Tag: Reading

Categories
Books

Books Vs Social Media

I’m reading again. I’m reading a lot, actually. My goodness, it’s all the lovely things.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read for all the years books went missing from my life. I blamed it on the quick and easy of social media. How convenient it was to click onto an article offered by Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever platform I was virtually chillin’ my life away on.

I first discovered Facebook in my early twenties, and WHAT wonder IS this! My goodness. The possibilities of that place seemed endless. In fact, were it not for Facebook…I’d not have re-met the man who eventually became my husband (and super fun guy Dad to my two beautiful kiddlywinks.)

I became so ‘into’ Facebook at one point, I considered it a problem. I was desperate to get rid of it because it seemed to be sucking so much life out of me, but how to take the giant leap away? It just would not let me go. It was my curiosity for what was going on in the comment section that found me in the deepest water. I was becoming deeply affected by ALL the opinions, and consequently, I was very slowly disappearing beneath them.

Looking back, I see what the problem likely was. All that social media drama must have been doing quite the number on my brain. No wonder the calm and quiet energy of reading seemed to have fallen by the wayside. My brain was addicted to noise. Not only was it addicted to the action…it was also addicted to being seen, to being heard, to being loved.

I don’t know when all that changed, but I know it was by happy accident. I think it was after the birth of my second child, maybe, when I was just too busy to even think about the delightful terrors gifted to me by the comment section. I was also in the thick of things with my Masters at the time—completely immersed in my little collection of short stories. It was such a swift and sneaky cut off, I don’t even recall the day I stopped and said, Facebook what, now?

And so, just like that, the addiction was gone. I will admit that I have really come to enjoy Instagram for the creative platform it provides (and the odd chance to share some of my bright and shiny pom poms with the world.) But I don’t see myself returning to that addictive social media space anytime soon. I lost far too much of myself there once upon a time—too many hours, too much of my calm and happy—to risk going back.

Not to mention my precious books. Sigh. Thank goodness I have them back again.

book shelves in a room close up photography
Photo by Guilherme Rossi on Pexels.com
Categories
A Blog a Day in May

It’s Not A Problem

If you’re a reader, you are about to read a blog post which will echo through the pits of your soul. It’s not a problem, we all know this. But whenever us readers are faced with this sort of conundrum, there is definite…friction would be the best way to put it, in my mind.

Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while will already know that I am blowing this issue (the one I’m about to tell you about) up to be something it absolutely is not, creating drama where none is needed, creating blockage when there probably is a clear path that I just can’t see yet.

But the thing is: this feels big. Like a pickle. And when something feels like a pickle to me, I will set my brain to work until it has come up with a logical solution that will bring me peace and clarity and a bin (you know, a bin to throw the pickle into.)

What is the pickle, you ask? Books, that’s what. I’ve started reading three books that are wonderful…and I’ve started them all at the same time. The pickle is this, and the pickle is also the fact that I’ll not finish any of them at this rate.

I won’t go into the details about each book but I will say that each is illuminating, genuine, inspiring, and each has a very clear reason to be read by a bookish dreamer named Brooke at this point in her life.

So.

How do I choose which one to plow on with? Surely it’s an essential question, like asking myself: should I brush my teeth, have a shower, sleep, eat? You’re laughing aren’t you. You’re laughing because you’ve been here before, but currently you’re not so it’s kind of like you’re looking back upon a distant nightmare set in a far-off land.

But for me, it’s here. It’s now. And I’ve got to DO something, I’ve got to get TOUGH.

I’ve got to put two of the books away. When it comes down to it, that’s just what I’ve got to do, isn’t it? One at a time. I will not find un-friction until I make a choice, and the time has come for me to make it—to choose the apple, the orange or the pear.

What a bookishly frantic conundrum. What a pickle of the totally me kind.

woman lying on bed holding book
Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

 

 

 

Categories
A Blog a Day in May

The Adventures Of A Hungry Girl

My glasses are shining back at me from the library window.

In hindsight, I should have eaten. Actual lunch I mean, not just the Honey and Date Loaf that quite accidentally fell into my belly at around lunchtime today. I know I should have chosen a more appropriate lunch because I’ve been wandering around the library for an hour, in a daze, and only now have I begun to write: a blog post, might I add, that will likely make little to no sense at all, whatsoever, in the slightest, or even a little bit. (See what I mean? I have no one to blame but myself.)

