All good things...

Dad is healthy and enjoying more and more time away from his work and is a regular attendee at his golf club now. He smiles a lot more and is visibly more relaxed.
The Angels are doing well at school and they both know they have myself or Uncle Teru, who I must admit is a wonderful teacher, to help them if they find difficulties. They still love their dance classes and they share an interest not only in Hiro's restaurant where they often help out with small tasks and learn when they can but also they love Hitomi's studios and while they are still a little young for that they still enjoy precious moments there and I think it will be a later life interest for them.
Hitomi's studio is doing very well with lots of work for her and Nia is a brilliant assistant and now I'm back to hairdressing three days a week so I do manage to spend some time at the studio helping with hair and makeup, making refreshments and even doing the cleaning.
My Brothers are all very well and we do contact each other more than we did a few years ago which pleases me. T.W is back in the city after working away for a considerable time in Kyoto.
We don't manage every week but perhaps twice a month on average Hitomi and I are back in the Mars on Saturday nights, letting our hair down and having fun.

It really has been difficult to maintain this blog since the Angels came home to us.
Last year I managed sixty seven posts which is a low count by previous years and this one that I write now brings this year's total to an extremely poor showing of sixteen.
I just find it impossible to blog anymore and so sadly this will be my last post I am sorry to say.
I think we all know that all good things must eventually come to an end.
I will save Internet space and delete the whole thing at the end of October.

It has been an experience to look back and consider moments of my life and my thoughts written out as if my heart were on my sleeve. There have been wonderful moments and some very painful ones as I believe occur in most people's lives.
Thank you all very much for reading me and sharing a little time with me across the internet. It has been most enjoyable sharing this journey with you all but this is now my stop and I bid you all farewell as you all travel on. I wish each and every one of you a wonderful life.
I am just sorry I cannot maintain these pages as a full time Mother and homemaker.


Thank you everyone and fare you all well.

Love Jazz & family

August came and went!

"Where is Momo?" asks Nia who thought I was helping out at the studios.
"She is asleep in the corner chair, please don't wake her!" replies Hitomi with a smile.
If there could have been a month where I could have hibernated quite happily then I think that August could easily qualify for the best time of the season. I suppose that is not strictly true but I always seemed quite tired.
The Angels were of course on their school summer vacation and we had a holiday on the coast as July gave way to August and when we returned I found I was a hairdresser. It was supposed to be for just three days a week and that lasted all of two weeks. After I finished work in week two I went home and packed and Hitomi and the Angels and I went to spend a few dads with Dad in Otaru. The Angels had learned a magic trick with a tube, balls and a piece of string just to show their Grandfather. If any of you recall that when the Angels first came back home to me and dad was here at that time, he showed them magic tricks with coins that impressed them immensely.
The Angels trick was to have a tube (a kitchen paper towel tube that they had colored and places stickers over) with a pet flea inside. They would drop the ball into the tube asking their pet to catch it. He does and does not let it fall out until they tell him to let go. Also they drop one end of a loosely knotted piece of string into the tube that their pet unties so when they pull it out the sting is not knotted at all.
The four of us flew up to Otaru and we had a wonderfully relaxing few days there. I was feeling quite tired in a general way by this time and I did not go for my early morning jogs but I did go to the early morning bakers for those delicious pastries and their freshly baked loaves even if it was much later in the day.
On the morning of our first day back I found out I was working six days a week at the salon to cover other staff vacations. Rina, my brother's wife, has been wonderful looking after the Angels when Hitomi or I did not have the time.
When I came home in the evenings I would make dinner for Hitomi and the angels and then last Sunday, the angels last day of vacation, we were up at the studio where I promised to help out because Hitomi had a real busy day, I fell asleep in the corner. I sat down for just a moment to take some tea and what was seemingly the next moment the angels were gently shaking me awake and telling me that I'd slept for two hours!
I think I've been too much a lady of leisure and finally working full time again as well as doing all my home duties has taken its toll.
I went to see Tety, the children's father again last month and he looks thinner and haggard. He is happy the children have had a good year at school and he brightened up while asking of them.

Finding time to be here has been difficult of late. I do apologize.

Hair types

'Click clack click clack click clack' is the sound of my old Royal type writer and Sumomo writes a report for school regarding her vacation. We had been cleaning out the store room when we had come across my old type writer in one of the boxes. Sumomo opened it and looked at it with such a puzzled look about her face and she asked if this was some old computer keyboard. I laughed and put my arm around her shoulders.
We took it into our apartment and after inserting a paper from the printer we happily discovered that it still worked even though it had been shut away for perhaps seventeen years. She pressed various keys and she giggled at the 'clacking' sound that pressing the keys produced. She started playing quite happily and then jumped back in shock when the auto carriage return occurred seven keys after the bell.
Typewriters were never a big thing here in Japan despite many brave attempts by various people and companies. I of course had one because I could write in English and Romaji but it only ever was a novelty item. Most things here were hand written before going off to the printers and I can tell you that even though most companies would have a small team of girls who would carefully scribe 'clean copies' of company documents, most companies had so much paperwork that it was quite usual for such documents to be sent out to contractors. This long drawn out process created huge delays and backlogs which made doing business with our country pretty slow.
Imagine it - a team of girls writing by hand, clean and error free copies on squared manuscript paper. These would be sent to an editor who would cross things out, make corrections and then this would be sent to the printer who had the awful task of deciphering the original text, the editorial corrections and usually in a fog of smudged over-scoring. Sometimes it was so bad that the printer would send it back saying it was impossible to handle. After all, if any mistakes were made at this point then it would be the printers to blame.
Come the 1980's and technology gave us the word processor (wapuro we termed it which was short for 'waado purossesaa' and everything changed. My Father had several as early as 1982 in his business and a year later he also had one at home. This may seem like a trivial matter but please consider that in 1982 less than 5% of Japanese businesses had access to a word processor and a mere four years later in 1986, over 90% of businesses were using them to produce Japanese language documents. The boom happened because our economy was on an unparalleled high, the technology was getting better and the prices per unit fell rapidly. The awareness of such powerful tools came to be known by students and eventually these tools filtered down to High school, middle school and even elementary students began using them. As I said, not only did 90% of businesses have access by the end of 1986 but also 30% of homes had one too and this figure grew steadily. In the early 1990's the Americans exported Compaq word processors to us and they were half the price of our N.E.C's and consequently the homes that had access to one grew to over 80%. Then their eventual demise came in the latter half of the 90's when word processing software appeared for computers.
I was born in 1980 so as a child I was aware of these machines and so to me it was a fairly normal thing to have one. I was given a typewriter just to practice English. Our Father provided a word processor for us when we attended middle school upon which we each had turns to write out school reports.
Sumomo had never seen a typewriter of course and is not overly familiar with 'ABC' She and Riko have grown up in a world where MS word and its various counterparts and her phones texting are as much the 'norm' as their hand written work. My old typewriter was an antique and a novelty item however she enjoyed playing with it.

We all have returned from Atami where we stayed for five days. Atami was a place I came to as a child and now my angels enjoy it too. We stayed at the Hoshino resort which is not as close to the sea as some places but it offered good rates, it was very clean and the service was excellent and on par with us all being VIP.
We signed the angels into the children's activity club which had them swimming with other children. They went fishing on a real fishing boat, engaged in children's outdoor pursuits and visited the children's ranch where they could feed sheep and goats and see many other animals. They went tea picking and the learned and made mochi rice cakes and brought some back for us to try.
There were also children's rooms with lots of supervised activities and all this so Hitomi and I could have some time together and it allowed them to feel independent and they could play happily with the other children on holiday. Then when we all ate together in the early evening they would excitedly tell us everything.
Hitomi and I enjoyed the famous spa's and treated ourselves to a boat ride beneath the stars and the fireworks!

