Tuesday 3rd April 2012

The dawn chorus is spectacular this time of year.
Beginning at about 4am with the heraldic melody of the song thrush, the chorus is built, layer upon layer, by the sounds of blackbirds, robins, great tits, blue tits, nuthatches, wood pigeons and the odd dunnock, until it is a fabulous cacophony of birdsong at 6 am.
It is a joy to come awake to this...


There are only 68 days to go until we board the Queen Mary.
There has been so much to accomplish... looking back its amazing we've managed to get here: 250 paintings to photograph, pack and archive; an inventory of 7 rooms and a garage to create; health insurance in the US to organise; accounts to open; pension funds to move... the list goes on.


But, two weeks today, Judy and I will revisit Iona to journey on a pilgrimage to the island where we first met, just over fourteen years ago.
Flight to Glasgow, train journey through the Highlands to Oban, ferry to Mull, bus 30 miles to Fionnphort, ferry to Iona. The journey will take the best part of twelve hours..
It was at 6pm on June 6th 1998 that I first saw Judy in the foyer of the Argyll Hotel, Iona. A fabulous vision of red hair, a smile and a quiet "Hi"...
Who would have thought that fourteen years later we would be emigrating to the US together?


Sooty our blackbird has flown onto the door handle, hungry for breakfast...
Nicholas

Yesterday morning the phone rang at 9am, it was my father-in-law, asking if Nicholas could escort Mem (my mother-in-law) to the doctor. Dad needed to go to a funeral of an old friend from the days when he was a vet and the head of an agricultural school in East Africa, but Mem needed to keep her scheduled appointment.


In writing that brief paragraph I am reminded that our lives are filled with beginnings and endings, challenges and victories, cycles and seasons. My in-laws lived in Africa for over 14 years before moving back to London, then East Sussex and now they live in Surrey. My parents lived first in Virginia, then in Houghton, NY for nearly 30 years and now they have been happily in Rochester, NY for 20.  Both will celebrate 58 years of marriage this year.


As I remember their histories, I am reminded that change is almost inevitable and I am aware that, while difficult, it is often necessary. It is often the time and place where growth is most evident. When we remove the familiar, when we are no longer able to continue with habitual behaviours that no longer serve us, when we are forced to open our hearts and our minds to new circumstances, new surroundings, new people....we change...we are transformed...


I am sitting in our little conservatory writing these words and in the garden, a Japanese Maple, its leaves just unfurling in the early morning sunshine, reminds me of the subtle presence of new growth, the miracle of creation. The light on the young leaves reveals an almost vein-like pattern and I am reminded of my own body, the life that courses through me, and I rest in the knowledge that in this move, both an ending and a beginning, there is a constancy and a grace that sustains.


Judy