Imbi's Wonderful World of Winter ..

There's something melancholic in finishing a year.
It's looking back on days that have passed far too fast, and yet have left such a deep impression that life seems to be changed forever.

Last year has passed very fast.
The most important things that happened are sad ones.
Friends struggling with disease, death in their family, and a good friend died so suddenly, that her husband, 3 children, family and friends didn't have the chance to say goodbye.
We had many plans for the future, wanted to sing together... now memories are left. And they're very vivid.
I feel in her a true sister died, and it will take a long time before I only can smile at her memory.

Right now the former teacher of us, who has also taught some of my children, is recovering from a heart attack.
It feels like parts of my past are recolored.

Ofcourse the most time of last year was spent on the children.

With so many problems I'm not only a mother, but also a teacher, helping Djenne and Thami with their dyslexia, a coach, keeping for instance Lars motivated to do his schoolwork, a walking agenda, especially for Stef and Jim and everyone else. LOL!.
But most of all their psychologist and psychiatrist.

But I can't be everywhere.
Nyo got problems at school. His group was larger than intended and far more noisy.
He couldn't cope at all.
I was surprised by the open and caring cooperation with school.
I asked them to back up my request for therapy with a letter about what happened at school and I had the letter in the mailbox the next day.

When he finally had crawled through the waitinglist we met a very lovely woman therapist, and an equally nice male psychiatrist.
It's a pleasure to be at the department, which doesn't make me forget the many hours we've spend there.

Thami was confronted by a woman psychiatrist who wants to reform the world in one carefully sharp targetted sentence.
Well, she finished our work, so he accepted going to a school for children with special needs. (Nyo's school too)

With Stef I've spend many hours and emotions at psychiatry, waiting, waiting and waiting. Only to be confronted with a woman that is completely incapable. The sessions each time result in me taking over, because she just doesn't know how to handle matters.
She even asks me to take over. LOL!
So we're now in the habit of trying to foretell how matters will go...and we haven't been wrong once...

But how nice our contact can be, he needs motivation all the time.
He forgets about everything and doesn't put in a lot of effort to help at home. Not because he doesn't want to, but just because he doesn't see the need.
This year I realised that he might never be able to have a place for himself.

Because I'll be 50 next month and I always have said that at that age I would be old enough to sing the blues and jazz, I've started to broaden my repertoire a bit.
But my voice is still very clear and it's funny to sing this kind of music with the experience of life but without the raw sound one expects.
Well it's a challenge to find my own sound.

With the girls I applied for membership of a bagpipesband.
We're the first women in that men's world.
The first stage is practicing on a practice chanter. We've already bought them for the girls, and now it's my turn.
The band uses :: McCallum ::, and they also want us to have no plastic/polypenco, but blackwood practice chanters.
Not very cheap, but the sound is wonderful.
A practice chanter sounds different from a bagpipe, so it can be used in the house without the neighbours fleeing out of their houses. LOL!
As my 50-st birthday is near, I hope I'll get a standard blackwood, with imitation ivory sole and nickel ferrule. There are also those with silver soles and ferrules, beautifully engraved. So I'm not wishing for the most expensive. LOL!

If it isn't possible to join all the events of the bagpipeband, I would love to play on chamber pipes, Like :: these ones ::.
But I doubt if I'll ever get the money to pay for them.
But a girl has to dream, doesn't she?

It's fun to see how those few scots drops of blood that are circulating through the veins still express themselves. Not only in the interest in bagpiping. LOL!

I've spend many happy hours contacting the world outside online and making pages.
I want to thank my friends, and I want to thank the artists that made their work available to enjoy, and the adoption shoppe owners who allowed me to have the pleasure to have many cuties on my site.
Thanks so much!!!

I needed those hours of beauty.
After all these years of caring and never really something for myself, no vacation, not even a weekend, I felt drained and depressed.

I know I have fallen friends short, just because I couldn't divide myself, or because I was just too tired in my head to give attention to others.
I'm so sorry if you have been one of those who needed more of me than I could give at the moment.

To me it's one of the most difficult realisations: that I couldn't be available the way I wanted.

I continued studying seismology and vulcanology, but not as intensely as before.
The most attention went to St. Helens and to trying to forecast earthquakes on the hand of charts of recent quakes, without special equipment.

This year I've read a lot about the Maya calendars and old traditions and prophecies.
What is happenening in the world is prophesied.
We'll go through many changes before a new time starts in a couple of years.
I for myself go through many changes that bring me closer to who I am and to who I want to be.
It means shedding off all layers that stand between me and others.

One of the layers I left this year is pride.
I lost pride in being a human being when I saw again how people deal with each other. How easily wars are started and how easily young people were told to die for their country.
I lost pride when I saw how asylum seekers and fugitives are treated, and how people with money have a far better life than those who don't.
I lost pride when I saw how many have preconceptions and opinions about others.

I have made this past year some clear decisions about which people fit into my life.
It might sound harsh, but I'm trying to see what my purpose is in life and it's not about being untrue, manipulative, etc.
I was freed of some people that are not true to themselves.
It means I can be more the person I want to be.

I've also carefully observed some developments in my country and in the world.
I've found that I'm a sound criticist of politics.
Especially the educational and health systems got attention and I've written many mails and letters to try people realise what they are doing and what the consequences are of their actions.
It's interesting to see that a kind and clearly worded approach results in changes.
Ofcourse I can use the knowledge of my profession.

So one way or another 2005 has been interesting.

Thank you, my true internet sisters for being my friend. For sharing your happiness and grief.

Being with people who are honest and true makes clear that development of a human being isn't towards knowing and having more, but towards understanding that one is a guest on this planet and one needs to care for everything and everybody. It learns that all people are equal, and all lifeforms deserve respect.

This all made me see that I'm just one small particle of nature, one small grain in history, one small unimportant element in the ongoing winds of time.

An African proverb says: it's not about what we do, but about how we love the people around us.

Thank you all for the experiences of this past year.

I wish you well.
I wish you a year of many positive developments.