Anne Lamott, writing from the last Saturday of her 50s.

This is the last Saturday of my fifties. The needle isn't moving to the left or to the right. I don't feel or look 60. I don't feel any age. I have a near-perfect life. However, I grew up on tennis courts and beaches in California during the sixties, where we put baby oil on our skin to deepen the tan, and we got hundreds of sunburns. So maybe that was not ideal. I drank a lot and took a lot of drugs and smoked two packs of Camels (unfiltered) a day until I was 32. I had a baby and then forgot to work out, so things did not get firmer, and higher. So again, not ideal.


My heart is not any age. It is a baby, an elder, a dog, a cat, divine.
My feet, however, frequently hurt.
My skin broke out last week. I filed a new brief with the Fairness Commission, and am waiting to hear back.
My great blessing is the capacity for radical silliness, and self-care.


I'm pretty spaced out.  . I don't love how often I bend in to pull out clean wet clothes from the washer, and stand up, having forgotten that I opened the dryer that's above, and smash my head on the door once again. I don't know what the solution to this is, as I refuse to start wearing a helmet indoors. I don't love that I left my engine running for an hour last week, because I came inside to get something, and then got distracted by the dogs, and didn't remember I'd left the engine on. It was a tiny bit scary when a neighbor came to the front door to mention this, and I had to feign nonchalance, and act like it was exactly what I had meant to do all along.

Anne Lamott, an extract from her Facebook post.

'Art Has A Function Beyond Beauty' ... Shannon Galpin

I loved this!!

"The fruit of years of collaborative work between Afghan and Western photographers and photojournalists, Streets of Afghanistan chronicles one of the most captivating efforts to connect communities and cultures through our common humanity and the power of art."

You can read the rest of this over on the Youtube page.

Shannon Galpin, the woman who said on the video that 'art has a function beyond beauty', has her own website - Mountain2Mountain.  She is so very inspiring!

Crossroads - a documentary

I believe, very strongly, in informing myself.  I can't just read one newspaper or follow one news source via the various forms of media.  I don't believe in standing in one place, claiming I'm left or right-wing, or a particular religion.  I can't state that 'these are my beliefs and everything else is wrong'. 

I believe, very strongly, in Nature and the fact that we need to take care of it to survive.  But I see too, that there are fundamentalists and extremists everywhere.  There are fundamentalists in every political religious group, extremists any place you can imagine and I would be naieve if I thought otherwise.

I was intrigued by this documentary.  I haven't yet researched it properly but watching it here, I was thinking it's something to share ... leaving everyone who cares to watch it to make up their own minds. 

 

60 Andrássy Avenue, Budapest

60 Andrássy Avenue in Budapest, now knows as The House of Terror Museum, opened on 24th February, 2002 and is unique in its genre.  It is a monument to the memory of those of who were held captive, tortured and killed there.  The intention is to make people understand that the huge sacrifices made for freedom were not in vain. They hope point out that although they fought two of the cruellest systems of the 20th century, freedom and independence managed to emerge victorious.

A stark contrast to the colours and stories I usually post here but I thought it an important story.  I couldn't visit the museum.  It's not something I would explore willingly.  These photographs, hanging on the wall outside ... they haunted me.