The Blog is Back, and the Bitch, too.

So I popped out of the office for five minutes and almost three months went by. Oops. That's what happens when your routine goes haywire and life takes off in 18 different directions all at once. Especially when travelling is involved, and there has been a lot of that, I am delighted to say. But the blog is back and so am I. And - You might be wondering about the title of this blog, at least, I hope you are. Truth be told, so am I.

 

That is to say, I hope I am not commonly referred to as a bitch, though I am sure by some I am, and who can possibly understand them? I am all sweetness and light, don't you know? A little zany, at times, but that's the fun part of life, right? Rightrightright?!!!!

OK, so like anyone, I have my moments, though I like to think they are few and far between and generally require a concerted effort at harassing and abusing me first. Moments when my ability to suspend disbelief at the perpetrators ill intentions finally run out, my retractable claws pop out, my fangs descend and my tongue reveals it's forked end. That is generally a good time to hit the road and don't look back. I might be frothing at the mouth and it's a sight to haunt you for life. Or so my husband will tell you. Of course, he is Mr. Perfect, so it's NEVER been aimed at him.....he has only ever been an innocent bystander (and collateral damage).

All that said, that really was not what I sat down to write. That is just what came out when my fingers hit the keyboard. Funny how that happens. But now that I have confessed to the existence of my evil twin, let me just reiterate that the title of this blog just came out, sounded kind of amusing, so I left it.

All I really wanted to say was 'Hi. I'm back. Do check in and see what my keyboard drags out of me in the days, weeks and months to come. Hope you'll enjoy it and tell your friends. Bye!'

So there, I've said it. Bye!

P.S. I am thinking about starting out in my next blog with a whole new thing I have not done on here before. It's a whole new side of me you've never seen.

And it's not the bitch. I promise.

And that's the teaser. Hooked, yet?

Big Life

 

Whenever life gets me down

Like it did this morning

Met by the news that even 3 rhinos dehorned for their safety

were not safe...

When I remember the numbers by which our big life wildlife

are being decimated while the parties responsible....

deny, deny, deny..........

                     while the bullets fly

and our ellies and rhinos and lions and cheetahs and gorillas and tigers and whales and sharks and, and, and

are being pushed towards extinction

10 years they say.

10 years and we will see them only behind bars, the ellies, the rhinos, the tigers...

And what little is left of the wilderness will be empty.

10 years...

the last ten flew by.

So close, it's so close.

Then I remember all the incredible, dedicated, tireless, brave, and inspiring people out there

who are fighting this good fight on the battlefield itself.

People like Richard Bonham and his peers at the

Big Life Foundation.

 

 

The Surrender

Nobody gets up in the morning expecting a tragedy. You're just up, minding your own business - having breakfast, packing your bags, writing your list and checking it twice, walking the dog, getting the kids off to school and yourself off to work - and yet it happens, every day. Every minute of every day, a tragedy is taking place somewhere, somehow, in somebody's life. One minute you're living your life as it exists, then and now, and the next you're holding an empty bag, your life shattered on the sidewalk, wondering how you will ever pick up all those itsy bitsy pieces and pretend they make up a life. Your life. Because nothing can ever be the same, nothing will ever fit quite as it did before.

How can people be scurrying by you as if nothing has happened, as if the world goes on as before? Do they not see the tangled debris on the pavement that used to be everything you had, everything that made up your life? Don't they care?

Your life that felt so real and solid and important somehow, exposed as nothing more than a fragile house of mirrors. You are left with a naked truth only you can know, only you can face. A lesson only you can comprehend. The last mirror left standing in a pile of shards and it's you.

Maybe you're angry. Maybe you're in too much pain to find the strength to be angry. Maybe you're numb and the shock is insulating you from all the horror - for the moment. Maybe you're just too tired to move, and all you want to do is close your eyes and never, ever open them again.

