Categories
Life

The Gift of Bother

Last week I was car-less.

Imagine.

A young Mum with things to do. Places to go.

Objects to move from one place to another.

Small children to move from one place…

To another.

What a bother.

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And then it struck me.

These legs of mine, these feet—

What marvellous things they are.

This body: flushed with life; me and the pram

Powering up hills, and down. Getting places

No engine necessary.

What a gift.

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Finding my feet again gifted me other things, too.

Like time.

Time to feel the papery trunks of nature’s watchmen,

Time to see—spindly leaves, dancing about in the open blue. Time to be

Me.

Free.

What a gift.

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But the very best of life on two legs was this:

Extra time with my babies— one and four years old.

Not three minutes together, like the car ride to kinder.

But twenty. Precious. Minutes.

Every day for a week.

All of us wide-eyed, as natures sweetest creations passed us by.

What a gift.

The gift of bother.

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Categories
Writing

The Wonder of the Muse

It’s the cool rush of fire shooting down the limbs, filling up the head, the heart, the page.

The spirit.

The muse, some people call it.

But what’s in a name? said the muse, to the writer who sat his desk once upon a time,  dipping and scribbling, waiting for his words to fly.

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It’s bigger than a name, surely— this mysterious, creative force.

It’s a train that barrels through the writers imagination, often with no known destination.

It’s a one-sided phone call from the heavens, where no words are spoken, but millions are heard.

And written.

And felt.

Music. Books. We’ve all felt those.

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It’s a feeling like no other, this force that takes the creative folk of this world. Magic in a million whispers; an offer they’ll either drop or fly into the sunset with.

It’s a chest flooded with light and a dare to fill a blank page.

It’s an epiphany.

A promise.

A gift.

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A gift for writers and a gift for the readers of their words.

A gift for humanity, is what it is.

Mysterious and strange.

And overflowing with wonder.

 

Categories
Writing

The Power of Words

The word peach makes me feel like summer.

I love that.

Maybe it’s the colour: dappled orangey, yellowy, red—to me, that colour sings. Just like summer.

Summer sings.

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It could also be the many hundreds of peaches I’ve slurped down over my thirty-something summers that give the word peach that summer feeling. Sticky fingers and dribbles down the chin—loving every minute, hating every minute, too.

No wonder those classic summer fruits have chiseled a feeling into my bones.

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The word peach; the visual peach; the feeling…

Peach.

 Surely it’s not just me that feels it.

It’s the power of words, right?

Fascinating, isn’t it, that when we know a language so well we barely even think about the words that come tumbling out of us, and yet they paint our whole world.

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Lately I’ve been wondering: why do certain books make me feel down to the very core, whilst others just make me smile?

I think I know one reason.

Words.

And the magic they puff up, and around, and all over us.

Peach.

Cocktail by the pool, anyone?

Categories
Book Quotes

The Journey Begins

 

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

– Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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