I returned from holiday to find the happy news of a job offer. My translation work has dried up again for the summer and I really wanted to do something. A local hairdressing salon, which I have used occasionally, were advertising for a part-time hairdresser and since I have just gained my level three from hair and beauty school, I applied. I didn't think I'd be successful because perhaps many others may have experience. The only experience I have is working at the studios. However I was invited to chat with the manageress and after 20 minutes she offered me the position. I am a hairdresser!
On the morning of my third day I was cleaning the instruments when a familiar person entered the salon and asked if she could have her hair styled. She has never been here before. There had been once cancellation and so she was fitted straight in. When her turn came she passed her place on because I was still busy with one very sweet older client. When I was free she stood and smiled and came to sit in my station chair.
After I had finished she said that she was very happy and offered me far too many compliments and that she would now use this salon as her regular. I was very pleased.

Just a story

It has been unbearably hot here this last week. It's been all salads, ice cream and iced drinks and the air conditioner working harder than anything else. I was going through an old diary last night when I came across an entry at a time when my parents had just moved north and we'd changed the building a little to make four upstairs apartments and we had  renewed a lot of the restaurant kitchen appliances. This was the beginning of Hiro's era and his chance to continue Mother's dream.

Just a story.

The restaurant had been closed for a little while. The kitchens had just been re-furbished and the new cookers and gas burners had been installed. It looked great, much more modern and clean than it had been and the young man looked around with great satisfaction and pride etched upon his features. It had been a very successful restaurant for several years and now, it looked cleaner, brighter and the customers were sure to appreciate it. Always when he was seen in the streets, they would shout after him, “You’ve been closed for so long, when will you re-open?”
He smiled with them, “Very soon now!” he promised.

The girl had been working hard with so many appointments in her very long days. There was hardly any time for a social engagement, there was hardly time to eat and always she felt so desperately tired. That man she use to live with and love and had been a major part of her life, he had shown her a world she had never conceived of, never thought to become part of, was gone now but he still haunted her mind. He had been there, coaxing, pushing and always supporting. He was beautiful in every view but inside he hid the darkest of shadows and now thankfully he was a footnote in a past diary. He had made it impossible for them to be together any longer but for some reason she always wondered if he'd beg her forgiveness and ask her to come back. Could he be the man he was at the beginning and love her again? At first without that supporting hand she had almost drowned.
Without that love she had almost hidden herself away with shame and so much loss. She had felt betrayed, abandoned, like a little girl who has not quite mastered the bicycle and who had suddenly found herself propelled into a freedom from her guides restrain. The bicycle had become unstable and the fall was imminent. She still had the scars on her soul, in fact, she still does to this day but many are hidden from view. Time will ease it. It must!

Stealthily she sneaked up behind the young man who was busy wiping down some of the new tables. She put her arms around him and hugged him. He looked back a little surprised, but he gave his sister a wonderful smile. “Is it not perfect?” he asked her looking around the refurbished area.
“It will be the pride of the regular customers and they will enjoy the new decor, just keep the food the same.” She answered.
“Of that there can be no doubt, I would lose most of my custom should that not remain as it always was.” He laughed at her.
“It’s so cold this winter. Is the buildings heating restored yet?” She inquired.
“It should be, I need to fire up my new ovens so I'll turn on the gas and I will let you what success I have.”
“Alright! I need to take a hot bath so I will have one at my friend’s apartment and see you later this evening, ok?”
“OK!” He exclaimed, nodding and picking up his cleaning cloth and returning to his finishing touches.

The moon was high and it was later than she thought as she finally returned home. There were no lights from the restaurant but her brothers light shone from his apartment window up above so she reasoned him to be relaxing after his labors. She entered the building through the side door and felt the warmth, the heating had been restored. She looked out into the night and smiled as she closed the door to the frigid night air. It may snow tonight but I will not shiver she thought as she closed the door and bounced happily upstairs.
She entered her own apartment which was next door to that of her brothers. A funny smell was the first thing she'd noticed as she wrinkled her nose up against it. The builders had said that with the new pipes, there would be a temporary mustiness. She sprayed a little perfume in the hope it would hold it at bay. She would not open the windows tonight because it was freezing outside and for far too long she had been cold whilst the builders had required the gas to be off-line. Tonight then she would relax and be warm and comfortable in her own space.
Her cat was still up on the roof, she had been there for a few days avoiding the builders no doubt. The cold did not bother her because she had her own warm coat. As soon as she sensed the warmth again she would come down and look for her feeding bowl.
She put away her things and listened to her phone messages. There was nothing that could not wait until the morning. It was funny that she always expected a message from him, begging her to return, telling her he had made a dreadful mistake. But his voice was never there and after a while she had decided upon several nasty phrases for him should those messages ever come in the future.
She checked her schedule for the next day and looked a little sad. 
“Tomorrow is another full day!” She said to her parent’s picture that sat upon her desk.
I need a vacation and a chance to relax she thought, smiling at the photo.
She looked around, whatever it was, that smell was getting worse. It was like a heavy dampness that wanted to drag her down and she wondered if there was perhaps dirty water in the heaters that was slowly evaporating with the onset of this new warmth.
Today had been a quite short day with an afternoon and evening to herself but they were all too rare and too far in-between the full days to really relax her completely. She needed a vacation and a change of scenery and she needed it soon.

She relaxed into her favorite chair and tried to get back into her book. She had read perhaps a single chapter but she felt that she had not caught the story development. It was almost as if she had not read any pages in it at all and her eyes were starting to hurt. She put the bookmark carefully between the pages and returned it to her shelf. 
‘I must really be tired’ she thought to herself as she reached down and massaged the muscles of her legs. She felt herself ache all over as if she had been thrown from a horse.
She licked her lips and realizing how dry they were she got up and headed into the kitchen for a drink. The kitchen felt a little cooler and not warm as out there in the lounge but the smell in there was far worse. 
She took some water from the refrigerator and drank a little.
For a moment it seemed that the far side of the kitchen moved as if the distance was dramatically increasing. She couldn’t breathe properly. She put the glass down and steadied herself for a moment. She felt as though she was losing her balance and her temples were pounding. She could hear the blood rushing through her veins. She knew she ought to take some pills from the bathroom dispensary and try to sleep it off. Coughing and spluttering she thought then to blame it on a chill that she must have caught with her tiredness and missing her meals. She wanted to go to the bathroom right now where she had strong painkillers but her body refused her. Her limbs ached and her head felt too heavy for her petite shoulders to bear. Was it all really tilting at a strange angle or was it an earthquake? Something definitely moved and quite unbalanced her. She forgot everything for just a moment. 
Why were her eyes closed? 
She opened them slowly as she looked up towards an impossibly high ceiling that seemed to dance a little like the distant views over a hot road wavering as the heat rises. She coughed and spluttered and her mouth was still too dry. Oh how she needed that water but no part of her body would respond. Sleep called to her and she knew that she was just too tired to do anything and if she could just sleep for a few minutes then she would move and reach for that glass. Just a few moments then……..

Someone was calling her name. He must be outside she thought to herself. She wanted to laugh. She thought he had come crawling back to her. She couldn’t laugh though because something was on her mouth. She wanted to move it but her hand was being held. She painfully opened her eyes against the sharp light and thought she saw her brother. His lips were moving but he said nothing. Something large and black covered her mouth. His hand still held hers. She had no strength to pull her hand free to try to remove the black object. Her eyes closed again.

Her eyes opened once more and this time she saw bright sunlight stream in through blinds. She also saw a tube running from a sac into her arm. She turned her head and felt the stiffness and pain. She heard soft voices and turned to them. Her brother and her Father were there.
“How are you?” they asked looking quite worried for some reason.
“I’m ok” she wanted to say, but her voice sounded like it struggled to pass her tongue. It must have sounded like another splutter. Instead, she smiled weakly and just nodded.
Again she felt a sharp stab of pain in her neck.
“You are in hospital, there was a gas leak.” Her brother said to her. “Gas everywhere, I thought we had lost you.” He explained squeezing tight her hand.
He didn’t seem to be making much sense to her, what gas and where she wondered.
“Hello Daddy,” she again tried to speak.
“Calm!” he ordered in a soft tone, “Return slowly.” He added.
At least Dad could see that she wasn't quite awake yet.
“Dry!” She managed to whisper.
Her brother put his hand under her head and a cup to her mouth.
Most of the water spilled from the sides of her mouth but she cared not, it was the best water ever to pass over her lips.

