Stepping Out into A World of Two Halves

Garrarus Beach, Co. Waterford

Sunset at Garrarus caught me off guard today as it was all about contrasts, light and shade, closing in and opening out.

It evoked thoughts of Turner’s paintings, but even more thoughts of distance and togetherness.

Nowhere is the issue of distance and togetherness more apparent than in relationships where a person has dementia.

The moodiness of the scene made me think of my late father, who used the word ‘moody’ very much when it came to photographs and paintings. He had some form of dementia in his later years. This made for stormy moments but also moments of intense clarity and oneness.

I think of him with intense love as I listen to the great Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem singing The Dutchman. 

 

 

Light and Shade by Turn but Love Always

Light and shade by turn but love always are the words engraved on the Temple at Mount Congreve Garden. As I read them this morning, they seemed to sum up every emotion I was feeling.

Today, May 24th, is my son’s nineteenth birthday; it also marks the last day I saw my late parents together as they sat in their porch at sundown in 2009; and it is the anniversary of the death of Ambrose Congreve who died, aged 104, in 2011.

Yes, life is full of light and shade; joy and sadness; and love is what we need to sustain and nurture us through the rough and the smooth.

Today, I feel especially grateful to Ambrose Congreve for creating a garden which brings such peace and allows for such connection and reflection. My parents adored Mount Congreve and it is a place in which I have shared many, many precious hours with my son.

Here are some of the key images that particularly captivated me in Mount Congreve today as they seemed to highlight themes around the seasonality of life, lives well spent, and, of course, love: