Oceans are moving

"A whole year passed, unremarkable, one of those periods of consolidation in change when one is growing and filling out into the spaces of a life the shape of which has been set but not yet seen: the time will come to stop shout, and look, up and around at the walls, the ceilings, the staircases leading from here to there, that one has built around oneself out of daily dabs of mud. Or the year was like a ship; inside it seems much the same town you have always lived in... But beneath the patterned carpet oceans are moving past your feet; and you yourself have determined this with a ticket you bought months back." Nadime Gordimer The Lying Days

For us 2011 definately wasn't like a ship - we knew we'd moved...
@
What was 2011 for you a staircase or a ship? And how would you like 2012 to be?

Scarcely Breathing

Virago celebrates love and strong, good relationships yet they also aren't afraid to look at when relationships aren't quite how we hope. Be they between lovers

'At first I clutched at anything I thought might hold together the torn and tearing garment of our relationship; but while I snatched the edges together with a comfort or a promise to myself in one place, the seams burst, the thread raveled out somewhere else. So in the end I did what so many other women, all through time have done in situations beyond them. I became afraid to move inside that garment. It was torn in so many places, that the seams strained so frailly everywhere, that it seemed only by keeping quite still, scarcely breathing, would it hold together.' Nadine Gordimer The Lying Days

or family

'When her mother seemed to have finished, she put down the half-eaten slice of bread and made towards the door. She had to pass her mother to get to it. They looked at each other. Each at that moment expected, and perhaps wanted, an embrace.' Pat Barker Union Street

reflecting