Life Lessons - Learned and Still to Learn

This is me, age 12. Just the summer before this was taken, our family had a once-in-a-lifetime summer holiday in the UK and Europe. During the first week in London, I turned to my mother and basically stated to her that I was where I was supposed to be. And, as I've said in other blogs, that feeling never left me. In fact, it got stronger over the years. I majored in British Studies in college and spent my junior (third) year studying in Bath in England. But that one year was not enough to satisfy my need to be in Great Britain. In 2000, an ill-advised engagement to an Englishman brought me, at last, the UK on a more permanent basis. The marriage, however, was not permanent. My English husband was a serial husband; I only discovered I was wife no. 3 as we prepared for our wedding. Long story short, our marriage lasted four years, at which point he married no. 4. At least the marriage lasted long enough that I was allowed to stay. Then two years later, I met Chris. We all know how w...

It is often noted that the folks who live in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, etc., try to listen politely as Americans go on and on about their ancestors who hail from any particular country. I know it must be horrendously boring and slightly grating, but I've come to understand something that perhaps needs to be more clearly understood from those living in the "old country." You see, unless those of us born and raised in the United States are genetically Native American, we aren't really from the United States - not genetically or even culturally to an extent. In a way, that means so many of us have the interest or have felt the pull of countries we may not have known prior to visits or family tree research. In short, we are seeking our identities. I knew where my family came from prior to immigrating to the American colonies or, for more recent immigrants, the United States. Throughout my life, I always felt a strong pull to Britain. They say that ...

When Chris died, he left behind more than broken hearts and empty arms. He left behind a collection of beautiful photography. About a year after his death, his children and I decided that we couldn't let his photography just sit unseen. We decided we would put it out there for the world to see. Not only that, but we would use his photography to raise money for two places that meant so much to him and still mean so much to all of us - The Charleston Trust in his native Sussex and The Highland Hospice in Inverness. A trip to Sussex nearly always included a trip to Charleston, a farmhouse which was occupied by Virginia Woolf's sister, artist Vanessa Bell and her group of artists/writers/sculptures. It was a veritable salon of its time. As for the hospice, they gifted us with more time, and we can never thank them enough for that.  It took me four years, but this past September, on the fourth anniversary of Chris' death, we launched Chris Mawson Photography . We are still being...

Once my cataract surgery had been completed, I immediately logged onto Disney+ so I could watch "Get Back." Instead of bingeing, I decided to watch it in hour-long increments. I wanted it to last longer; I wanted to savour each moment. The first thing that struck me when I started watching was how much watching The Beatles felt like watching old friends. Funny how the artists we grow up enjoying can feel so familiar. I remember, after John died, dreaming that he had been a good friend. The sense of familiar comfort was and obviously is still so strong. The Beatles were the soundtrack to my childhood. They appeared on Ed Sullivan two days after my eighth birthday. When my mother arrived at school to pick us up on Monday afternoon, she nearly squealed with delight when she handed us the flat, square paper bag that contained the 45 of "I Want to Hold Your Hand." And thus began the entire family's love affair with The Beatles.  We had had some ad...

I was raised in a home where dinner time often reflected the French salons of the Enlightenment (minus the powdered wigs and corsets). Our meals lasted for hours because of the incredibly engaging conversations that took place around the table. This was true of our immediate family and, more so, during one of the many dinner parties my parents hosted. When I was younger, I continued this tradition and hosted many dinner parties over the years. Because of that history, I find solitary meals incredibly boring and, to an extent, depressing. Cooking a full dinner, complete with all the necessary nutritional requirements, is a real chore. I love to cook, but I find cooking for myself quite boring and tedious. And I rarely do more than a main course when cooking for myself. And that makes me worry about eating properly. Despite the fact that I have a wonderful wheelchair-adapted kitchen, there are still limits to my abilities because of pain. I refuse to return to frozen prepared meals. The...

O ver October through December, the changes I wanted to make to the apartment were accomplished. I only have a swag for the window in the bedroom and having the bedroom wardrobe stained left in order to have everything complete. I'm so pleased with the outcome. There were even some changes that I hadn't anticipated, but moments of inspiration moved me to create some amazing features. One of them is captured in the image to the right here. Once I had decided the colour for the living room, I realised the white closet doors were going to detract from the ambience of the room. There was no possibility of painting them, as they are composed of some sort of plastic material. I have long adored a piece of Chris' digital photo art - one he called "Emotive Triptych." I realised the colours in this piece would work well with the room, so worked with the original image to create two panels from the left and centre of the image. I sourced a company that could create custom-s...

A s you can see from my profile photo, I have ditched the glasses. No, I didn't get contact lenses. My vision had deteriorated over the last year or so and when I visited the optician in the early Autumn, I was informed that my vision was being impacted by my cataracts. I had been made aware of the cataracts about three years ago, but at the time, they were deemed too small to remove. By this past Autumn, that was no longer the case. I was given a referral to the ophthalmologist who works with the NHS and I waited for an appointment. In the meantime, I also researched having the procedures done privately, as I was afraid the waiting list was going to be too long. I was at a point where I could no longer see the telly or my laptop. I was only able to use my phone because I could bring up to my eyes, but even then, everything I saw was "ghosted." My research showed that a private hospital in Glasgow offered the services. I had been to this hospital before, back in 2008, for...

