What is love?..........

 They had been married for half a century, raised three

children, escaped war and persecution yet....their love

for each other never once flickered or even weakened.

In his eyes she was still as beautiful and lovely as the day 

he first met her.

In her eyes he was was still as strapping and handsome

as the day she first met him.

Whatever trials or tribulations had come their way,

they faced them together ...... day by day.

With mist still hanging heavy in the early morning air,

he sips his coffee slowly leans back into his chair.

His thoughts all in a muddle, confused and in despair.

What will he have to do now, when she's no longer there.

She was his closest friend, there always by his side,

working hard beside him, his love, his joy, his pride.

She has to be replaced, this truth he can not hide,

 he needs someone just like her, so he really has to try.

He hops in to his truck and drives in to town,

though still heavy hearted and still feeling down.

Just a few hours later he is homeward bound,

in his lap a puppy, he has named Lilly Brown.

As the clock on the wall separates the past from the present,

she makes herself a cup of coffee and turns on the Television.

She flicks through the channels looking for something to watch

but nothing grabs her.

Lately she has been finding Friday nights tough.

They seem to drag on forever.

There was a time when she used to be doing things every

weekend, but since her best friend moved to London all

that seemed to have stopped.

She was really missing her friend. But what can she do?

Julie had finally got her promotion in London and

who was she to stand in her way.

Her thoughts wander back to the time when she first met

Julie. From the moment they had shared a desk in primary

school they had been inseparable. 

They told each other everything, they shared clothes, lunches,

make-up and sometimes....boys.

When Julie first told her that she was moving to London,

Lisa was devastated. For a time Lisa toyed with the

idea of moving to London as well, but she loves her job

and wasn't sure she would be able to find a

similar one in London.

At first they had talked on the phone every day but 

as weeks turned into month's there were less and less

phone calls. Ever since they met Lisa has viewed

Julie as a beloved sister, but lately, she wasn't so sure

about that.

She decides do perk herself up with some

pop-corn. Just as they are starting to pop in the microwave

the phone rings.

-Hello? 

-Hey, it's me.

-Julie?

-Of course, silly! I miss you so much! When can you

come to London? I've got a new place now and

it's got a spare room. Oh, please say that you'll come!!!

Please, please, please!!! Tomorrow?

-Tomorrow? You lunatic!! Well, okay. Text me the new

address and I'll catch the 10:00 o'clock to London.

-Excellent! See you tomorrow sister!

-Okay, sister.

Lisa threw her phone on the couch and ran in to

her bedroom. 

-What to bring, what to bring? she sang to herself.

Love had returned. Her best friend still loved her.

Love comes in many guises.

The above are but a few examples.

Love, as far as I can ascertain, contains a mix of variable

emotions. These emotions often motivate a number

of different behaviours.

Love, in my view, includes: resilience, patience, compassion, 

forgiveness, attention and a whole hearted commitment to

someone's or something's(animal/critter/bird etc.) wellbeing.

Love is: choosing your words wisely, being kind to animals,

being kind even when you're angry, offering a helping hand

to whosoever may need it, validate rather than judge, encourage

rather that criticize, etc. etc. etc.

about the image: acrylic on canvas

As part of learning how to paint the human form I used

 the wooden ''dolls'' art shops sell.

My challenge became how to paint these dolls showing

emotions.  I called them my ''Pinocchio paintings''.

Travel with me to Paris - the City of Lights

Paris.

Paris in summer.

Enchanting, seductive and fragrantly intoxicating.

When my train pulled up at Gare du Lyon in the morning hours

I was buzzing with anticipation.

After having spent hours jumping trains in Copenhagen,

Cologne, Amsterdam, and Brussels to get to Paris, I was worn out.

Tired and very hungry. Not to mention, rather

disorientated, but...still buzzing.

The first thing on my agenda was to find a nice

patisserie, buy a cheese croissant, a caffe latte, and then find 

a nice shady spot under a Linden tree to just enjoy

''arriving'' and hopefully, one or two moments of sleep.

Standing outside the station unsure of which direction would

take me to the city center, I decided to follow the Seine river

which I knew ran through it.

Armed with a caffe latte in one hand and a cheese croissant

in my backpack, I started to walk.

Eventually I found my Linden tree in Jardin the Plantes

(Botanical Garden), devoured my croissant and caught up on

a few hours of sleep.

Though there are many composers who have created music

that is exquisite and almost ethereal, let me suggest that sometimes life, 

when and if we take the time to really listen to it, now and 

then also manages to create its own exquisite compositions.

Laying under the Linden tree I heard children laughing,

birds chirping, leaves rustling, people talking, people walking,

 someone singing, someone playing a guitar, and somewhere

in the background, almost like a sostenuto, the low hum of traffic.

Magnifique.

Alas, as time passed, I knew I needed to find somewhere

to stay. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and

headed for Montmartre.

A friendly and English speaking older man informed me that

to get there I had to take the Metro and a bus as it was

far too far to walk.

My French being very minimal, it took me a few hours

and a number of mistakes to finally get there.

