music was once the playground of another pianist in my family - people I don't speak to or of anymore for so many reasons that have been the major part of that aforementioned storminess.
The Pathetique was this particular family member's favorite piece of music. And whenever one of my music books would fall open to the notes of it - I'd run away in fear and anguish. As if the very notes held my life's torment within them.
My friends - they don't. They hold nothing within them except whatever Beethoven put there and whatever I bring out of them for myself.
For. Myself.
It took such emotional strength to let my fingers even rest on the piano keys with this music open before me; such physical strength to tease the notes out of my very soul - to let that glorious music speak to me in my own language.
Not the language of pain or abuse; rather the language of a person slowly recovering. A person learning who she is again.
