FUERZA VALPARAISO

And so disaster strikes again in Chile, but the human spirit never ceases to amaze me.  The fire that broke out in Valparaiso on Saturday has affected some of the poorest people in society, who built their houses where they could in the hills of Valparaiso, often in the places at the mercy of mother nature, and with the cheapest of materials.  But this was their home, and so many have lost everything, only being left with the clothes on their back.  And what is their response?  You can recover the material, but life you cannot.

The strength and resolve of the Chilean is something so inspiring, to get up every single time you are knocked down.  I have seen it time and time again with other fires, earthquakes, floods.  Through tear stained eyes, they vow to fight on.  Tomorrow is another day. 

People have come to assist straight away, to bring clothes and food, and to also help the animals who have lost their homes.  My sister in law and her family are an example of this, they come from one of the poorest sectors in Santiago, but set off on Sunday with items for the victims.  They have so little, but have no second thought in helping those even less unfortunate than themselves.

And so we can learn many things from this terrible tragedy that hurts my heart so much.    We should be so grateful for what we have, whether little or much; our houses, our clothes, our food, our lives, our family.  Life is so unpredictable, you never know what is going to happen.  So live for the moment like it´s your last.  Do what you want to do, but always with a kind heart.  Aspire to be like those Chileans who are helping their neighbours.  Adapting my favourite quote of all time: “My fellow people, ask not what others can do for you, ask what you can do for others.”

¡¡¡FUERZA VALPARAÍSO, FUERZA CHILE!!!

Where are they?

With a tear stained face and heavy heart,
I remember through the memory of those present,
So that they live on and not be forgotten.

Through photos, videos and stories imprinted in their hearts and minds,
Layers of memory unfolding like the feathers of a peacock,
waiting to be spread open and freed into the light.

Yet some memory shields itself, too painful to be exposed,
The excrutiating torment and open wounds,

They will never heal.

They will never heal.

The not knowing of where thier loved ones are,
In this breathtakingly beautiful but bone ridden country.
The contrasts of the sun setting over the Andes to the deathly cold desert at night,
The moon illuminating the horrors of what is still unknown.

Where are they?

Where are they?

Siento

Ya se fue la paloma dos veces, me ha dejado un vacío grande en el alma.

Aun siento el aleteo de sus alas delicadas en mi corazón y su luz blanca que intenta iluminar mi cuerpo.

Ay! que difícil es ser mujer, un recuerdo todos los meses de lo que he perdido.

Las preguntas sin respuestas y la búsqueda eterna, para intentar remediar lo que siento he fallado.

La ausencia de mi propósito, de todo lo que quiero, mi espíritu en pedazos porque no veo mi vida en colores sino como retrato en sepia. Y viene la lluvia, y me ahoga en la tristeza.

The beautiful dogs of Chile

I don´t think you could ever say you are alone in Chile.  There are so many stray dogs who are just waiting for some love and affection, and much needed food.  In San Pablo there is a homeless man, complete with three dogs who lay right by his side, through the cold and rain, and blistering sun.  In Chile, dogs are everywhere, in the midst of student protests, running through the tear gas and being soaked by the guanacos.  Barking at the passing cars, fixated by the moving wheels.  They rule the streets and can be found in the parks and squares, a mixture of mongrols with Labrador heads and Whippet bodies highlights the problem of the increasing homeless dog population.

I am normally a cat person, but now having six canine companions I have to say it is true what they say, dogs are so loyal, and know just the right time to comfort you in times of sadness, be your guardian and never ever judge you.  Through times of grief I have had a much needed snuggle with Segundo and Clara and they instinctively knew I was upset and needed some healing.

Recently on holiday in the north of Chile, the beach was full of stray dogs.  One in particular came back to our beach hut looking for food, and from the moment we shared our lunch he never left our side.  He accompanied us to the beach and back, protecting us at night and waiting for us in the mornings.  He was never agressive, always waiting patiently for food and attention. He stayed with us right to the end of our visit, and knew when we were to return to Santiago, saying his goodbyes at the gate with some cries.  It was heartbreaking to leave him.

