027 A new angle

A completely different side of things

Another set of goodbyes today. Grief still sits silently as a thick fog, slowing the mind, slowing the body, scrambling my radar and thought process. My vision and clarity are limited. Occasionally, pockets of clear fresh air waft through the fog bringing a lucid moment. I expect to see my world again, back to normal. Instead, the great revealer shows me a new life, unlocks a ripened part of me and gifts me with a different view. I look out and catch a glimpse of my world, full of familiar things that look different now. A new angle, a new perspective, a new clarity, a new heart. I can’t un-know this now and in some ways I mourn the loss of that innocence too.

026 The in-between

Swanbourne Beach at dawn, West Australia

I love to walk along the very edge of our country, developing a rhythm along the hard, wet sand. It takes me to the ‘in-between’, where I’m not fully on land, but not fully in water. The ‘in-between’ is a place to wrestle with my thoughts. It’s where the forces of nature fight each day. The current meets the shore and picks up tonnes of sand, transporting it easily to another bay where it reshapes the landscape. It gives and takes. Gives and takes. Gives and takes.

As I stop and face the ocean from the safety of land, the wave pulls back and makes me dig my toes into the sand. It erodes my foothold easily, forcing me to decide whether to join it or step back. The ‘in-between’ calls me to action.

I’m reminded that my walk today is just that. I lay footprints on the sand, little indentations that leave a print of me, but only for a day. There is no road, no track, no path mapped out. I’m here for today. The ‘in-between’ is always shifting, changing. It will last until the moon beckons the sea and it brings with it new sands, new shapes and a new bay for another day.

I come away much clearer, knowing that I can surrender to something or just step back, knowing my landscape will constantly change with give and take. And I can make a new path again tomorrow.

025 Scorched

heatwave across the city

 
 

Relentless, brutal, baking heat. 42 degrees (108F). Office workers emerge from chilled cubicles at midday, holding newspapers to their faces to avoid the sun’s harsh slap. Towers and pavements collude by storing and bouncing heat, providing no escape. While friends from afar shovel snow with numbed fingers.