Happy 2020!

I will once again imagine myself having stepped upon a threshold. The door was wide open and there is a lot of brightness ahead, crisp blue skies and emerald grass. And my beloved ocean, of course. I am not hesitant, I am only hopeful. Good things await to happen. 2020 sounds good in many ways. It feels good when I say it or think it. A good, round sound. It feels luminous, crystalline. Like having 20/20 vision perhaps. A clear road ahead, even if I cannot know exactly where it is taking me.

I wish everybody good walking boots, a keen eye and a fluffy soul. A very Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Everybody!

I wish everybody, big and small, a blessed, healthy 2017. Be kind to you and to those around you. Dream. Hope. Laugh. Dance.

(And if nothing else works, we could always follow the advice of my favorite angel, Castiel.)

On a more serious note, if you have a good thought to spare, please send it to this little fellow.

This is Blues, the child of a cat and a child of mine. He is four years old. He is the sweetest, gentlest, cutest, cuddliest cat I've ever met. In November, we have discovered that his kidneys are not well. Over Christmas, he's been in the hospital, on IVs. Now he's at home and doing much better. Here he is, asleep on my lap after he ate plenty of shrimp to celebrate the New Year.

(You can see where the fur was shaved for the catheter. His skin is grey where his fur is grey and pink where the fur is white...)

This, they say, is not a curable disease. The prognosis, they say, is guarded. Well, I intend to prove them wrong. Other people have done it. I do believe that there is more to all life on this Earth than we are generally taught there is. I do believe that we are all linked in ways much deeper than we could probably imagine. And if we do touch that deeper level then amazing, wonderful "miracles" could happen.

Blues seriously needs all the positive energy and all the good vibes he can get. So, please, do send some his way from the kindness of your heart.

Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2016!

I was about to write a last minute gloomy (almost) poem about the stealthiness with which 2016 has sneaked past me, when I found this in my inbox...

I got a good laugh out of it. Go see for yourself at Atlas Obscura...

Maybe to squeeze the last minute out of 2016 would be tempting... but, no...  I'd rather say Enough of it!

I'm actually looking forward to 2017, not in excitement, but with timid hope.

And so I say, Goodbye, 2016...

Well, Hello 2015

I'm sorry to say that 2014 hasn't been a good year for me. I didn't write about this on the blog -although I did write a post or two that I chose not to publish- because I simply didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it. Someone extremely dear to me lost her battle with cancer in June, and bad things happened to other people about whom I care a lot.

There is one thing that "saved" me, in a way, and that was working on my novel, my short stories, and preparing the collection of short stories for publication. You know, something like in Simon and Garfunkel's "I am a rock:"

I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;

Holding that real book in my hands was certainly the high moment of the year.

So, what can I say about 2015? I certainly wish it's a very happy one for all of you, for everybody. Probably for the first time in many years, I didn't feel the moment between the 31st of december and the 1st of January as a threshold. 2015 doesn't feel like a new beginning, or a new hope. It's more like this:

I had no idea that this was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for the WWII. Well, I can certainly use it this year... and perhaps I won't be just drifting away... like in this song that I love and that sometimes doesn't let me sleep at night with its obsessive refrain....

So, allow me to wish you all the best: good health, love, good books, and good music.... and if you haven't bought it yet, perhaps you might consider buying my book this year...

...from Amazon.com or Amazon. ca. Thank you! :-) :-) :-)

The Upside of Rainy Days

This little thing is for Geraldine's Woven Dreams... :-)