Covid-19, cancer, cardiac conditions. There’s an unpleasant alliteration to the crap that has been afflicting those close to us this year. My wee nuclear family is just fine, but the wider family is not. Not fine at all.
Death is in the building. Perched on a bar stool, tapping a beer coaster. No rush. Just making himself known.
Last year was our first white Christmas, spent high in the Austrian Alps. It snowed on Christmas Eve and we spent a week in the bosom of warm Austrian hospitality – candlelight feasting, skiing and tobogganing . It was such an enchanting and different experience that I feared that returning to normal – no matter how good to be with all the family again – would be a disappointment.
Then, while hanging out the washing the other day (bear with me) I looked up to see the blood-red blooms of the pohutukawa tree at the neighour-two-doors-over.
Boom. It was like a wee Christmas elf had waved a magical pine wand and transported me to the beach. Continue reading →
The driveway is not the place for quiet reflection.
It’s the hub of arrivals and departures, the place where you are always hunting for the house key or the car key, busting for the toilet, tucking sweatshirts under your chin, drink bottles under your arm, grabbing shopping bags or school bags or day bags, yelling at kids to help, kicking doors open, kicking doors closed, putting everything down to hunt for keys, running back for sunglasses, putting on sunblock, finding hats, reaching for the map, plugging in the phone, fiddling with the air-conditioning, checking your reflection for toothpaste on your chin…
Then one day you glimpse a painting reflected in the wing mirror.