Happy New Year

At the end of this year 2010 I'm pondering a bit and want to share my thoughts with you.
It's been an intense year for us, with lots of things happening. Good things and things that had a lot of impact. We've had lots and lots of help from unknown people that suddenly turned into angels and helped and supported us on our path...
On November 13 an event had a sudden impact on me. I saved our dog from being overrun by a cart but a few seconds later the same cart ran over my left foot. I had severed anklets and have spent the last 6 weeks of this year with my leg held high up. Bound in tape and later in a cast. It was a good time to ponder life's events :0) The worst part of it was that I had to use two garbage bags around the plaster cast each day to be able to keep it dry while taking my shower.
The cast has been taken off this week and Oh, to be in the bath tub again! Such bliss!
It's still quite painful but I'm on the mend!
Our dog has kept me company and hardly left my side. My heart fills up with warm love for her when I realise she's still with us! I'm now slowly, step by step, healing. We're approaching the New Year.

2011: May it be you a Good One, a Blessed One, a Healthy One. A real Prosperous and a Happy New Year!

Love to you all and make the best of it!

Hugs,
Karin

Happy Fall!

Early each Fall, as early as late August even, you can find me sitting on my knees,

crawling on my belly or lying flat with my nose almost touching the moist soil. The reason? Toadstools!
Ever since I was a child I have been mesmerised by Fungi.

Each year at school we studied them. When I was teaching, I made loads of mushroom lessons each Fall. And did excursions to look for them. Hunting for books about them to look at their pictures.

I'm not one to know each and every one by name, I only know a few.

It's not their name but their appearance enchants me. Their colours, habitat, their smell - everything!

I loved to draw them, paint them and take pictures of them.

I long to capture their beauty and share it with whomever shares my love for them.

Maybe even by looking at my photo someone also becomes a toadstool lover...

Even though I have lots of photo's already, each new fall I treasure my latest pictures.

Each year I get that creative ghust to work with them, create stationery, postcards, little tags -whatever comes to mind- as if they were my very first captures.

This fall I have decided to share my love for this particular type of toadstool in writing for a change.

Its official name is the 'Amanita muscaria'. It is quite common in our Dutch lowlands and loves to associate with birch trees, beeches, oaks, firs and chestnut trees. You should not eat it, as it is poisonous. Not lethal for people, but for small animals, like a dog for instance, it might be fatal.

Lethal though it may be, to me its beauty is ever lasting and nothing can distract me from it.
Or it should be the discovery of 'new' mushrooms to study...

o* o *o

Feline Spring Theatre

Spring is here and it shows. Not only through the welcoming vase of yellow Dutch tulips. But we finally have beautiful Spring weather. It revives all of us. And especially our furry friends. Our tom cat Joost is enjoying the view from the little window. Both our kitties love this little corner in our living room. We call it 'the Theatre'. And it's free for Mimi and Joost. Either one of them always makes sure to have a seat in the front row to watch the show. Each day. Every minute of the day. Come rain or shine. Whether it is hot or cold. Sometimes we just can't refuse them. Then we are summoned loudly to 'open the Theatre'. This means either one of has to get up and open the window. It has metalized gauze installed inside of it so they can't jump out. Otherwise they would get onto the stage and cause havoc there. Or disappear altogether.

At other times we just have to refuse to open it as it would get way too cold inside our living room.

Mimi and Joost don't mind the cold, but I noticed that Joost starts to sneeze if he sits in front of a damp or windy Theater too long.

Our Theatre has a Time Share system: Mimi loves it early in the morning and late at night. Joost visits it at all hours of the day.

After Joost joined our household just after Christmas It took Mimi a while before she had conjured up enough courage to reclaim her seat in front of the little corner window. But she's back now. With more enthusiasm than before :0)

She follows what's happening outside with great zest. She starts in front of the bedroom window and then continues the show here. Depending on the moves her feathered actors make she moves back and forth. It keeps her agile and lean.

Joost is different. He just sits and enjoys whoever is starring the show and only leaves when he feels like taking a nap or when it's Restaurant time. Which -for him- can be any time of the day.

At night when my husband or I take the dog out we see our cats' lovely faces framed and back-lighted. Beautiful and so endearing. Mimi meows to us. Joost only looks at us with his wise old eyes. There is an age difference of 10 years between them -Joost being the nestor of the two.

We hope they will share the Theater side by side one day -who knows?

= ^~^ = = ^~^ =

*

Tear in a nursing home

I weep
for the tear in the nursing home
for the frail figure in the large bed
her mind confused
lost in space
floating in timelessness.

Her body crippled by a fall
all the way down to the floor
slipping out of her own worn out shoes
-oh how often did we not warn her?

a shattered bone
a broken hip
an ambulance
hospital
then surgery
X-rays
oxygen
meds
a bed.

Later

High up
on the top hospital floor
lost in a view
in a wheelchair
eyes staring into
nothingness
oh could she float away
like this
to her mother
husband
daughter...
oh could she
only...

sweet forgetfulness
sweet mind that does not remember
and medication
helps
not to feel the pain

then suddenly
a glimpse of light
her mind protests:
what is she doing here?
what happened?
why to her?
is this the truth?
Her truth?

Denial
Suffering
and
then
sinking away in
oblivion
sweet forgetfulness
sweet
dreams
of dementia...

and falling softly
again
into our loving care
this small frail tear
in the nursing home
close by

so like my mother
and so un-like her

my heart weeps for her
tear in a nursing home

.
.
.
.

(c)Karin*CatMar 3-3-2010 - present