hello, Life

How beautiful.

It keeps hitting me.

As the sun rises and casts the day into warmth that goes deep, so deep.

As the mountains lift up and up, and the trees glow green.

As the water hits when I leap with my whole self, my whole heart

straight in without pausing to think of the cold.


As the car whooshes the known road home, children chattering in the back seat, sun on my skin, radio on, husband beside and every window down,

and I put out my hand, out into the warm wind and let it ride and leap like a dolphin.


As I sit on the lake in summer rain, in a canoe,

and all around is blue and dusky green

As my daughter sits in her own small boat marvelling at the feel of the water on her flat fingers

As we lift up and down on this big blue powered by only our own hands, our own dreams.

As I laugh with a friend in a chair and she speaks of her shoulder angels,

As her children and mine play for hours, never tiring, never ceasing to love being, simply, Together.


As I listen to a song never heard before, sitting at the computer with the kids standing beside,

and the tears just come.

As the tears come forth with joy, with joy,

As my children smile and touch my shoulder and stay so close,

As they say, Oh Mum. Mum. We love you.


As I ride the bike hard and feel my skin and my sweat and my feet moving under me

As I walk along the beach path with my son early in the morning, and he chats like a bird in my ear, calling like a song

As I lie at night with the window wide open, door wide open, listening to the breath of the man I love, and the whirr of the fans in the children's bedrooms


As I swim and swim, and feel how the water slides along the line of me,

As my hands carve my own, good path through the water, marking, pointing, guiding, claiming.


As I walk with a new-washed dog and he finds the Just Right patch of grass in the park to roll and roll in

As his tail swipes wildly from side to side and his tongue lolls out,

And he smiles up at me,

as if to say,

Isn't it just wonderful?

The feel of this? This light? This sun? This Earth? This Life?

Isn't it?


It is,


it is.

Wonderful.

Written to the soundtrack of James Vincent McMorrow.

Recently discovered just two days ago on a car ride, with the radio on and windows down, with my hand riding the wind. Wind made by moving, by taking life with both hands, by claiming it for my Very Own.