The cobweb collector

by frogpondsrock on April 10, 2012

in cancer,Grief

If ever I was going to write a book, “The Cobweb Collector” would be the title, as my house is full of cobwebs and I guard them fiercely.

An orb spider spun a beautiful web from one side of the verandah to the other and so naturally everyone was banned from using the verandah for over a week, simply because I didn’t want to see the spiders hard work destroyed before she had at least eaten a fly or two. A combination of being in the silvereye’s flight path and high winds shredded the web anyway but I was pleased I had at least given her a chance.

If a spider builds an elaborate web and it is destroyed, I wonder if they have the energy reserves to build another?

My head feels cloudy and full of cobwebs, I spent most of Easter Saturday crying for my Mother and crying for myself. I have recently lost a friend as well and some of the tears were for her as well. I burst into rooms and wave my arms around and speak loudly and honestly. People don’t like honesty and noise and I can never be bothered trying to explain.

I read through the posts I had written last April and my feelings of loss are still as raw as they were then. Three years, it has nearly been three years and still all I want is to be able to crawl into my Mothers lap and have her stroke my forehead and tell me that everything will be okay.

Life is messy and chaotic and I still feel mired and uninspired.

But I will work through this.

{ 10 comments }

Sunday Selections #64

by frogpondsrock on April 1, 2012

in blogging,Distractions galore!,photo a day April,photography,sunday selections

Good Morning everyone, before we start with this weeks Sunday Selections, I have found a photo challenge that you might be interested in and so I thought I would share it with you here. I followed a tweet from Carly Jacobs to a link by Fat mum slim and this photo challenge caught my attention.I am not sure whether to post the photos here on the blog, or to just post them onto my Frogpondsrock facebook page but either way the challenge looks like fun and it might also be a way to get my creative process back on track.

Now let’s start this weeks Sunday Selections.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

This photo is the one I took for the “Your Reflection” photo challenge.

I have no idea what this little fellow is, he was on the bathroom windowsill and looks like a cross between a cricket and a grasshopper. I let him go in the garden and took photos as he ever so slowly walked away from me.

I published this photo the other day but I wanted to share it again as I just love the feeling of ecstasy I get from this tree. As if the tree is reaching joyously for the sky.

It snowed up here last week and then the next day was a lovely balmy 24 degrees. Autumn weather is unpredictable.

The last of the summer insect porn. No more beetle sex for me to capture for quite a few months now.

{ 15 comments }

Reasons to be Cheerful

by frogpondsrock on March 30, 2012

in cancer,Distractions galore!,friendship

One.

Two.

Three.

You can thank me for the ear worm later.

I use this blog to sort out the words that are in my head. If I am lucky and the planets align I capture some of these words and they drip down from my fingers and fall onto the page, rather than spinning madly within the whirlpool of my brain.

Sometimes the words flow, sometimes they do not.

The simple act of writing makes me feel better.

The fact that you are reading my words is both comforting and frightening.

Comforting because I know that you are a friend, frightening because I know that you are not.

Today in my bathroom there was a grasshopper/cricket/insect thingy walking along the window. I captured it and let it go in the garden it was the prettiest green and it took each step very slowly, always tasting the air with its feelers before it moved forward.

As long as I can remember to take pleasure in the small things in my life I know that I will always be okay.

So here are some more of my reasons to be cheerful. I love how the branches in this tree seem to be dancing.

This week I am also linking up with Dorothy’s, “Things I Know,” to remind myself of the things that I already know.

{ 11 comments }

Mired

by frogpondsrock on March 29, 2012

in arseholiness,blogging,cancer,Grief

That is how I feel. I feel like I am stuck and unable to gain any momentum.

I haven’t made any new work in over two weeks.

There is an exhibition coming up that I am quite looking forward to but as for making the work for it, I have been reading instead.

I haven’t made any bread and butter stuff for the Off Centre either and the studio is just too far away. My book is closer.

The industrial strength laxative I took last week as preparation for the colonoscopy made me ill for days. Great waves of nausea that saw me take a bucket to bed, also gave me a small insight into how my daughter feels on a daily basis. I take a small measure of comfort from the fact that my GP told me that if it was cancer I would surely be dead by now.

So there is that at least.

The blogosphere is giving me the shits, with a cowardly anonymous commenter on my daughters blog turning out to be someone we know. A sycophant of the first order, too weak to own her own words. An asshat who thinks that whispers are the way and taints her friends so that I cant be bothered with any of them, or their high school antics.

I am mired and I am also angry.

It wasn’t until I started to cry in a meeting yesterday, that I realised what was wrong with me.

It is grief.

Grief.

That raging weight of missing, of a hole that is too huge to be filled, the pain of the overwhelming emptiness and the endless if onlys.

I am trying to board up my grief with planks of anger and as the fury rises the creativity recedes.

And I am left with nothing but ashes.

My mothers ashes in a box on my shelf.

I take them down occasionally and shake them and whisper hello.

April was Mum’s month.

Easter and her birthday on the 11th all tied up with Mum’s zest for life, with her love of food and family.

April just exposes the giant hole in our lives where mum used to be and the anger bubbles away quietly under the surface.

April is coming and I am trying not to cry.

But sometimes internet, life is hard.

It is really really hard.

{ 25 comments }

Sunday Selections #63 The Greatest Shave Edition

by frogpondsrock on March 25, 2012

in blogging,cancer,friendship,good causes,photography,sunday selections

Hi everyone, last night I went along to my very first roller derby match and along with some other brave souls I had all my hair chopped off to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation.

So instead of hunting through my zillions of folders of forgotten photos I will share with you photos of The Worlds Greatest Shave.

My daughter Veronica took all these photos for me and I have not edited them at all.

For any newcomers here that would like to join in with my Sunday Selections meme you are more than welcome and here are the rules .

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

I dyed my hair one last time especially for the shave.

The Minister for Tourism Scott Bacon starts to chop off my hair and I am hamming it up for the crowd.

I am now holding my hair in my hands. I will use my hair for paintbrushes.

The serious clipping begins.

The public part of the shave has finished.and here I am with short hair, Tadaa!

After the public shaving had finished, the lovely Bridget from the Leukaemia foundation took one of the other shavees, Garland and myself off to the staff room and she finished shaving our hair. So my hair is even shorter now than this last photo but you get the general idea.

There is still plenty of time to donate to this very worthy cause if you feel so inclined. All you have to do is Click this link to my page on the Leukaemia Foundation’s website.

oh ps. Thanks for all the hats I didn’t realise just how cold my head would be.

 

{ 73 comments }

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