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So it's that time of year apparently
Oct 13, 2009

*shrugs into Halloween costume*

Hmmm

*polishes mirror to see if it helps on recognising himself*

(10 replies, Latest reply: Oct 14, 2009)

Autumn
Sep 22, 2009

A touch of yellow
On leaves so recently green
How time disappears

(22 replies, Latest reply: Oct 15, 2009)

*faints*
Sep 9, 2009

Even if I am 7 hours ahead of my usual home ...


... today is the 9th


... of September


... of '09


Isn't it?


*faints again*


That means just exactly, give or take mere hours, TEN years of hootooing.



Dear me.


Or, more to the point, dear you

(14 replies, Latest reply: Sep 10, 2009)

Late night thoughts
Jul 10, 2009

Trees dark against the late evening sky
The sky itself being a wonder of evening light
The air is still, no wind cares to disturb it
Leaving the trees to be still in their vigil

Over to the south, the moon watches over them
Low on the horizon, yellow and almost round
It kisses the tip of the branches of a lucky tree

I am at home in the summer evening’s air and light
As always joyful that it invites me in
Knowing that while I’m there and happy that I am
I will feel a sting of longing for that other place

I don’t know where it is or when
Whether that place is one of space or time
Or a special place at a particular time
And yet it almost always hovers at the edge of my conscience
Beckoning or maybe just quietly whispering about its delights

I know that I may never know more about it
Than what was hinted on a few summer nights long ago
It was like a waft of perfume in the air
And I could have tried to follow the fragrant trail
Let myself be led towards it and, maybe, have stayed there ever since

But the shimmering vista remained distant
And other summer scents and sounds were nearer
And held me and kept me with them

Now I am where I am
And as I lie down in the darkness, listening to summer sounds
And smelling the perfumes of this tranquil summer night
I know that I may never find that place

And that if I shouldn't
Then this place msut be that place
And so I am truly at the best of all places

With that thought on my mind
I smile as gently as the summer night air stirs
And I fall asleep

(3 replies, Latest reply: Jul 11, 2009)

Feeling at home
Apr 3, 2009

Today, I went two hundred kilometers and back.
To and from a place which is 10.365 kilometers or 6441 miles away from home.

This evening, I realised what it was I felt.
I felt at home.

At home?

??

I've always thought of home as a place. Somewhere you can mark with an 'X' on the map. Somewhere special. Real. With a dimension of geographical presence.

I've also heard the version that 'Home is where I lay my head'. Or my hat, for that matter.

Home is both more and less than those things. Less than a specific place in space. More than a feeling.

Home is a state of mind.
And that particular state of mind can be reached in probably a handful of ways.

My very near ones, my loved ones, can induce it in a wink of an eye. Yes, here I belong, with you, us. That is home.

Books can do it. I'm so much always home in a book that it is such a disappointment when I dive into one and find out that, no, in this one, I'm not. But generally, I enter the book's universe and I'm at home. Magic of books, that is.

Nature does it to me. A steep slope of a mountain, the lush greenness of a spring forest, the moon or a clear star shining to me from a dark night's sky, a sudden buffeting of strong winds on a steep sidewalk in Brazil. I'm at home in nature.

Friends, friends really can do it, too. And music can do it. Like both did today. On a long road where I had no business feeling at home.

Yet I did. Very much so.

And oh, how I feel lucky for it.

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(also on my blog, including pictorial - well, one picture - on how this came to be: http://tinyurl.com/coc7cu )

(11 replies, Latest reply: Apr 3, 2009)