Yesterday afternoon it started raining buckets again so we stayed home. The girls had a nap and I continued working on the album I am making to display all my Project 365+1 photos.
The album is almost finished and looks like this. I am pretty happy about it.
For the title, I used the Cuttlebug Hippie Chick alphabet that my friend Rebecca offered me.
I just love this alphabet, it is so pretty !
I had lots of problems with this album. I always made 6x6 or 8x8 with rings, but for this one I wanted 12x12 with real scrapbooking screws. So without specific order, the screws got stuck, I tore one page protector, I almost threw my coffee into the laundry basket (will teach me a lesson to put things away before crafting) . . But the top of it was when I started cleaning my mess : A punch flew out of my hands and in my attempt to avoid it crashing on the floor, it landed somewhere else : My laptop.
Note to self : Next time a punch falls, let it fall.
It's not too dramatic as I still can use the keys by hitting the black button or I can connect my external keyboard and I am sure DH can repair that but it was enough to really upset me. And now I am even more upset realizing how disgustingly dirty this keyboard is . . .
This morning the skies were still grey, there was still wind, but it wasn't raining ( yet ) so I decided to take the girls even before I had breakfast. Of course it did start raining as soon as we were out and we got wet but not dramatically.
On our way back, my darling Bubbles decided it would be more appropriate to wait on the top of the waiting point and not at the waiting point itself. Bless her for that. Here she is watching the ducks who were swimming in the water paddle before we disturbed them !
Here is the lovely couple. I love ducks, they are so funny !
On a very different tone, one of our beloved Project 365+1 member lost somebody very close some days ago and today will be a hard day for her as it is the final good-byes day.
I was thinking about her yesterday at the same time I was working on my album and I was also listening to the French radio Europe 1 on Internet.
They had a show on " how to answer difficult questions from your children ". One of a questions reported by a mum came from her 10 years old boy " Mum, I know you love me very much but why bringing me to earth as I am going to die anyway " . What a powerful question, especially from a 10 years old !
I don't have a very good relationship with death. I don't think anybody has but what I mean is that I have an especially bad relationship with it. We learn about death along the way when we grow up and depending on what we are told and not told, depending on how loved ones react or don't react , our relationship with death ends up what it is and sometimes worse.
I don't have kids of my own and it isn't a topic that came across with my stepkids but I imagine it must be easier to talk about how bees and cows make babies than to explain death to a child who even didn't ask the question.
Many years ago, I spent half a year in Taiwan to work in my company headquarters. It was one of my most fantastic experiences because I got acquainted with the Far-East ways and I find them making much more sense than ours. In six months I was invited to weddings but I also shared the grief of some collegues.
From a very small age, children are taught about death and how to deal with it. You can talk to a 5 years old, he knows he will die one day and so will his parents. That doesn't make him sad, that's just what will happen and it is logical for him : If you live then you will die. It is very stange to meet kids of this age who have more appreciation and logic about death than you do at 8 times their age !!!
During my stay there, I was offered a great book called " The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying ". It is a bit disturbing when you read it as a Westerner because although it makes sense, you miss all the years of education before that, that would make the book more understandable and sinking even deeper in yourself.
Taiwanese are not so much worried about the " why ". It did happen so " why " doesn't matter and knowing why wouldn't change what happened, so they just deal with it. They concentrate on doing all they can in order to make sure the dying or dead person feels as good as possible. It hasn't anything to do with religion as such, it's more a philosophy. Somehow, they put the priority on the person leaving or having left and not on themselves. It is an interesting concept.
In the West, I think we focus much on the " why ". We try to make sense of something that doesn't and never will. We try to find answers to questions that don't have answers and I believe it is what hurts us. The Taiwanese (and I don't say the Chinese because I didn't live in China and I don't know what they do) still grief and still hurt but I found it is easier for them.
I have lost many people in my life some very old and some very young too. I am not ashamed to say that I haven't got a clue how to deal with it and I am not very good at it. I just do what I can. Some deaths affected me immensely and some didn't and I also tried to make sense of that.
I see my parents growing older and older. Close to the end of this year, my mum will be 88 and my dad will be 89. My father in law reached 90 past January and I would love my dad to reach 90, too. But then I think about it and how ridiculous is that ? It is just a round number. Reaching 90 or 91 as numbers doesn't mean anything, the truth is I just would like to keep him as long as I can. I wonder why we do that to ourselves.
In my family, all my uncles and aunties are in their 80's and as we say within cousins, we are going to have a hell of a time soon. It doesn't keep me awake at night, but from time to time, I wish I would be better prepared to what is coming.
Often I think about my Taiwanese experience and I miss it as it all made so much sense at the time. It's not that I forgot about it, it's that you can't learn something for 6 small months and come back and apply it in the Western world for the rest of your life. It just doesn't work. I am now left like all of us with what I have and doing the best I can with it. It's hard but hopefully there are loved ones around us who help when the time comes.
Jen, I hope you manage to find peace tonight. xxx
Project 365+1 - Day 117 : Tradition
I had to think so hard for this one. I am even not sure that I am a tradition person. I went all around the house to find something that could be traditional French but couldn't find anything. Even me I've been influenced by too many countries and cultures to be traditional French.
