What I Was Grateful For Today.

5am kitty paw patting my face,

the silence as I walk through the house, 

outside the garden rings with birdsong,

peacock, pheasant, finch,

this evening,

sun salutations in the heat,

the window open to no effect,

we toil and persist and sweat,

crows in the hot, still air outside have 'India' in their cries,

and in the silence of shavasana at the end,

I give thanks for the normal, familiar day that came between,

 ~*~

...And Without Further Ado, Summer.

It was rather abrupt in the end.
Overnight, in fact.
One morning Summer had just turned up at the door, bags deposited, feet up, fanning herself where she reclined in her deck chair, before we had even risen.

Can you imagine the welcome?
And what has made it all the sweeter is that with her came my only sister, her husband, and their darling little daughter, all the way from the US.
So there has been a significant gatherings of Family, of coming together from the all quarters, to eat, drink and be merry, and just catch up with one another.

And so, while blogging is still sporadic, at best, round here, we have been busy, and there are significant changes afoot here at Milkmoon, of which I hope to have more on in the near future.

So for now, I do hope that the sun is shining wherever you are, and I will be back here soon with some drawings, musings, and news.

Where I Think You Are When You Are Not Here.

This last week, I spent mostly in my car, zooming around the greening land, like a busy spider weaving a web in haste and without time.
Jay has flown again, to the Land of the Rising Sun, and as I have never been there, I cannot image him anywhere solid, but instead he floats, Somewhere Out There, like a sleeping balloon man whose ribbon I hold in my hand without thinking. You know when you are holding something you never want to put down, but you carry on with your day, and forget it is there, except for a vague awareness of how hot and clammy your hand has become, or how awkward or difficult things are with only one hand.
And so above me he follows me, floats, sleeping, throughout my day, and Up There, where I cannot see, he drifts through beautiful moss gardens that drip with water, where the breeze rustles the leaves over his head, tickles his sleeping beard, and stirs the bamboo, making them clack together, through bright lights of city nights, between gleaming glass towers that shower him in little bokeh balls of sunlight.

Though I know in reality he is not at all sleeping and dreaming, that in fact he is actually more likely running, just running, flat out through the night, leaping over obstacles, throwing aside impediments, barely pausing to rest, running to get home to us. And I like to think he too holds my ribbon, and somewhere above him, I am streaming out behind him, floating in a sunlit garden where children play and laugh, and we bake cakes and read to one another, pausing to tickle the cats, lie in the grass and watch the clouds roll around the sky, and thinking about what to make for dinner.

A Mixed Bag.

Oh, what a time we have had lately. Thank heavens for school holidays! Honestly, I could write that last sentence here and just leave it at that. 

This blog post was started during the school holidays over Easter but obviously I got sidetracked! We've had a carnival of weather fronts around here, and although it has now settled somewhat, into typical late Spring weather, I thought I would share some of it with you.

A few weeks back we awoke to this, my favourite kind of day, the kind of day when the veils between the worlds melt away and we find ourselves in some Otherworld, where even sound becomes different, and our footsteps echo strangely, the quiet breath of imagined Other~lings cool against our cheek.

These kind of days take my feet on a wander, down to the sea shore, and away into the hills, where People seem to have retreated away from this world and do not walk the streets, but stay quietly indoors away from the damp, the strange stillness, awaiting the return of the sun.

But not me. No, my feet wander, my heart filled with the monochrome silence, happy to be Lost for a while...

And then, one morning soon after, we awaken to find that Spring has arrived, the bluebells nod outside the window, the air stirs a little warmer and the children shed their winter skins, coats discarded in the garden, shoes and socks kicked off, oh joy! at cool, dry grass between their toes!

And the days warmed so considerably that the sea began it's siren call, drawing us to it's shores, promising summer days to come, filled with sandcastles and picnics and lazy days with nowhere else to be.

And even though the days turned wild and stormy again, still the pounding sea could not quell that growing Summer-ing that has taken hold of us all, now that the evenings stretch out their arms, lingering just that little bit longer each day, shyly hoping we won't mind.

And we did retreat indoors for a while, the halls murmuring with little voices, important business of the day beginning early for some, and for a while the focus was on Home, and Time Spent Together.

But as I said, the Carnival continued, and the sun simply could not stay away.

