Advent-urous Artists Day 17

Miss June 2011

Over on Ric's blog today he is talking about his experience of being on the "wrong" side of the camera for a charity calendar raising funds for the Chatteris Christmas Lights charity. I was also involved in the calendar and after reading his piece I went to look at my picture as it's a good while since I have seen it. The photo was taken in April 2009 shortly after I came out of hospital after my Achilles tendon/pulmonary embolism drama and looking at it with fresh eyes today after a long time evoked some strong memories for me. You can't see in the picture (thanks to Rob's left a bit, right a bit approach to positioning my arms!) but my stomach was a mass of purple bruises from the injections I had been having whilst in hospital. I was still wearing the hideously hampering surgical boot on my leg at this point and had to schlump into position and then remove it and squeeze into the more aesthetic shoes I'm wearing! Without making it sound too over dramatic, my brush with blood clots bobbing about my lungs forced me to face my mortality and it changed my life in alot of ways.  One of the changes I decided to make was to lose some weight to improve my health and since this photo was taken I have lost 4 stone but there are so many more invisible changes.  My month doesn't roll round until next June (it's an 18 month calendar and I'm last in line!) and although I love the photo, very much enjoyed taking part in the project and have absolutely no regrets about doing it, it is still strange to look at myself then and look at myself now and know that those two women are the same and yet very different.  Looking at that photo has reminded once more of how very transient life can be, how very powerful the effect that period of my life had on me, how life has to be embraced and lived out loud.  ;o) 

Have a look at Rob and Ric's blog posts for today.