I tried to think about what my parents passed on to me. When I was small my mother was putting money in envelopes as part of her budget and I adapted that to a computer way of doing it. Also she couldn't throw away anything, in case it can be used, I am like that too, but it's hard to take a picture of these things
I found a definition of tradition that says : Long-established way of thinking or acting. That inspired me.
In all the houses or flats I lived in, anywhere in the world, I always put a shelf in front of my computer and I use it additionally to stick papers with important things to me and photos. So here we are :
On the shelf itself, there are photos of the kids, of the girls, of DH at work, of the girls and us, of DH and I, a sign in German saying something like " Who was bitten by a snake will handle even a rope very carefully ", my beloved Cricut head, a photo of Bubbles when she was 2 months old, another photo of the girls,
As of papers taped on the side, there is one with sizes in inches and pixels, a phone number, details and dates of some lumps I found on Rhea, a helpdesk phone number, a Chinese sign "Please don't touch it when working", how to backup my iphone, how to backup my blog, behind the 2 lasts there is my Pakistani passport that David made for me as a joke on my birthday years ago (long story, I tell you one day), the lyrics of a Cher song from Burlesque called "You haven't seen the last of me" ( you can find them HERE ) that really helped pulling me up during PTSD times, an expired voucher code ( ??? ), the packaging of a bone the girls really like, how to change language on my keyboard, price per night for having somebody caring for Rhea and Bubbles if we need to travel, another expired voucher code (???).
I know it looks like mess and it probably is but it is all so important to me !
Take care everybody, xxx
8 comments:
Your 365 album is wonderful. It is wonderful to read what you think and feel about death. I think the main problem in our culture is that death is such a taboo and then as we don't think and talk about it much we also don't know how to deal with it. Your traditional shelf is so lovely - it reminds me of mine with plenty of postits and papers.
Not sure if your keyboard is really broken, or if you can reattach your keys. I take mine off to clean the keyboard and then clip them back on again.
I love your album- I haven't decided how to scrap mine yet- but have had some of the photos printed 4 to a 6x4 photo.
Love that all the info is to hand on your shelf. Our new computer desk has 2 littl drawers and the important information is starting to make a bid for freedom!
My workroom looked like this before we changed it and I knew where everything was. I hope it will soon be back to normal.
Your album is beautiful, and whilst it may have been a pain (and caused some damage!) in the making it certainly is a great result.
I love your tradition of the shelf - I so need one of those! Glad to see cricut head is still around, with the weather these days you never know when you might need him.
As for death, we do it all wrong here I think. It is such a taboo subject. When someone dies, at first everyone has their say, and people rush round to console you but after that it becomes unmentionable. I know nothing about the Taiwanese way of doing things (other than what you've described) but it sounds better. Death is an inescapable fact of life and it is not fair, but neither is life. To accept that it will always be there reduces the fear. To remember and to talk about those you have lost, whilst at the same time not dwelling on things that cannot be undone, is the way forward I think. Your post was inspirational - thank you.
Another one that loves your album. I think your shelf is a brilliant idea i need one of those.
For once i can give you good news.. that is no broken keyboard, you just need to fiddle with the little clasp at the bottom and reattach your keys :) something i have to do on a regular basis for the kids laptops as they pull them off "just because they can"..
very thought provoking post! i must admit, i have never had a big deal with death, its the actual dying that scares me.. being dead i think will be easy in comparison! my 3 are all used to it as we have had so many pets over the years and a fair few relatives have died in their life times. I did not want to bring them up thinking this is a taboo subject, so we talk about it very openly.. even all the different belief systems surrounding death. We freely mention loved ones who have passed and we express our feelings about them. I even dare to admit that not everybody who dies automatically earns sainthood, something that really bothers me at times. Everybody who died seems to move into this space where nothing bad is allowed to be said about them, they were all heros, wonderful, the best at everything. But it is how this society deals with the end of something.
I love your interpretation of tradition! i hadnt even thought of that angle of tradition!
Well Anne, there is much to say from this post. First of all I have been ready this evening to get back to the photo challenge. Second, the fact that you took time out to send me a personal message in the days following the funeral has meant so very much to me. Thirdly, I admire you for your honesty in mentioning it and your feelings about it. I absolutely agree.
I lost my Dad last year after a nasty sharp short cancer. I have now lost my brother to a nasty long drawn out addiction. There are many things I have learned and am learning about death and what happens to those left behind and it has it's positive points of how it is shaping my life and how I live it and how I raise my children and of course it has it's negative points of all that we have been through and how we grieve and how it is not easy, tidy or describable (yep I made up a word too!)
There are days when we make sense of it and can rationalise it and days like today when one minute I was perky and positive and the next I sobbed the whole way to work went into robot mode at work and then sobbed the whole way back and then fell asleep for half an hour and then was perky again, and I just don't know how it is going to go. What I do know and what I have learned is that it is part of the cycle and we can cope with it. Sometimes we cope well and sometimes we don't. Sometimes the way people leave us is sudden and unexpected and that is something I do not have experience of and would be so much harder.
I have found a faith that I didn't know I had. I guess that is where faith and religion come from, a deep-seated need to feel that your loved ones are somewhere safe and where they will be happy.
Anyway, your post has given me such comfort and I have you in my thoughts as well. Love Jen xxx
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