The world lost a bright light. Pauline died peacefully from complications of a stroke. She passed on her 71st birthday, September 5, 2020. She was loved by so many and will always be remembered. We’ll miss you, Pauline. xo
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Summer Spotlight: Pauline King
In a serendipitous turn of events Jill gave me my guest post spot on my birthday. Not just any old annual event either, a momentous birth anniversary. The one where society deems you ‘a senior citizen’. An older person, a past-your-best person – an old age pensioner, a retiree, a person with no place left to go but down..
Yes, I have reached the age of 65, from today I am officially retired and now all my time every day is mine and mine alone. Happy dance!! Tango, waltz, hip-hop, jive or jazz – dance with me, celebrate with me – I have never felt younger, or more together, or more content. I laugh out loud everytime someone says the word ‘retired’. I feel like I am playing a monumental trick on the world – I now get paid by the government to live every day with nothing to do but make myself happy?
Really?
So please – enjoy a sip of champagne, a glass of wine or a shot of whatever you fancy. Help yourself to a tasty morsel of your favourite cheese. Have some of these fresh strawberries….. please, do take a slice of double chocolate gateau birthday cake while you have a quick read.
I’m not a writer – I’m a tad imposterish here amongst you lot – these denizens of the written word. But I do love books and I do love language and I love a good story! I’m a crafter, a creator, a mixed media painter. I do over, do up and make do. I recycle and upcycle, but no longer bicycle.
I started my blog ‘The Contented Crafter‘ eighteen months ago. I knew little about the blogging world or how it operated. I’d read some blogs of artists and a couple that friends keep about their professional lives. My intention in starting my blog was simply to keep a record of the creations that were coming out of my craft room because, as a reckless and totally in the moment creator, once given away there was no recall, no reminder, no sequence to refer back to.
I soon found myself blogging about other events in my life apart from my creative work – I wrote a post about my cats addiction to Catnip, another entitled ‘I Like Blogging’, yet another about a shocking meeting in a store, one about my traumatic early years, all interspersed with a variety of work that recorded a definite progress from one genre to another.
The whole experience has been a bit like Topsy – and just keeps right on growing! It is fun, it is lively, it keeps me [almost] artistically on track and has delivered some lovely new friends into my life – I still love blogging!
I live a busy life – though there was just me and my Maine Coon cat Orlando until recently. Then I adopted a Shih-Tzu X boy I named [in a moment of inappropriate grandeur] Sid-Arthur, a play on Siddhartha because I thought he was quiet and gentle and deep. I was wrong!
Two months have passed by though, and now he is pretty much the best puppy in the whole entire world and blogging stopped being about anything else much except him. If you do decide to pop in for a visit you will surely meet my boys.
Now to Jill’s questions:
If you could learn to do anything what would it be?
Dance. Any and all kinds of dance. I am a ballerina, an accomplished ballroom dancer, a whizz at jazz and contemporary dance. All in my imagination. I dance every day – but it is the boppy, dippy kind of dancing you do in the privacy of your own home when nobody is watching.
What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Learn to be contented with life as it is in any given moment. Learn to live and breathe and work with joy. Learn to see that my cup is always, and at least, half full. It’s taken a life time and is still in process.
If you could visit anyplace in the world where would it be?
I’d choose to go back to Italy and the Meditterranean countries – I love the vibrancy, the passion, the community and the life style! I love the way the people shout and wave their arms about and gesticulate when two scooters almost collide. I love the way everybody disappears at midday and reappears three hours later. I love the art, the architecture, the rolling green hills and vineyards, the markets and the history. I love the warmth of the people and the crazy volubility of families interactions– and I love how mama gets to rule the roost!
Life as an animal – which one?
A pampered, over-indulged and much loved cat! There’s brushing and petting and stroking and eating all done at a leisurely pace between bouts of sleeping in the best spots in the house. What a great life it is – and you get to live it with a look of disdain and a flick of the tail for all unwelcome intrusions on your comfort level as well!
Is there anything about the opposite sex that you just don’t understand?
Someone else has answered this question in this way before: ‘Everything!’
I love men. I love the company of men and their intellects. I love their humour and their practicality. But I don’t understand their inability to solve all the problems of the world whilst in the shower. This is clearly a fault in the mechanism and would have been grounds for an instant recall had the creator been a woman!
Thanks so much Jill, for this opportunity to meet so many new people. I have enjoyed reading every week and have visited where possible, though there have been times when life has interrupted my blogging!
Thank you for taking the spotlight, Pauline. Congratulations on your retirement, I know you’re going to love it! Up next week, it’s Maria…aka Brickhouse Chick.