Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Hands
The Weekly Smile
I met a dear friend in NYC for lunch- we don’t see one another often, maybe once or twice a year but that never matters. We keep up on Facebook and are in touch through email, and the time apart never makes a difference. We have known each other since she was 20 and I was 24, when at the time we were both dating brothers. Our relationship evolved into one of friendship on a familial level of sorts, we spent a good amount of time with the family of these two brothers, and time together allowing our friendship to grow. She went on to marry the brother she had been dating for some 3 years, while I said good bye to mine. We lost touch for many years until the brother I had dated became ill 5 years ago and I reconnected with him and came back into this family’s life. I wrote about it here.
I always felt a certain “motherly” or big sister feeling towards her. We spent time together and developed a bond that ran deep as we shared an understanding of the family dynamic, the ups and downs within the family. We could talk openly and honestly to each other about our relationships with those brothers. Years later she told me she had always wished I had been her sister in law, she had envisioned our wonderful friendship continuing through the years. But even though we had been out of touch for over 20 years, once we reconnected those years in between didn’t matter at all. The foundation we had built all those years ago stood firm, our mutual love for one another still there.
When we saw each other last week we sat for hours filling each other in and then delving deeper into conversation as we had always done, sharing our innermost thoughts. The past, the present, the what ifs and the what was. She told me she still thinks of me as her big sister, and I said I had been thinking the same on my way in to meet her that morning. Our past connecting us in a unique way, brought together by two men and their family, she living with them, me having been touched deeply by them but moving on, until years later reconnecting with them all as if I had never left. I smiled on my bus ride home, remembering us as young girls, our lives ahead of us, smiling at the past being part of my present, smiling at the thought of how fortunate I was to have her in my life.
Black & White Sunday: Favourite
This week Paula would like us to post a photo of our “favourite”. Be it a place, a thing, a person, a pastime or a holiday. Our favourite anything. Maybe the favourite shot we have taken and still haven’t published. The only requirement for this “favourite” is to make it black and white.
So hard to choose a favourite photo, I seem to have so many. I decided to use a few of my favourites taken at my favourite place, the ocean. Sea, sand and seagulls
Travel Theme: Writing
A page from an autograph book that belonged to my great grandmother, dated 1895. Beautiful German script.
A letter from my grandmother in her script, 1971
A recipe written in my mother in laws script- half in English half in German
Thursday’s Special: Seascapes
Wordless Wednesday
The Journey of A Thousand Miles Begins With One Step
The Adler Aphasia Center in New Jersey is a place where people who have Aphasia come to take classes, come for the camaraderie, come to improve their speaking, come to learn and laugh and know they are not being judged. Aphasia is a language disorder, usually brought about when a person suffers a brain injury (from a stroke, a car accident, an aneurysm.) It makes remembering words hard, communicating those words difficult when they are remembered, or using the wrong words. The brain is thinking one thing, the mouth another. Some people are not able to speak at all. It is a frustrating and misunderstood disorder. Very often intelligence is not affected, but people assume it is when they are not able to understand what someone is trying to say. I volunteered at the center for 10 years and I wrote about the impact it had on my life here. When I started working full time last year I was no longer able to volunteer, so today I paid a visit to the many friends I made there over the years, that I haven’t seen in a while.
The front lobby had been redone since I was there last, and a beautiful tiled mosaic wall greeted me as I entered, with this message written in the tile: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”
So many that have come through the doors of the center had to take that first step- to enter a world unfamiliar to them, a world sprung upon them unexpectedly. Taking that step has led many of them to a better place than they were after first suffering a brain injury. My friend Bill had a brain aneurysm 8 years ago and when he came to the center could not utter a word. Today we sat together and he spoke in full sentences. It is still not easy for him, but how far he has come through his sheer determination and constant pushing to improve. He was a football coach in a school which he someday would like to return to. I hope he gets there.
The mosaic in the lobby contains mosaic flowers, each one made by a member of the center.
Here’s my friend Ken showing me which one he made.
The mosaic artist who created the finished piece says, “The design contains a curved path representing a journey, a journey isn’t always straight, or clear or easy. Many of our journeys need courage and strength to travel. But along the journey we can be inspired by the beauty of the scenery around us and by those who help us travel along the way. This pathway goes through a bright uplifting garden of mosaic flowers.” To my mind each of those flowers represents the person who made it and their personal journey.
Once again I was reminded of the different paths and journeys we all are on, and to remember how important it is to take that first step.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Legs and Feet
One Word Photo Challenge: Cityscape
Flowers with a Twist
Corina a fellow blogger, introduced me to a new photo app called Prisma that I am having fun with. I took a few flower photos that I had taken with my cell phone while out on a walk and turned them into mosaics.
Song Lyric Sunday
For Song Lyric Sunday Helen has asked us to post a song about missing someone you love. Let’s let them know how much you miss them and can’t wait to see them again.
I’ve chosen a song from the 1970’s by the British singer Ralph McTell. I was introduced to his music by a boyfriend and this song came to have greater meaning after the relationship ended. It is still one of my favorite songs all these years later.
I’ve written words that say I’m leaving.
Words express the pain.
Old songs lose their meanings,
But new ones they gain.
From Changes that I’ve been through,
New ones I’m coming to.
You were my first song,
And I still…
Sure I still get feelings
To get back on the road.
And I still get leanings
To forget the things I know.
About myself and changes,
Gone through and coming to.
And you were my first song
And I still…
Do words express true meanings,
I mean the words I’ve still to sing.