As the morning progressed into the evening and her consciousness had returned with it. Her brother explained to her that he too had smelled something bad but he knew exactly what it was. He had opened the windows and after checking his own apartment and not locating the leak and had come to hers. She had not answered his knock and suspecting nothing more than his sister sleeping, he had let himself in due to a remote possibility of there being something more amiss.
He had found her lying on the kitchen floor totally unconscious and he had begun to cough too. The leak was in her kitchen. Quickly he carried her to his own apartment and called an ambulance. He cut the supply and opened the windows.
The ambulance arrived quickly. She had not stopped breathing but it was erratic and her pulse had been very weak. Later, the Doctors report had suggested that she had succumbed quite easily due to great fatigue, stress and a poor diet compounded with the problem of her suffering from anemia.

Once more her life had received great fortune and luck. She hadn’t wanted anyone to make such a great deal from it but they did. She hadn’t wanted people to talk about it but they did. She was not given a vacation that she really felt she had needed.

"D"

I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be that blogger who walked a thousand miles to tell you life's an open door!
I never thought...
I never actually gave it any thought at all but sure enough post 500 has crept up on me in a stealthily and predatory like manner.

Post 100. Talking of 1000 (miles) - I quote from post 101:

A thousand miles away and a thousand years ago somewhere and some-when, she stood silently on a cliff edge very much like I do now and looked out across the waves. Was it the setting sun that cast the red shadows across her eyes? Was the storm across the heaving waves just a reflection from within her soul? The goblet thrown violently from her hand at an impassive sky spilling the poison across the sands was the last outrage as she turned to leave. Yet the sadness is seen behind the mask of anger she wears and the wistful whispers of hurt are heard echoing throughout the halls when she thought no one was there. Soft tears would fall when she thought no one could see and no one would care.
But I was there to bear witness to her pain. To feel the mournful and sorrowful darkness envelop her and know and despise the demons that she courageously battled.

'She' was someone special who had always been the calm in the storm and 'she' one day frightened me when I saw her storm amidst a silent and becalming serenity.
Although post 100 was perhaps significant for being just that - I had posted so many posts previously but they were in the message boards of which I'd been a member and those forums had served as my medium. My post, 'Shitsurakuen'  was my 100th post in Blogger and it came along in October 2008. At the time I had not really noticed its significance because I had been awfully busy and I had still so much to do. I had already deleted some posts from the early days of Jazz Journals - posts that I felt were a poor reflection of me as I endured some very personal and deeply emotional battles but I digress. At the time of this post I'd traveled north to spend some time with Dad in Otaru because more than anything else, I really needed a 'time-out' from Tokyo. I felt that I needed an inspirational tranquility and a quiet place and time to finish up a personal project and of course I wanted to spend some valuable time with dad and my distant family. It was awkward in a way because back then, Hitomi was often working away from home and she'd only recently returned. She'd come back after a successful tour away with her acting troupe and we'd spent one blissful weekend together before my train north took me away from her for three long weeks. She, the mistress of the visual allure, the draw of the eyes and emotional impact within flowing scenes, she the orator and giver of depth to flat words exited stage left and sank with the sunset below the western horizon and into an alien sky.
I, a dweller in shadows, content with radiated warm and the reflected glows of others, I that would hope to bring new words and new feelings venture a little closer to the Arctic Circle and isolate myself from the normal and the usual. A new environment, a new day and with determination and perseverance I'd let those new words flow from my pen.

Post 200  came along in August of 2009, Hitomi was away again and such was the feeling of loves isolation it was easy to keep writing at my desk. Unfortunately there was a dark side looming and the effects of ill-heath were having an adverse effect on my job and I was going to tender my resignation very soon. I would also enter hospital and I'd close 'Jazz Journals' (my first blogger presence) all within the following two months.
Thankfully things went very well and despite the darkness, the sun did rise once more and Momo's Musings was born on October 17 2009 to replace my old Journals.

Post 300 came nine months later in the May of 2010 and I knew my 'blogging' rate had come down but I was exploring and experiencing life in a new light, as if I have discovered with new senses and a new awareness the vibrancy of life. I was living my life again after a little ill health depression and I wanted to shout to the world that I was still here and happily so. I wanted to walk under rainbows and fly with the birds. I wanted to swim with dolphins and sing with a dawn chorus. I wanted too much and really I was just happy spending time out with Hitomi, family and friends. At the end of that month I met that very strange card reading prophet. He too changed my life.

Post 400 came along a full sixteen months later in the September of 2011. A slower blogging rate still and it seemed as though the ink in my pen was drying up. Everything except one thing told me by that card reader had come true and Hitomi and I had split up. I was lost and distraught behind my proud and cold exterior but the facade was false and anyone not needing the services of a guide dog could have seen how pained my life had become. I'd taken up hair dressing to fill in some time and as a result of a little chat between Maestro my hairdresser and I found that I was pretty good at it and I enjoyed it. Away from that I was very very lonely and I was hanging around in nightclubs looking for shallow and temporary and meaningless fulfillment. I am not proud of that time but it taught me that I could be my own worst enemy and it proved to me how much I really did love Hitomi. We were always meant to be together and the following month we did just that. She moved back in with me and the final prophecy came true two months later. My babies came back and made us complete.

Post 500: This is it! I write this one a whole twenty-two months later in July 2013 and you can tell by the time taken to reach here that my output has fallen drastically. Do I still need this as a therapy I wonder? It is difficult maintaining this with my now full family life but I cannot let go of it completely.
I want to say that in regard to yesterday's dreams, we have made it. I have my dream about my family being complete and Hitomi has her dream regarding her studio but it never was so simple. Dreams, like landmark blogger posts, can be simply seen as markers on our journey through life. We have passed those markers and now we walk together into the unknown future. My dream now is to take care of those whom I love and to keep my family happy and to give my angels a true and open path into adulthood. They will walk paths where they can mature and understand the world into which they will grow and for them to make informed choices of the paths that they want to take when they arrive there.

Welcome then to my post 500.
Perhaps it is not much of a post really content-wise but as Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher once remarked... (And I do not quote him exactly but I do probably, as so many have done - misquote him) 'It is the characteristics of the package that determine its content'. In his book, 'Understanding Media', McLuhan describes the "content" of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As society's values, norms and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. A light bulb does not have content in the way that my blog post does or a newspaper and its articles or a television with its programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect. How? A light bulb enables people to create spaces during the night that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. It is then a medium without any content. So a light bulb creates an environment merely by its presence.

I hope my content keeps you all amused and as for the future... I cannot tell what will happen and none of us can tell because the future has no map and we do not know what is around the next corner until we actually turn into it. We can live our lives and throw stones into the river of life and watch the ripples spread out and interact with the ripples of those other stone throwers. Then if we wait long enough after all of the splashes have quietened down, we may perhaps bear witness to what climbs out of that river.

