Featherlight

I mentioned that I was feeling better. I think the word that describes it best is light. I write when I’m down, when it’s tough, when I hurt, when it seems all shades of grey, so of course I'll write when it feels like spring, when I smile, when I laugh. My 'resting bitch face' now often holds a semi-hidden smile, a sudden outburst of crazy or just a soft chuckle, even if it's just for my ears only. Life is not perfect, nor easy or any less tiring that it was say a week, a month or six months ago but “that is just the way it is”.  That thought makes me smile where it used to make me cringe. No  life-changing incident (though slamming into the guard-rail on both sides of the highway at high speed will help you slow down and live the moment..) that sparked a change.

I wish I could say ‘if you do this, you well instantly feel amazing” but I’m no snake oil charmer. I simply try. I try when I don’t want to, when I have no idea where to gather the strength and when I have no idea why. I am lucky to have a daughter and a son. The first I refer to as my heart because she is the sweetest person I know, always ready for a hug, a cuddle, a snuggle and reads my feelings like a book and my baby as my soul because we are so alike and spend each Monday wrapped up in each other like peas in a snug two-person pod. It’s hard to wallow with the cries of ‘ma-maaa’ ringing through the air. For them I  have little surprises ready, made meals a beautiful affair and bedtime a personalised happy moment. Despite all the moments where I’m looking for the wallpaper paste (Dutchies know which saying I’m referencing), their smiles, giggles and kisses were my reason and a damn good one at that. Kids are  fresh and innocent and oh so funny. When they laugh, I laugh and when I laugh they do too and for that moment everything is beautiful.

I went for my usual Wednesday run last week but on a new path and the morning mist seemed as beautiful as a puffy cloud on a carefree, sunny summer’s afternoon. I snapped some pictures because it felt like I'd never seen mist or trees or even fields before. While I always did my best to make great meals for my kids, it was a chore to get done where cooking used to be a joy. Recently I started to feel that joy again, even in hamburgers and pitas (amazing burger if I do say so myself). When I cook, I go for flavor, don’t follow recipes, simply try, create, be free. I feel that again and started a list again in my phone of the dishes that appear in front of my eyes to turn from mental picture to real meal. And not just for the kids (heck, they won’t try half of it) but for me as well. For the sheer pleasure that being unhampered by doubt or fear gives me. Odd but standing in my kitchen makes me feel like a bird, not a pigeon but an eagle, soaring above mostly me, because it’s my doubt, my fear that I leave behind. When I’m at power yoga or with my run group, I’m still serious about doing the work but find I go to smile, laugh and talk as well. If wrinkles are unstoppable, let them be laugh lines. 

The last thing that made me realise I feel freer, happier, lighter; sleep. It is getting warmer but I no longer toss and turn and awake sweating and  more tired than the night before. I get up bleary-eyed but more powder fresh than sauna sweaty. Most importantly though I simply sleep and when I sleep I dream. Bad dreams and nightmares less and less to the point of a distant memory but good dreams, happy dreams. One dream spilt over into daydream recently. A cheesy, supermarket-romance worthy love-story cast in battle-time between a general.. forget about it, too tacky for details but for me to have frivolous thoughts much cheeky ones has been so long. To daydream means I’m in a good place and the content means I found a door that I’d forgotten. I may or may not open it sometime soon but I know it’s there and that’s what matters right now.

I live today. Each day is new, fresh and full of promise and it is up to me to see the beauty. When I look at my daughter’s face, I think it the most beautiful little girls face on the planet. When my son laughs, I think there is no more beautiful a sound. When I look at myself, I think I am beautiful, inside out as one. When I look at the flowers I fill my home with, I wonder how a single bloom can be so beautiful. When I think of the pain I felt and how ugly it seemed, I think it too a beautiful experience. Not always easy to see, but there is beauty in everything. This blog, this life, this person, it always was and will always be about beauty. About looking for it. It elevates. Light as a feather, not fighting against but floating with the wind, simply drifting high enough to see the beauty and close enough to stretch out my hand, reach it and be part of it.. Namasté.

 P.S. the feathers are part of an addition for the kids arts wall, simply because there is more room for beauty..