Ring in the New

It's a fresh and shiny New Year.

A clean slate.
A new beginning.
A new hope, new promise.
Mama's got a brand new bag.

2013, I want to make out with you.

Let's have a beautiful mad affair.
Let's not break each others hearts.
Let's last 365 days and nights.
Let's leave each other with glorious memories.

Let's do it.
Let's fall in Love

gonna sit right down and write myself a letter

A writer friend wondered if anyone still wrote letters by hand. Real handwritten, on paper, with pens, stamps, envelope- kinds of letters.  He spoke of the intimacy of it.
He is so right.
Write.

In the past year I've actually starting writing cards again.

My personal relationship is stretched by distance. Thankfully, it is the geographical kind,  not the emotional one.
Because my partner is working and living in another place, and even though we talk and Skype several times a day, I slip a card in the mail so that he'll have something to greet him when he comes home from work. He does the same for me.
It's always a wonderful surprise. And it does a little bit extra to make sure that the geographical distance doesn't become an emotional one.

This week I wrote to him on rice paper, using  glass calligraphy pens and beautiful inks that I received  as a birthday gift.  I decorated the envelope, sliding the address across it, and took it to the post. I think it was as enjoyable for me to do, as it was for him to receive.

Yes, we email and we text.
But we also write each other love letters and send them by mail.
Those are a luxury.

I can't imagine how people could stand the wait, years ago, when writing letters was the only way to communicate. I can't fathom waiting weeks for contact, checking the mail every day, balancing on hope and disappointment. But I do know how special they felt when one would arrive. How they must have devoured every word, and then gone back a dozen times to feast again. There is something so wonderful in reading the handwriting of a loved one; to know that he has touch the page, sealed the letter.
And that he took the time to write.

As my friend says, "It just costs some time and thought"
He is so right.

Write.

the autumn leaves drift by my window

The trees are nearly bare now.
There are a few patches of leaves that hang on still, but one more rain or wind storm will see them on the ground.

Nova Scotia is blessed with a glorious Autumn season.
And I was blessed to be able to spend some wonderful afternoons trying to capture it.

The Old Burying Grounds

City or shoreline, this province is a photographer's dream in any season. But the Fall seems to splatter color everywhere. It is vibrant and alive.

the clock tower on Citadel Hill, overlooking Halifax Harbour

one of the paths in Halifax Public Gardens

In the centre of the city there grows a beautiful Victorian garden. It's one of my favorite places to visit and spend time, and I have taken many photo's there, in every season.

I find the best way to explore and to see things in a different way, is through the lens of a camera. Since I was a child, I saw everything in snapshots,
Now I get to share them.

November Graveyard

taken in the summer street cemetery, halifax nova scotia

The scene stands stubborn: skinflint trees
Hoard last year's leaves, won't mourn, wear sackcloth, or turn
To elegiac dryads, and dour grass
Guards the hard-hearted emerald of its grassiness
However the grandiloquent mind may scorn
Such poverty. No dead men's cries

Flower forget-me-nots between the stones
Paving this grave ground. Here's honest rot
To unpick the heart, pare bone
Free of the fictive vein. When one stark skeleton
Bulks real, all saints' tongues fall quiet:
Flies watch no resurrections in the sun.

At the essential landscape stare, stare
Till your eyes foist a vision dazzling on the wind:
Whatever lost ghosts flare,
Damned, howling in their shrouds across the moor
Rave on the leash of the starving mind
Which peoples the bare room, the blank, untenanted air.

-sylvia plath

All Hallows

Of course I love this time of year.

The air is cool and crisp, the colours are amazing,
And, there is..

Hallowen!

Happy Birthday John Cleese, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath. And me.

Today is my birthday.
I was born on the 27th of October. It was a Tuesday.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
At least that's what that poem says.

My birthday actually lasts a week. Everyone knows it. I love that everyone knows it.
For many years, the celebration was usually on Halloween. It was as if my birthday was my own personal Mardi Gras. Over time, it evolved, due to busy schedules, and social anxiety in crowds. Preferring to stick to individual meetings or small groups, the week stretches until All Hallows

While events happen on either side of my birthday, I love to spend October 27th by myself.
Last year I took myself out to lunch and a pedicure. This year, I took pictures.
For a while, I was on leaf- covered paths through the woods, then in one of the beautiful old graveyards in Halifax.
The day was a perfect testament to the glory of this season. The afternoon autumn air was as crisp as the fallen foliage under foot, and I tried to capture the feeling through the lens.
As is often the case, I was blissfully lost in micro scenes.

When the light was fading I chose to sit on the patio of a local pub with a slice of today's special. As I watched the crowd, one of the passers-by did not pass.
She swooped down into my face. Facebook told her it was my birthday.
But she looked unsure.
She asked hopefully if I was waiting for someone.
I told her I was all by myself.

She actually looked sad, but gave me a mouth-smile. Her eyes looked like "poor thing spending her birthday all alone" eyes.

It made me smile.
I may have looked like a maniac, grinning like a carved pumpkin. In any case, she moved along.
I continued to smile.

It made me realize how lucky I am that being in my own company makes me happy.
Tuesday's child is full of gratitude

Three's a Crowd, or, Unless You're A Conjoined Twin, Leave the Other One At Home

Okay, so I suppose this could be classified as a rant. It is not a personal attack on anyone, it's just one of my pet peeves.

 I have several friends who are in relationships and seem to have lost their individuality.
Seriously.

If I have made plans with someone, I expect that it is going to be just us two. When my friends show up with their significant other in tow, I have to say, it really irritates me.
If, when we made these plans, my friend would say, hey, do you mind if so and so tags along? then that's different. I know what to expect. But when they arrive with that umbilical chord still attached, I'm pissed.

It has nothing to do with the other person. Of course, often I get the partner who says "your friend hates me" once they are alone.
Seriously.
Go to Walmart and buy yourself a big bucket of Get the Fuck Over Yourself.
Why do you assume I have the energy or interest to hate you? I just want to spend some time with my friend. You may be a package in your mind, but you're not to me. You are not my partner. You are, in a few cases, not even my friend, so why do you want to sit there while we talk about things to which you cannot contribute, except to have an excuse to pout later and say "your friend hates me".
I don't hate you. But it you insist on tagging along every time, I just might start. 

If a friend wants to go for a walk, or coffee and s/he asks me to go, I assume we are going alone. If s/he says "the love of my life and I are going for a walk, would you care to join us?" then that's different. I have the choice of yea or nay.

Honestly, when did being in a relationship excuse you of all manners and consideration?
I don't say to my partner "Hey, I'm going to hang out with the girls, are you coming?"
I love spending time with my love, but I don't assume others will feel the same. Or sometimes I just want to catch up with my pals all by myself. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with expecting the same from others.

In short, I'm saying, unless you are literally joined at the hip and it is physically impossible to go anywhere without your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/whatever, then please, please, come alone.
Or at least let me know we're having company.