Luckily I found a small chambre d'hotes (B&B) that

I could afford. I booked in, dropped my stuff on the floor,

collapsed on the bed and fell asleep instantly.

In the morning I woke up to a gentle knock on my door,

someone saying ''Bonjour'', and the smell of freshly

brewed coffee.

As I opened my door a small woman all dressed in black

and with a black schawl pulled tightly around her head

handed me a tray with two croissants, some butter and

jam, and a glass mug with ''caffe au lait''.

''Merci, Madame'', I said. She nodded in acknowledgement

and then hurried away.

My room had a little balcony so I took the tray

and went outside. As I looked out at my surroundings,

I felt as if I had stepped into a Tolouse Lautrec painting.

Which was amazing because one of my reasons for going

to Paris was to walk the cobbled streets that had once been

trodden by many of my favourite artists; the Impressionists.

Exiting my B&B to explore Montmartre I discovered that

opposite to it was a small park in the shape of a circle.

 It had a fountain in the middle and wooden park benches

encircling it.

Almost every bench had someone sitting on it.

When I say ''someone'', I mean men of varying ages smoking

 cigarettes and reading news papers.

Except, there was one man who wasn't smoking or reading

that caught my attention.

He was just sitting there, very still, and what seemed to me, 

in deep thought. I decided to sit down under one 

of the trees and observe him. He looked so sad. Or was

he in pain? What was he thinking about?

After I had been observing him for about ten minutes or so, 

the man slowly rose to his feet.

 When he did, some of the other men lowered their news

papers, gave the man an approving nod of the head and

muttered something in French.

As the man started to walk I noticed that he 

was dragging his left leg. I also noticed that he was wearing

an arm band with the French flag colors and the letters F. F. I

written on it on his right arm.

By the way the other men seemed to honour him with the

nodding of their heads I concluded that he was probably

a WWII veteran. (Perhaps even a heroic one.)

Instantly I was reminded of how hard the French had fought

to save their city.

As I left the park to start exploring Montmartre and other

exciting sites in ''the city of lights'' I counted myself very

fortunate to be able to do so.

''You can't escape the past in Paris, and yet what is so wonderful

about it is that the past and the present intermingle so

intangibly that it doesn't seem to burden.''

(Allan Ginsberg)

Paris, with its galleries, theaters, cafes, ancient winding

 medieval streets, grand boulevards and extraordinary

architecture, ....insisting on giving birth to geniuses 

ranging from philosophers to the finest of artists.

''He who contemplates the depth of Paris is seized

with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic.

Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime.''

(Victor Hugo)

Though I only spent a week in Paris, I absolutely

loved it.

And the man in the park, I never forgot his face.

about the image: acrylic on large canvas,

some editing in Photoshop.

Title: ''Parisian Man''

On resilience.....the ability to be good at feeling bad...

Did you know that in spite of all the bombs that were dropped

on London during the II World War somehow the

Saint Paul's Cathedral still managed to survive?

I find that amazing.

And....having lived in the UK for a couple of years, the image

of the Cathedral standing proud in the midst of an almost devastated

 city made me ponder if not perhaps the image could be viewed as

a fair visual representation of ''resilience''.

So what do I mean with resilience?

Basically adaptability.

''Keeping calm and carrying on.''

What makes some people able to cope with one tragedy 

after another and somehow still manage to grow stronger?

What makes some people not able to?

Take pearls for instance...the oyster (or freshwater mussel)

secrets layers of aragonite and conchiolin in defence against

parasites or other foreign bodies which results in the

formation of beautiful(in humans eyes) pearls.

While protecting itself against its foe the oyster created

something new, something beautiful.

I read somewhere that 85% of the people interviewed

about bullying, said that they had been bullied on and off

 while going through their school years.

Some said the experience played a part in them becoming

more guarded, more cautious, and less trusting.

Others said that the experience made them more determined

to reach their goals, to turn their suffering into resilience,

and to become ''better'' human beings.

If we get pushed down, we do have the choice of deciding

whether we are going to stay down or to get up.

''The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping

stones is how you use them.'' (Unknown) 

Watching a doco on how the Londoner's coped during

the Blitz, I was amazed and inspired.

Though the sirens hooted over and over, those gritty, amazing

Londoner's grabbed their kids, blankets, thermos flasks with 

sweetened tea, whatever bit of food they had, their

amazing sense of humour and headed down the steps

 to the underground shelters. Sometimes they had to

stay down there for days on end, coping the best way

they could.

''Staying calm and carrying on'' as they had been instructed.

The Blitz went on for about eight months and caused

unimaginable destruction to everything above ground.

And yet, every time the ''all clear'' hooter went, the Londoner's

emerged from the underground, rolled up their sleeves

and got to work.

A resilient lot those Londoner's methinks.

Though there may be different opinions on whether

resilience is something we are born with or not,

most agree on that it is something we can learn and 

become better at.

Current thinking is that resilience is not just the ability to

be able to cope but also that it helps us to grow and

thrive in our lives.

When we go through difficult times we can choose how

to respond.

We can choose to get angry, bitter, push people away, blame ourselves,

 wallow in our pain or just pretend that everything is okay.

