Wednesday, January 09, 2013

January.

It's been a hard start to the New Year. Usually December 31st is one of my favourite days of the year, I spend it buzzing with the excitement that a new start and as yet unimagined experiences brings. This year I didn't feel that, I just felt tired. While I was aware of the sense of beginning that starting the year in a new house and a new city had, I mostly just wanted to sleep, to recover from the long build up of getting here (here being both here; London, and Here; babies, business, house, garden, health, Life). Then on January 1st Nye's grandpa had a fall, a bad one. Although at 97 I think all falls are probably bad ones. He has been in hospital ever since and the sad truth is, he's going to be staying there. We don't know how long for, maybe days, maybe weeks. Nye is going back to Scotland to say goodbye. 

And so it is that the new year has not felt like a new start but rather an ending. The end of many things; of striving and planning and dreaming and achieving, of flux, of life. I know that in all of those things are new beginnings, but it's going to take a while to feel it. For now, the air is one of winding down, of releasing, of saying goodbye. 



(I took these in October, hence leaves, but they seemed appropriate nonetheless.) 



19 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about Nye's grandpa :(

    Beautiful photos as always though.

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  2. Sorry to hear you haven't had a positive start to the year. I hope that it improves soon. The photos are beautiful. x

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  3. So sorry to hear about Nye's grandpa. My grandma had a fall a few months ago and while she's semi-recovered, I think the fall caused a mini-stroke. She's not the same. It's really hard to see grandparents not the same, isn't it?

    Sending you both all my love. ::hugs::

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  4. Stunning photos. Very sorry to hear about Nye's grandpa. Hang in there, the year will turn around xo

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  5. I am so sorry. I hope will time (hopefully soon) this all will settle down and you will start to enjoy all the newness and beginnings that come with all those endings.

    I am also sorry for Nye's grandpa, hug him hard. Last Christmas (2011), precisely the 24 Mark's grandma had a cerebrovascular event (a microbleeding in the brain) and she had to be taken urgently to the hospital. The stroke left half her body semi-paralyzed (at the beginning she couldn't even eat or move), and though she slowly recovered some motion and control, and was able to eat, she never fully recovered. Never walked again, never went back to her apartment. It was heartbreaking to see such a strong, happy, independent woman who still did everything by herself, joked, was often cheerful and cooking, be at first understandably shocked and depressed with what she seemed to know was coming all along , then become a bit happier again, enjoying food, company etc. She never really went back to her old self though, and we lost her in July.

    I hope that Nye's grandpa will recover , that it will get better.

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    1. I meant "with time" on that first line. Oops.

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  6. It's ok. Life doesn't always have to match up with the Gregorian calendar. The beginning is the end, the end is the middle, the middle is the beginning, and hell if we were on the Mayan system we wouldn't even be here. And we try and climb and strive and hope and dream and pray and when we get to where we wanted to be, we don't know what to do with ourselves.

    My husband's grandfather died 2 months before I had my twins. Everyone wanted him to meet them, it would be so wonderful to see things come full circle, but to him he already went full circle. "I'll see them in my dreams," he said.

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  7. So sad. Thinking of you x

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  8. I am so sorry about the farewell. That must be so hard. But don't give up on renewal. There will always be spring. xxxx

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  9. Beautiful post, in words and photography.

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  10. Thinking of you and your sweet family x

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  11. Love and (virtual) hugs xxx

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  12. Oof. i'm sorry too.

    here's to sleeping and green shoots.

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  13. Sometimes you post so beautifully I want to keep it open on my machine all day long to revisit.

    xoxox

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  14. Your pictures inspire me Thank you

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  15. Dog Biscuit11/1/13 3:27 pm

    It is also hard to be on your own in a new place in a new city, especially with small children. I hope this time is as peaceful as it can be for you as well as Nye.

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  16. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

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  17. the only certainty in our lives is that we are born, we live and then we die.
    Unfortunately this knowledge doesn't make letting go any easier

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play nice.