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Author: jennifermichie (page 30 of 190)
The lilacs are starting to bloom and I’m seeing the world through purple coloured glasses.
As many musicians do as they climb the ladder of fame, they play smaller venues. The first time I saw John Mayer was at a local college next to my hometown. It was the eve of the first anniversary of the September 11th attacks. As he started his final set, he spoke briefly about that day and the people that were lost and how we’ve now turned the corner. That we’ve passed through every major holiday or personal event in someone’s life, in this one year. I remember that moment so clearly, yet for the life of me, I can’t tell you what song he started to play right after that, but half way through it, he just went in to one long solo that included, “Happy Birthday” and “Auld Lang Syne”. He was marking each yearly milestone that we all passed through before we came back full circle to this one particular day.
Today is a full circle day for my family. Somehow we have had birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter and all the other things in between without one of my greatest soulmates present. How this year has passed so quickly, I’ll never be able to tell you. I still smell her, I can hear her, I talk to her on a daily basis, even if our chats are just to the whispering winds.
Somehow, it feels as if the universe knows that a piece of my heart is still missing, because a large number of the blogs I read have all been talking about grief lately. She wasn’t a wallower, she was a pick your head up, put one foot in front of the other and keep walking kind of lady and that is what I have done this year. But I won’t say that she isn’t in my daily thoughts. The amount of times I’ve been in a stationery store, waiting in line to pay for my handful of cards, only to realise that one of the ones I’m holding, I no longer need, is actually laughable. I normally do chuckle to myself, step out of line, put the card back and just shake my head.
Despite what people say, what textbooks tell you, I don’t think there are any “rules” to grief. You simply make the journey into this land the best way you know how. Maybe you pick up some pointers on the way, but I feel grief is about learning to live with your altered self. I’ll never be who I was before this. How can I be? But you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, you see beauty in the everyday, you love those around you a little harder than before, you continue to laugh and you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you need to feel. Life is a dance of pain and love, without one, we would never appreciate the other.
I was fortunate to grow up in a home where music of every genre was played. That still applies to our little cottage. Recently my parents asked me if I had heard Scott McCreery’s new song, “Five More Minutes”? I had not and after looking it up and watching the video, I was just left in a puddle of tears. Because this song is about life, about living. Time is a funny thing, it ebbs and flows like a river. There will never be enough time with those you love. You will always want more. I could have used five more minutes with her, but I’m greedy, because after that I would have asked for more. There still was so much more to know, to learn, to hear, to see through her eyes. But she is still with me, I carry her in my heart.
We’ve passed this last mile marker that brings us full circle to one year. And we’ll all keep going because that is what she taught us; to keep your faith, to keep your head up and to keep moving forward. She’s still with us, her footprints just aren’t visible to the naked eye any more.
Happy May Day!
* “The May Queen’s court awaits her crowning”, 1961. Don’t these children just look sweet as can be? I wonder where they are today. {Image FOUND}
{Found Via @hellohuez // Pinned HERE}
We’re in the midst of a mini heatwave in our neck of the woods. The sun is shining, even brighter I think, since all the weekend grocery shopping is done.
There is homemade butterscotch pudding cooling down in the fridge, nestled next to a fresh batch of whipped cream to be dolloped on top of it for dessert. There is chicken soaking in buttermilk to be oven fried for dinner later and served alongside a big salad with homemade ranch dressing and hot rolls smothered in cinnamon honey butter.
There are fresh sheets on the bed, the curtains are blowing in the breeze that is trickling over the windowsill, beach music is playing and the one day we have been waiting for since Monday has finally arrived!
Hello Friday! You look beautiful! Here’s to the weekend, long may it last!
I believe in ghosts. They’re the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind. Many times in my life I have felt them around me, observing, witnessing, when no one in the living world knew or cared what happened.
I am ninety-one years old, and almost everyone who was once in my life is now a ghost.
Sometimes these spirits have been more real to me than people, more real than God. They fill silence with their weight, dense and warm, like bread dough rising under cloth. My gram, with her kind eyes and talcum-dusted skin. My da, sober, laughing. My mam, singing a tune. The bitterness and alcohol and depression are stripped away from the phantom incarnations, and they console and protect me in death as they never did in life.
…Time constricts and flattens, you know. It’s not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear. The first twenty-three years of my life are the ones that shaped me, and the fact that I’ve lived almost seven decades since then is irrelevant. Those years have nothing to do with the questions you ask.
-Christina Baker Kline, Orphan Train
* This book has passed from the hands of my aunt, to my mother and now on to me. It is an incredible story; at times heartbreaking. I began reading slower and slower as I edged closer to the end. Because as much as I wanted to know what happened, I didn’t feel ready to leave this world behind. I have cried for these characters, rejoiced with them and for them when they found snatches of happiness, ached for them when life treated them so very cruelly and felt that I had the privilege of entering their world and taking this journey of loss, love and self-discovery alongside them. Although the characters are a work of fiction, the story is based on a truth. During 1854 and 1929 close to 200,000 children were transported from the East Coast of the United States to the Midwest for adoption; which for many, simply translated into indentured servitude. This is an extraordinary story and a part of American History that I never knew existed. My Nana always says, “they’re re-writing history; they’re leaving things out!” The real stories of these children should not be forgotten, nor should this part of history. It is not a story that I will soon forget, this is a book that’s gonna stay with me for a long time to come.
It was back to school for our household this morning. I don’t think either of us were quite ready for the alarm to go off.
It is a deliciously cool morning, but the sun is shining. Of course the week we go back to school the weather decides that it’s going to be perfect all week! And even give us a mini heat wave. Where was this gorgeously sunny weather when we were off? Oh well, rain and springtime in England go hand in hand.
Over the course of last week and into the weekend we varied between a mixture of 70s music we’ve been listening to and Françoise Hardy albums. Tous Les Garçons et les Filles is one of my personal favourites of her songs along with Le Temps De L’amour.
I discovered this film the other week. It’s incredible to me that they created this in 1962. Now, I know that music being put to film in the form of a “music video” has existed since the 1920s; but I just find this completely cool, that this video was created and once it aired on TV it became a hit. A music video long before MTV came along. It is gorgeously sung, slightly abstract and completely French! Her hair even looks so perfectly French as she is swinging back and forth.
Here’s to Friday, may it come quicker than normal!
Mother Nature seems to be playing a game of hide-and-seek with us lately. She keeps giving us glimpses of spring and then just as quickly takes them away again.
We got one such glimpse last week and now we’re back to rain, rain, rain. I don’t mind it too much. It isn’t very fun to do my morning run in, because some of the puddles in our neck of the woods are more like lakes, but it is what it is. Rainy days call for copious amounts of tea and a good book. Both of which are in ready supply in our cottage.
And spring is still there if you look close enough. Daffodils are blooming all along the hills that roll down toward the train tracks and there are wild primroses springing up along the footpaths. So amongst all the raindrops are beautiful pops of colour. It’s like getting a hint of the joyful flavours to come. Not too much, just a little taste.