Thursday 6 February 2014

Gentle





Gentle


Accepting my chairs invitation to take a seat

I sink into his ancient leathery folds,

Sighing.

Crinkled, wrinkled and wise

He embraces me effortlessly

 Taking all the weight from

My aching feet

copyright 2014   Gillian Holland





Musings

The way I figure it, there are two ways to use your chair;'to live as part of life', and fully enjoy the feast that is set out before you, or to 'live apart from life', in other words just snooze your way through life. I know which I prefer, but I also know which is the easier option.

Sometimes we really do need to snooze because we are quite simply tired, but sometimes sleep is a defence mechanism. When something mega happens in life, I just want to dive under the duvet pretending it's not happening. But that doesn't really help.  We need to look at what's going on.  We need to deal with it.  Apart from that, most of us switch off from all the honking cars, traffic jams and general sabre rattling consuming our lives and assaulting our senses.  But that means we close our eyes to some of life's magic; the first snowdrop edging its way up through winter's soggy soil, the luscious flavour of dripping butter ladled onto crisply toasted toast first thing in the morning, or the curve of a hill stretching in the early morning sunshine. Most of us are far from awake when we scuttle down the stairs, stuffing something or other into our mouths, often without even taking a seat, before bumbling out of the door. Is that what life's really about? Are we really just supposed to scratch the surface? Are we really supposed to 'live apart from life!'

Don't know about you, but artwork, just isn't one of my talents. I trained as a junior school teacher at a time when art was a really important medium through which the children could express themselves. Great fun, messy but still great fun.  My art lecturer didn't rate my work one little iota.  At school we had to drop art in the third year of senior school.  Can you believe that?  All in all I was struggling. It would have helped me a lot if someone had just said 'paint what you see. Interpret what you see.'  And that what I painted didn't have to be an exact replica of the next person.  I see the way I see, and that is what makes me unique and surely should be encouraged?

I can use my chair in two distinct ways! To take a long snooze, missing out on life's magic, or to observe and celebrate the feast that is life.  I have a way of celebrating life that is uniquely my own.  I have a vision uniquely my own, and a voice also uniquely my own. I have a taste and passion for life that's uniquely my own, and they all need to be expressed.















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