It’s International Women’s Day today. It’s time to remember the single mothers who went before me, their footsteps creating a path.
Two sisters worked as home help in my family home for over 40 years, long before I was born, and long after I left. The older cleaned the house and swept the yard, her younger sister was the cook. With a national business to run, my parents, especially my mother, travelled frequently. So, we considered both sisters as our nanny. As was the custom of their culture, they married barely into their teens, one had two children, the other, only one. Both were widowed before they were out of their teens. Our family became theirs, theirs, became ours. The women worked their respective roles, as employees and as parents, never complaining about what might have been. They set the bar high for me.
Then there was the lady who came in to wash the dishes. She had seven children, and a husband who was an opium addict. She may as well have been single. She did her chores, a toddler or infant welded to her hip. She often found reason to throw back her mane of dark hair, and laugh. The sound remains. It filled the empty in her, and, now me.
A neighbour, we called Aunty M, was bedridden, the reason, never discussed. She raised two children on her own, a son excelled and won a scholarship to study overseas. He is now a grandfather in Canada and a patriarch. I don’t recall any curiosity about the absence of Aunty M’s husband, it was just a known and accepted fact. Perhaps she was a widow. Perhaps not. It didn’t matter, from her bed, she still created a path.
I feel blessed to have these women grace my life without rhyme or reason. They were there to guide me on a path I never thought I would have taken.
As is the memory of them, I am stronger for the experience.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In autumn, the Mallee gum trees are frosted with blossoms.
I’ve come to learn, the Australian Ringneck parrots, love these gum trees too. I follow the scatter of gum flowers from one trail to another. 
There are boughs of flowers, and sometimes, even a neat posy.
And the ones that are past their prime, are still beautiful.
Sometimes, just a hint of colour in the scrub.
Delicate buds, waiting to bloom.
The Prickly Dryandra is favoured by the smaller birds, who appear after the parrots have left.
But not this time. They were sitting on the tree branches, highly visible to the eye.
This one took my breath away.
And this one did the same.
I’ve lived for over 25 years in my neighbourhood and had never stopped to watch a white heron in flight. I do now.
I never realised, the beige of the Wheatbelt is beautiful at dawn. I do now.
Who knew a front garden filled with roses, is a welcome like no other. I do now.
Sunlight warms the whitest iceberg. I do now.
In a forest, the trees are not green, it is the leaves that make it vivid. I do now.
Previously my hiking boots stomped on leaves and stones, ignoring the fallen one, tortoise shelled by age and sun. My steps are now lighter. I do now.
My curiosity was blunted. I never stopped to wonder why. I do now.
I didn’t know, the Black Swan raises cygnets, as white as snow. I do now.
And, when I’m not home, snowdrops bloom at the front door. I do now.
I didn’t know life was meant to be lived, eye to eye. I do now.
I parked my car in the driveway and found the pink roses looked fatigued too. 
Strewn with rose petals, my front garden looked like a wedding had taken place.
While climbing roses on the arbor, reluctant to let summer go, clung on. There are ‘pockets’ of garden around my property. A legacy of the previous owner, a florist. It is a delight! Something seems to be blooming somewhere, making it always a garden. Being home so infrequently and for short visits, I enjoy looking around to see what lies in wait. I’m never disappointed.
No muted shades for this little one in the side garden. Reflecting the vividness of sunset.
And, there were others, still beautiful, before they fade away.
The geraniums always bloom. 
They are a welcome splash of colour in winter.
This shrub is covered in spokes of purple blooms.
There are no roadblocks in life. Just many opportunities to restart.
A Shared Space 
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