As if
to fall asleep in the arms of another
could be anything less than a gift
to be cherished.
Life and her beautiful pages;
how precious she is,
indeed,
for the sweetness of it.
Tag: Gratefulness
Through pain, love and connection can be found.
Through misstep, the sweet path forward can be carved and tread.
I remind myself, often, that mistakes are beautiful. Contrast to what is ‘right’ brings truth to those who allow themselves to see their imperfections. It is okay to be vulnerable.
It is okay to fail.
It is necessary to fail in order to gain perspective.
I have a bad habit of getting down on myself and my imperfections, and yet I also sit here with eyes wide open. I see that every mistake was perfect. Every dark moment, shimmering with light.
Life is ugly, horrible, beautiful.
Life is mine, and yours, and ours.
I ache with gratefulness.
I ache with it.
Tasmania is beautiful.
And that feeling of being outside of your life, even just for a little while, is so intriguing and lovely, it’s no wonder humanity clings to the promise of the odd holiday, every now and then.
The escape from reality.
The escape from too much of something that none of us can quite put our finger on.
I’m so grateful for the contrasts of life. If it wasn’t for those aching days, moments like this beautiful one (a moment that finds me at a large wooden table, the ocean over my right shoulder) wouldn’t feel quite so extraordinary.
Day two of the Tassie trip.
Perfection.
Grateful.
Categories
A Beautiful Day
It has been a beautiful day.
The kind of day that flows from start to end, like a delicious water feature lulling the water from plate to plate to plate, finally to rest in a peaceful pool below.
The bigger kids were perfect.
The baby was lovely.
I was in a state of peaceful balance, and as a Mum of three busy little humans, I’m so, so grateful for this state, always.
Isn’t life funny?
It’s usually when you’re most exhausted that peaceful days like today come along and provide the perfect contrast to the madness.
A beautiful day it was.
A beautiful day, indeed.
I was in tears this morning, bouncing on my fit ball in front of the TV at my new favourite time of day (4AM).
I was watching the world news.
Small children were being handed over a fence to soldiers at the airport in Kabul, thankfully with no idea there is a better life for them out there somewhere.
And then there was me.
So small in the world, thinking of my own beautiful children tucked neatly, safely, away in their cosy beds.
I felt helpless.
I wanted to take all those beautiful people in Afghanistan under my wing and hold them there for a while.
I couldn’t.
I have no control over the mental state of the terrorists of the world, or the mental state of their fathers before them. Fathers who were taught by their fathers that love looked like fear. Fathers who passed this very fear onto their sons, and so on.
I have no control over the pain of these poor darling humans in Afghanistan, just trying to live.
But I have this blog.
I have my words and I have my heart.
And maybe I can’t make a difference for those poor people, but if you are reading this, and feeling in need of some love…I can make a difference to you.
So here I say this:
Thank you for being alive.
For being unique and wonderful you.
For being human enough to have bad days.
And for the strength I know you’ll find tomorrow.
I hope today is beautiful for you and I hope you remember the sun isn’t far away if it’s not.
Because even when the darkness of the world takes over, there is always something beautiful to find among the rubble.
This is my reminder to myself.
And this is my love letter to you.
So much love and strength to you all, my beautiful bloggy friends.
Thank you for being such a big part of my sun for so many of my days.
And so, life goes on.
xx Brooke
Categories
It’s Funny How Life Hits You
It’s funny how life hits you.
Whilst taking a shower earlier, life hit me in a simple, yet profound way.
A sudden wave of gratefulness. For hot water, my goodness, such a simple thing: taken for granted every single day by far too many.
How grateful I felt for that water. How grateful I felt to have access to water, at all.
In that moment, I wished so desperately that those around the world who have never known the beauty of hot water on skin, might know that delicious feeling one day.
It’s funny how life hits you.
Categories
Holidays and Summer Wind
Australian summer and there I was, sipping a glass of wine beneath the gumtrees, wrapped in my best winter scarf and topped with a little woolen hat. The wind: shocking.