 It really pains me to think of so many dogs who are uncared for and rely on locals and strangers for food and attention.  I would just like to ask you to take a second to be conscious about the situation of animals, and maybe you can spread some love and affection their way, a friendly pat or food and water and I will guarantee that in return you will have a companion for life.

Para Mauricio

A Mauricio Escobar Fernández, esposo, amor de mi vida, mi media naranja, contigo estoy completo, mi vida tiene sentido.  Te esperé tantos años, ahí estuviste en mis sueños, lejos, pero sabía que ibas a llegar.  Antes de ti sentía  una soledad tan profunda, mis días de color gris, mi alma empapada con la lluvia.

Cuando llegaste me trajiste el sol, llenaste mi día con colores bonitos.  Por la primera vez sentí amada, y sabía lo que era el amor, y todavía lo siento, aún mas fuerte con cada amanecer.  Quiero darte la gracia, porque he tenido tiempos oscuros, una tormenta en mi corazón, pero tomaste mi mano, y de nuevo me trajiste el sol, y nació el arco iris, y estoy saliendo de mi pesadilla, pero de a poco, con tu amor, es tu amor que me da la vida, nunca dejes de amarme, es lo que necesito, lo único que quiero, tu amor....

TE AMO xxx 

To Mauricio Escobar Fernández, husband, love of my life, my soulmate, with you I am complete, my life has meaning.  I waited for you so many years, there you were in my dreams, far away, but I knew you would arrive.  Before you I felt a deep loneliness, my days were grey, my soul sodden with the rain.

When you arrived you brought me the sun, you filled my day with beautiful colours.  For the first time I felt loved, and I knew what love was, and I still feel it, even stronger with every sunrise.  I want to thank you, because I have had some dark times, a storm in my heart, but you took my hand, and you brought me the sun again, and a rainbow appeared, and the nightmare is ending, but little by little, with your love, it is your love that keeps me alive, never stop loving me, it´s what I need, the only thing I want, your love....

I LOVE YOU xxx

Signs and affirmations

I haven´t had the best of times of late, so on Tuesday I went to the church of San Francisco to pray.  The Virgin Mary caught my attention and pulled me near, so I sat down in front of her to release all my thoughts and fears.  

Recently before I had seen on the clocks 3.33 and 5.55 on various occasions, I hadn´t yet made the correlations.

Yesterday, while I was sitting at my desk in the library, I noticed a ladybird on my shoulder.  Which I found to be quite strange, wondering how it got inside and was quite unusual for this time of year in winter.  So I decided to look at the internet for the meanings.

Well, the ladybird is the beetle of the Virgin Mary, and the angel number 333 means that the Ascended Masters are near you. The Virgin Mary is one of the Ascended Masters.  You may not believe in such coincidences, but it really has been a comfort for me, and since I was not actively looking for signs I believe in this even more.  The number 555 talks about a major life change.  I am not quite sure what that is yet.

If your mind is open, you may notice signs.  These can be number sequences on clocks or car registrations, butterflies, white feathers and rainbows as some examples.  During difficult times we are not alone.  There are angels all around us to let us know that everything is going to be fine.  Even if we are on the dark side of the storm, the rainbow will always shine through in the end.

Love and light to you all.

Thinking of Frank

There´s not really a day that goes by without me thinking about you.  It seems weird to not send you a card this year.  It took a long while to allow myself to get to know the real you and I am glad I did.  I still sometimes hear you in my head, or think of you when the lights flicker.  I remember all your sayings, your habits, your mischievous behaviour.  I say this with tears down my face and with a heavy heart because it still hurts that you are gone.  It is true the saying that you don´t know how much you love someone until they are gone.  I regret not saying it enough.  Happy Father´s day Frank.  Thank you for being part of my life.  I love you.  So many people loved you and always will.

Thoughts in my head

I am at a place with so many contrasts. Somewhere so breathtakingly beautiful but at the same time so cruel and unfair.  Where you feel overwhelmed and in awe of the energy of the snow capped mountains and elevated by the magical kiss of the hummingbird.  Yet in a heartbeat you can be suffocated by the smog of injustice.  The cold wind bites your cheeks and envelops your soul.  Time can stand still but simultaneously fly by with the blink of an eye.  Your mind struggles to make sense of what it already knows.  This is my reality.  Confused by the indifference to such difference.  I wait for the bloom of the Atacama Desert.  Patiently.  And I wait.  But nothing.  Oh how I desire for that arid space to be full of life and delicate flowers.  With vivid colour and strong perfumed scent.  May the hummingbirds soon delight in its glory.   It just has to be.  It just has to be.  

Children

There is something just so wonderfully beautiful about children, their innocence, their naievity.  When I was eleven my older sister had her first child.  Georgia Naomi.  She was, and still is, one of the lights of my life.  I remember pushing her into the hedge in her silvercross pram with bouts of laughter.  That is one of her first memories funnily enough.  But I loved her, even if I were mischievous.  She used to sleep over our house, in my bed and she was my first ´daughter´.  

Then came two nieces and nephews from my other sister, Chloe, Maddison, Sam Ben and Sonny.  I used to love getting them to sleep.  Holding them in my arms.  Sometimes dealing with the sickness bugs that went round and round.  Cleaning tremendously full nappies.  I was amazed that so much could come out of a small bottom!!  I was more mature and less mischievous, although I remember doubling over with laughter after cutting Sam´s hair with the clippers and forgetting the guard.  He had a nice bald patch on the side of his head.  My sister Laura was sort of laughing but trying to contain her horror at the same time.   

My twin Charlotte had her two.  Sebastiaan and Theo.  Sebastiaan was born in Germany.  I never forget the time I had to leave him the first time to return to England.  It literally and physically hurt my heart.  I guess that was coming closest to feeling what it is to truly love a child like a mother does.  I had been with him for the first couple of months of his life and was very very attached.  Then Theo was born on the kitchen floor, in Charlotte´s home in Bristol.  It reminded me of the story Like Water for Chocolate where the protagonist was also born on the floor and they swept up the salt that had evaporated from the maternal waters.  After being very present in their lives, I had to leave my boys to start my life in Chile and it hurt tremendously once again.

What I guess I am trying to say is I have always been maternal.  It has taken me a long time to find the man I really want to make that journey with.  It took me a while to convince him into the path of parenthood.  Unfortunately I had a miscarriage in January.  It has been so hard trying to get my head around it.  Imagine something you want most of all in life, someone offers it to you, you have it and are so happy, then as quickly as it comes, it is taken away from you again.  I was devastated.  You spend so much time questioning youself, feeling a failure.  Pregnant women seem to be everywhere, people due at similar times to what you would have given birth.  It hurts.  But I would never begrudge that most precious thing of anyone. Unfortunately miscarriage is not spoken much of, but it is more common than you think.  I confided in a friend who had gone through the same.  I also have two friends with fertility issues, and they are the most beautiful and deserving people you could think of.  The fertility lottery seems so unfair.

Before my loss I had been having dreams of a child for some time.  I didn´t recognise the face, but the child was just ´there.´  A baby bird died in our dining room, scared of fright being cornered by the cat.  I guess the signs were there that it just wasn´t meant to be.  I had a dream the other day of my own baby.  I know it was mine because it was in my arms and I was trying to breastfeed it.  It gives me hope for the future.  I yearn to have that closeness.  The warm embrace of a child.   I have so so much love to give.  For now though I am engaged in a different project while my heart, body and soul heals.  My work life has suddenly taken off in the area that I want it to.  But I know motherhood is in my destiny, somewhere in the future on that twisting path of fate.  

For my love

It was so wonderful to be in your arms, listening to the rain tapping the tin roofs as you stroked my face.  I felt happy again, a happiness that has been absent for some time.

