Last night I had a white dream....a house with white fences...lily's....the white cat....a white rocking chair on the front porch....and white foot prints on the snow towards the gate next to the snow man with button eyes and a whilte wooly hat....but just one set of foot prints...probably mine!

Sense...I want the world to make more sense...But I may as well wish for a cow that recites Shakespeare or a flower that can dance... Cows deliver milk, not messages. Flowers bloom, but they just don't boogie...ya ya I know all that....and I also know that there are things In this universe that it's just not reasonable to expect, and a reasonable universe is one of those things and the best one can hope for is a life that makes some kind of sense, some of the time...There's absolutely no sense in striving for more sense than that! What's happening now is pretty crazy ...

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a friend while back....and the definition of happiness...tonight I thought to myself perhaps there is only one true state of happiness, though we can approach it via many roads. Some are deceptive; they look from a distance as if they will take us directly to that place yet they meander dreadfully. Others are less obviously signposted yet they provide a quick, simple journey to that special destination. Then there are the ones that purport to offer a highway to joy yet which actually lead away from it. Some may argue that ....Happiness, is always nearer and easier to get to than we think. And it is a place that nobody, ever, is obliged to leave!
But I gave it a try....Two steps forward, one step back. It's a frustrating way to make progress but it's a wonderful way to dance....and I certainly am not in the mood to dance...perhaps I need to see myself less as a driver, trying to steer the vehicle towards some vital destination and more as a passenger with a ticket to ride on a glorious magical mystery tour ( so much for glorious though!!! as if!)...Somewhere in the back of my mind, there's an ideal vision of how things should be. This attractive image is both unrealistic and insidious. Each time I compare my actual life to the golden dream, I feel somehow inadequate....perhaps that is where the problem lies... all I actually now need to do is stop setting myself such artificially high standards.... and don't pollute the positivity and purity by mixing it up with an empty fantasy.....but who is to say it is a fantasy?

Smile and the world smiles with you. ...Cry and you cry alone.... Or so they say. Actually though, people are much more sensitive to the emotions of others than most of us ever realise. Just as we tend to yawn when we see strangers yawning in the street, we get grouchy when we encounter bad tempered characters... and when we come across folk who are putting out charming, cheerful or even sexy 'vibes' we find ourselves responding in kind....(not that, that's ever happened to me of course!)... all I am saying is that moods can be influenced by other people...or particular people in our life... and in turn surely we are making an impact on certain other individuals in our vicinity.... so perhaps we need to bare that in mind and resolve to pass on only what we truly want to share! .....I try to look for something to go by...something to make me smile......something on the look out for the new year.... my finances may be far from ideal and there may well be no magic wand I can wave to improve them... I am not where I want to be....I am not with whom I want to be....home office can't decide whether I can have my passport back...I can't be bothered to do my project....don't feel like studying for exams....what is the point...can't be bothered with looking for jobs....have become crap at interviews anyway....my plans have all gone wrong....and yes once again...life is just happening around me without slightest effort from me......But surely there's certainly an improvement I can set in motion.....surely there is light at the end of the tunnel....or is this one of those tunnels that doesn't ever end...!!! How long does one wait....patience is a virtue...right....but how much patience........? am I the victim of circumstances....?

Who said the past is in the past??? No it is not...it is bloody right here with every move we make .... ok ok...it is right here with every move I make....slapping me right in the face!!! You can't judge a book by looking at the cover... and you can't judge a year by its first few days. That's what they say. They may well be right, But sometimes, you can get a distinct flavour of what's in store....Crap!!!

Right now I feel rather like a person who has been staring at a landscape through a small window... I feel I have seen all there is to see... I yearn for a change but I fear that it is going to be difficult to instigate... ( or because perhaps people keep reminding me of things I don't want to be reminded of!) .... Experience teaches us that we don't have to seek change. It will always find its way to us... Perhaps stability is the experience we have to strive for and the moment we relinquish our desire to lead a predictable life, chaos seems to come flooding in like a lake through a crack in the wall of a dam...( well it always finds its way to get to me anyway!!)...Nonetheless, I am ready to do whatever is needed...I am about to prove that, actually, all it takes is a simple decision to step outside the door... Without that window in my way, surely I will find much more to appreciate on the horizon of the surrounding landscape....

