Invincible

Posted on January 30, 2007

I noticed this quotation in a book the other day and I just loved it. I love idea that the summer is not eternal or endless but invincible.

‘In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer’ Albert Camus.

Falling into Traps

Posted on January 29, 2007

Recently read an article about Natascha Kampusch, who was the girl in Vienna who was kidnapped when she was 10 years old and kept in a cellar until she escaped, last year, at 18.

It’s an incredibly sad story and she seems to be a strong and resiliant girl but one thing that struck me was that she said the reason she hadn’t escaped before, apart from lack of opporunity and the belief that her captor had hidden explosives, was that he had threatened to suicide if she escaped. She didn’t want to be responsible for that but didn’t want his mother (who came and cooked and cleaned the house, never knowing this girl was locked in the basement room) to think badly of him. To be disapppointed in her son.

This is a woman Natascha had never met and the man who held her captive for eight years! Yet, I think that at some level that is something many women can understand - though it is a stretch in this case. How often do we sacrifice our own feelings and well-being so that someone else doesn’t feel bad or sad?

Natascha is someone with a surfeit of kindness and empathy, and a good lesson to all of us that sometimes we can take compassion too far, at our own cost.

 

On Mums

Posted on January 23, 2007

Today my thoughts are with my cousins who are saying their formal goodbyes to their lovely mum who was killed in a car crash last week. Now they will embark on a new journey in life as different people, motherless ones.

I’m not meaning to sentimentalise mothers, I know there are some bad ones, but generally they want the best for us and care for us more than anyone ever will - perhaps apart from our own children. They are the people who know us best and love us despite our faults and even because of them.

Sixteen years ago I was saying goodbye to my own mum and she was a lovely mum too. You become a different person when your mum has gone, more fragile somehow I think. Life becomes more painful.

In the bad times I wish she was here to comfort me and in the good times I wish she was here to share them with me. The thing is with our precious mums; we take them so much for granted. You truly don’t know what you’ve got until she’s gone and you never stop missing her.

Little Gem

Posted on January 22, 2007

Another little gem from a friend today:

‘Keep a green bough in your heart
And the singing bird will come’

Ain’t Friends Great?

Posted on January 21, 2007

I’ve had so much support from friends in my recent dark days and I just had to share this gem with you. Sent by a dear friend, it’s great advice for all of us:

“You are a good mother, a good partner and a good friend. Never, ever forget that. Do not judge yourself at your weakest moments. Remember all the wonderful things you have done. Do not live in the past. Live in the now and the future. Put on some really great music that makes your bottom cheeks move when you are sitting down. Then, proceed to the kitchen, buttocks going north and south, and make a decent cup of tea. Stop dancing before you pour the tea in case you burn yourself.”

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