The boats bobbed up and down with the tide, in the light of the moon.  The water washing under the houses on stilts that I dreamed of many years ago.  Our destiny.

  

How divine to share the week with you, the moment seemed like forever as time stood still, and it was just me and you.

Our love flowed freely again, and nature approved with heart shaped puddles and hummingbirds celebrating our kiss.  

Life is the wheel of fortune, what goes down must come up.  Life on earth is short, the physical may cease but the soul lives on.

And so our souls continue to dance with the stars, our love so strong that our spirit becomes one.  She is born of the sea, rises with the wind and rains back down into the earth.

She, like our love, is eternal.

The birds by Kate Morton de Escobar

 Squawking gulls o´er the sea shore,

Pigeons walking clumsily on the floor,

Graceful swans in unison glide,

Pelicans bobbing along with the tide.

Dove symbol of peace for which we pray,

Robin with memories of Christmas day,

Cuckoo finding refuge in the trees,

Swallows building nests in the eaves.

Birds migrating and gone to soon,

Owl twit twooing by the light of the moon,

Rooster crowing marking a bright new day,

Oh how I love my birds in every way.

But the hummingbird is the favoured one,

She brings me hope of better days to come,

She brings me messages from those I miss,

With her delicate warm embrace and kiss.

Lucho, another abandoned dog, another member of the family

Chile has a problem of epidemic proportions when it comes to abandoned dogs.  Driving down into Laguna Verde, or in fact any Chilean town, the amount of unwanted dogs left to fend for themselves is shameful and shows an urgency for educating the masses and highlighting the widespread scale of the problem.  Would it be o.k. to abandon your children because of thier colour, because they were no longer small or cute, because they became to expensive or too much of a burden?  A child is for life, not just for Christmas, and so is a dog!

The reasons for abandonment here in Chile mirror how discrimination works in wider society.  Black dogs are rarely wanted, the more European and blonder the better, your face must fit, and if preferable, you must fit into a Gucci handbag.  How heartbreaking to see dogs running into the roads, with little food, and even worse, mistreated and kicked by uneducated yobs only because of an inquisitive sniff.  

Luckily there are many groups who are trying to make a change here.  There are many people who love animals and try to find those abandoned ones homes.  They leave food and water in the streets and knit them clothing for the cold.  Which brings me to the story of Lucho.

Lucho is a mongrel who has recently won our hearts.  A month or two ago, our poodle cross Pelusa went missing.  Naughty little girl had escaped and was looking for mischief.  We were delighted as she appeared two days later, but she arrived with a flea bag in tow.  For several days, Lucho stayed outside of the gate, waiting for Pelusa, to shower her with howls of love.  Finally we caved and let him in, hoping the dynamic with our other five dogs would work.  We gave him the name ´Lucho´ because he fought so hard for Pelusita´s love and didn´t give up.  

Lucho is rather a strange creature, with almost human eyes and a human sounding gruffy voice.  He is ridden with fleas, but who could not love him?  Due to the amount of abandoned dogs in Chile, there are some strange mixes of dogs, whippets with labrador heads and sausage dogs with chihuahua ears.  He surely was abandoned because he has a big head and probably was too large for his owners who wanted a purse size pup.  But we have grown to love him just as he is, even if he does cause tremendous mischief with Pelusa, he is now part of our family.  And our story is one of many which gives me hope that things are starting to change, that it takes just but one person, and one dog to make a difference.  Love and kidness is everything.

Today

Today brought some closure in one of the saddest chapters in my life.  I have lived some of my darkest moments recently.  The one thing I wanted most of all in this life was taken away from me and left me heartbroken.  Margarita said that when you are sad, look into the trees and see their beauty, but I found it so hard, all I could see was darkness through my tear stained soul.  Now I will go to my favourite place to recover, to be at peace with my animals, so that the hummingbirds envelop me with their love and light so that my heart finds happiness again.

Anon for a friend

Life sometimes appears to pass us by so quickly, a whirlwind scoops us up and spits us out.  We are confused and dazed as to how time has slipped through our hands.  A feeling of emptiness engulfs us as the colours of the seasons flash before us and the cruel winter envelops us, permeating our bodies, freezing our souls and hearts.  The cold lingers, it gets into our bones and negative emotions amplify tenfold.  But hold on! Spring is around the corner.  She will warm our bodies and defrost our souls and hearts.  She will fight the cold and be victorious.  

We must learn to grab hold of time, to slow it down by appreciating life, in spite of how cruel as she can be sometimes.  We have a lot to be thankful for, we just need to search our hearts.  We must learn to embrace the good and the bad.  For when the bad can not get any worse, the good is lingering on the horizon, like a rainbow waiting to burst its colours all over our being.

So dry your eyes.  Let go of your fears.  Let all of the negativity leave your body, pour her back into the ground and let the earth´s crust swallow her whole.  Breathe in hope and love.  Shine like a beacon.  You have the power over your own destiny.  You will be victorious!  Hope.  We must have hope.  She is personified in the people that love us.  There are people that love you.  Remember, always, that there are people that love you.  

Margarita

Having worked at the soup kitchen for various weeks now, I have come to have a great amount of affection for one of the ladies there.  She has the same name as my grandmother (I am a great believer in coincidences).  She is 79 years old and has been working at the kitchen for several years making the lunches.

We have a great time talking together while we prepare the food.  I do as I am told as I have learned two things here in Chile.  One is to never talk politics, and two is to never try and take over a woman´s kitchen.  So I do as I am told while she spills the milk and hot water goes everywhere, and I slip in seasoning to the stock to make it more tasty while she isn´t looking.

She is a typical Chilean woman of her generation.  Bleach is king and she keeps everything tidy as she goes along, I on the other hand am used to working amongst pots pans and barely any space on the sideboard.  Margarita has taught me many things, but three of them stick out as a must have piece of advice for clean living.  You must always keep your bedroom tidy, as you sleep there and must breathe in fresh air.  You must always keep the kitchen tidy as you prepare food there that will go into your stomach.  You must always keep your bathroom clean, and always have soap, and you must rinse the soap afterwards to keep it clean in the soap dish.  Ah I feel like I am a youth again, learning things that I somehow should have learned before.

Margarita has told me the story of her life, and it makes me nostalgic.  It takes me back to sitting in my grandmother Margaret´s house as she repeated stories of her sad, but sometimes fun childhood.  Margarita is like many of the older people that come to the soup kitchen for lunch.  They often have no family and rent rooms as that is all they can afford.  They have had a tough life, especially having lived under the shadow of dictatorship during the 70s and 80s.  Margarita came from a more wealthy background, but due to cancer, she had to sell her house for treatment and was left with nothing.  Although she told me she prayed to God for her health, and she overcame the cancer and is now a spritely, joyous lady about to turn 80, in spite of having nothing material wise and no family left in Chile.

Stories like hers hurt my heart.  She is one of many with the same story here.  I have to admit the first time I came back from the kitchen I wept into Mauricio´s shoulder at the thought of these old people being left alone.  Life really seems so unfair at times and it really broke my heart.  It also made me very grateful for everything I have.  A roof over my head, a partner that loves me and looks after me, a family that loves me that I left behind in England.  It also reinforces and strengthens my feeling every day that money just does not have the value that people have seem to put on it.  It is just not on my list of priorities at all.  O.K. I am blessed that I have a place to live and food to eat, but I don´t have luxuries, and I have never wanted or needed them.  

These old people, although they have little, come to the kitchen happy and leave happy.  I take time to hug each one of them, to ask how they are, to give them a bit of affection.  To put all my love in trying to make them a tasty meal.  With every week that I go there, it eases my sorrow about their situation, by knowing that I am trying to give the best of me to them.  As for Margarita I am learning new things with her every day.  Destiny has guided me into her path.  She is just like the grandmother I love and miss in England and I embrace every moment with her.

