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Tag Archives: beauty

Love everlasting

05 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by seejanesblog in Observations

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

beautiful smile, beauty, best friend, death, everlasting love, friend laurel, friend rachel, illness, joy, laughter, life, love, mom, mother, puzzles, quirky humor, Rachel Lindahl, sadness, sister joan, sister twins, true love

Rachel Eunice Ostrom Lindahl took her last breath on 5 March, 2014. Not unexpected, yet still a jolt – – and continues to be. A sweet part of my life is missing. I’m re-posting this in honor of her.

199901_1006926894756_3886_nThis is Rachel and me. Rachel is the mother of my best friend, Laurel, and I’ve known her my entire life, since I was about one year old. She’s my other mother and is as important to me as any of my own family members. She’s my friend. Rachel is quiet and shy. She’s sensitive, loving, sweet. And she loves to laugh! Especially with (at) Laurel and me!

Laurel and I have been friends forever and have our own quirky humor and, after so many years together, a unique energy flows between us. In fact, Laurel’s family mostly rolls their eyes at us when we get going with our little tricks that make us (and Rachel) laugh. We’re like sister twins that have developed our own language and that language always includes quick-witted comments and hilarity. But my relationship with Laurel is another story. This is about Rachel.

About one year ago Rachel began feeling unsteady on her feet and developed a slight shake. After lots of doctoring and medications, she’s got a diagnosis and is learning to adapt to the fact that she requires 24-hour care. But I’m not writing this to discuss her symptoms or her diagnosis. I’m writing about Rachel and what she means to me and what it’s like to see someone you love struggle with pain and lack of mobility.

Rachel is tall and statuesque. She has a beautiful smile and sparkling blue eyes. You notice her in a room and you’re drawn to her sweet countenance. She’s beautiful. She’s naive in a way, believing in the best parts of people always; accepting us how we are. She loves unconditionally. She’s sentimental. She feels pain deeply and carries it with her: The loss of her dear twin sister, Joan. The eventual dissolution of her marriage. The loss first of her father, then her mother. And now the sudden failing of her body.

“It’s hard,” she sometimes says. And we know it’s true. We know how hard it is for this active and graceful woman to be confined to her uncooperative body. And we all suffer in our own way for her, for her loss, for her sadness. For our loss, our sadness.

But here’s the thing that buoys me: Rachel is still tall and statuesque. She still exudes sweetness and shyness and beauty and joy. She laughs. She’s still herself. There’s still time for me to let her know how deep my love is for her; what she’s done for me in life.

She represents to me love and acceptance and joy. Unfailing. She’s always curious about my life. She enjoys hearing what’s going on with me. She loves listening to me talk and laugh. She wants me around. She loves me. She loves me now and she has always loved me. She knows me!

And the best part of it all is that I still have time to let her know how important she is to me. I can still put puzzles together with her, I can still talk with her, and I can still laugh with her.

The other day we were all joking about how I didn’t want to get up from puzzling to go to the bathroom. I asked Rachel if she would “go” for me so that I wouldn’t have to get up. A silly conversation, but we all laughed. But then she looked straight at me with her beautiful blue eyes and said I could sit on her lap in her wheelchair and she would wheel me in there if I needed her to. I laughed. But she was serious and she said, “Because I would do that for you Janie. I would do anything for you.” I stopped laughing and looked back at her and said, “I know you would do that for me, Rachel. I know you would.” And it felt so good to know that she would; to know that this woman loves me and would do anything for me. And I would do the same for her.

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Me and my iPhone 5

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by seejanesblog in Observations

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

beautiful scenery, beauty, farm land, iPhone 5, minnesota, north dakota, on the road, photo experiment, photographs, photography, pictures, scenery, south dakota, travel

I travel a lot for my job, mostly around North and South Dakota and Minnesota, and almost always in my car. To break up the long drive and to take advantage of the beautiful scenery, I’ve been doing an experiment with photography where I take pictures following two rules.

1. I can only take the photo with my iPhone 5.

2. I must either stay in the car or be touching the car with some part of my body at any given time.

The point? To show that everyone can take pictures; to show that beauty is accessible to everyone, and that we just have to look at our seemingly average surroundings to see it!

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50 Shades of Blue

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by seejanesblog in Morocco

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

beauty, blue, Chefchaouan, green, Morocco, photography, purple, shades of blue, The Blue City, village

I still don’t know why the city of Chefchaouen is blue. But in the 1930’s, Jewish people painted it such. But why!? No clue. But really, who cares. I was too busy taking photos and gawking and oohing and ahhing to care. At every turn there was more beauty! So much so that after a few hours it almost got tiresome. Take a look. And imagine seeing all of this in person!

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Age is in the eye of the beholder

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by seejanesblog in Morocco

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

age, beauty, car, driving, fes, hitchhiking, love of people, Morocco, motherhood, neck surgery, old woman, road, travel, volubilis

Returning to Fes from Volubilis we passed two women hitchhiking. “Do you mind?’ Mokhtar asked. Of course not so we stopped to pick them up. “She’s an old lady,” he added. I agreed. They both looked like old ladies though of different gradients of old. In they hopped after many smiles and handshakes, hugs and ‘chukrans.’ Beautiful women with bright faces. Their story? Mother and daughter. Mother is on her way to Fes (50km away) to have neck surgery – – or hopes to. She was a maid for some people in Dades Valley and when her neck gave her so many troubles, the family let her go. Daughter came to get her and was so surprised how bad she really is. So now she is taking care of her old mom. Mother is 49. The “old lady” is 49.

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The recent past

  • Living above my means
  • The broken palm tree and a hug
  • The little old man of Bab Doukkala
  • The kindness of a stranger
  • Walk gently on this earth
  • Love everlasting
  • And suddenly it hits you…
  • It’s not what you’re given, it’s what you do with it

Stuff from my past

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  • @BravoObsessed6 He sure has a type. 10 months ago
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Blogs worth reading

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Food! Glorious food!

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Stuff worth knowing

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  • Definition 'kasbah'
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  • Volubilis, Morocco: about it

My traveling past in Flickr photos

...dunkler Himmel über StykkishólmurPapučica / Slipper flower (Calceolaria herbeohybrida)Dreamlike PathASUNDERAmuse-GueuleWinter over the Grand Union Canal …"The Unknown From The Seine"Free  Feature • Read the 'Behind the scene' storyMare d'inverno
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