Birthday!

Well, today is my 55th Birthday and I have had so many greetings and wishes on Facebook I've lost count!

Thank you all so much.

Five years ago Judy and I were with some friends on an amazing road trip in Utah and Arizona: we visited Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, The Valley of the Gods, Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon. It was to be the most compelling trip of my life and inspired me to begin thinking about emigrating to the US!

One evening, staying at the fabulous Sorrel River Ranch Inn near Moab, Utah, there was a five minute window of opportunity as a storm blew by some nearby Mesas. And this photograph encapsulates that moment...

You can just see the snow capped peaks of the La Sal mountains down on the horizon.

I had just had my 50th birthday two weeks or so before and, at that moment, felt as if time had stood still. I would never have imagined that five years later I would be within weeks of emigrating to the USA. It has taken ten months to get a visa, eighteen months to sort out my pension plans (still not quite there) and a year to extricate myself from a 32 year career in medicine.

Nicholas

I love this photo of Nicholas.

I see in his eyes his passion and clarity of focus when he was just a little guy in Africa. He knew then that it was all about form and colour and the way light defines and informs our way of seeing.

This year, as he takes his place on this earth as a man committed to the pursuit of creative excellence and expression, I pause, today, on his birthday, and recognise that, even as a boy, on some profound level he always knew, deep down, exactly who he was.

It reminds me to spend some time with the girl I was, to re-engage with the young passions, the inclinations, the first impulses. In them, before all the necessity of conforming and pleasing and fear of rejection (on any number of levels)…before all the bad habits of adulthood crept in, I knew.

The word respect just popped into my thoughts. Re-spect…to see again. Today, in honour of my husband, I choose to do just that. Thank you for the inspiration Nicholas.

Happy Birthday my beloved Anam Cara!

I celebrate the day you were born, your life, and the extraordinary manner in which you live it!

May this year unfold as spectacularly as you have….

Judy