a quiet saturday morning thought train

The Fam in about 1999 -  

My Mum Margaret and our two daughters way back  in about 1988

I have been mucking about with a free program  you can access through Picassa called Picnik..and having some fun with some old photos - way back when the second of these which was taken in 1988 was taken we could never have imagined the world we are living in today with its electronics - oh! sure Don had a computer - got his first in 1982 when he could no longer write with a pen due to injury - but it was a simple little thing - its a funny thing about photos I can remember as clear as a bell where and when all photos I have ever taken happened. The beautiful photo of my mum and girls here was taken just before mum's 60th birthday - she was quite frail really but only in body - she dropped dead six years later - in terrible circumstances - but here she is happy, in amongst family and loved...and we all die as sure as we are born and mostly can never know the manner nor time.


For me the volumes of albums I love to leaf through sometimes are a testament to the hope we human beings have, the love we have, the silly things like events that went belly up but are recorded for posterity - in all their stupidity.


And sometimes I think that maybe we are surrounded in brightness and light even more so than in these pictures but often we forget and trudge around not seeing the stars in the sky or the horizon, of the spark of interest in a small baby's face at the checkout - (yes I am one of those who pulls faces and smiles at babies - and they do it back and I don't care what people think - babies are so wonderful like that because no one has told them what they can and can't do).


Many days I have my head down and seldom look about me - but then I can't stand myself when I am like that for too long and many times have forced myself to just get out there and walk - for me I think of the lives of people like Mum, Dad and Don that were over too quickly - and I have those years with my health that they didn't get - so still have bad days but the good days always outweigh the bad ones.


I have what is sometimes an inconvenience - the habit of making eye contact when I walk down the street. I think this is a habit that mainly kids who grew up in country towns have - as there are often so few people in the street you can't just walk past people without acknowledging them with eye contact or a smile - whatever...it has gotten me into trouble at times as I always seem to be the one who gets bailed up in the street by those aggressive charity collectors who don't want your coins but want your bank account which I won't give... (people would be more generous if those charities didn't put such conditions on donations) - I as well seem to find it hard to walk past beggars - and if there are not too many of them will usually drop something - none of us are immune from homelessness, mental illness or other which could see ourselves in time in the same awful position...and I know sometimes its a rort - but more often its not -


It gets easier now being older to have eye contact - when I was young and reasonable - eye contact often resulted in unwanted attention and more than one occasion I was followed a bit too closely - but now i am at this wonderful age where I am invisible - just a middle aged woman with glasses walking past - and I quite like it because it feels like it used to feel when i was a kid and was just myself.


How did I get to here - bit of a thought train...