Saturday, May 2, 2026

How lovely it was to be alone again.

 

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. How commonplace and stupid it would be if I had a friend now, sitting beside me, someone I had known at school, who would say: “By-the-way, I saw old Hilda the other day. You remember her, the one who was so good at tennis. She’s married, with two children.” And the bluebells beside us unnoticed, and the pigeons overhead unheard. I did not want anyone with me. Not even Maxim. If Maxim had been there I should not be lying as I was now, chewing a piece of grass, my eyes shut. I should have been watching him, watching his eyes, his expression. Wondering if he liked it, if he was bored. Wondering what he was thinking. Now I could relax, none of these things mattered. Maxim was in London. How lovely it was to be alone again.

― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

Friday, May 1, 2026

No matter how old...

 


No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 

1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.

3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.”

4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.

5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.

6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.

7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.

8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.

9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.

10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.

11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.

12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23

13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24

14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record

15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity

16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France

17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28

18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world

19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter

20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind

22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest

23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream."

24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics

25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight

26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.

27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.

28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas

30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger

31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States

32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.

33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"

34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.

35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.

36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.

37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.

38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".

40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived

41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise

42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out

43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US

44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats

45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President”

― Pablo

ai art by me


Thursday, April 30, 2026

Water and a mouth

 


"Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.
Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.
Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does."

—Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

Source: English LIterature on Facebook


Also, from Margaret:

“The difficulty is that I have no mouth through which I can speak. I can’t make myself understood, not in your world, the world of bodies, of tongues and fingers; and most of the time I have no listeners, not on your side of the river. Those of you who may catch the odd whisper, the odd squeak, so easily mistake my words for breezes rustling the dry reeds, for bats at twilight, for bad dreams.”

― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

ai Art by me.

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Monday, April 27, 2026

tender truth

 

The rain taps lightly on the roof of an umbrella and someone says,
listen to the rain
while someone else smiles and says,
listen to the music.
It is the same sky,
the same water falling,
the same soft drumming
on temporary shelter
but one hears the downpour,
and one hears a song.
The soil settles between our fingers as hands sink into earth and one finds grit,
whilst another finds grounding.
The ocean folds, as its waves crash hard against the waiting shore, and one sees chaos, whilst another sees beauty.
Because maybe the music never came from the rain at all.
Maybe the music and the beauty and the grounding comes from the quiet, tender truth that we do not see the world
as it is.
But as we are looking at it.
*****
A new poem that I wrote for my Patreon a couple of weeks ago. A reminder for a new week that - when it feels like the world isn't what we hope to find out there - we can still look at our own little world in a way that brings more calm, less chaos.
Becky Hemsley 2026
Lovely artwork by Maria Quezada

Source: Becky Hemsley Poetry on Facebook

Sunday, April 26, 2026

Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mtn Boys - Dark and Stormy is the Desert

 



Dark and Thorny

Dark and stormy is the desert
Through which pilgrims make their way
Yet beyond this vale of sorrow
Lie the fields of endless day

Oh young soldiers are you weary
Of the roughness of the way
Does your strength begin to fail you
And your vigor to decay

Jesus Jesus will go with you
He will lead you to his throne
He whose thunder shapes creation
He who bids the planets roll

Around him are ten thousand angels
Ready to obey his command
They’ll all be there to hover round you
Til you’ve reached the heavenly land

There on flowery hills of pleasure
Lie the fields of endless rest
Love and joy and peace forever
Reign and triumph in your breast