A day in the park

In my last post I remarked how surprisingly ten years seems to have passed by so very quickly but then of course perhaps it has not really been that quick! I think back easily to the day that Garth messaged me to say he'd opened his 'ED' form and I should come along and join. In my recall of that event, I remember it clearly as if it had only happened yesterday. A fact I shall thank providence for since a few other memories seem to have absconded and have just left muddy imprints and fading after-images scattered around the walls of my mind where I'm reasonably sure those memories used to reside.
Oh yes, lots of things have happened in the three thousand, six hundred days plus that came and went after his forums grand opening.
Sumomo was a day short of her first birthday back then but now she is eleven and as I write this I watch her and Rikochan play together with their friends and other children here in the park.
It is comforting in a way to feel a part of the circle of life, this cycle of events playing over and over again come each generation. I played here in this very same park with my friends when I too was just a child. Mother would sit on the bench and she watched over us from behind her book. One day, perhaps twenty years from now my angels will sit here and watch their own children play and they may even consider the very same cycles of life.
I smile at a comforting imagining as I listen to John Dowland's 'Lachrimae' on my headphones, a song composed over 400 years ago. 
Thoughts and music like this make me think the oddest of things. Do we think we’re choosing things for ourselves yet in fact we may not be choosing anything at all. It could be that everything's already been decided in advance and we only think we’re making choices or more likely we believe it. Free will may be an illusion and if it were so and we knew it were so wouldn't it all grow so very dark? Perhaps ignorance is bliss on this occasion and I will conveniently forget to ask the question of who actually decided it all, if indeed it has been decided beforehand.
I love my angels and I love Hitomi and perhaps if we have at least one love in our lives and even if whom we love has also been decided by these fates, as long as we do love then that surely at least shines a little light in that darkness.
I suppose future knowledge nothing like me stopping typing for a moment and of me looking up from my laptop and watching the children run around and play their games. Then suddenly I think to myself that the smallest girl of the group is going to fall down any moment now. I see them all running and playing and the little one, who is perhaps five, tries all the more harder to keep up with the older children and in doing so she is running far too fast than she can actually manage and maintain her balance and ... over she goes. Luckily she's in the grass and her landing is not as bad as if she were on the pathways. As the others race back to help her up I think to myself, 'I knew it was going to happen!' But it wasn't really a prediction of a future event was it? Not like a certain card reader who appeared to do for me a few years ago. No! It was more a case of predicting a likely outcome of something that's happened to all of us in similar circumstances and we've seen often repeated time after time. I could see at once as the excitement of the game mounted and she tried all the more harder she was losing her balance. I am now gratified that I used the word 'circles' in my blog post opening.
People of earlier cycles listened to the music I listen to now and they see the same sun up in the sky. Perhaps their perceptions were a little more different than the people of my world in my 'now'. Imagine back when 'Lachrimae' first danced across the strings of a new lute. Of course I hear it as a quality mp3 rendition using the instruments of the day and I can hear it any time I wish whereas they couldn’t hear proper performances of music anytime they liked, it was always something special. It was a much crueler world back then, a world much more brutal where not many lived to old age and the child mortality rate was high because of malnutrition and epidemics. They may have had a closeness to nature and richer spirits because of it, our modern would and creature comforts could possibly be dulling our perceptions. We have leisure time now, a time to play and a time to appreciate. A time of learning and does such knowledge make us grateful?
There is still so much pain in the world and so much ignorance as we hold on to past truths.

I think people want more from life and they hope for more from life and they would quite easily with a romantic notion dispel the boring, bland routines of which is life for the many. This life becomes something we eagerly turn our backs upon as we desire such escapes. Eagerly we read our novels and we watch the dramas on TV and how easily we suspend belief in the theaters with the latest blockbuster. We want more! We create our poetry and myth and monsters. We create stories to account for missing information and we dream up scenarios that greatly embellish the mandatory mundane.

Next to me is a wall. It is an ordinary wall like many of the walls you have seen. This one separates the park I am in from the traffic on the streets. It is a necessary wall that creates a border and defines a boundary and keeps the angels, their friends, me and the other mothers in the park distinctly detached from the cars and trucks speeding along Platinum street.
We could paint that wall, beautifying it and make it ever so pretty. We could decorate it with ornamental lights and built in benches and attach artistic sculptures. We could attach a metal plate announcing the fact that it was built in honor of someone quite special and we could have another equally famous person come and unveil it. We could recount fantastic, interesting and emotionally charged stories of lovers that met here by the wall and as such we may imbibe a sense of romance and wonderment by association.
But it is just a wall and and we live just a life in this, our cycle. Life is something that we perhaps know as equally ordinary as this wall and yet still we want to make it special and fantastic. We add tales and spice it up with things from out of the ordinary and things fantastic. Life I think is really quite simple and yet there are those who 'simply' want to make it more complicated.