Perhaps you have moments of surging pride and strength where you stand tall and shake your fists at the heavens and declare that tomorrow is another day and the powers that be will not get the better of you. Yet, in the next moment you may find yourself on your knees begging for their mercy, begging for respite from the pain that shreds your soul. You're curled up in a ball like a budding foetus with your ear pressed to the ground, searching for a heartbeat, any heartbeat, any sign that you are not as alone as you feel.

However you get there, however long it takes, the day will come when you find the key to your pain and you know you are not alone, never were.  And regardless of who, what, how and why, it is always the same. It is the moment when you stop fighting the facts, stop charging at windmills.

The key is the surrender, the understanding that you will never understand, that this must be released to the heavens like a thousand fluttering white doves, to wing their way to freedom and carry you to peace. It is the surrender that washes away the agony and leaves in its place a muted throb, almost a heartbeat, a soft pink scar where a gaping wound once stood and screamed of the travesty committed against you.

The surrender is the miracle you thought would never be, that brings life where you had thought a desert. The surrender is the key that opens a door you thought had been locked for good, the key that sets your heart to beating once more. Not like before, perhaps, for what is done is done. No, not like before. But full again once more, rich with what was and full of what may now become.

The Day After...

.....but hopefully not the day before....

It's hard to think of anything but Moore, Oklahoma this morning. Last week it was Cleburne and Granbury, Texas. We're right smack in the middle between the two areas, and storms are coming our way this afternoon. It's not just the devastating news of so many children lost forever. It's the mindblowing destruction. And after hearing about the horsefarms wiped out yesterday, with hundreds of horses killed, I am wishing more than ever for an underground barn stormshelter..........the helplessness of our children and our animals in the face of such an onslaught of Natures' Fury is all too illustrative of our own feebleness when push comes to shove at the hands of a twist of nature.

I'd love to write some inspiring piece on how at the worst of times, the best in people comes out. It's true, after all. It's just that it may not be over yet and I am bracing myself for the next round that may call for people to abandon personal agendas and leap to the aid of fellow humans. I am bracing myself and fervently hoping it will not be me needing that aid. I am hoping these next two days wash over us with much needed rain and not a single tornado.

For now, all is peaceful. It is overcast and grey, a gentle breeze on a cooler day than the past few hot and humid extremes. Birds are chirping softly, cicadas are sawing their singular song. There is a sense of a quiet expectancy in the air. There is a heavy sadness in my heart. I cannot even begin to imagine what the people of Moore are going through. What the owners of Orr Family Farm who reportedly lost between 75 and 100 horses and saw their entire farm destroyed, are feeling. What the parents of all those little children are coping with today.

In amongst all these stories are the usual stories of miracles and hope. An elderly lady being interviewed describes how the tornado hit and how her dog disappeared - mid interview someone exclaims, there is the dog! And the dog is a few feet from where she stands, silent and stunned, buried in rubble but miraculously alive and well. Horses that wander dazed and confused over the rubble that once was their barn. Mothers that believed their child to be dead but found him or her alive. People that saw the door ripped off of their shelter and thought themselves dead but survived to tell the terrifying story.

Still, it's hard to find a silver lining to this cloud. Little rays of sunshine that peek through the mass of grey and black, yes, but a full silver lining? I guess I'm not there yet. Perhaps because what hit Moore could hit any of us, quite literally, from where I sit, within a couple of hundred mile radius.

A good time to remember - it will be the best it can be. Even when it feels like the worst thing ever.

No Arms, No Legs, No Worries

 

My sister-in-law called me a few weeks ago. She was beaming down the line and so full of enthusiasm the phone positively glowed redhot in my hand. She had just been to a talk by this guy. There is nothing I can say to do this man justice.

 

You'll just have to watch it.

 

A cure for the MMB's (monday morning blues) if ever there was one.

 

 

The Wonder

I clearly remember the first time I saw an elephant. I was 8 years old and our family had recently moved to Kenya for three years, a posting my father had secured with the Danish International Development Agency, an agency affiliated with the charitable end of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was there building roads and bridges and silos and what not. I was there falling hopelessly in love with a magical country.