It´s that time of year again!

I can´t believe that we are approaching December fast.  That means Christmas is just around the corner.  I am glad I am in Chile for this time of year.  Although it is strange, not having snow on the ground, or at least cold weather, I can escape the commercialisation which has ruined the true meaning of Christmas.

The birth of Christ is obviously where it all began, and the 25th December is an important date for Christians worldwide, but I think over the years we have lost the sense of the family get together and the importance of family and that is also a great shame for me.

Too many people worry about what to buy, worrying about getting in debt to be able to give what they think other people ´need.´  All this for one day which crashes down into such an anti-climax after the fact.  What happened to the times when families came together to spend time with one another, and to enjoy the moment in each other´s company?

This year I will be receiving my mum for Christmas.  She has had a desperately sad and difficult time with the loss of her partner, Frank, and so I want to make it the most special time for her.  We won´t be thinking so much about gifts, but more about quality of time together and I will be taking her to places in this beautiful country I am living in.  I will be sharing with her our little love nest in Laguna Verde, with all our blessed trees, flowers, animals and magical hummingbirds.  

We have our wedding celebration to look forward to where we will be surrounded by Mauricio´s family, whom I consider to be as much as my family too, and I will embrace tightly this precious moment of sharing a day together with this inspirational, selfless and loving person that is my mother.  So while children rip open their presents and squeal with delight or scream in horror because they have or have not been given the latest gadget, I will be hugging my Mum, and will be giving and receiving the best and most priceless present of all. LOVE. 

This beautiful, blessed place of mine...

Yesterday, one of the hens gave birth to seven chicks.  It was yet another blessing for our beautiful place in Laguna Verde.  It got me thinking that our home is so full of life.  I remembered fondly the birth of Blanquita the goat, and her pure white fur, a sign for me that everything was moving in the right direction as we celebrated the roof of our house being completed.   I remembered the birth of the goslings and how they waddled in unison, their mothers hissing loudly as they protected them.  I remembered bringing our dogs, Segundo and Clara as pups in boxes to this house.  They have grown up so much since and have turned into very loyal and loving dogs.  

As I remembered the past, I cherished the present.  I listened to the sound of the rain as it hit the tin roof.  I listened to the frogs as they croaked by the side of the pool.  I looked at our garden in bloom.  The olive, walnut, avocado, artichoke, plum and quince trees in blossom.  I looked upon the flowers in the garden, and the bees buzzing as they pollunated each one.  The cycle of life was so present and unfolding before my eyes.  This is my paradise.  I feel so lucky to experience the divine beauty of this world, the rolling hills beyond the house, the snow capped Andes glistening in the distance, and the sea as she crashes against the cliffs. 

While the signs of this life are evident in our parcela in Laguna Verde, other realms are not so far away.  The hummingbirds bring us news of our dearly departed and enable us to keep our loved ones close to our heart.    It is here that I feel such an overwhelming sense of love, peace and belonging.  It is here where I hope that ones not yet born will share all of this wealth and abundance of exquisite nature which money can not buy, in this beatiful, blessed place of mine.

Where is home?

I returned ´home´ for a few weeks to help Mum out after the loss of our beloved Frank, and her hystorectomy operation.  First going to Bristol to stay with my twin Charlotte I made the most of catching up on snuggles with my nephews.  Boy had I missed them.  I thought I was going to shove my face with Cadbury´s chocolate and Walker´s crisps, but after seeing the diminished and pathetic size of a Twirl which I shoved in one go and the peppery taste of Prawn Cocktail crisps, I gave up on British food.  Well I suppose you can not call Cadbury´s British anymore after it has been bastardised by Kraft.  (No offense intended to our friends accross the pond, jut sick of corporate greed and the disappearance of a British tradition).

