At the blue pool

One of my favourite photos. It provides a feeling of being around for a long time yet the cairn suggests people have been here recently. Where does human interference impact on the natural course of events? The small piece of “person” tinkering is in focus in the foreground; nature trundles on in the slightly hazy background. It’s a hot lazy day as these two aspects of the world happily co-exist.

If only they knew

This is a photo of my father heading off on his honeymoon. Nothing fancy, a car, a tent and two people beginning to share the future together. Who would have thought back then that one day this photo would be included in a system called the world wide web, with almost anyone in the world being able to look at it. Also, would they have realised that the photo could be included in an integrated family history that will live on in the digital future? Increasingly we have the opportunity to become digital archivists and to include everything we can about people from the past world as well as the current world. In a sense my parents are still part of the future, a future they could never have imagined they would be involved in. Journeys can be strange things!

Manet painting

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet was a painting that had a significant impact on my interest in art, particularly modern art. I studied this painting when I was at the School of Education in Hamilton - and was really excited when, many years later, I stood in front of the actual picture in a Gallery in Paris. The painting was real! I was able to appreciate how far I had come from those early days of College art classes in terms of my understanding of art and how this had impacted on my life. A loop had been closed.

Esmeralda the goat

I took this photo at the Picasso museum in Paris. One of the amazing things about most galleries in Europe is that it is OK to photograph art works (providing you don't use flash of course). People photographed art, they painted their own picture of the art, they viewed and absorbed the works. When I thought about it I realised that of course Picasso would have approved. For Picasso, and the other painters of his era, once a work of art had been produced it was a thing in its own right. It existed as a tree or house or any other object and therefore could be treated as such. This would include it being photographed. Once I had this thought I snapped away (without flash) with the best of them.

on the edge of happiness

When people ask me how I am, and I say I am OK and happy, I wonder if they really believe me? Or that they believe that this is possible. Sometimes I wonder if it is possible. After all, how can I really be happy when I live with a life threatening illness? Of course it does depend a little on what the idea of "happiness" means for me, or anyone else. For me it means that I am feeling good about myself, I am getting pleasure and enjoyment out of my day to day activities and that when something amusing happens I can laugh. Then, isn't that what a lot of people would like? If yes, then I don't see why being happy is not possible for any medical condition one might be living with; if no - well it's probably more than just a medical condition that has be dealt with!

Happiness is something that has to be worked at, irrespective of one's health and living circumstances. For me, having decided that I am not going to be unhappy for the rest of my life, however long that may be, this is especially true. I will comment on how I have gone about trying to achieve this in future blogs. Key point here: so far whatever I am doing appears to be working, because I am OK and happy.