A different perspective.

I find I can get caught off guard, when confronted with everyday items in odd or unusual places. I dont seem to have a process whereby I can work out what the heck the object is or is part of.

Photographs of objects taken out of context, or out of sight of the whole object, get me every time. I am no good at those guessing games, "What is the mystery object?"

This little item, horrified my Granddaughter this morning. She looked at it, & kept say "EWW!"

Showing her the second view didnt really help either. It still looked "Ewww!"

No prizes for guessing. I will just leave it to your imagination. I am sure you will all have a better idea at working it out than perhaps I would.

I have never kept a regular diary or journal. When I was a teenager I had diaries that I kept intermittently. I would find whole weeks would go by, & I would not give a thought to writing in the diary. And then when I did remember, I would not have clue as to what had happened in the missing time spaces.

As an adult I have also had intermittent diaries. Re reading them has not always been a great idea. Some years, have been years from hell. It has seemed throughout my life that the bad patches have come in waves. Sometimes the bad parts have been veritable tsunamis of cr@p! Health, illfortune, mishaps, disasters for children. Wave after wave, until it seems there have never been any good times.

I used to write regular letters to my mother, since we lived so far apart. My mother kept a lot of those letters, & it was like reading my life, when I reread them after my mother had died. I still havent thrown them away. But I will.

My Aunt told my brother that she had kept all the letters she had received from our Uncle, while he was a prisoner of war. And he had kept all her letters to him. And, it is now 12 years since our Uncle died. Recently, our Aunt said, she had destroyed all the letters.

My brother was horrified, & told her she was a naughty woman. But I sympathise with her, & know how she feels. As she said, they were nobody's business but hers, & her husband. Which is how I would feel. I would not like any one to find my diaries & read them. I would not like letters I wrote to someone in a very personal vein to be available for public reading.

I can see my brother's point of view also. There have been a lot of historical letters which have been made available for public reading, well after the person or persons concerned, have died. I am sure some people have no thought of anyone reading their letters after they have died, & wouldnt be concerned at the thought that someone might, one day read them.

I know our mother had letters our father had written to her, while he was away overseas during the war. She must have destroyed those, as there were none among her things after she died. I dont blame her.

As a record of people's lives, letters can be very revealing. As diaries can be. But would you want someone reading your innermost thoughts or feelings. I wonder.

And here are our two woolly 'babies'. Snuggled up on GOM. He is not really asleep, just pretending to be. It is another cold day here, though at least it is not raining, & there is a bit of sun struggling against the chill winds that are blowing.

Neil Finn, Secret God.