It's times like these, when little boys are being Little Boys, taking life by the horns with gusto, and revelling in the light and the few extra degrees in the air they storm through, building tents and making go-carts, and doing it all themselves when the grown-ups are too busy to help, it's times like these I catch in my heart, hold tenderly and with complete focus, for I know oh too well they melt away all too soon, drift away into teenagedom and a bigger world.

And although it's behind us now, here's a picture of this year's Easter tree.

We had a lovely break, with family time in abundance and not much else, other than good food and attention to detail.

But tonight, with a storm warning in effect, we baton down the hatches, and await the next dip in this roller coaster that is Springtime Weather, dolefully eye our sagging, leaky sand bags, and hoping the sea stays where it's supposed to, over the next few days!

I hope you are all warm and dry, wherever you are!

What I Found In The Land Of Cinnamon Light.

Once upon a time, I found myself on the other side of the world, in a place of immeasurable beauty, a place that I went to in innocence, and that took hold of me with tender fierceness and made me look into the eyes of humanity with more clarity than I had ever before. A place that got right in under my skin, and swore to never leave my being, and at times I wonder had I carried it with me all along, from some other lifetime? A deep, untold mystery.

Lately, India has been in my ether again.

You know how it is. Something, a memory, seeps into your days unnoticed, like saltwater in the ground beneath your feet that slowly, slowly soaks, unnoticed. At first just the tender soles of your feet, unnoticed, then quietly inching, unnoticed, until one day you awake to find yourself adrift in it.

And then you see them, signs of it everywhere, somehow, inextricably everywhere.
A conversation, a meal, a reminder, a photo album, a meeting, a film, all unconnected and innocent in themselves, but the awakening reveals a bright, shiny, continuous thread that is now spread around me and I am adrift in it.

India.

Why is this coming back to me now, I wonder? After almost two decades of quiet living, most of which was in a dreamy Mother~Land, it has come back to find me. Maybe I am ready to greet it again?

And while that trip is a story to tell, I am arrested with wondering about where these memories fit into my life today, and it has me thinking.
As our older two seem to be racing towards flying the nest and the time to let them go is just beginning to peer over the horizon, I think about how my parents did this, The Letting Go, and how something that seems impossibly huge in the distance surprises you when it arrives all small and humble and perfectly reasonable.
For each of those steps our children take are exquisitely formed, and timed to perfection, if only we have the courage to see it, but often our own fear blinds us and we clutch, without even knowing it.

As our Eldest faces his first serious exams in a couple of months, I find myself in new territory as a mother, and in a way I find myself at a loss. Here now, is something we cannot do for him, or even hold his hand for, (indeed he doesn't want us to), and yet he really is not finding it easy. It brings back shuddering memories of my own school experience, and the reminder is, I have to say, rather uncomfortable.
This child of mine is standing alone, for the first time, and all the silences and deep thinking do not go misunderstood by me and his father. It is frightening. He hasn't got to the exciting bit yet, and it is overwhelming, but he will. And I remind myself of that. How fleeting this time just is!

We get through it anyway, don't we? All of it. And our feet take us onwards, no matter what. And we find ourselves in places that we could never have imagined, hearing stories we can hardly believe, and our young eyes are opened and we begin to truly see the world and understand what we want to both take from it, and give to it.
But only because it is our feet and our eyes. The advice and experience of our parents and teachers have hopefully been stored away as a map, a guide, for when we need it, but ultimately it only comes through our own experience.

So this is a little Note To Self: They'll be okay!

I look at these pictures, almost twenty years old, and faded, some of them, and I think of what this experience meant to me at the time. It meant something very different than what it means to me now.
For now I am on the other side of it and I understand that the true value of these experiences is the fact that we are figuring it out for ourselves. And I will do the Letting Go when the time comes, and it will be easier than I think now. Because it will be the Beginning for him.

The first line I wrote at the beginning of this, now I read back over it, may indeed be read as a corny cliché:

'I found myself'.

At least, I found the beginning of myself, of who I would eventually become. And don't we continue Becoming, for the rest of our lives? I hope so anyway.

Where did you find yourself? That Beginning Of You? Was it somewhere far away, or somewhere unexpectedly familiar, something intense or something surprisingly soft? Did you know at the time, or is it only hindsight and time that allow you to see it?

I truly would love to know.

And now I know my own answer I think I may be ready to go back.