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!