Old loves lose their feelings,
But new ones they gain.
Changes that I’ve been through,
New ones I’m coming to
You were my first song,
And I still…
Yes, you were my first song,
And I still…
Yes, you were my first song,
And I still…
You were my first song,
And I still love you.
Black & White Sunday: From Above
From Above the streets of New York City
From above West 69th Street on the 3oth Floor
Above West 44th Street on a balcony
Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning
If I am away at the beach morning looks like this-sunrise over the ocean my favorite sight
and once it has risen the quiet of the beach before it fills with people
If I am at home it looks like this- with the sun coming up as I take my walk
It’s Still Your Birthday, Even if You’re Gone
Today is my brother’s birthday. Or it would have been his birthday were he still alive, though I feel that just because he is gone does not make August 6th no longer his birthday. His age will forever remain at 54, but the date will forever be his birth date. He died by his own hand in February of 2015. I wrote about him on the first anniversary of his death here.He wasn’t married, had no children, and struggled so the last years of his life. Today I choose to remember him before all that, to think of him long ago before the demons set in. To remember him with rose colored glasses on, filtering out the sadness and anger. Remembering him with a smile.
The Weekly Smile
This week my weekly smile was enjoying all that summer has to offer. As an assistant teacher I have the summer off and when people asked me at the end of school what I intended to do with all that free time I told them drink coffee with friends, shop, and go to the beach. That is pretty much how things have gone so far.
Yesterday the weather was wonderful and we headed to the beach once again. Getting out of the car and seeing the glistening ocean against a beautiful blue sky made me smile and kept me smiling all day
I think this seagull wanted to join us for lunch. He was maybe 12 inches from our blankets as you can see, but made me smile
Even yesterday’s beach tag made me smile with its half moons and stars. (please ignore all the age spots)
and here I am with a fellow assistant teacher after we had our coffee we walked the mall and did some shopping which made us both smile
Weekly smiles, summer smiles
Feathers on Friday-Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is a very small woodland bird with a long tail, usually seen flitting about in the treetops, giving a short whining callnote. They are tiny (about 10cm or 4 inches) with long legs; a long tail; and a thin, straight bill. described as energetic and rarely slowing down, fluttering after small insects and making it almost impossible to capture them with my camera. But for once! The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is the northernmost-occurring species of gnatcatcher, and the only truly migratory one, most members of its genus live in Central and South America.
Thursday’s Special: Shadow
Me and my shadow. I love catching my shadow with the lens. Here I was having a coffee at an outdoor cafe 
I am short but the sun makes my shadow look very tall… such long legs! I am waving to my shadow
and here I am with my better half- casting our shadows among the fall leaves
Wordless Wednesday
Cemetery Visit
I went to visit the grave of a cousin last week- he is buried a short drive from where I live, unlike the rest of his family, including his parents, who live hours away. He died 9 years ago, at the age of 50- I wrote about him, his life and death previous visit here.
The cemetery is situated very high up on a hill and this time before I left I decided to drive up to highest point to take in the view.
It was so peaceful and quiet, I got out of my car to walk among the headstones. I stopped to read many of them, wondering about the lives of the people buried there. Some of the headstones did tell me a bit about the person. It is not unusual to see inscriptions that read “Beloved mother or father”, but I found some had more than the customary inscriptions.
This woman had been a teacher and it must have been so much a part of her life it was also included.
This woman was not just a mother, but in the eyes of those who loved her the best one
This man had not been married I guessed, as there was no inscription for husband. “A Mensch” was written there, its meaning from Yiddish “a person of integrity and honor.”
How wonderful to be remembered as “strong yet gentle”
This headstone held an inscription I had never seen before. Not only was she a wife, mother and grandmother, the Yiddish term for mother in law-shvigger- was also inscribed. What a compliment, since we all know the old jokes about mother in laws and they are usually not so complimentary.
I came to this bench where I sat for a bit, taking in the surroundings and feeling the warm breeze washing over me as I looked out to the mountains in the distance. Thinking of my cousin and remembering him with a smile.
Black & White Sunday: Traces of the Past
This wonderful old building sits on the NW corner of Broadway & East 13th Street in New York City. By European standards it is not old, but built in 1894 and to have survived in New York City all these many years later it is old by our standards. It is called the Roosevelt Building, named after Cornelius Roosevelt, grandfather of Teddy Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States. A trace of the past
Still standing within the present
Narrow around New York City
Daily Prompt: Admire
My husband never had the opportunity to learn how to play an instrument as a child, as many children do. When he was in his 40’s he decided the time had come to learn how to read music and play the piano. He took lessons for about 3 years, but life became busy and he gave up the lessons for the next 15 years. Eight years ago he decided to begin again and has been taking lessons once a week since then. A year and a half ago he decided he wanted to learn how to play the violin. He found a teacher and bought a violin and has been taking lessons once a week. Considering how difficult the violin is to play, he took to it quickly even to the surprise of his teacher. Monday is piano lesson night, Thursday is violin lesson night. And every night is practice night in our home. I greatly admire him, not only taking on one instrument as an adult, but two.
Feathers on Friday-Tufted Titmouse
The tufted titmouse is a small songbird from North America, a species in the tit and chickadee family. They are frequent visitors to feeders, often found along with chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers.When a titmouse finds a large seed, you’ll see it carry the prize to a perch and crack it with sharp whacks of its stout bill, as I have captured below. I find them difficult to capture with the lens as they are so fast!
A Day In The Life 
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