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From words to action Part 1

Making it happen

Yes it's hard

Yes my fingers hurt already 

Damn right I'm not a natural 

But I will learn 

L.O.V.E.T.H.E.M.O.M.E.N.T

Got up at 6.am
Had a cup of tea to warm up
Walked to the beach to get sunrise photos
Turned on camera
"Card Locked!"

#F#**&^?K!!#* (Actually lost that little bit on the memory card you can slide to unlock..)

Took a deep breath
Sat down
Earplugs in, Shelter soundtrack on
Smiled

A new day is here
And it's beautiful

Jon Swift - Run River

Not from today....Obviously 

In Search of Peace

It's what we are all looking for, striving for, hoping for. Peace.
I'm not talking Miss Universe "all I want is world peace", although that would be wonderful..
The peace I'm talking about is the kind that lives within us. You can't buy it on eBay, it won't come knocking on your door and it doesn't come with your morning coffee (unless you're having coffee with The Dalai Lama...although I doubt he drinks coffee).
What you will find is numerous articles on the subject in various lifestyle magazines. If you're not a fan of the glossy magazines you can pick up one of the millions of self help books on the matter.  You'll be surprised on how many things you are doing wrong in life, what you're eating but shouldn't be, what you're not eating but should be. What job to have, which city to live in, what clothes to wear, what yoga style to do, which religion to follow, what guy to marry, how many kids to have. It's all there, all the different  recipes  for happiness and inner peace. You just have to pick one. If you're trying to read too many self help books and life style magazines at the same time you might find yourself somewhat confused..and stressed...in short more frustrated than happy. And definitely not very peaceful. But if confused, fear not, we are blessed with all the wonderful researchers who have tested and researched what will make you happy. "Coffee is good for you", "Coffee found to increase risk of cancer", "Women in the city less satisfied in bed", "Women in small towns less happy in marriage".
Thank God for all this very vital information intended to make life easier.

So when you've half read a dousin books and realise it's going to take a bit more work than expected to find this much talked about peace, you start feeling scared. And let me tell you fear is big business. Fear breeds consumerism. All you have to do is turn on the TV or read a newspaper to be faced with a world of things to be scared of. Scared of being fat, scared of being too skinny, scared of not having money, scared of not knowing what to do with it if we have it, scared of getting sick, scared of staying sick, scared of travelling, scared of never leaving, scared of being alone, scared of being with the wrong person, scared of not being safe, scared of being over protected, scared of the neighbour, scared of the police, scared of loosing your  job, scared of going after the one job you want, scared of living, scared of dying....what do we do to try fix it? We buy stuff...shit loads of it. As if buying that ridiculously expensive facial cream will make you look like Heidi Klum and cure you fear of ageing. You won't go to bed feeling any more peaceful. You'll just start thinking you should have probably got the toner to go with it.
And what do we do in our everlasting mission to create world peace? We go to war.

I'm not saying you can't find it. Peace that is. You just can't buy it. You can't walk in to Priceline and find a rose coloured bottle marked "Inner Peace" $10.99...

I'm trying as hard as the next person, and realised not trying as hard makes it all a bit less stressful.
Looking in the mirror is a start (Preferably with a candle next to you, everyone looks better in candle light..) You can probably find a candle named "Inner Peace"...but you don't want the $10.99 one...
More like $29.75...the more expensive the more peace you feel. Obviously.

Xavier Rudd : Comfortable in My skin

Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)

 I felt like shit

I had a hot shower

Walked around naked 

Tried on a few new clothes

Had a couple of glasses of wine

And a few pieces of chocolate 

Listened to Janis Joplin 

Now I feel

Not so shit 

Might have another glass of wine

Just because I can 

Greeting the day

 Getting out of bed on a crisp (freezing) winter morning can be rough. If I could see the beach from my bed I probably wouldn't move. But I can't. So I got up. 

This is what I found. 

It's a Beautiful road

 Lost for words, my emotions are within the photos. 

