Namaste 2014

• Thank you 2014 for giving me an open heart to be able to move to Florida.
• Thank you too for having my family (at least part of it) adventurous enough to join me.
• Thank you for prosperity.
• Thank you for the fella.
• Thank you for change - enough change that I'm willing to evaluate my present self and the curiosity to gracefully (mostly) peek around the corner at what might be possibilities even I didn't think of.
• Thank for a strong enough fella who lets me stretch my "I'm not married" muscles without too much fanfare.

I hate to leave you wonderful year - you've been good to me. But so was 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. I can only hope that 2015 is a drop of what this year has been.

Namaste 2014 - I honour you.

Life's Paths

I've been unmarried for over 14 years. I don't think about it much and today's society doesn't either.

Now and again someone will ask if I'm lonely - no.

Sometimes in conversation, people offer up the moans and groans of their couple-hood. Do I feel glad I'm not engaged to have my own contributions - usually. Sometimes, I just think that their "socks on the floor" comments are air escaping and they are in generally in good company. And...I think they know that too. Do I actively desire a partnership - no.

There are times that I think a nice meal out with intimate lighting and pleasant conversation rather than a Kindle would be nice. But the Kindle has good lighting and so I am in decent company after all.

I know my flaws. I get easily bored with repetition. My job offers me the comfort of knowledge repetition with an ever-changing landscape of locales, schedules, configuration and project teams. Having the bulk of my close family and friends scattered across the country offers me familiar, but not routinely scheduled holidays. I'm not afraid to vacation on my own - even in a foreign country. My daughter who lives near me, seems to thrive on the same, dynamic living pattern as I do.

So the challenge becomes how to harness the freedom of mind and body to create and maintain a stable coupled relationship. Especially when a partner is seeking a normal rhythm of life - get up and converse, head to respective jobs, return home and create a meal, share the daily goings on, go to bed at a regular time as a pair, rinse and repeat.

I change shampoos regularly. I have not mastered the rinse and repeat. My mother did not master it. I am not even particularly enamored towards it.

Why do men find unfetteredness so attractive and then began a project to harness it?

Scarves

As I was folding scarves to place in my new dresser last night, I travelled abroad in my mind and took a walk down memory lane.

The blue one with the swallows. I bought it to remind me of the annual air dance the swallows did for me in  September outside of my flat window when I lived outside of London. They came early last year so I could see them before I left.

The newsprint one with the Union Jacks. My career and where my career took me. I bought that one at the train station in Windsor. Windsor is where I got my picture taken with the palace guard - a bucket list item for me.

The black and white one Pauline gave me for Christmas when we travelled on a walking holiday to Sicily. I walked on Mount Aetna on Christmas Eve whilst there. And I also saw the most beautiful Roman/Green ruins with the sea and shoreline behind in Taormina.

The periwinkle and butterfly one I bought at a street market in Florence as a head covering so I could enter the churches.

The brown and pink camouflage one from Lea. I don't usually do brown, but this one is beautiful and suits me.

Then there are the ones I wore all the time that I purchased on High Street, below my flat - the grey/pink one, the pastel plaid one, the salmon/blue one. The list is endless.

Another High Street favourite was the white one that I wore in the warmest of places and sometimes used it as first aid for overheated walkers. It certainly cooled me down and warmed me up more than once.

I have my black and white and red and black ones from one of the many street markets my daughter and I visited in London.

Summer ones to add colour to a t-shirt. Denser ones to hold the dampness at bay.

There's the turquoise, black and silver one from Hazel. My colours to be sure. Soft and shimmery.

Every time I wear these, I wrap myself in memories.