Weekend blogging. I’ve had a great morning – worked in the garden and heard the local spring cuckoo, the piet-my-vrou calling. Played with a baby boxer puppy from down the road. Entire streets of the village smell of jasmine and orange blossom, like some crazy secret wedding celebration. Talked with a group of friends and neighbours about setting up a safe house for women in the village. Had a call from my sponsor, wanting to tell me a funny story. Called someone from the fellowship who is having a tough time and heard that she is having a brilliant day. She gave me a recipe for preserved lemons, using a fortune’s worth of Maldon salt. Cut back a big lavender bush, so there are bunches of lavender all over the house and some over to give to friends. In the afternoon wrote a short story, tentatively, but the flow was there – posted it for comment with my online writers’ group.
Freedom from the mental quibbling over taking that first drink is the gift of time and an unimaginable quality of life. It is also freedom from the bondage of self.
Gratitude.
My beloved partner telling me I don’t snore loudly any longer. “I suppose that is not drinking alcohol these days,’ I say innocently. She wrinkles her nose. ‘Yes I suppose that could be you not drinking alcohol these days. Such a deafening snore it was too. Now you just give these endearing little hiccups and talk to the moon in your sleep.’
Not saying to people ‘I’m a very private person’ when what I meant was “I drink like a fish and am terrified you might notice.’
Able to talk honestly to the God of my understanding and then shut up and listen
How much my daily life interests me – all of it, the people in it, the animals, the sights and sounds and routines and surprises, the adventure of living to the full
The longing to be able to give back some of what has been poured out into my life in these last months, the abundance and generosity
A stray memory of moonlight streaming over the plains of Madikwe at dawn, the brown hills and white thorn trees, the dark river like a knife edge, wash of moonlight from the cold mother’s hand, chilling but sweet. Something piercing and unforgettable. Africa reminding me where I have come from.
In Johannesburg the coral tree, Erythrina, scarlet flowers on the gnarled bare branches, a velvet flame. Such a sensuous sight at the end of a dry winter.
Not saying to people ‘I’m a very private person’ when what I meant was “I drink like a fish and am terrified you might notice.’..
….perfect…..truthful….me