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How the Cosmos came to inhabit me

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One dark Boxing Day in 1984, my brother got a telescope for his birthday.  From that night on he spent hours at his bedroom window staring out at the night sky.  I tried to take an interest, tugging at his sleeve to get a look, but to my dismay I couldn't see any of the stars he tried to show me.  My brother seemed to grow even more clever and intellectual after that, and I wasn't quite able to forgive the cosmos for stealing him away. Years later, like many teenagers, I was interested in Astrology, but soon I tired of all the jargon.  Technical terms such as "House of Mars" and "Mercury in retrograde" left me longing for the simple joy of my sketchbook or good novel.  It wasn't until decades later when I watched a video about Quantum Physics that I suddenly became hooked on the exciting information I was hearing.  It wasn't because I fully understood it (they say if you think you understand Quantum Physics you know nothing at all), but it piqued my ...
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  "Two Hearts" by Nina Couser - Acrylic on Paper - 10cm x 10cm When I was a little child, I would spend hours and hours, drawing and writing, writing and drawing.  The time would vanish as I disappeared into a world of my own.  Gradually my small drawings became larger oil paintings, exhibited at school, and later bought by friends and colleagues.  My writing became short stories and poetry which sometimes won prizes.  When life as an adult began, there seemed to be less hours to dive into.  Real life was work in every sense, and yet I always made time to create and send newsy letters home.  As the years went by however, my artworks became small doodles once more and the gaps between the written word grew further apart. Years later, when my father, himself a prolific painter and writer, died in 2021, I pulled out my old sketch pad and started painting again.  Art seemed the perfect way to speak my grief aloud and find a way to keep dad close....