These are taken in beautiful Yamba. 

Our life is a creation of our mind 

Buddha 

Life in Roundabouts and saying Goodbye

It happens every second of every day..in every little hidden corner, however dark it may be. Sunrise, sunset and every moment in between. The BB (Byron Bay) motions. Or emotions if you will. If you spend more than a few weeks here you will know. Life will be in your face. Life being this schizophrenic creature that one day appears mesmerizingly beautiful, full of joy and the next day dark and lonely, getting on your every nerve and giving you doubts. 

If you thought you were on top of things and that your shit was sorted then Mr Life is here to tell you otherwise...

See, life has all these roundabouts..you get to them and Life is there on either side (told you ....schizo..) holding up a poster with some issue that you’re meant to face but obviously haven’t yet. Sometimes it will be written out in bold letter so you can’t miss it. Next time it might be i small neat cursive letters so you have to get really close to read it. Scary shit. It makes it so easy to close your eyes, take a deep breath, holding it (funny how we feel more invisible when holding our breath, like if you don’t breathe you’re not there..) and walking really fast straight through the roundabout... you know if you look back Life will be looking at you with this look on his face saying “ I’ll just be waiting here then, until you’re ready..”

So best not to look back, just keep walking...which by the way won’t take you very far, as you are obviously stuck in this green(if you’re lucky) roundabout island. Sure you can make the little island pretty, plant some trees, flowers even, water it every now and again. But no matter how beautiful you make it you’re still kind of stuck. Stuck on emotional stand by.And every time you take a step outside Life is there, in your face, saying “ yeah mate, still here..” and you stand there, shoulders high, fists clenched, stamping your foot thinking “dammit!”. 

It’s not all roundabouts though, Life likes to mix it up a bit, sometimes you’ll find him at intersections. They can be stressful. You get there and the light is green but you don’t know how long it’s been green for. How long do you have to make up your mind as to wether to go left, right or straight? What if it turns red half way through, does that mean you made the wrong choice, should you wait for the next set of greens? And what on earth does orange mean...sit back and chill or get your but moving? Life will of course be there, smack bang in the middle, hands on hips going “ you have no idea where you’re going do ya..?” Yet again you find yourself stamping your foot going “dammit!”. And yet again Life looks at you as if to say “well we both know that if you start sprinting down the wrong road we will be having words again..” 

Although, this is where I will outsmart Life with my wannabe Paulo Coelho quotes saying something in the lines of “ no road is wrong if it makes you say hello, goodbye and I love you”. Eat that. 

If there’s something you need to face in BB it’s Hello’s, Goodbyes and I love you’s. Not the fairytale-hollywood-movie-roses-and-the-whole-shebang I love you, but the more subtle kind. It flows around, embracing you when you need it, even though you might not know it. It fills your bathtub, makes it all nice and warm, bubbles if you’re lucky...and then it pulls the plug just as you got comfortable. That’s when you take a hard, angry and hurt look at Life and say “ what the hell was that all about?!” Life just looks at you.....and you have a good long think (depending on how many roundabouts and intersections you have been through this little think could take anything from a few hours up to months. If you are still stuck on your first little pretty island...you might want to make a move) and the you finally go “Aaaahh....now I get it”. 

BB is the meeting place..people meet, emotions meet, some special, some not so special,some stay, some go..but how they made you feel will change a little part of who you are forever. And hopefully lead you through another few roundabouts. Keep moving, keep loving. 

Mister Life will always be there..full of wonderful truths and deceiving lies, leaving it up to you to tell the difference. Teaching you that for every time you say hello you are risking having to say goodbye. More times than not that’s a risk worth taking. 

Dinner for one

Home alone, candles lit, Van Morrison playing, minestrone soup and toasted turkish bread with camembert cheese and a glass of read wine while listening to the peaceful rain outside my window... such a perfect monday night..