We had been there some six months when we headed out on our first safari. It was Christmas, and we and a couple of other families were headed to The Amboseli National Park to go camping. Amboseli is famous for its elephant population, in particular Echo, a matriarch that elephant researcher Cynthia Moss studied for decades untill Echo's passing a few years ago. You can find the wonderful Echo in books and on DVD - she is one famous and celebrated ellie.

It was our first day in camp, an area ringed by the meager protection of a thicket of palms and shrubbery and trees, but we kids were out on the plain, an ancient dried up lake bed, playing soccer while our parents set up camp. We were shouting and laughing and running around kicking up as much dust as anything else, and I was feeling incredibly small upon this vast and arid plain that stretched for miles into a horizon hazy with the dust of an early dry season. Behind me rose the majestic and mystical Mount Kilimanjaro, a black barnacle rising out of the flat savannah, capped with snow and only adding to my sense of diminutiveness.

Photo Courtesy Offbeat Safaris

www.OffbeatSafaris.com



As I stood mesmerized by the endless plain I saw something grow out of the dust shimmering in the warm air. Something enormous and dark as slate, something that seemed to sway and wiggle and slowly condense into one massive, ponderous shape with long white tusks gleaming in the sun. I could barely form the word, my hand raised up and my finger pointed, but my mouth worked silently. Finally the word came out "Elephant!" But it was no more than a whisper. Now the other kids spotted her, too, and the cry went up. Everyone shouted elephant at once and took off running for the grownups.



Except me. I stood still, feeling rooted to the ground, unwilling to move, willing the elephant to come closer, yet terrified that she would. I wanted to commune with her. I wanted to tell her she overwhelmed and terrified me and yet, beneath that, I felt nothing but love and awe. The grown ups came running and I was called away to watch from a safe distance as one by one, elephants of all sizes and ages materialized out of the opaque curtain.



Some things have not changed. I am all grown up, but I still feel moved to the very marrow of my bones when in the company of elephants. And when I think of that little girl, and that very soon, no more little girls will be afforded the wonder of such a moment, it breaks my heart.

Because unless we change our ways,  it is no longer just a possibility that elephants in the wild will be extinct in ten years.

It is a probability.

Viewer warning: The first few minutes of this are hard to watch. But it's a comprehensive and informative look at the ivory trade today. You might be surprised at what you learn.

All photos generously donated by Billy Dodson unless stated otherwise.

www.savannaimages.com

Mixed Blessings

Last night, we had one of those incredible thunderstorms wash over us, the kind that Texas and Oklahoma are famous for. The kind that births tornadoes.

We desperately needed the rain and all day that is what I asked for. Rain but no tornadoes, please. Dear God, no tornadoes.

I got my wish but elsewhere, less than two hours from here, they were not so lucky. 6 confirmed dead, dozens injured, hundreds homeless. This morning as I look with gratitude at my soaked garden and pastures, the flowers bright and happy after a long drink, the yellowing grass already green as Ireland again, others are sifting through broken belongings, looking at the iron sky through roofless homes and shattered windows, stumbling over splintered walls in shock and disbelief.

I've always loved thunderstorms. The electricity in the air, the blustering winds, the pelting rain, the booming and rolling of thunder and the blinding flashes of jagged light. It made me feel alive, the furor of Nature. It made feel like I was on fire with some unnamed desire and I should be standing on a towering ledge and scream with ferocity as the storm came galloping on hooves of thunder, whipped by hail.

Now I sit in prayer and scour the horizon with every flash of light that illuminates the darkness. Scour the horizon for any crooked fingers reaching down for the earth, twisting and jabbing at tender, vulnerable spots. Wonder if I should keep the horses in or out, what is safer? A roof over their heads against the stinging hail or worse - the deadly strike of a lightning bolt? Or the freedom to run should a tornado hit? Our storm shelter, after all, is only just big enough for us and 5 dogs.............

I know it's just the way of nature. I know it's part and parcel of life around here. But some days it makes me wonder. Some days, I miss getting to simply sit and enjoy a fine thunderstorm.