The Rainbow Bridge

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Living and working in the Eastern world is not something that Westerners usually find easy in the long run. Time doesn’t exist, food outside of home is always laced with hot spices (even if you ask for none) and living conditions - especially when travelling in the mountains as frequently do - are often "sub-Western standard". I have to say though that the worst thing for me as an English woman has been not having a bath tub - not that they don’t exist here. For evenif we had a tub, we'd have to watch the amount of water usage due to general short supply and how to even get it hot with our tiny little geezer that barely fills a bucket !

Anyhow, forsaking so-called "luxury" and having got used to the bucket and jug as bath tub replacement, one does find the splendid points of life in more simple moments. Living in the most gorgeous environs of the hill-top ridge town of Mussoorie at over 2000m in the foot hills of the Indian Himalayas, surrounded by what must be one of the land’s most oxygenated forests, with 360 degree views of the world below including a skyline of Himalayan peaks to the North, heaven is on display and the bath tub can wait for my occasional visits to the UK!

Complicity within simplicity has become a way of life as I’ve spent most of my adult days outside of my homeland, planting myself here and there for years at a time that later seem just like brief moments as I look back at them. How will I later see my years in India, I wonder, days now filled with writing and film making, family and friends? I just hope I will still be as inspired to go on as life twists and turns - hopefully along the path of least resistance - to its goals.

I wish that I may find peace within this existence and that others may find peace along with me. I realise that’s quite a goal in the world within which we live today, but if there’s no target to aim for, then to what may the arrow of life fly? Courage is hard to find, but if we don’t jump off great heights and build our wings on the way down, then we may just rot away hoping that something may happen without taking our own steps.

‘Trust’ has been my greatest ally during times of both despair and exhilaration as well as those of general stability. I’ve tried to write it down, I’ve tried to express it in my photos and films. However, I’ve already got far enough in life to realise that there is a way to keep on going, no matter what Life is in the hands of our own creative faculties, may it be perfectly wonderful, may it be perfectly beneficial.