The Gift Before The Last Gift of the Year
Dec. 30th, 2025 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootFitful night, watching the outdoor lights flickering giant shadows through the room like massive glass moths. So odd I got up and didn't go back to bed til 3 am. Woke up at 8.45, just before the cleaner arrived in time to see me in my dressing gown. Now I sit here, heavy eyed and bleary.
2025, a strange year. For me, it was comparatively gentle. I faced only two great pains, the never improving issue of my mum and the death of our dear old cat, Ralik.
All else for me was recuperation. The radiotherapy came and went, and everyone warned me that improvement would be slow. True. But I also experienced the visions of Europe's earliest artists at Lascaux, and these filled my heart. Malta, France, Spain, the Fringe, the wilds of Lancashire, all contributed to my healing and inspiration. I tried to paint. I was bad at it. I will try some more. I am not blazing with power right now, but I am OK. Love and friendship held me together. I have a lot for which to be grateful.
Having said that, friends remain of great concern to me. Resting myself, I was in a position to see how this year has been one of difficulties for so many of the old crew; break-ups, redundancies, illness, accidents and worse.... Tragedy was close by. Even for one of the most successful of my friends, there was a heart-wrenching decision, hard enough to drop his head over his pint for a moment, pause, then look up at the world with the smile everyone expects. Even for the tough, these are tough times.
But there was music and laughter too, including one particularly awesome party. And the year moves, we move with it.Everything changes but today is a good day to look back. https://substack.com/home/post/p-182920271
2025, a strange year. For me, it was comparatively gentle. I faced only two great pains, the never improving issue of my mum and the death of our dear old cat, Ralik.
All else for me was recuperation. The radiotherapy came and went, and everyone warned me that improvement would be slow. True. But I also experienced the visions of Europe's earliest artists at Lascaux, and these filled my heart. Malta, France, Spain, the Fringe, the wilds of Lancashire, all contributed to my healing and inspiration. I tried to paint. I was bad at it. I will try some more. I am not blazing with power right now, but I am OK. Love and friendship held me together. I have a lot for which to be grateful.
Having said that, friends remain of great concern to me. Resting myself, I was in a position to see how this year has been one of difficulties for so many of the old crew; break-ups, redundancies, illness, accidents and worse.... Tragedy was close by. Even for one of the most successful of my friends, there was a heart-wrenching decision, hard enough to drop his head over his pint for a moment, pause, then look up at the world with the smile everyone expects. Even for the tough, these are tough times.
But there was music and laughter too, including one particularly awesome party. And the year moves, we move with it.Everything changes but today is a good day to look back. https://substack.com/home/post/p-182920271
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