Trust

One of the things I love about living in Brisbane is the preponderance of exotic blooms that are to be found on every street and their magical scent that almost makes the oppressive heat of summer bearable.

My most favourite of these blooms is the delicately scented and aesthetically beautiful frangipani.  I cannot walk past a scattering of them on the footpath without picking them up and inhaling their intoxicating scent.

I am lucky to have one at the entrance to the property in which I am currently living and love being surprised by its wonderful fragrance every time I go out the gate.

Frangipani Blossoms

Beautiful Frangpani Blossoms

Yesterday morning I was opening the front door to let in some much needed air when I spotted a single frangipani blossom out on the little deck.  I immediately went out and picked it up and wondered as to how it had gotten there as the frangipani tree is at the bottom of a set of stairs and there had been no wind sufficient enough to blow it up.  I picked it up and inhaled it’s mesmerising aroma.  I looked at it, beguiled by its simple beauty and asked it, “how did you get here?”

No sooner had I asked the question when a voice sounded in my head and it said, “wonder not about how we get to the places where we want to go, just trust that we get there in the end.”

Well you could have blown me down with a frangipani blossom!  Never was a message so apt and so badly needed.

Trust is not something that comes naturally for me but maybe that little flower was telling me to inhale, breathe and for once in my life trust that there are greater forces at work in my life that will lead me to the places I want to be.  Just for once maybe I don’t have to steer my ship through unknown waters, perhaps it’s time for me to let go of the wheel for a while and let another shipmate take control.  As life throws me yet another curveball, maybe just this once I will trust and let go.

A Perfect Moment

There are times in life when everything comes together in one perfect moment.  These moments are rare and sometimes we can be so distracted, we only realise they happened after they have passed. To be aware of one of these moments whilst it is happening and to have a camera on you at the same time, to capture the magic and preserve it for all eternity is an incredible stroke of luck.  Thankfully I had one of these such incidences of luck last year when on holidays in Ireland and took the photo below.

Photo of girl running in the water at the beach

A Perfect Moment

The photo is of my daughter as she runs along the beach, the water splashing at her heels and the sun warming her bones.  Now, the west of Ireland is a beautiful place to be on any day of the week but on a day when the sun shines it is sensational.  We were blessed with weeks of uninterrupted sunshine, long lazy days of summer with ice cream afternoons, beach days and breath-taking sunsets. To get a summer like this in Ireland is too rare for words, to get a summer like this the only time you have been home for two years is incredibly special.

This photo was taken at about 4:30 pm in the afternoon on a day when the heat from the sun enveloped us like an invisible blanket that never seemed to end.  The kids were pottering around the beach, building sandcastles, making stone sculptures and just being.  I was relaxed in a way I can only be when I am in the west of Ireland – at one with body and soul.

My daughter decided to go in for a dip and I watched and listened as she lit up the beach with her smile and squeals of delight.  As the cold water connected with her little body, she ran unfettered and free, a perfect study of joy in flight and I knew….. I knew I was witnessing one of those childhood moments that precious memories are made from.  I reached for my phone, activated the camera and clicked and clicked.

A year later I’m sitting at my desk in Australia, yearning for an Irish summer in the west of Ireland and not knowing when I’ll be there again but I have a precious memory, a moment of pure joy captured on canvas, hanging on my wall.  For the minute that will have to do but I feel so lucky to have grabbed that moment and preserved it.  Looking at the photo brings me back to that day and an indescribable moment of happiness shared by me and my girl.

The Smile

I saw this beautiful video on facebook the other day and it reminded me of one of the most amazing days in my life.

It was approximately seven years ago and it was the day my little girl met her baby brother for the first time.  Ah that’s sweet, I hear you say but does it really fall into the amazing category? Well, yes it does when you consider her baby brother had fought for his life since being born at twenty-nine weeks and wasn’t due to be born for another six weeks.  But as amazing as that fact was, it wasn’t the most amazing thing about the day.

I’m not sure how much you know about babies, I didn’t know a whole lot until I finally managed to have one but they don’t properly smile until they are between six and ten weeks old.  Apparently their facial muscles aren’t developed enough to pull off a full-on beam.  They may entertain you with plenty of adorable expressions and attempts at a smile but the main event doesn’t usually come until at least six weeks of age.

