start where you are

life lessons

Sometimes we have to accept doing less than we desire to do.

monday’s walk

heavy skies

This morning the sky is heavy at the edges, more rain threatening. Still, there is enough clear sky. We check we have our raincoats and we walk. The walk to school easily beats the travel of the rain. Going back up the hill, I look to the sky, decide to take a chance and turn off to take the longer walk.

As I walk, the wind grows. It blusters and swirls, tearing at the world and I am on edge. I remember there was a tornado in Avondale yesterday. At the furthest point from home a swirling of leaves starts dancing the road, and I catch my breath for a moment. Just as quickly they drop, and I walk on. Still on edge.

Between the swirling, battering wind and the threatening sky I forsake the coastal walk, and loop the road instead. Where periodic bus shelters offer the possibility of refuge if the rain hits. And I walk harder. Harder than is probably sensible, as I feel the puff of fluid in my ankles and knees. I should ease off, but as the wind blasts me and tears at my clothes I clench my jaw and keep my pace.

And walking the ridge, between the last bus stop and home I can see rain closing in from both sides, and I push a little harder. The wind carries a few streaks of rain ahead of the squall and I can see splatters of water streaking across in front of me. I feel the odd splatter against my face. But we are close now.

As I enter the gate I feel some heavier drops, and it is with relief I escape the tearing wind for the sanctuary of inside. Still the arrival of the squall is gradual, it blusters and splatters a little, and I wonder if perhaps that is all it will do. Then suddenly, (as I sit typing this), the full force of the sqaull arrives, the wind thundering at the house while rain blasts the walls and streaks across the windows.

Minutes later, there is blue crossing into the window once more. I watch the dark speck of a bird soaring across the sky, riding the tail of the squall across and out the other side of the window. The wind continues to bluster.

moments of wonderful

• Gluten free pancake breakfast for Dad’s day.
• Stolen minutes for morning yoga sun salutes.
• Walking, and more walking. Some in sunshine even.
• Mad crazy badminton players in our hallway.
• Walking hand in hand with my sweet girl.
• Fierce hugs. And surprise hugs.
• So many green growing things in the garden, well, growing!
• White clouds of breath steaming in the crisply cold air.

wise words

Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands alone.

Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.

–Pueblo Verse

a damp, grey day

Soft around the edges, and muted. Still I am walking it. Moments after leaving the street for the longer forested route, the dampness coalesced into a misting rain. The briefest hesitation, but the green had already seduced me and I kept to my path, winding along between backyards and estuary. Tide almost full today, the mudflats transformed to beguiling. Green blanket of water rippling softly beneath the rain drops.

Follow the path the full distance, and there is a moment, crossing a clearing, where you are suspended between suburbia and forest. You walk just this way, crossing behind a brake of trees and suddenly there are no backyards, no fences, no houses and no other man made artifacts visible. Just a green, red field surrounded by trees.

And today, in that moment, was quiet. No sounds except the water dripping through the trees, a background of bird calls, with the occasional snap or rustle of their movement amongst the trees. I stopped and stood and felt it, let it fill me. Just me and the dog, alone in a world of quiet.

And then a chainsaw roared somewhere back behind the trees and the spell was broken. But I walked on with that feeling of quiet held inside me.