Sunday, March 27, 2011

On absence

Dear Blog,

It's been a while.  I could tell you why, assail you with the minute of the issues that have been keeping me from your seductive embrace, but not too many words are needed to show you that I haven't had time to procrastinate.

Suffice to say that I have preferred curls over words...


... the warm curl of this little one's tiny perfect fingers around mine, the fineness of her hair as it gently curls a little more each day, wisping around her neck in whorls, and the pulling on my heart as she neatly and unwittingly curls me around the same little finger with which she grasps my hand.  Willingly I go.

I revel in her baby smell, of Lux Flakes, and baby cream and newborn, a cloud of perfume that could make some entrepreneur rich beyond dreams if only it could be bottled, and the joy of watching her change everyday before my eyes. I love the potential of grandma-dom, the freedom of not being the parent, the potential in building an irreplaceable, foundational and magical relationship based on only having to love this little person.  Along with this has been the unexpected bonus of new friends and family with whom to share the journey - and to whom I am eternally grateful for the gift they have bought to our life.  But most importantly, there is the thrill and pride of watching the young man and his lovely lady grow into adulthood full-speed ahead and seeing them cope so magnificently with the whirlwind of change that has been thrust upon them.  Nothing can replace feeling proud of your children.

And then there is this;



...another new life under creation - this time an empty shell for us to fill with the promise of a better and more fulfilling life under which we get to take control of our destiny.  Interestingly, in our search to gain financial freedom and some spare time, fulfilling this promise takes infinite time and infinite amounts of money - both of which are in short supply in the first place!  I am slowly coming to grips with the irony.

Nonetheless, despite the frenetic pace of life, and despite the absence of emails in my in-tray clamouring for my return, I feel a glimmer of light in my otherwise crowded brain that is telling me that it is almost time to write again.  This post doesn't really count - in fact, it's a bit of a rip-off really, like the blog posted before it, and those hasty and forced Christmas letters I used to send to my Great Aunty Caruzie after ungraciously receiving my yearly gift of soap and a hanky - it's  a guilty promise to write soon - just in case someone is waiting.