It seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t, when I strained to hold up a flight of stairs while my dad fixed them in place at the top. They were heavy and I was seriously challenged; my relationship with this man, my relationship with myself. Why am I doing this, doesn’t he appreciate how ridiculously heavy these stairs are! For goodness sake, I could hurt myself. But that all flashed by so quickly and the thought imprinted indelibly on my mind was, I love this person, not in spite of his idiosyncrasies but BECAUSE of them,

How true it is of people, places, animal friends. Everything and everybody I’d say. The now-and-then craziness of our friends and acquaintances are still bonkers at times – love doesn’t render us blind. Each of us has habits and…quirkinesses others find difficult! But love transcends and acknowledges what is, seemlessly (and for sure sometimes love tells us to hot-foot it out and away, and fast.)

I love the car I drive, the place I’m staying, the pots and pans I use. I thank them as I leave and return, when I turn the key in the locks and when I burn a pan (as this morning) and it comes up shiny and new again. Love just comes and that’s the way of gratitude and of love, not a feeling, more simply of the heart. Just arises without counting the costs, the hurts and disappointments the slights and the worries. Oh, and of course the inter-personals!

I guess there isn’t a thing, not anything, that’s outside or inside for that matter. All the same it’s when we are estranged, leaving, leaving behind, waving good by, that what’s ever-present makes manifest.

These flowers above are in memory of my father who died on the 29th January 2000 and for a chap who is getting ready to exit this world.  My kind thoughts to all who suffer with loss and with lost love.

It never is.