Treasure Refound

It's been some time since we have written but it feels fitting to begin again with thinking about something that has been refound.   We were back at the foot of the mountains and this little one found a similar treasured snail that had been looked upon a year ago.   Today, after a gift of a day, meandering through meadows and sipping tea amongst beautiful flowers, I've been reminded of the beauty to be found in the small things and in remembering these moments.  

possibilty again

For a few weeks now the trees in our garden have become heavy with fruit. I have spent many moments, usually in the evening, when the day's chores are done, looking up. I dream of long summer afternoons capturing their fresh flavours and turning them into chutneys and crumbles to be savoured for months to come. 

After a time of uncertainty and intense days full, life feels just a little slower again. Now looking up at apples and pears hanging ripe and ready to fall somehow gives me a sense of more space stretching ahead and a chance to slowly rekindle some time to make again. 

A new way.

breathe

I was walking home at high speed with a sleeping baby in buggy, wondering if I could quickly get home and race around a little, clean the bathroom, maybe make some muffins before he woke up. As the streets passed me by I kept glimpsing the sea... 

I was reminded of something said to me in the early busy days of trying to set up a new home here. "Remember to breathe Ali". It's so easy to find more seemingly important things to do. Even with this on our doorsteps, I often still have to choose to take time out of my day, put some chores on hold, get less done, and decide that in that moment, it's more important to walk the longer way home, and breathe a little looking out to sea. So I did. I breathed it all in for a short time. 

I need to remember to keep choosing to breathe. So simple.

Hope

There had been some days of feeling a little disheartened.   Some things that felt like they might grow surely were not going to in the way I might have hoped.   Some dreams felt like they needed more time to be nurtured perhaps or just too great to expect to ever come to fruition.   Maybe even a mistake to ever begin to imagine them.   Then, there it was, at the end of our daily journey home one day, loud and clear, written on the wall.   It made me smile and has been doing so every day since.   It's been making other people smile too.   There is a proverb that says 'hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life'. Trusting and waiting for the tree of life.   A few days later I noticed something on the adjacent wall, slightly obscured by a bush.  It made my heart sing knowing that the giving and receiving of this one is an antidote to a sick heart.

  

a pocketfull of time

Time is feeling so different these days with a very small person to care for, who fills much of it. There aren't long stretches of it anymore for wandering through a day, but instead lots of small 'pocketfulls' of it, here and there. 

Sometimes the pocketfulls get filled with things like painting nails blue and picking lavender for a friend, and they are truly treasured. Time seems to stretch on days like this, when I manage to use these moments well, and the sense of thankfulness over being able to make something so small happen in these brief pockets lasts me all day. 

treasure

One of many treasures found and looked upon.   I gasped with delight as fingers unfurled.   Camping holiday hands, telling a few tales of adventure.   There was much to be found at the foot of the mountains.  

Looking Up

It had been a perfect weekend in so many ways.   After what had seemed like an age, a long weekend filled with the first real sunshine and warmth that we had felt in a long time.   There was wind to fill the sails of a city windsurfer.   There were also sick children and sleepless nights, together with gracious grandparents.   Then on our final evening as we were getting the children ready for bed we saw these rising silently, a quiet only interrupted by the rhythmical gush of hot air.  As if somehow enchanted, we were all drawn outside to look up.   Others too from the little row of cottages.   We stood and watched as more took flight, an unexpected beauty.  For me another reminder of the bigger picture and to remember to keep looking up.

(photo courtesy of pb)