He who hesitates is a damned fool. Mae West

Today's image from Danielle, AKA VintageBroadwayFemme over at DeviantArt.com, and is called simply, 'Girl.'

It's been a turbulent day at the Heights, so close to Christmas. Thank goodness that Kate and I decided to do our last minute shopping together. We stayed away from town and frequented only the independents of Palmerston and Albert Road.

Aristia was our last shop and an old favourite of mine. There was a film there that intrigued me but I was too shopped out to buy it and had no one left to buy for called: What the Bleep? Down the Rabbit Hole - looked very interesting and I sort of wish that I'd bought it. However, after splashing out on the second series of House on DVD, it didn't seem appropriate.

The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind.
- Emily Dickinson

I'm starting to get the hang of Uranus, too, as t'were. This whole unsettled feeling is terrifying, sad and, in the moments I allow it, exhilaratingly free. My thoughts run from the past, to the present, through the future in a heartbeat, and sometimes all three seem to exist together - though when you really think about it, perhaps that's not as strange as it sounds.

I've been thinking about the past and past loves and found this beautiful poem by Frank O'Hara.

Animals

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

Frank O' Hara

I'm thinking about the present (the now, not my Christmas presents, silly): that this is one of the strangest Christmases I've ever known. My brother is spending Christmas with his friends and partner and won't be home for the first time. I've seen less of my friends this Christmas than I usually would (for reasons that I am mostly at the centre of).

I've spent the last couple of days wishing that everything would resume its familiar course, but what would be the point in that?

I've learnt those things already and I am tired of resisting change. Acceptance is the last stage of grief; and who knows what comes after?

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Gustav Jung

And I've been thinking about the future. I love and fear this the most, the tabula rasa. I had a great conversation with Miss Sally over a glass of champagne on Friday (we glamour girls at the Ministry of Culture don't do things by halves) about the foolishness of making plans.

"Life can turn upside down in a heartbeat," said Miss Sally, and of course she's absolutely right - if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.....


And I like this idea. Change is in the air for 2007; hell, it's already here, and I'm holding to the thought that anything, anywhere and anyone could happen.

I'm going to Lofoten, Norway. Why? Well, because it's calling me.

This is what I've heard:

Lofoten is a land of excitement, a hotbed of fascination and enchantment. A realm of contrast and paradox, of light and dark, of colour and Nature’s own music.

A paradise for the senses. A delight to the eyes, nose, ears and palate: jagged, precipitous mountains bathed in the light of the Midnight Sun, or set in striking profile against the playful, flickering, mystical backdrop of the Northern Lights.

The smell of dried cod, of birchwood from winter’s smoking chimneys, of flowers on summer’s bright green slopes, of the salty waters. The sound of seagulls returning home from their selfinflicted exile, the chugging of an old fishing smack on the horizon, or the ubiquitous, almost deafening, silence found far up in the mountains.

Three Beautiful Things

1. Laughter through tears, my favourite emotion

2. The Stone Roses - because they can.

3. You - because you are