We can also choose to change our narrative, how we describe

to ourselves what we are going through.

We can't always change events but what we can choose

is how we will respond to them.

Resilience is not achieved/learned by feeling good all the time,

resilience is achieved/learned by getting better at feeling bad.

''Joy is a friend, but pain is a teacher.''

(When in the middle of a difficult time what can be very helpful

I find is to avoid rumination, as in: not engaging in a loop 

of negative thoughts.)

''Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it is less

good than the one you had before.

You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what

you've lost, or you can accept that and put together something

that is good.''

(Elizabeth Edwards)

Right now I am going through a very difficult time, probably

one of the worst.  For some unknown reason, the word ''tiny'' suddenly 

seemed to pop up here, there, and everywhere.

Hmm,....what did that mean?

I decided that it meant for me to deal with my troubles

by taking tiny steps.

Starting with tiny aphorisms such as:

Tomorrow will be a better day.

So, you who are reading this right now and may also be going

through a tough time:

Keep calm and carry on. 

Tomorrow will be a better day. 😎

about the image: Acrylic on a large canvas

One of my black and white cloth paintings, as in

painting with a cloth not a brush.

There is no such thing as failure...only a less hoped for outcome

Standing in front of a large blank canvas can at times

be quite daunting.

Sometimes I have a clear image in mind, and sometimes I

have to wait for my muse to reveal it to me.

When I painted this image I was in a highly experimental

period.

I wanted to throw all caution to the wind and just

paint instinctively. Come what may.

I was not bothered about the outcome, I just wanted to

enjoy the process of slapping paint on a canvas.

The bigger the canvas the greater the sense of freedom.

(Well, in my case anyway. Some folks feel the opposite.)

I started by doing away with brushes. Instead, I grabbed

an old dish cloth.

I dipped it in some red paint and put a few dabs here and there

on the canvas. I waited for it to dry then I covered the

whole canvas with black paint.

When the paint was half dry, I grabbed the now rinsed and

clean cloth and ''rubbed'' out different areas on the canvas

and much to my surprise(!) found a face beneath it. 

At this stage of the process the inner ''critic'' comes charging

in to my ''consciousness'' with a bunch of things to say:

''You need to start using a brush now, are you sure that

the proportions are correct, maybe you should cover those

red splotches with white paint, you really need to

start putting in some details, etc. etc.''

I decide to ignore the inner critic. 

(Which is quite hard as I am sadly, a perfectionist.)

Holding the dishcloth in my hand I can feel that it has

some hard edges on it. By squeezing the cloth into a

point I can use it to make lines. I start to make some outlines

of the face and to my astonishment it actually looks

like brush strokes.

I also discover that I can create different shades by using

different amounts of water in the cloth.

Not only different shades but also different colours.

(Black, I discover, consists of many colours.)

As I keep working on the image, suddenly there she is....

a drag queen.

But something is missing.

I dip my fingertips in water and start doing squiggles

all down the front.

Done. It's finished.

I still don't know who she is or where she came from,

but she is here now.

(Not long after I finished the painting a friend saw it standing

on the easel and fell in love with it. She bought it.)

Doing this painting taught me a lot of things.

Such as for instance:

Being able to improvise is a very important and useful 

skill to have.

Being able to ignore the inner critic at times can open

the mind to new ways of doing things.

Being willing to ''fail'' in the pursuit of an idea can

lead to amazing new discoveries and experiences.

There is no such thing really as ''failing'', only more or

less hoped for outcomes.

The only way to progress and learn new things, discover

new ways of thinking, new perspectives, new ways of

being and doing, is to be willing to change.(Try something different)

Which, for many of us may seem scary and rather difficult.

We like certainty, we like knowing what comes next, 

we like being able to plan, we like the expected.

Life however, in my view has a tendency to throw

us ''curve balls'', plot twists, and unexpected turns of events.

Failure.

Such a loaded word. So loaded that many of us

put off trying a lot of things because we are scared

that we may fail and failure, unfortunately, is often associated 

with shame.

Shame, uncomfortable as it is, is more than feeling bad(guilty)

 about our actions or efforts(regret),when we experience shame 

we feel bad about who we are.

Shame affects our sense of self-esteem and well-being.

''Better to not try and risk failure and shame, than to try and

experience both?''

In my opinion, no.

Life and living is a risky business.

It involves us making choices at times with less

hoped for outcomes.

In my view far too much emphasis is attached to the

terms success and failure.

Therefore I have decided to avoid using those words as often as

possible and instead go with an optimal or a

 less hoped for outcome(s).

If we allow fearing change and doing new things due 

to the fear of a less hoped for outcome,

how would we ever discover new taste sensations,

new strengths in ourselves, new skills, new ways of

coping, new perspectives, new attitudes, or finding new friends?

''Learn to adapt. Things change, circumstances change.

Adjust yourself and your efforts to what is presented

to you so that you can respond accordingly.

Never see change as a threat, because it can be an

opportunity to learn, to grow, evolve and become

a better person.''

(Rodolfo Costa)

''Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.''

(Robert C. Gallagher)

about the image: acrylic on large canvas

Title: The DragQueen