For whom the bell tolls...

As I was going through my book collection the other day I came across a book I had in my possession but had not yet read. Ernest Hemmingways 'For whom the bell tolls'.The book was old and stained an aged brown and I tired to recall whether it was the descendent of a purchase from an old neighbours garage sale or a purchase from one of the many musty second hand book stores I dicovered during my travels in England. I turned it over in my hands and found the corner to open it's cover. Inside I was met with John Donne's poem, 'No Man is an Island'.
Although familiar with it's saying I had never actually read the poem and I was struck by what Donne expressed. He said "Any mans death diminshes me, because I am involved in mankind."
Only days later I stumbled upon the news that a man I once knew, a good man had unexpectedly passed away in his sleep. My eyes burnt with tears as I mourned his loss, as  I mourned the loss that the world had experienced as a light of goodness had dimmed and faded away.
As tears flowed I questioned my affection for this man. Was my love for him truly great enough to warrant such an response. It was. But more than that, though thousands of miles away on the other side of the world I mourned with his family. I pained at their loss, I pained that the bright, happy spark of a man who had been their husband, father and friend had gone and with it his light. Only it's afterglow would live on in the memories that we shared of him.
So with his passing I began to reflect upon the things he had taught me, he had taught me to be brave. He had taught me not to let fear become my master but to overcome my fear that I could be a greater and stronger source of love and service to those who may need me.
As I sit here and reflect upon this, upon the impact this has on my life, upon the impact this has at this point in time for me I am led to acknowledge that greatness is a quality so generously applied to many but is only made home in some. And when  we see it, the greatness within us is sparked and that little light is there always, forever burning waiting for us to give it home within us too. If only we knew how it's  beginnings are sparking within each of us.
I am thankful, that I have been fortunate enough to meet with some of the worlds most brilliant and great people.

Watching Storms

I was walking with my father along an old friend of a pathway, a path I had walked a thousand time in the course of my life. The kind of chameleon pathway that has lived a thousand lives and did so each time it was walked by another. I liked walking it with my father though, I liked the time to reflect with him, to talk with him, to breathe in the deep earthy smell of rain rising from the ground. That smell of approaching rain is beautifully nostalgic for me, that smell would companion the dense humid air of a summer storm and the crack of thunder would be the storm's bell. And with that my father and I would go to the front verandah of the house and watch the storm in all it's angry brilliance. The air would become so thick with the rain rising to meet the clouds that you could taste it, the clouds would perform before our eyes in all their illusionary colours and formations, a tear would appear in the fabric of the sky causing light to touch upon the shivering life below and for a moment we as spectators would be permitted to wonder if that small scratch of light was really the sail of the heavens tearing to reveal a small piece of the majesty beyond it.
I would run out into it without regard to the drops that fell and soaked me through, I would jump through the puddles made in the uneven paving of the drive and find the holes where I could pretending that they were great lakes where adventure awaited. On precautionary days I would wear a raincoat that mum would call for me to use from the kitchen and I would grab the umbrella and run to the crack in the guttering where the abundance spilled over to watch it shower over me.
I loved those moments, I loved those storms because I loved watching them with the storm watcher, my father. Those storms remind me of summer nights as children we would sleep cushioned on the floor of the family room of the house with the fan circulating the small breeze that would gently break the heavy still air of the evening.
And so when the opportunity comes to smell that beautiful, earthy smell I breathe in deeply. I breathe in and dream of carefree, imaginative days gone by. And of a father who was and still is a giant to me.

A Friend Returns

Spring has made it's yearly travels and has again returned to my doorstep. Like a welcomed friend I greeted it with an early evening dinner in the backyard with my son on a blanket next to my husband and I. A delicate breeze as always accompanied it,  so faint as though it never wants to be discovered but there is always something in it's warmth after a long absence that makes me tingle. As I lay with my small family I looked into the early evening sky whose grey clouds had spent the day and I felt filled. What a simple and yet profound feeling. To simply feel filled. Perhaps it is the memories of times that were accompanied by this same breeze in years now gone, memories that this breeze carries on it's back, but excitement begins to find it's way into me. A sneaky, whispering excitment. And I feel grateful. 

New Beginnings...

I woke up today (in the figurative sense) and realised I was losing that thread of light. I looked into my baby son's eyes and saw this magnificent bright light that grew in intensity everytime he discovered a simple thing. I remembered that light, I remembered it well from childhood, where dreams were built in lounge room tents made from sheets, when excitement burned at a days new adventure, when the whole universe was the only space large enough to hold all of your dreams and wishes.
I realised that in the slow burn of day to day life, my light, my unique, simple but bright light was slowly fading. And I wondered...when did I begin to forget that beauty was in the most simple of day to day moments, when did I begin to forget that beauty wasn't found in childhood because it naturally existed but because my eyes naturally existed to find it.
When did I begin to think of people in columns and categories, because I was sure I had done my best to make sure no lines were ever drawn, and yet in my conversations and summations, lines were clearly now penciled in.
People think that we spend our lives trying to become better people than we started...and now I realise we really should be spending our lives trying to become as good as we started. As we did as children, as good as children can be. Because as the years grow it seems to me that I am improving in some of the ephemeral things of life and I am only clinging as much as I can onto the love that filled me as a child, the beauty and ability to see everyone with a eye of faith, that in them the greatest goodness in the world can be found.
It came to me as I watched my son, as I saw that light and for a moment the remembrance flickered, I felt the beauty of that light in it's naturalness, not in my forcing it. And I realised that I, who was given to raise him, in fact wanted to be like him.
It is not that we are not happy in life, we are! It is that in the day to day running of life we begin to forget to stop and marvel at the miracle of a simple grain of sand. In all it's beauty. In all it's potential. In all that it can teach us.
And so with high aspirations in mind, I intend to find something beautiful, something that feels warm, of something that reminds of our best selves and write about it, hopefully each day. And I hope that in turn it reminds anyone who stumbles upon it to stop and see the miracles in all the world, to be more loving to one another and stop trying to be everything at once and to just simply let the goodness that is within each of us simply overwhelm us, so that maybe each day we can feel that warmth and perhaps even pass it onto another...and so it goes...
And that I dedicate this very first post to my beautiful son, for whom my heart bursts each day and whose simple astonishment and wonderment has each day made me smile and made me want to be better.