O ne thousand ninety five days. That is how long it has been since you left me. But, then, you didn't really leave me. I feel you here beside me so often. I feel your influence in the decisions I make, the way I live my solitary life. I know you are here. As a friend said right after you died, you are right here, just out of sight, waiting for the day we can be together again. I have to believe that. There are days when that promise of an eternal reunion is the only thing that keeps me going. God, I miss you so much. I speak to you everyday. I play the music we love, look at the lovely things we acquired over the years we spent together. I speak to your children regularly, keeping up with their lives as they keep up with mine. What a blessing they are. To still have that connection with you through your beloved children. They miss you so much, too. The other day, Alice was asking about the rowan leaf necklace I wear next to the beautiful heart pendant that contains some of your ash...

It is coming up really quickly - the big redo of my apartment. A week this Monday, that is when the work begins. My incredible hydrotherapy spa tub arrives on the Tuesday. Hopefully, everything will be completed by the end of the week. And this coming week, I've arranged for a life coach/organiser to come and help me do what needs to be done still to give me more peace of mind. My living room closet needs to be sorted, a cabinet in the kitchen I can't reach needs to be cleared and then reorganised. The bathroom needs to be sorted, too, as that room will be basically taken back to studs with the installation of the tub. I still need to arrange to get to The Floor Shop to look at the various heavy duty vinyls from which I can choose my new bathroom floor. (The current one is a wet room floor that would not look out of place in public toilet. Not very attractive at all.) It's all systems go. I will post about it when it is done, complete with before and after shots! The electr...

When I was a kid, I loved September. I loved that change in the air - the cooling temperatures and the aroma of changing leaves. It meant new school clothes and shoes and saving the brown paper bags from the A&P so we could have the fun of wrapping our books and decorating the outside with crayons and markers. As Tom Hanks' character says in "You've Got Mail" - "Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address." Of course, with school-age grandchildren, I still feel that flutter of excitement with them as the new school year begins. But September has a sad association with it, too. And my heart knows it even before my conscious mind registers it. It was three years ago today that we started on the final part of Chris' journey towards the end of life. Callie and Catherine had been visiting for the long weekend and their visit cheered Ch...

  I was just reading a post from one of the pages I follow. It is a page about grief and I find so many of their posts to be really helpful. They remind me that what I feel is normal and okay. Today, one of the posts talked about triggers, about those sights or smells or sounds that take one back in time to a moment that is either incredibly happy or painfully sad. I commented that, for me, it more often a song or classical piece that triggers the tears.  I can listen to most of Chris' favourite songs or classical pieces without becoming inconsolable. I often listen to Satie's "Gymnopedié 1" - the piece his daughter Lucy played at the memorial service - and remember the evenings Chris and I would sit in the living room listening to music and just enjoying being in each other's company. I can listen to music from the Afro Celt Sound System or Moby, both whom were introduced to me by Chris, and can sometimes get through it with dry eyes. The only piece I can't l...

I'm not going to sugar-coat how I am feeling today. I am not going to "Pollyanna" this post. I'm hurting. It is the fifteenth anniversary of the day Chris and I first met. It was the day that changed my life forever; the day I began to live rather than just exist. Chris and I met on My Space, quite by accident. I had joined in order to connect with friends back in the States. This was, after all, very much a forerunner of Facebook. But every morning I would log in and find countless emails from men who claimed to be American or British professionals, but whose poorly written missives would expose them for who they really were - scammers from Nigeria. They were "cat fishing" before the term was coined. So, one day, I wrote a little rant about it. I hadn't joined My Space to find love. After all, my track record for good judgement in mates was exceedingly poor. No, I was there to reconnect with friends. But, my rant was answered by a man in Sussex called C...

Back in 2008. after my father died, my mother requested that we move back to Virginia to be near her. My now-estranged sister had also been asked but, despite her having no children and being self-employed in a job that could be done from anywhere, she declined, saying that moving from Los Angeles to Virginia would make her crazy. So, the job fell to us. I let Chris make the decision. He was excited about living in another country and so we made plans. I was fearful, and later proved right, that after a certain amount of time, one cannot, as they say, go home again, but we did it. We went through months of bureaucratic red tape and finally were given the elusive green card the day before we were due to fly out. We spent 23 months in the States before we came back to Scotland. The time we were there had its ups and downs, but there are two memories that stand out and warm my heart, especially now after Chris' death. Our first home was a town house in Fishersville. This location had ...

I've been thinking a lot about Chris' photography. He was so good and I hate to think of his images just languishing in the digital files on my computer. I am trying to think of ways to keep his work out there in the public eye. It certainly deserves to be seen. To that end, I am contemplating making his images available for download from some sort of online shop. For that, I am sure I will have to purchase some photo software to make sure the images will download with sharp enough resolution for the buyer to be able to choose how to print it. And I need to be sure I have Chris' watermark and copyright stamp on the images as well.  As I was going through his work, I came across some beauties that remind me of our road trips. This first one is a gorgeous shot he got of Loch Tay. We always enjoyed driving along the loch. Such amazingly beautiful countryside. I also found this stunning sepia shot of the Kylesku bridge. Whenever we traveled way up north, we would take the road ...

Today is the Fourth of July. For my friends and family back in the States, it means Independence Day. But for me, this day is far more special, more meaningful. Thirteen years ago today, Chris and I got married. We had been together for nearly two years, had been engaged for well over a year, had planned several weddings we then cancelled because of my father's health. (I just couldn't imagine getting married knowing he was so unwell.) I imagine we could have gone on forever without actually getting married, but Chris' health problems (at this point some cardiac issues were showing up) and the fact that my mother wanted us to come to States after Dad died in March 2008, the decision to finally get married made sense.  It was a beautiful day in Moffat, Scotland. Our appointment at the registry office was set for early afternoon. We assembled there with our two witnesses and did the deed. Funny, my first marriage had been the whole wedding thing - the dress, the flowers, the ...