The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this, is the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms from around you, the birds take back their language, the cliffs fissure and collapse, the air moves back from you like a wave and you can’t breathe. No, they whisper. You own nothing. You were a visitor, time after time climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming. We never belonged

This has been one of those weeks where both joy and sorrow dwell together.  It has been a week of wonderful news and opportunities, but it has also been a week where I have not been feeling that well. Even more difficult was to bring my sweet Petunia into the vet today because of a small lump we found in her chest the other day and find out she needs surgery on Monday to have it removed and biopsied because it is quite possible she has cancer.  So yesterday I asked you to celebrate with me, and today I ask

(photo of sparrow taken while sitting on a park bench in Riga, Latvia this summer) -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts