As the light goes

Cottesloe, September 2012

Living where I do now, it's easy to watch the sun set over the horizon. I am thankful for that. I've caught some splendid views and each one leaves me thirsty for more beauty, perhaps in hopes that it will counter the ugliness I constantly meet at work. Often I find myself so spellbound that I remain long after dark, the memory of the fading light keeping me still and silent whereas I could very well be on the far side of stormy.

Over eight years ago I wrote some reflections on nightfall, on what happens as the light goes and when it's gone. A few days ago, in regard to a specific situation it seemed as though night had fallen with an audible thump. I found myself suddenly in a place I did not recognise and could not see.

I have found once again that there is nothing to fear. Fear is a choice I may opt for by default, but I can also choose to be aware that I am not alone in the dark. I know I am in constant company of the One to whom darkness is as day.

Life has felt unstable for as long as I can remember. I first came to read these ancient lines in 2006 and they have remained at the back of my mind ever since. They returned to front and centre yesterday. I had forgotten the second half of the verse; seeing it again was enough to remind me that the promise of daylight is nearly as uplifting as daybreak itself:

"God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns." (Psalm 46:5, NASB)

Struck

Over Cottesloe, September 2012

I hope I never lose the ability to be silenced by beauty.

Sewing for Orphans in Vietnam

A few days ago I stumbled upon this project and thought I'd give it a shout out here in hopes that all three of my regular readers would see it and want to help.

Say what? There are more than three of you? Well, hello there. Pardon me, it's just so quiet in here usually that I don't know you're there. Say something, will ya?

More importantly, if you're able, would you please sew something for the orphans at Tam Ky?  Teresa and her two children have spent some time working at the orphanage so she's not only asking for donations to strangers; these children mean a lot to her but there are more of them than she can sew for on her own.

Image from Crinkle Dreams

Please read the project post to see the five specific items Teresa is asking for and some more guidelines. 

If you're in the Northern Hemisphere and would like to take advantage of cheaper postage, you can send your items to Teresa in the US but she needs to receive it by September 30.

Or you could send it to Teresa's friend Mrs Hanh in Vietnam, if you'd like a little more time. There's no deadline for that but I guess that doesn't mean you should try and send a bundle of sundresses to her in June 2016.

If you have any questions or want the addresses to send to, please email Teresa directly: teresacoates at mac dot com.

Happy sewing and thank you!

Practical crochet, Part I

I asked for timber floors.

More specifically:

Three to four months ago when I was about to begin searching for a home to rent, I made a list of attributes I would like said home to have. They ranged from "sensible" (safe neighbourhood) to "practical" (close to train station and/or bus routes) to "what are you doing asking for something so non-essential, especially in the price range where you're looking?" (timber floors).

I got what I wanted -- much more than I wanted -- and now, months later, still can't stop giving thanks for it. But the thing with wishes granted: you then have to look after them. Make sure they stay in good shape while under your care.

I had all this furniture, a combination of new and second hand but with the common denominator of potentially scratchy metal legs. That beautiful shiny floor needed protecting.

I did have an initial solution, but it was neither practical nor stylish.

And my toes were getting cold.

Enter my  not-yet-one-year-old crocheting abilities. Chair socks! I thought. The perfect plan: custom fitted, and more understated than mismatched adult human socks. A basic square, then a few more rows around the square, taper towards the top...

"Too much time, ah?" my sceptical (and also quite lovely -- they helped me move, unpack and assemble various articles) friends asked when they spotted the first sock in progress. "Wouldn't it be better if you just went and bought rubber feet from the hardware shop?"

And I did consider it, putting crochet hook and yarn aside while I went about finding more places for my various possessions.

But then the very same day I read my favourite crochet blog and lo, her latest post was all about how she'd gone about protecting her hardwood floors from chair scratches.

With chair socks.

So I plunged back in, and soon...

I was eager to test them out straight away, and was rather pleased with the result. Not because they look great; I don't think anyone would even notice them unless I pointed them out and got the person to bring their heads close to ground level for a good look.

I'd like my guests to return for subsequent visits, so I don't think I'll be doing that.

No, I think what I found most satisfying about this project was the small escape it provided from the lifestyle of assuming that everything must be bought ready made, that if you want something you go right out and plunk down money and get it right now.

There are times when I don't want to be instantly gratified.

And I also saved myself the cringe that inevitably comes when I open yet another non-recyclable package of mass produced something and generate more feed for the insatiable landfill.

(Yes, I do realise that I procured the yarn for this project by going to a shop and plunking down money for it, but it's still more sustainable than manufactured rubber feet because if my need for furniture socks ever winds down I can always unravel them and re-crochet them into something else. Rubber feet will always be rubber feet, until age takes over and they turn into rubber flakes. Also, the only packaging on the yarn was a recyclable cardboard band and, for what it's worth, this yarn is purportedly ecologically sound. Natural dyes, pesticide-free cotton or something. I take such claims with shovelfuls of salt.)

