On Contemplating Another Year

As the end of 2009 rolls around, I am curled up on the couch next to my Christmas tree. It is glistening red and gold and green and I think back on the year that just passed with a glass of red and my laptop balanced on my knees. My cats curl up at my feet, ginger Morghann, the little Morghanna le Fay with her mischievous golden eyes and the queenly Krystal with her imperious stare.

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The day is hot, a drop of sweat trickles down the nape of my neck, down between my shoulder blades. You can taste the heat in the air, but it's okay. The airconditioner will kick in soon and the night, at least inside, will be cooller.

I'm filled with emotions, a delightful, delectable smorgasboard of feelings from the bitter taste of hurt to the spicy tang of anger to the warm, sweetness of love that sits like a lemon drop on the tip of my tongue.

It's been a hard year. A good year. A long year. It's been a year of firsts, a year of breaking boundaries, of discovery. It's been a year of learning humility, rediscovering old passions.

Above all, it has been a year of Change.

Somewhere between admission to the Supreme Court and building my first house, I lost a friend that was like a sister to me - but I discovered other friends who were strong and true.

I travelled to Europe and saw it with different eyes this time around because I was on my own. Strolling through London in the faint blush of summer with the City a seductive, pulsing maze drawing me in.

Beautiful Ireland draped in a misty vale, tantalising and mysterious. Trekking from the dark walls of Belfast to the vibrant Dublin.

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Then sailing Greece with its ocean bubbling on the wind and landing on my tongue in droplets that sizzled and popped, swimming in the middle of the Aegean Sea on a day that was so still you couldn't tell where the water ended and the sky began.

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I fell in love for the first time too. Me, the self-confessed Ice Empress, the attachment-avoidant, committmentphobe. Me! The seductress, the temptress, the guiless vixen, the Lillith and the Eve who laughed with twinkling eyes and a crooked smile and said to herself, "you can touch my body but you can never touch me" found herself on the other side of the equation. Found that losing the game was bitter indeed.

Outmanouvered, check-mate.

Hearts can break into a million pieces. They may take a long time to heal, the scars remain. A lesson well learned.

I was a Maid of Honour for the first time at my cousin's wedding. I became a godmother and discovered a deeper love than I thought I was capable of, a love greater than myself. Unselfish, undemanding.

I began to write again.

I found my voice.

I found myself.

Transient Beauty

This week has been one hell of a week - good, but busy. I finally finished my article last night and sent it off to my editor. Now I'm waiting on the red-penned mark up to return so I can start re-drafting.

My short film, something I worked on a year ago, has been picked up and is in pre-production right now! I'm working slowly but surely on the next short, unable to devote enough time to a feature because I'm working on a full length manuscript instead.

Between that I've been caught up in the pre-Christmas functions pretty much every day this week and for the next three weeks until Christmas.

It's been a whirlwind.

But it's important to step out of the hustle and bustle of everyday life and take the time to appreciate the simpler things. I've uploaded two pics I took whilst travelling through Europe last year.

This one I took in Ireland at the Cliff of Moher. Looking at it, I can feel the soft sea mist on my face, the constant drizzle of water heavy in the Irish air.

It reminds me that there is a greater power in our world, something majectic, something amazing that will stand long after we fade. Something that has witnessed many eons and will continue to stand unchanged when our bones have turned to dust. No matter our small triumphs, when I stood on those cliffs, I remembered that there was a power in the world greater than ourselves. You just have to stop and look for it.
















This sepia-toned picture was taken in Temple Gardens in London. When I look at it, it reminds me that, for all that we are transient beings, we too can leave a legacy.

Our actions, however small or however big, impact the world around us, so even if we fade and our bones turn to dust and we no longer breath this air, we can leave our footprint on the sands of time.

Let us all make sure that the mark we leave is a good one.

One that people will enjoy in years to come.