So here’s the amazing thing, on setting his eyes on his big sister and hearing her squeal of delight, the baby affectionately known as Scrappy, broke out into one of the biggest smiles you have ever seen. Yup, he pulled off a mega-watt beam of joy that reduced us all (including the battle-hardened NICU nurses) to tears.  The only exception was his sister, who was captivated with him from the second she set her eyes on him and proceeded to smile back.

Little girl holding baby boy in her arms

Sister & Brother Finally Meet

Very often we only recognise defining moments in our lives as we look back and view events with the benefit of hindsight, however, I knew immediately this was a defining moment in my life.  I knew if my son (who wasn’t even supposed to be born yet) could pull off a smile like that for his sister, someone who he innately knew, then he would be okay.  He would make it.

All too often these days we are bombarded with science and it seems someone, somewhere has all the answers but if my son’s incredible smile taught me one thing, it’s that we don’t have all the answers and sometimes things happen that just can’t be explained. At a time when so many seek to break the most incredible events in life, such as falling in love, into their component parts e.g. hormones, pheromones etc I think it’s wonderful that life keeps us on our toes and her mysteries up her sleeve.

So, the next time you smile, think of Scrappy and feel the magic of life.

A Long Road

Doris Lessing Quote

I don’t ever remember making a conscious decision to be a writer but I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write.  I can clearly recall being eight year’s old and my teacher asking me to write a story about being stranded on a desert island.  I immediately set myself to the task and became so lost in the world I created, I forgot to go to lunch and kept on writing.  She returned to the classroom to find me still scribbling away.  To this day I can remember the details of that story and the joy I felt as I realized I finally had the skills to translate my imaginings into words.  Life moved on and I expressed myself in the written word as much as I possibly could and I dreamed of becoming a journalist and spending my every waking hour with a word processor.  But this was the late eighties in Ireland when journalism was considered a most precarious profession and not altogether suited to a girl.  So, I found myself in university studying English and by the time I was finished was convinced I couldn’t write anything of any worth so what was the point.  Many years of distraction and diversion followed but underlying it all was a nagging need to write, to find an outlet for all the curiosity and wondering in my brain.  It wouldn’t let me be so I finally gave in and went back to college and a course in journalism resulted in a career as a journalist.  Turns out I could successfully string a few sentences together.  However, as much as I loved chasing a story, putting in the research and crafting an article into shape, I was still left with the  problem of what to do with all the stories running around my head.  I took a few of them and presented them to publishers and agents and, in that time honoured fashion so familiar to authors, I duly received rejection after soul-destroying rejection.  Time was moving on, my bank balance was  beyond critical and my life was being held ransom to a dream.  Other sources of much needed income beckoned and  then the greatest diversion of them all  happened – motherhood.  Writing aspirations found themselves buried underneath nappies, endless bottles, vomit, fevers,  tantrums, cleaning, washing, feeding and the general drudge that comes with motherhood.  Oh and let’s not forget – all of it  on little or no sleep.  My brain simply went numb and on my more lucid days I seemed to remember I could do something  with my fingers other than mash avocado but couldn’t for the life of me remember what that was…..

However, whilst I was ensconced on planet mummy, a revolution was taking place in the publishing world.  An online company called Amazon were inviting  anyone to submit their work.  Detractors said it would never catch on and the rest, as they say, is history.  When I finally managed to send my cherubs off to school, the first thing I did was treat myself to a new computer, complete with the latest  edition of Word.  I’d spent seven years with stories running around my head and I unleashed my stiff and frustrated fingers onto the keyboard.  The result was three distinct short stories:

malooey_unfinishedbusiness3dcropped-malooey_a5-copy.pngmalooey_deadbody3d

After losing years on the traditional publishing  merry-go-round I decided to embrace the revolution and publish independently on Amazon.  I’m loving the freedom and independence it affords me and the thrill of finally seeing my work in print  is indescribable.  All those years  ago my little desert island story ended up being published in a collection of stories from school-children.  It’s been a long road but I’m finally a published author again.  I hope you enjoy my three offerings and will join me on the rest of  my journey.  Happy reading – Roisin.