Fibromyalgia and Me
Symbols of my Life
I was considering the Weekly Photo Challenge of ‘Symbol’ and wondering how this could be applied in my macro world. I could have taken photos of my engagement ring, but that’s not very original, so in the end I decided to think about important moments in my life and photos that symbolise them.
This was just over 3 years ago, when I’d just about gotten over a really difficult couple of years and was trying to feel more positivity about the future. I took this photo of myself with a remote shutter, with the camera on the tripod. I was trying to capture myself twirling, letting go of the past and its heartbreak, and feeling the joy (it was my birthday). It symbolises the end of one era and the start of a new & better one.
This one is me with my camera a few weeks later. I was in Bournemouth with my sister and my children and you can see that the positivity was working, I was beginning to find myself again and enjoy life. And of course I was really getting into photography. I’d had the camera for about 3 months at this point – my first proper DSLR – and I was finding my niche. (Thanks to my sister for this photo)
And then a wonderful thing happened… through blogging I met a lovely man 🙂
Here’s Bruce and I out for a walk during our first weekend together. This is symbolic, as I’m sure you can imagine, of the beginning of our relationship, when we met in person for the first time after getting to know eachother online.
And here we are nearly a year later – happy and together, engaged and sharing a home. This one symbolises the real, solid, happy partnership that developed from the virtual, online beginning.
And just to finish off … this one is now – just a few minutes ago 🙂 I dragged poor Bruce outside to take a selfie with me so that I could add it to this post.
This one symbolises the future.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Symbol.”
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Pony Love
As you know, if you have been reading for a while, my daughter is horse-mad. I spend many weekends watching her ride in lessons and competitions. It’s her ‘thing’. This is her in the middle of a competition at the weekend, between rounds. She looks like she’s communicating telepathically with the pony! I decided to have a play with this photo so it ended up black & white. I think my daughter’s horseyness is rubbing off on me as I caught myself wondering if I should give it a go … I’ve never so much as sat upon a horse, and I used to be quite scared of them! I’m not sure, but I am becoming rather fond of these horses and ponies.
Bee Memories
Here’s a lovely little bee for you from a week or two back, before the weather turned wet and blustery.
Remember the bees? They swarmed in our house, which was a tad unfortunate, and then set up home in the soffits of our roof. We grew quite fond of them after a while as they didn’t bother us once they were settled.
Sadly their nest has since been overtaken by wasps which insist on coming into our bathroom on a daily basis! We’ve had to resort to insect-killing spray 😦 Hopefully soon the weather will get too cold for them and we have read that they rarely return to old nests. Fingers tightly crossed that’s true – I’m so sick of having to warily enter my bathroom incase there is a wasp buzzing around in there.
I remember our bees with fondness … much preferable to wasps!
On typewriters, of romance
Today we have forgotten
whose shoulders we stand
On typewrites, the greats works have been produced
but on occasion, mediocre sequels too
let us not be an unkind sequel
Typewriters were the combination
of engineering meeting out romance and the mundane
Love letters producing the most careful of tears
“My dearest darling”
Letters to mothers and wife’s
tears of such loss – “we regret to inform you”
Your son/husband was lost
There were Clanks and Clunks
of success and failure
a smell of correction
liquid paper to cover
I cannot produce great works
of love, but I can lease my heart
for an undisclosed time
I can stand on the shoulders
of Shelly or Byron
and tell you
That the shore in no longer lonely
‘so lift me as a wave, or let me
bleed as a cloud’
Let me type this romance
on a keyboard, though lifeless
with no typewriter action
it can still produce, thus
‘face the thorns of life
together, pricking neither thumb
nor forefinger’
Let us carry it as one
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruce Ruston 2014
Indeed standing on the shoulders
of Shelly and Byron
Guest Poet
Showering with Sheep
I’m showering with the window open again, despite the chill.
It’s one of those summer mornings where the sun hasn’t got going yet. The kind of day that saw me as a child stood at a bus stop for a day out dressed in shorts and a jumper in a strange mix of optimism and realism. Cold legs shivering but with the desperate hope that later I’d be glad.
There’s a sheep staring at me while I shower, eyes meeting mine as I contemplate the brightness on the hill. Of course it probably can’t even see me – it’s eyes are looking across half a field and a garden to see me through the crack of a small window. But nonetheless it does seem to stare right at me.
Eyes closed while washing my hair I’m considering how far away the sheep is – perhaps a hundred yards? But I can’t visualise a yard. All I can think of is a little rhyme my dad must have taught me: “a metre measures three foot three, it’s longer than a yard you see”. Not really all that helpful as I can’t visualise a metre either.
Shampoo rinsed off I peer blearily at the window. The sheep has moved away and just a patch of blank hillside remains.
I am disproportionately disappointed.
life
I feel solid
strong
permanent
yet
this life
is fragile
the end
unavoidable
unmentionable
undeniable
abrupt
and when it comes
will I be ready
have I lived
truly lived
have I
left my mark
or will I fade
forgotten
Home
I can’t write poetry. My brain is slightly addled by codeine as the pain was lingering long today. I’ve tried to assemble my thoughts but they keep running away. I am thinking of home, and how this was my home, my childhood home. Visiting is comfortable, like wearing old familiar clothes. Though things have changed round here, it’s somehow still the same, despite the extra houses and rearranged roads. I am sat here, comfortable, but my heart is elsewhere. A thread stretches out from here to there, where you are, and though I’m comfortable I feel its tug pulling at me. It’s just been a few days, but I miss you. Home is where you are. So I’ll enjoy the comfortable feeling here and the time spent with family, knowing soon I’ll be home with you. I’ll return to our little village, back from the big city, reaquaint myself with the frogs in the pond and the insects in the tall grass. And catch up with missed kisses and hold on tight.
unabridged
within these walls
my heart’s desire
my soul’s requirement
family remade
from ruin
with love and laughter
playfulness
tomfoolery
where parsnips and bacon
are as bouquets
received with joy
affection and silliness
are one
and with my hand in yours
we are living
unabridged
the passing storm
the tide is turning
waves are building
higher with each day
a build up of
tension
stress
until all is
drowning
sinking
suffocating
overcome by
obligations
responsibilities
a task list so long
its a novel
so many things
so many pills
so many, many things and pills
all piling up so high
so high
so very, very high
and
crashing
smashing
down
’til I’m left
just afloat
on top of the swell
treading water like hell
to keep up my head
so my face can tell lies
about ‘everything’s fine’
and then later
in your arms
the dam bursts
no lies only truth
and there will be tears
many tears falling fast
’til the beat of your heart
and the warmth of your love
sooth my life-battered soul
into calmness and peace
as sleep forgives all
till the morning
my day
rising
into the summer
of your nearness
you are a vision
bearing tea
a balm to my tired eyes
and dry throat
then leaving
for the daily grind
a wrench
of separation
tearing me
from your side
and later
at the edge of the day
you feed me bacon
and know my
heart
to you
in this life that I live
with its ups and its downs
with its tears and its frowns
when I’m often in pain
and feeling so weary
so tired and dreary
in this wild head of mine
where the worries swirl round
anxieties abound
where golden honey’d glow
can swiftly change its hue
to deepest darkest blue
in this life that I live …
there’s YOU
and no matter what
brings me down
you always
lift me UP
’til I’m flying
above all the clouds
and I’m happy inside
where it matters the most
I can’t tell you
enough
how you changed me
for good
and how precious
you are
how I love you
so much
so much more than too
x