 But I had a strange sense of not belonging when I was back in Britain.  I had been only gone for a year but it just didn´t seem like home.  It was great to catch up with friends who made special efforts to see me, but my England just wasn´t mine anymore.  We went back to Northamptonshire, which Mum was dreading.  The grass was long and needed cutting.  There were so many letters to sort out.  Bills to transfer.  Frank´s clothes needed folding away in the wardrobe.  That was probably the hardest thing I had to do when I was there.  Mum has to slowly learn to live on her own again and we had many days of tears and sorrow.

My niece Georgia had her wedding.  I cried through almost every hymn.  Probably because I could not make it to Frank´s funeral, and it was like my personal send off for him, but also because I sensed such an overwhelming feeling of love and peace at that time as two hundred people sang the most beautiful songs.  I think it closed a chapter for me.  While I have cried since, I am more at peace in my heart with the loss of Frank.

I missed my Mauricio so much when I was in England.  This trip made me realize even more than before how much I love him.  As one chapter closed, we would be opening another, with our wedding in December and trying to start our own family.  As the plane crossed the Andes, it felt like I was truly coming home.  To the place where I felt so out of place and lost a year ago.  My emotional compass finally restored.  My heart settled in my Chile.

Going to the chapel (Laguna Verde) and we're gonna...

I'm not really a girly girl, I have never dreamt about a big white wedding, probably because I never thought I would meet anyone I would want to share the rest of my life with.  I thought I would be a singleton forever.  Mauricio Escobar Fernández changed my life forever.  I never looked at him as boyfriend material in the beginning.  I was not attracted to him at all.  We were just friends.  But like most Chilean men, he liked the chase and spent almost a year wooing me with poetry and beautiful stories.  God that sounds so cheesy and the sort of scenario I would have stuck two fingers down my throat hearing about before.

It did take a good year for me to come round to Mauricio.  He was not my type physically at all, but his inner beauty permeated his outer shell and I slowly began to fall in love.  I am now deeply in love with my love and I can't imagine a single day without him.  He is the complete opposite of me.  I am very relaxed and walk around with my head in the clouds, he is serious and very focused.  Maybe that is why we fuse so well together.  Although he thinks he is macho and likes to portray that to other people, he has a very soft centre and is extremely loving and affectionate.  

We have talked about marriage for some time, but we do not have the funds to have a big party or go on an expensive honeymoon.  Mauricio has never seen the logic in spending so much money on one day when we have so many other things to save up for.  Then it occured to me.  Why not use our beautiful place in Laguna Verde to have a ceremony?  Our closest family on Mauricio's side and my Mum will be there and we will make the place look beautiful.  I am thinking flowers and bunting and our dogs will wear ties and bows.  Seriously!  O.K. it is not the big white wedding which most girls dream of, however it will be in our special place by the house that we conceived together with all our love.  I hope the hummingbirds grace us with their presence.  Now that would be perfection.

♥22nd December 2012...12.30pm...Hummingbird House, Laguna Verde...two hearts will become one♥

Life and Death

These past few months have made me think a lot about life and death.  For me these two words are the ultimate dichotomy.  I am trying to embrace one, but I fear the other.  My cultural make up has shielded me from considering it.  Why are we not more open about death?  Why is it such a taboo subject? In the past I have tried to avoid thinking about it, but these recent months have planted its presence in my mind.  

Before, death was black and dark and cold.  My heart skipped beats pondering it.  Facing the reality of it through the death of a loved one has calmed my fears.  Now it is white and light and warm.  In the moment flickering from life to death you can hear the hum of the hummingbird and the changing colours of its breast.  You can hold onto its wing as it takes you from this life to the next.

Life really is precious.  Death makes you realize that.  I look at my life and feel very grateful for what I have and the family that I have been blessed with.  We are here for such a short space of time on earth so I believe you should make the most of it.  Spend more time trying to make yourself and other people happy.  Try and avoid criticising or emotionally hurting people.  Love others.  Always love others.  Hold onto your beliefs.  Through death we may be physically separated from our loved ones, but spiritully never.  Open your ears and mind to the hummingbirds!