When Achilles, the great warrior of Greek mythology, was just a tiny baby, his mother dipped him in the river Styx. This caused every part of him to become invulnerable, with the exception of the heel by which she held him. We all have our weak spots and they all ironically, tend to get weaker, the more we try to acquire greater strength. Somewhere in me is an area of deep emotional sensitivity.... maybe an unhealthy dependency....Perhaps this is the good year to throw away that so called sensitive dependancy and stand on my two feet...and held my head high!

"Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction." ...Kahlil Gibran's observation points the way to the decision that must be reached between now and the end of the first full week of the New Year. I may not be able to reconcile the difference between what I feel and what I think but nor must I allow one force to triumph over the other...My heart and head must each have their say...

As I attempt to broker a compromise between these vastly different forces, I try hard to remind myself that it doesn't matter how beautifully I embellish a picture or decorate a house.... If the basic outline is not easy on the eye, or the fundamental structure is flawed, I am never going to compensate by fiddling with the superficial detail... As with art or architecture, so with life.... perhaps I need to pare away the complication from a situation or relationship so I can see it for what it actually is, adjust it as necessary, and then decide what else it needs. One of my lecturer's once said: " Once you have simplicity, you'll also have agreement between many of the crap in your thesis that now appear to conflict with one another".....well you might think it is irrelevant and thinking what a load of jibberish...but hey...all I am saying is that perhaps once I have simplicity and stop complicating things then I can perhaps find the balance between my head and my heart....if I can find any of them!!!!!

Two transatlantic flights were cancelled, just before the weekend, ( and many more today...if I haven't got my BBC and CNN crossed)...due to a terrorist threat. A lot of travellers were inconvenienced. And nothing happened. So maybe it was all in vain. Or maybe not. Life's wisest, smartest moves and choices don't always bring show stopping, obvious results. Often, we never get to see the disaster that might have ensued if only we had taken a sillier route from one place to another. We live in blissful ignorance of narrow escapes and near misses. Sometimes we find ourselves working in the realm of invisible influence. We can't be sure that our big hunch is a good one... but nor can we ignore it...and know that somehow we are going to have to act on it, regardless of how perceptible the consequences turn out to be...That's good...isn't it? ...I sound like I am acting on a psychic tip off... I've only got a nudge, a wink, or a half heard hint to go on... but cut me some slack here I am honouring it with respect.... And as always when I head further down this controversial but clever road ( heading down litrally...not trip over if I am lucky!) , I feel far stronger and better ( as you do when everything around you goes the wrong way!) ... regardless of whether I ever get 'proof positive' that I did the right thing...after all I love a good challenge don't I???!!!!!

We all love solving puzzles. What we don't like is discovering that those puzzles may not have a satisfactory solution. It's then that they become problems. We can apply our minds to abstract, remote difficulties or to situations that are bemusing our friends. Sometimes, though, we are too quick to give up on questions that relate too directly to our lives. Maybe this is not a problem...maybe I simply have a puzzle from which I need to stand further back...and look at it differently...Whether I made a plan for this particular phase of my life long ago or merely had a vague expectation about what I would like it to bring, I am beginning to see things are most unlikely to come to pass as I anticipated...well certainly not anytime soon... Circumstances beyond my control are forcing me to rearrange my agenda and re-evaluate priorities on an almost daily basis. Though I tend to be adaptable, I'd like more stability...not sure what this is... fear?...doubt?...new year jitters?...whatever it is... the outcome better be good!!!

Are we all just victims of circumstance? Perhaps, but some of us, despite facing superficially similar circumstances, feel far more inclined to see ourselves as beneficiaries of kindly coincidence. We all face factors we can't control, or we expend a lot of effort without much certainty of getting much by way of reward. When we decide to accept what's happening and do our best regardless, we can feel good even if things don't all go exactly our way. When we resent the situation we find ourselves in, we feel bad, regardless of how much truly good reason there is to be unhappy. Maybe what I need is to embrace what there's no point in rejecting... And be aware that things can change...ya ya...gotta be optimistic....too soon to over rule new year resolutions....