As if the square cross section did not provide me with challenge enough, I decided to also make a set of socks for my metal shelving unit. How to make right-angle corners?

Mitre them!

It worked, but the end result looks as though it stretched out into triangles unless you peer very, very closely. I repeat: I would like my guests to return, so don't say I made you do it. All in all, I'm pleased with the result.

I quite like how it feels to evade instant consumerism.

It's that time of year

Next year's diaries have started selling.

Which means soon I'll have to make a decision that has implications for the whole of my next year.

Hey, it's serious. Unlike many smartphone users, I still use pen and paper to make my personal appointments. It's nice to have a whole book of the mundane, the impromptu and the bizarre-even-for-me to look back on at the end of the year. And I consider my diary a symbol of that year of my life, so when the year begins I dedicate it to the One I live for, in token of dedicating my life.

It's a big decision.

So which should I choose?


Image from Frankie Press


Frankie again? This is what I'm using this year and while it's adorable and the cloth jacket makes me feel nice and old-timey, it's a little scant on writing space and I do have some packed-out weeks.

Then there's Kikki.K's Cute, which I used in 2011 and liked very much. I wouldn't mind another 365 days of Cute.



Image from Kikki.K

But then there are other contenders this year, such as the Moleskine Le Petit Prince. I like the quality of Moleskine's covers and Prince is one of my favourite books, but I don't know about the paper. And do I want the little prince sprinkled across the pages of my 2013?


Image from NoteMaker

Or perhaps something from Shinzi Katoh, like below? I'm sure when I go to Sydney next month I won't be able to set foot in Kinokuniya's stationery department without spinning into a diary frenzy.



Image from Mark's Tokyo Edge

And countless more that I've glimpsed while out and about, plus the dizzying selection on Etsy. So many choices; only one year. (I know. I'll have more years, DV, but the choice broadens every year.)

I know, first world problems, blah blah blah but you really don't want to know about the other things I'm up against. Paper goods are much more enjoyable, trust me.

Do you use a paper diary? Have you seen anything else that I might like? Please feel free to add to my dilemma.

I have no affiliation with any of these brands or retailers. I just like the stuff they're selling very much.

Caught

I was running late this morning, this drowsy grey morning with the severe weather warning and the kind of wind that makes concrete bridges sway. As I drove I saw the clouds, heavy with raindrops waiting for their cue. 

Still, I had to stop and capture it. When something catches me, I don't just let it go.

Half a minute later the raindrops came thick and heavy, ushering in the grey that they say will still be with us tomorrow. But the colours stayed all day.

Where will the colour in your next grey day come from?

Worth living

I chanced upon this in the course of my workday. I know anything related to suicide is never going to be an easy discussion but I'm looking at the article more from the quality-of-life-in-chronic-illness point of view.

The two lines that caught my eye:

". . . despite my MS, my existence has never been richer, surrounded by a loving family and friends."

"Assisted suicide would create a climate of fatalism, a loss of hope. It is [a] sickening world where individual life is devalued and where only the fittest are regarded as contributors of society."

I think we already do live in that world. A glance at the economy, at most social events, at popular entertainment is enough to prove that point.

How do we make it less sickening?

Crickets? Cobwebs?

I know. It's been quiet (again) around here. I just thought I'd pop in and write something so as not to give the impression that I have spent three months -- really? Three??? -- languishing in concussed grouchiness.

I have not. Indeed, as I did mention at the end of that most recent blog post, the grumpy spell ended before I'd hit "Publish".

Life is good. I found a home to rent in preparation for the cousins/house-sit hosts' return, although the process by which it was secured was so improbable that it seems more as if the home found me. Said home is so "me" in so many more ways than I could list offhand, and here I had been thinking I'd settle for anything that had a working lock. Preferably without a verbose landlord living on the same premises, but when you're desperate...

I have been learning -- and that is part of the reason for this season of blog silence -- the fine art of being blessed. To be precise, I've been learning how to stand there and let the blessing drench me, instead of bolting like a startled pony or starting to pare down what my heart desires until it more closely resembles "what I will only just live with because I think I have no choice". Learning to wait, learning that as I live in my Creator and him in me, our wills come together and what he gives me is what I always wanted.

It is a scary thing, knowing that the One who blesses knows exactly where you live. Physically and metaphorically. For most of my life I have not been able to handle that knowledge. I didn't know the proper protocol for dealing with someone who relentlessly pursues you with goodness. In this life where the mail rarely holds something more exciting than bills; where even friendships too easily turn transactional and some only reconnect with you for the sake of using your social networking contacts to expand their business, how foreign is the concept of someone who gives perfectly.

Some are better than others at the fine art of resting by the mailbox. Image by RJ Roth.

Yet this is who he says he is, and who he demonstrates himself to be. So I believe. And I rest in believing.

Although I don't quite have the photogenic light-capturing attributes of certain grey felines.

I'm grumpy and I know it! Growl, grimace, grumble, etc, etc.*

I was told yesterday, for the fifth time in six consecutive years, that I have a concussion.

I was also told yesterday that I "need to be more careful on the road", because apparently it is somehow my fault that somebody was reversing out of a parking lot and didn't check his blind spot before smashing right into the car I was driving. Fortunately, I was belted in. Fortunately, he wasn't going that fast. Only fast enough to put a big dent in said car and, it seems, a not-too-serious-provided-I-rest-quietly-for-a-few-days bruise in my head.

And today, because I finally have the time to investigate ways to get all of those beautiful photographs from my super advanced camera phone onto my blog without involving Blogger's decidedly primitive and user-unfriendly app, I find that I am still unable to do so in a way that suits both my schedule and my aging but still stable laptop, which is why you will find this post devoid of pictures because I am determined that there is more to life than Instagram and I will not inflict any more of those painfully hip, artfully filtered square photographs on you, my gentle readers of my gentle blog that has seen me through nearly seven years now of Life. Blog is blog and Instagram is Instagram and I will not, will not allow the two to merge as so many of my blogging friends have done. So there. And if I cannot get any pictures up here other than my Instagram shots, well, that'll be that for now.

But I will find a way to master you yet, phone-picture-camera-cranky old computer conundrum. Oh yes, I will. Maybe another day, when this great hulking piece of Life Challenges I see hurtling towards me has hurtled itself away.

While I'm in a ranting mood, just a couple more... don't take it personally, now, dear reader. Most of you have been very kind to me, and the people who do the sort of thing mentioned below most likely never come here so I might be preaching to the choir, or maybe to the native wildlife skittering about in the bush out behind the church (I mean that as a compliment; native wildlife in Australia tends to be ah-dorable), but still, I gotta say it.

Kindly refrain from telling people to "be more careful" when they are already nursing head injuries from accidents that were in no way their fault. It does not help with the inherent grumpiness that tends to come packaged with head injury, and it does not give them automatically warm, appreciative thoughts towards you. Oh, I appreciate the concern; just not the assumptions. Have I ever mentioned before that I detest assumptions? I'll say it again, bearing the risk of repeating myself. I hate assumptions. Get the facts before you make your conclusions. Makes you look that much more deserving of your IQ score.

And secondly: would it take so much effort, really, would it take so much effort to dash off a one-line note to accompany things you send in the post? Whether it's a DVD-ROM of your wedding photos or my reusable grocery tote that you neglected to say had been accidentally packed in your luggage following your visit here, a note would be good, because we're not all mail-opening machines and sometimes it's nice to see a few friendly words in another human being's handwriting.

I used to expect stickers, and hand-drawn smiley faces, and beautiful penmanship. The fact that I've ceased to, well, I guess means that I have officially given up my passport to Snail Mail Never-Neverland.

I wouldn't be too alarmed, though; it seems I might have found a porous border to slip through, and I am far from alone there.



*I have not been so grumpy in a very, very long time. I expect normal transmission to resume... oh hello, wait, about five minutes ago. But I was already nearly through the post by then, and the blog could use an update, so I'm just going to post it, but really, I'm all sunshine and rainbow sprinkles again by the time you read this. So please don't picture me as Grumpy Ren, all right? Because I've been told the sight of her inspires nightmares in young and old alike.

I'm still here

I have not spent the past month and a half in shock over a broken two-hole punch.

No, I'm ashamed to say it's happened again: I've allowed this blog to grow quiet, deserted save for perhaps the occasional scuttle from a virtual spider. Although it seems people are still visiting, in trickles. Thank you for keeping the blog aired out; it's so unpleasant when spaces acquire that musty smell of forlorn neglect. Even if it is a virtual musty smell of forlorn neglect.

Unfortunately, in large part my silence here is due to the fact that I've taken to microblogging. I upgraded my phone at the end of last year, downloaded Instagram and whoosh, suddenly I was getting my pictures and (brief) thoughts out into cyberspace practically as soon as they'd formed. I, who had been so disdainful of those people who update their Facebook with news of what they'd eaten for breakfast,

morning tea,

lunch; I have become those people.

But I hope I'll still have things to say here, because sometimes a picture -- and 160 characters -- doesn't explain what 200 well chosen words can. Besides, I know many of you don't use Instagram and I will not become one of those people who adopts a new platform and abandons all those who don't have access to it. I have a great deal of sentimental attachment to this blog and the people who've faithfully, if silently, read it all these years.

If you're on Instagram too, please follow me if you like. I'm -- who else? -- royalshyness. I post about things other than food. For example:

Sharing the beach at sundown;

completed craft projects;

the perpetual goldenness of the hours in some places.

If not, we'll just keep meeting here: brushing past each other soundlessly, unaware of each other's presence except that you know when I've posted and I know when my stats are telling me that I have readers in the Ukraine.