Memories

When we look back at our lives we have memories of real experiences, funny moments, sad times, painful days and nights, time we spent with people that mattered, chance meetings with famous people in the street, flashbacks that stick in our mind as truth - those things actually happened to us and made our lives rich- we know this is true because we were there.

We were using all our senses and fully experiencing something REAL .

I wonder - when the generation of today looks back on it's life , what will it think of it's life? - What did it consist of ?

Will we really know what we have done?

Will we be able to say that we really, physically, fully experienced amazing things ?

Will we know that we were really there when it actually happened?

... or will we be convincing ourselves that we experiened something - that we never actually did.

Did we do it - or not ?

Will the black and white of our actual experience fade to a grey existence?

When we look back, will our lives be rich with wonderful, colourful, TRUE experiences?

Did something amazing REALLY happen to us - or not?

Did we MEET outstanding people and share magical moments?

I wonder if, as this multi-media age progresses along its path, bulldozing it's way through our lives and demanding us to change and connect in a virtual world - will we be putting together information from various virtual sources and basing our existence on false experiences that were never real, not to us , not REAL in the true sense.

What we did - what we actually 'did' - was quite different.

We didn't jog around a beautiful island ,

We didn't play football with international football players,

We didn't have true friendships across the world

We never met up,

We never exchanged emmotions face to face ,

We never sent birthday cards or bought Christmas presents,

We never had a hug!

What we really did was ...

We jogged on the spot in our drab little living rooms! - whilst we imagined we were running around a beautiful, sunny, happy, but virtual, island - on our wi-fit machine!

We sat on our sofas, moving our thumbs - whilst we imagined ourselves at Wembley running and tackling alongside computer graphic football stars - but they were just on the x-box.

We viewed a laptop screen or an i-phone and sent a few witty lines to people on facebook,

We commented on blogs.

Some of us even had virtual sparing partners on the x-box from Japan killing armies on foreign fields,

We even played scrabble with someone on the internet - who probably lived just a few streets away - but who we never actually met.

We think we saw the parades through the streets of London, but really we were never there - it's just a memory via YouTube.

We saw all those music concerts on the television.

We watched people dying in the wars - but we saw that on the tv

We take in the information, we see the pictures, we read the reviews and the blogs, we watch the youtube films, but we don't actually do any of it ... what we do is ...sit and stare.

( and a bit of typing)

Piano

Micheal Nyman's music in The Piano . Wonderful.

Night Swimming REM. Pianos and water work really well.

When I saw the exhibition by Rebecca Horn in 1990 I thought ... how beautiful.

My Dad wishes he had carried on the family tradition and played the piano. Those piano playing genes were never passed to me - I played the organ for a while as a child, I guess my dad was hoping I could pick up where he had never even left off. He bought me a motorbike too when I was 12.

Motorbikes and water don't go so well together.

Blog off!

It's time to stop doing this blog... at least for now.

Its too depressing. Something about it is making me dwell on serious issues and spill my guts out across the internet.

Life is for living not wallowing in misery....its around us everyday ....so why should I push my thoughts into your day too, we've all got our own stuff to deal with.

Sorry if you've only just connected to it ... there are plenty other blogs out there to occupy your time with....try ones with bright coloured backgrounds , they are probably more jolly!!

Personally I'm going to have a cup of tea and some toast, think about positive things, concentrate on creative energy and leave the blog writing for quite a while.

When I return I'll be in a better frame of mind.

Today

The sun shines on Sunshine Meadows

A landmark week in my lifetime.

Maybe it's been a pretty non-descript week for lots of people, nothing much to write home about.

Globally there is always something dreadful happening, I know that, there is always a story on the news that shows something worse than your own situation. I know that. I'm not trying to say my week has been the worst on the planet...but its not been brilliant!

Maybe you have had a fantastic week. Thats wonderful.

We all have a different perspectives.

Have you suddenly looked at someone ( maybe a stranger) and thought "What is it like to live their life?" I have. Apart from my own challenges this week, the people around me have been experiencing such different scales of challenge. From zero challenge to maximum challenge.

It's been a week with too many juxtapositions, too many contrasts.

Life - Young - Celebrations - Love - Fantasy - Happiness - Creativity - New Beginnings - Hopes- Dreams - Togetherness - Strength - Support - Plans - Future - Present - Past - Old - Reality - Pain - Endings - Emptiness - Loneliness - Weakness - Dependence - Immobility - Sadness - Commiserations - Death

Battle on , the next week will be totally different.

Lungs

Pains in my lungs this morning since I woke and they've not gone yet.

Maybe 'the skill' has been sitting on my chest all night like an incubus, settling an old score.

Until this morning

Today I've found myself reconnecting to a skill I enjoyed for many years. As a child and as a teenager I spent long hours alone with this skill and over the years I developed it, nutured it , tamed it, even tried to master it. This skill co-operated with me and we became friends, we worked well together.

But for some reason I abondoned this skill, left it lying lonely and unwanted. It lay hidden in a tiny box within my soul. It became mean spirited and said it would never work with me again, it said that I would never be able to control and manipulate it again. It would be the master of me. I grew fearful of the skill. I contemplated making friends again, approaching the skill with new toys for us to play with : ink pens , crisp white paper, nibs, ink. I bought them all and placed them at the altar for the skill to see , but the skill said it wasn't interested...until this morning.

The skill came to me in my waking moments and said it wanted to play. It teased me out of my bed and took me to the toys . I placed them on the coffee table and without hesitation I knew exactly which game we would play. The excitement flowed, the ink danced across the page - with a little trepidation at first, but the results were good .

I do believe that I've reaquainted myself with an old friend.

Dead birthday

Taking flowers to the grave - as presents to dead people. Whats that all about?

Fear of white paper.

The Blog post = it's such an empty space ...It's like staring at a blank sheet of A1 cartridge paper with a 2B pencil in my hand ...The fear is that the first mark could make or break the masterpiece.