Tag: Holiday

Categories
Peaches In The Darling Sun

The River Home

The dancing girl, her sister, her brother, her father and I will be home tomorrow. As usual I’m experiencing mixed feelings about the end of our lovely little holiday, but for the most part I’m wishing the trip would never end.

It is truly lovely to forget the world. To live in a reality that skims over the top of the real world. In this reality there are no responsibilities and no worries. Nowhere to go, no deadlines to meet, not really.The museum wouldn’t have missed us. The beach front wouldn’t have missed our morning stroll.

I will miss this ocean and yet it is the very act of missing it that is needed in order to guide me through life on a more aligned path. The loving, the missing: they are clues as to my greatest loves. They whisper softly, ‘Brooke, it is here you are most at home. Among the trees where there is water, where there is peace. Where there is peace.

Ah, yes. I’m glad for the leaving as much as I am for the staying.

The magical river of life has flowed me this way.

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Day 18. There’s no place like home.

Categories
Peaches In The Darling Sun

Family

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I always have, I always will.

With my family here by my side on this, the great Tasmanian adventure, I’m pretty much bathing in love hearts…which is the loveliest.

That’s the thing about family.

They feel like home.

And at home I am free to be who I am, all the way ’round, back out the other side again.

It is the loveliest thing.

And they sometimes roll their eyes at my love hearty ways, and they probably think I’m a little odd, at times.

But there is always unconditional love to be found.

That’s the thing about family.

That’s the thing that fills my joy pots to overflowing.

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Day 15. Home sweet home away from home.
Categories
Peaches In The Darling Sun

Tasmania. Contrast. Grateful.

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.

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Day 14. A life lived with a grateful heart.
Categories
Life

The Deep Breath

The eucalypts are alive, here. For whatever reason, this part of the world seems to be windy more often than not, and I’m so very pleased about that. Life seems to flow more with the wind.

I wonder, sometimes, if you all wonder where I disappear to when I’m gone for a few days without any hint as to where I might be. In this case, I’ve escaped the hustle and bustle of the city, with my family, and we are enjoying the most beautiful post-lockdown deep breath.

This morning, as I meditated by the pool, overlooking the giant swaying gums ( sigh ) I felt at ease. The wind on my skin was refreshing and, rather than distracting me, seemed to bring me into a deeper state of peace. The birds and their jarring squawks seemed at odds with the peace I sought, and yet it all became me. Each squawk felt no different to other thoughts or feelings that float in the air around me, daily; and that, to me, seemed so profoundly beautiful. To feel the world as a part of me. It was all the lovely things.

Now. If you’ll kindly excuse me. I have some more lovely deep breaths to catch.

Lots and lots of love.

Brooke. xx

Ps. My sister is here. She is the sun.

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Categories
Life

The Cottage House

I suspect this weekend will be beautiful.

I’m not sure how much you’ll see me here, if at all, my lovely bloggy friends. I’ll be all snuggled up under a blankie with a steaming cup of tea and a book, alone in a lovely little cottage house on a hill, among a thousand trees.

I couldn’t think of a more beautiful way to gain my strength back.

I’m house-sitting for one of my oldest friends: my wonderful bestie from high school. No matter how long we’ve gone without seeing each other, she has remained a constant support to me over the years. Whenever I’ve needed her, she’s been there, never once complaining about my tendency to disappear for vast stretches of this introverted life of mine.

She and her twin sister (another dear friend of mine) were the ones who taught me how to make a real cake at the ripe old age of fourteen. When I realised that all cakes did not actually begin in a packet…my eyes must have widened a mile. I will never forget how we laughed. 

Anyhow, that’s where I’ll be this weekend. Looking after two cats, a bunny rabbit, and four teeny tiny newborn bunnies. What bliss.

All the Friday love hearts, my merry bloggy friends. May this day bring you ALL the awesome things.

wooden house
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Categories
Poetry

The Ocean

Lay down beside me.

Run your fingers over mine in the sand.

Knot the long grass.

Kiss my warm cheek.

And when the sun sleeps

so will we.

Until the ocean wakes us.

Categories
Life

Riding In Trains With Girls

Australia is out the window and I’m feeling every bit of it.

The wobble of a train-shaken gut, the blur of gum trees and their naked cousins—every element of this three-hour train ride seems to be working together, whipping me into the icky sick of it all.

What a surprise this country of mine is, as we rumble along the tracks. It’s the middle of winter, and yet rural Victoria is a little bit confused about it all. What dress would I like to wear this winter, she wonders. And oh, how easily she changes her mind.

One moment she wears grass, like straw—paddocks of it, tall and waving in the sun. The next: sheep nibbled fields of emerald-green. Such indecisiveness makes me wonder if perhaps Mother Nature is a Pisces, like me.

The train is relentless in its quest to make good time, so much so that it seems to be wishing the beauty of the country away. I can’t say I’m sorry about that. Because although this vast stretch of land is all the bits of beautiful, and ever so charming in her lop-sided-windmill ways…this train has somewhere to go.

Home.

I’ve been visiting family in country New South Wales—just me, no one else—and do you know what? It’s been reading, and writing, and wonderful. How these few days have filled my belly and breathed life back into my dreamy (and maybe a little bit exhausted) soul.

But do you know what else? The very best thing to have arisen from this refreshing time away? Home. Knowing it would still be there. Knowing that after I’d finished letting my soul do all the deep breathing…home would be waiting.

Gosh, how I’ve missed home.

And gosh—how I’ve missed the people I share it with.

bridge clouds forest guidance
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