Apart from a total lack of regard for my perfectly innocent human body, it’s been a wonderful day. The ‘wonderful’ began with a song about a garden. I was on my way to meet my husband and little people at the pool, wrestling with the gear stick of my husband’s zippy little beetle bug (I’ve never been a multitasker) when the lady on the radio announced the next song.  Inspired by a home garden, apparently.

A song about a garden: I was intrigued.

By the end of the song— a dainty classical number, whirling with piano and violin— the butterflies in my heart had moved me out of my body and into a lavender-scented cottage garden.

Beautiful. Magical. Lovely.

Really it was.

When life returned to normal, I swam with my ‘watch this Mummy!’ little girl. I ate cake and I drank coffee. I wandered the shops, and I wandered the library, and here I am now. Writing a completely random blog post like only a hungry cooky girl can.

So, yes.

It’s been a happy kind of day (however random) thanks for asking. ☺️I’m sorry about the ‘not really about anything’ blog post.

Tomorrow will be better. Maybe. Probably.

Hopefully. (Wink)

xx

woman wearing black jacket holding pink flowers
Photo by Anastasiya Lobanovskaya on Pexels.com
Categories
A Blog a Day in May

The Soft Girl and The Book

The brownie is delicious. The coffee is fine.

And, for the first time in a good little while, I am at a cafe, sinking into a booth seat, quietly reflecting on the peace of it all.

I’m the soft girl today. She’s the part of me that I choose—quite fiercely so—because the soft girl is anything but soft. She’s gentle and kind, and yet she’s capable and strong. And she’s safe, the part of me that feels most like ‘home’.

She made me buy a book, today, the soft girl did. It’s beautiful. A paperback, with a silvery-white cover and the title: Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of The Wild Woman, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. A quote from Maya Angelou decorates the bottom. It says: ‘Everyone who can read should read this book.’

The book had whispered to me from the shelf—or, perhaps the soft girl had whispered me to it, I can’t be entirely certain. And even though it was only visible via the spine, I plucked it quickly from its little cave and read the blurb.

I wasn’t going to buy a book. It wasn’t on my radar, not at all. But as soon as I read what this beautiful, silvery book was about…the soft girl touched me and began whispering me her careful words: ‘This book will change your life.’

So.

I bought it. It sits beside me, in my laptop bag, waiting for me to breathe it in— which I will do tonight, as soon as I have found a cup of steaming tea and a nice big blanket.

I suppose it might be a wonderful book.

And, if it is, if the whispers of the soft girl were true in all their wistfully tender encouragement…my life is about to change.

I’d imagine that might be a very nice thing.

potted succulent plants on the bookshelf
Photo by Huỳnh Đạt on Pexels.com
Categories
A Blog a Day in May

The Bright Side

I’m a bright side girl, most days.

It’s the essence of me, I suppose; joy, love and all the sunny days, enough of all three to make a bright side girl thrive.

The thing is—

I’m not thriving. These days, for me, being the highly sensitive muffin that I am can come at a cost, a chemically imbalanced sort of cost.

In other words: sometimes, I get a bit sad.

As much as I love to sprinkle joyous stardust over this little bloggy land of mine, I’ll always be authentic in this place. I’ll never pretend to be happy when I’m not. And at the moment, I’ve got to admit: I am having a little trouble finding my sunshine.

But don’t worry. I’ll find it again. That’s just what I do.

Hopefully, I’ll bring it here tomorrow. But today, I’ve been quite the soft girl. Today I’ve been inside my walls and noticed the rain on the windows, more than anything else.

I will still try to make it through the month, posting every day, as promised, although I really do need to preface that with some reality— I may need to take a few days off here and there, so please forgive me, If I do.

Of course, I wouldn’t be me If I didn’t add some sort of a joyous twist to this little funk party I’ve got going on here, so I’ll tell you a lovely story. Just a short one.

Yesterday, while dropping my little boy at kinder, one of the beautiful Mum’s— a lovely friend who I very quickly found a connection with-— stopped me, with a lovely smile, and said hi. When she asked, I had to admit: actually, I’d been a little sad, and actually, I was feeling a little worried about it.

Well.

When I walked away from her beautiful hug, the world seemed just so peaceful again.