It’s not unusual for the country town we’re holidaying in to reach these frosty temperatures at night. I’m certain we’ll look back in years to come with fond memories of swaying gums and whirls around the caravan park on bikes, but I also think we’ll marvel at Mother Nature and her wacky sense of humour. During the day, it is not unusual for the temperature to reach forty degrees celsius and beyond, some years, and yet the blankets come out when the sun falls. It’s quite funny, really.
It reminds me of Melbourne (my hometown) and her ability to display every single aspect of all four seasons in one day. The rest of Australia laughs at our expense, but the truth is: Melbournians gladly identify with this peculiar trick of the weather. We happily declare it one of our most impressive party tricks.
I’m breezy and happy, today. After a solo journey back to Melbourne, earlier, to celebrate my beautiful Grandma’s 90th birthday (and a nice big heart-opening drive back, listening to music) I’m so grateful for all the experiences that have brought me here. To this place in my life, I mean. Not just to this dodgy little caravan park in the middle of nowhere.
I am reminded of the worth of life experience each time I feel the beautiful glow of wholeness beneath my skin. Each time I feel the spirit rise within me; the times I’m ready, and quite able, to speak the truths my heart knows to be absolute. I am not perfect. Life is not perfect, and never will be. But I am here, and I am grateful for these exhausting family days (and even you lot fall upon the grateful-o-metre of me…aww, sigh. Like, really, you guys. x) so a girl couldn’t ask for much more to help drift me through my days.
Right. Off to drink my tea and snuggle up with, what is turning out to be, one lovely heart-filling book.
So much love, sweet bloggy friends.
Eat the cake. xx
Categories
This Is It
Death, I suppose, does that to us. It’s one of those accidental growth inducing things that none of us actually want, but do end up getting from time to time. Lessons in perspective. Lessons in gratitude, these are just some of the positives that can come from death knocking on our doors. But today, death has broken me. And my empath metre is still reeling.
I’ve just read an article written by a Mum recounting her five-year-old sons final days. Cancer. To say I struggled to hold myself together wouldn’t be accurate. To say I fell to pieces is absolutely correct. What a devastating, devastating thing: to lose a child, and yet people do experience this sort of loss in life, and far too often for my liking.
I felt I owed it to that precious little man to reiterate the message his beautiful, heartbroken (positively grace-filled) Mum put out into the world, on behalf of her little boy. To live and love, is surely the greatest gift. To live now, to be grateful for this. What’s here. What’s out the window and how beautiful it is. To see that it’s pointless fussing over the little things, when there are even more little things to honour and cherish in this mixed bag of a life we live.
This Mum. She was given a beautiful gift, in the end, when her son’s final words were: ‘I am happy Mum.’ I am happy, Mum. It makes you think how dumb we are worrying about the extra weight we might put on over the holiday period, doesn’t it? It makes you think that, in the end, all we’re really here for is to realise nothing matters but the people we love, and love itself.
Anyhow, I should stop this because it’s going to take me down, again, but I think I’ve said it all, anyway. Most of you already know the way I view life. It is short and beautiful, and we have one chance.
One sweet, sweet, chance.
This is it.
This is it.
This is it.
Categories
Best Friends
Oh, the softness you are.
The sweet story of you
whistled through my pages,
the sharpest sorrow, bringing me to
life.
There is nothing more beautiful
than the glistening shards
of a lifetime of broken hearts
melting together again.
This softness,
this story of two best friends,
fills my heart with quiet.
When the roar is over
there is only me
smiling softly.
And you,
somewhere.
Somewhere in time
gone by.
I’m grateful for beautiful people who shine a light for those wandering the dark.
I’m grateful for those wandering the dark. Grateful they are survivors: that they may not know they have won, yet, but they have. And they will see that shining sun, soon.
I’m grateful for love. No matter what it looks like, no matter how it gets there: it’s love, and it’s beautiful. And I’m grateful.
I’m grateful for all of it.
Joy, pain: all of it.
I’m grateful.
I’m grateful.
brooke-cutler.com 