Sounds like a perfect Facebook status doesn't it ? Don't we all love to hate all those wanna be happy Facebook people..no offence, I'm sure in that very moment, or actually probably 60 minutes ago, seeing as they are hopefully not updating Facebook while having that perfect dinner with that perfect company...(if so, that's just sad..) they were indeed very happy, or at least thinking  "this is one of those moments one regards as perfect, I should probably share this". Where as after posting one has to spend the rest of the night desperately checking Facebook to see how many has liked the status.. no perfect status has been achieved unless at least 10 people like it and 3 people comment...and 5 people like the comments.

I'm all for Facebook, it's good for creeping on people, getting all the latest without gossiping (well, not until you meet for coffee and talk about the latest Facebook news) , looking up the latest artist, getting the latest trend and the latest news (everyone knows that shit hits Facebook before it hits the news). What's funny is as a lot of the time you find yourself browsing through photos of people you A. Haven't seen for 10 years, B. will probably not see for at least another 10 years, if ever.., C. never really liked in the first place..
Yet we can't find time to call home..

And Facebook is misleading..it's full of babies, weddings, birthdays, hens nights, babies, parties, anniversaries, babies, holidays, babies..
But then again there is no better way to get sympathy (genuine or fake, who cares) than posting "feeling blue, in bed with the flue..." You'd be amazed by how many will hit the 'like' button on that..no comment, no private message, no sms..just 'like'..how is someone feeling sick something to 'like' ?
Oh and birthdays, how good does it make you feel checking Facebook on your birthday and every time there is at least 10 new notifications for wall postings..half of them probably don't even have your phone number, which automatically classifies them as Facebook friends only...harsh but true.

So anyway , I'm sitting here at home, alone until 2 minutes ago (damn), candles still lit, Van Morrison stopped playing, finished my soup, sculled the wine and it's pissing down outside.

I wanted a MacBook he sent me a pen

So more than a month later it seems that splash of inspiring energy didn't last very long, it showed it's face for a short moment as if to say "I'm here aiiight , but don't go thinking Im gonna come around whenever it suits you lady...miss- I-need-inspiration-right-now.. " (said in a ghetto american accent of course..you might want to re read it to get the accent right in your head..just saying..)

Anyways, I've been saying I need a macbook.. because it's just not the same writing on someones else's computer, it doesn't feel the same. Opening your own macbook, with your favourite photo as a desktop background, with all your folders neatly arranged ...you look at it all and it feels like an extension of you. This is where you store your "you files". I know, it's terrible referring to a piece of technology as an extension of you, and it is a bit of an exaggeration, but if you look at what kind of relationship people have with their iPhones, you get my drift.
My birthday was a few weeks ago and a delayed birthday present arrived from mum.. no offence to mum, her gift was wonderful, but it was the gift from her man that made me think ..he sent me a pen. A good old pen in a box. The kind that gives you hand cramps. The shining new kind, blue and silver, very serious looking. You mean business with that pen. Here I am complaining to myself that I haven't got a laptop and he sends me a pen. That shut me up.

So here I am with my John Farnham mug filled with peppermint tea, looking at an empty notebook with a beautiful pen next to it...all whilst typing on my boyfriends MacBook...

Back in business

So it's been 7 months since my last post...no wonder my head is spinning.

About a month ago I created a new blog, at Wordpress. com with the idea to start over again. It was going to be the coolest blog ever. Honestly. I set it up but didn't post anything. Waiting for the flow of creativity to hit. It never did. Realised I didn't like Wordpress very much (it's wonderful to be able to blame lack of creative writing on a blogging  software..). So I had a good look in the mirror ( I didn't really, our bathroom mirror is tiny, but after todays successful garage sale hunting I am the proud owner of a full length mirror. Haven't seen my behind for months..) and decided it was time to stop my habit of always starting over and instead continue what I have started. So here I am, In between dreams, a few alterations and a splash of new energy :)

I might be broke, but I live in paradise.