And later in the evening, when I noticed a beautifully wrapped hamper on my doorstep, filled with all sorts of goodies, and a beautiful card to cheer me up— I mean, it was the sweetest thing.

It’s the sort of magic that’s hidden in our humanity, isn’t it— the tender loving care of a friend in need. What a beautiful soul she is, to have been touched by my story and gone out of her way to reach out with loving arms. It’s quite clear to me that some people are here to show the rest of the world how to be: and she is one of them, absolutely.

Okay, my lovely friends. I’ll be off then. Time to give me some love, and my hubby and kids some great big ‘get happy’ cuddles.

And I’ll probably eat some chocolate, too. I’m not sure if chocolate’s the best thing for a girl whose body is ever so slightly chemically challenged…

But bugger it. I’m gonna do it anyway. 🙂

And I’m going to read!

Much love. xx Brooke

blur candies chocolates close up
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Pexels.com

 

 

Categories
Life

The Sun Chair

It’s Saturday morning and I’m lazing in the sun chair.

I always make my way back to this place, this little corner of my world that feeds me so beautifully to the sun. It’s a place for just ‘being’, this sun chair of mine, and these days— more than ever before—I need a place to just ‘be’.

For a great deal of yesterday, the sun chair and I sat and listened to the sounds of life as they broke through the window beside us. The calming wind, the gum trees with their squawking cockatoos and paper leaves; there was also the beautiful music that flowed in through my ears and out through my soul. The sun chair and I listened to those sounds, and they became us for a while.

It was awfully nice.

I don’t know why I’ve chosen the sun chair as my new ‘happy place’, and I don’t think I really have to know. It just feels nice to be here, so I keep coming back.

I do love this sun chair of mine.

For all the reasons, really.

All of them.

brown couch beside clear glass panel door
Photo by Kevin Menajang on Pexels.com

 

Categories
Poetry

Some Kind of Magic

It’s some kind of magic

that you

and you

and you

will read these words

and think

and feel

and be

something different than you were

before you read them.

woman reading a book sitting on mattress near the blue string light inside the room
Photo by Ivandrei Pretorius on Pexels.com
Categories
Writing

The Happy Driver

Arki was a taxi driver, but in his heart he was a writer. He knew he was a writer because the words never stopped racing in his mind until they were out. Neither did the joyous feeling they stirred in him.

Everyday Arki would think up his words and send them into the world. He didn’t need a computer. He didn’t need paper. All he needed was to flash his words onto the windscreen of his cab, onto the night shining road, onto the cars that sped along beside him. He didn’t care where his words landed. All he cared about was that they landed.

He didn’t need his words to change anyone else’s life, either, because they changed his, and that was enough. In changing his life, they fixed a permanent light in his eyes that everyone who crossed his path could see and feel.

Joe, the frequent flyer who dressed for business and laughed like a monkey, slapped him on the back and called him, The happy driver. Jennifer, the lonely lawyer with sad eyes and a happy smile, insisted on a hug once they’d reached the office of a morning—just to say thank you. He’d wrapped his arms around her this morning and wondered if her eyes were closed and wishing to ‘catch’ some of his happy.

Arki had grown up with the burning need to change the world in some grand way. But as he drove along the road to home, thinking of his wife curled up on the couch and his baby boy, nose whistling in his cot, he smiled. He had changed the world in greater ways than he’d ever imagined.

And that, he thought, was good.

lighted taxi signage
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com
Categories
Twelve Days of Christmas

Tonight

On the sixth day of Christmas, I craved a feeling.

A specific feeling, really.

I craved a couch. And a book. And me.

All of us rolled up together,

where nothing and no one could find us.

photo of woman sitting near the christmas tree
Photo by NastyaSensei Sens on Pexels.com

It’s not like I wanted to escape the day

or the responsibilities that lay before me.

I just wanted to read.

I wanted to remember the warmth—

snuggling on the couch with a book

and a lovely new imaginary friend (or two.)

christmas cold friends frostyPhoto by Pixabay on Pexels.com

There’s nothing quite like that feeling.

The touch of a book, the smell.

The firecrackers that tickle the skin,

melting me—word by delectable word.

Thank goodness there’s tonight.

I think I’ll read, tonight.

woman wearing white dress reading book
Photo by Min An on Pexels.com

Text placeholder (1)

Categories
Books Reading

The Happy Place

When your happy place gets lost

Just remember

It will always

Always

Find you.