Tag: Word of the Day Challenge

When one helps another ….

The run up to the end of the financial year is always busy for people like me.  I am booked solid until the end of June.  I come home to swap suitcases.  I’ve had to transfer all my indoor plants to the patio where the gardener can water them in my absence.  Nothing upsets me more in the home than to see a plant wilt from lack of water.  In my world, it is an egregious act of neglect.  Perhaps this strong emotion stems from my cultural values, when someone visits your home, offer them the best hospitality.

As a child I can remember my aunt’s university friend who visited India.  She would walk around the field behind our home and take photographs of the nomads and cattle.  Beyond a rocky ridge was more housing but it was in the distance and even though my best friend lived there, I was not allowed to walk there on my own.  At dusk we could not find our American friend.  My parents and aunt grew increasingly anxious.  People spread out in different directions looking for her.  The ridge was dangerous.  It was regularly blasted for building purposes and left behind deep pools after monsoon rains.  I recall a neighbour drowning in one of the pools, after she slipped washing her feet.  Then word came someone had found our visitor.  We went to where she was.  She was seated on the ground, coughing from dung fire, enjoying a cup of sweet tea and a piece of dry roti with her delighted hosts.  She refused to leave until she had enjoyed her moment with that family.  The joy in the interaction between this woman and the family is a moment that stays with me.  They did not have much, but they gave generously.thumb_IMG_5037_1024.jpg
I had a pretty packed day yesterday and found it difficult to sleep in.  I woke to a beautiful morning in Bunbury and watched sunrise from my hotel balcony.thumb_IMG_5033_1024.jpg
I had an hour long drive into forest areas so I just stayed where I was, watching the ocean  The waves were fearsome and I could hear them crash from where I was.  Soon it was time to shift gears and head into timber country.thumb_IMG_5041_1024.jpg
I have driven through this tiny town many times.  I love buying fruit and vegetables here.  All locally produced and have watched staff rinse off the dirt from freshly picked vegetables before placing it on the shelf.  It’s that fresh!  This was the car park of the place I visited.  The local school has just 25 children who attend kindy to the year before high school.  Charming is too sophisticated a word for it!  I fell in love with the place instantly!thumb_IMG_5042_1024.jpg
I then had an appointment with the mother.  She told me she’s “just down the road” out of town.  It was a long few kms of unsealed road!  I thought I was in an enchanted forest.  The drive got darker and darker with towering trees on either side.  I was so relieved to spot her standing at the end of a long driveway.  My car skidded and crunched it’s way to the homestead.  She had sent me a text earlier in the day saying it was Tuesday, nothing would be open in town so she had made lunch for me.  She offered me lunch including fresh fruit from her orchard.  We talked for hours.  Her parting words of thanks is something that will stay with me.  I remembered my mother’s constant mantra, “give like you have plenty to share”.  This, too, is hospitality.

As I drove away I had another 3.5 hours drive before I got home.  A very long day but I felt energised.  I had lived a day that reflects one of my favourite proverbs, German I believe it is, “When one helps another, both are stronger”.

I’m headed out again … more later.

Until next time

As always

a dawn bird

In response to Word of the Day Challenge:  Hospitality

Invisible, no more …

DSCN7078 2.JPGNature’s depression
that confusion and distortion
descends by stealth at night
sometimes, preceded by warning
take heed, nothing will be familiar
Be wary,
The monochrome of grey
Where all is same but isn’t
Will become the norm
Ignore at your peril
which I did.
It took a brighter sun to break through
It warmed the earth where I stood
in bare feet or in boots
as the fog lifted,
I closed my eyes so I could see
and found,
in those dark days of invisibility
the trees continued to breathe for me.

a dawn bird

In response to Word of the Day Challenge:  Fog

Virtual reality

DSCN7152 2.JPGSunset, Back Beach, Bunbury, Western Australia

Letter to Steve

Grief torched my life in the years before I met you.  You helped me refocus.  You helped me find my voice, my creativity and a sense of purpose.  Five years later, I lost it all in one fell scoop.  The light you brought into my world was too bright.  The memory of your vibrancy made me flinch for years.  I averted my gaze whenever I drove alongside Back Beach.  I buried myself whole into work.  Last night I walked along where you once jogged.  It was magnificent at sunset as it often is.  As I walked I realised you were meant to come into my life for a reason.  I am where I am, because of you.  Today, this is my reality.

I looked for a relationship unsuccessfully with another academic in the years that followed.  It was a natural thing to do, after all, I had been married to one and then met you.  Life is either crazy or just plain contrary.  What followed was so not what I thought it would be.

It was 17 years after your death when I found photography.  It helped me see the world around me in new ways.  What was familiar was unfamiliar, and then familiar again.  I found shapes, patterns, colours and movements.  A rhythm. I started to write again.   I looked for clouds and rain, because, together, they meant rainbows and not a banal weather report that dictated my work schedule.

My work life is nothing you and I could ever have envisaged.  I don’t present papers around the world like you did but I do spend more time at an airport.  It has become an office.  I find a quiet spot in the lounge and get work done.  This is where life started to get strange.

Had it not been for my camera I would not have noticed the imperceptible glint in the gaze.  The casual look that is exchanged between strangers, and maintained for a fraction longer.  You did not know the logistically challenging rostered world of FIFO workers, if you did, you would have grinned and said, what followed was meant to be.  The gaze turned into a conversation and my dormant heart found a beat again.

He is no academic.  He barely finished high school and so proud of his TAFE achievement because he makes a good living from it.  His nails are not manicured.  His hands are rough and stained from hard work.  He barely reads the news headlines, let alone a book.  His views on politics are succinct, and expressed in the vernacular of the region, “Effing wankers, the lot of them!”  End of story.  There is no malice in his reference, “Miss Fancy Pants!” as he curls his finger around pearls.  He is sensitive and sensual for a man who works with earth on his hands.  Nor do I feel what I do is diminished by his inability to understand it when he says, “what is it that you actually do?”.  What you see is what you get with him.  He travels light.  His values can be endearingly old fashioned, at times.  We admit to nothing.  The unsaid, saying it all.  Things are just what they were, at first ignite.  Alive.  Unfinished.  Unended.  It makes pick up where we left off, easier.  I like what this gives me.  There are no tomorrows or happily ever afters.  I searched for those for far too long.  For me, they were an unfortunate myth.  I live in the moment now.  It’s a happy place to be.

He is no blinding light in my life, like you were.  He lights up my world for a moment, much like seeing a shooting star, and when we leave, the eternal hope, it will happen again.

Where ever you are, here’s to another morning … shine bright.  What was, and what is, is meant to be.

a dawn bird

In response to Word of the Day Challenge:  Virtual

Some things are free

I find it ironic at a time when I have the means to enjoy the finer things in life, the simple things in nature give me the most pleasure.  Gone are the high heels!  I’m stepping into life in boots or barefeet!DSCN9098.JPG
I love walking along Geographe Bay in Busselton, in the South West of Western Australia.  The clouds are always a treat to observe early morning.  The jetty curves into the Bay for nearly two kilometers and is a great walk at sunset.DSCN6663.jpgI enjoy my lunch break in the Arboretum in Kalgoorlie where boughs of gum flowers hang above my car.  I’m usually alone here with the only sounds being the buzz of bees and birdsong.  I love the solitude of an hour in a crowded day.DSCN6231.jpgI love the Wheatbelt in winter.  The fog across the paddocks in Merredin makes everything glow.DSCN7632.jpgAnd the primary colours in Broome, north of Perth, where the sea is bluer than the sky.DSCN8430.jpg
I visited this place two years ago.  It is a boab grove in open landscape at a cattle station called Diggers Rest not far from Wyndham.  We enjoyed a champagne sunset here.  It was magical!DSCN7594.jpg
I also love finding boab trees embossed on the silver sands of Cable Beach, Broome.DSCN7059.jpg
And the isolation found on Cable Beach, a beach that is 22 kms long. DSCN9939
Following the flower like pattern of seagull footprints.DSCN8343
And, of course, there is nothing money could buy that would replicate the feeling of looking into the eyes of a joey.

Yes it takes money to get to these places but once there, everything else is free.  Seeking these moments has become an insatiable passion and one that satisfies me on a spiritual level, too.

Until next time

As always

a dawn bird

 

 

In response to Word of the Day Challenge:  Money