A Bride walked alone...

All is appropriate. All happens with purpose.

It's been a week now and this woman has not left my mind...
Please feel free to share your theories on where she might have gone or who she may have been in the comments below :)

A week ago today it was Valentine's Day and I was driving the back roads over the mountain. Weekends are busy up here with tourists, hikers, bike riders, day trippers, driving enthusiasts and weddings. With such an exquisite environment upon this gorgeous mountain you can imagine there are any number of  busy reception centres and wedding venues and from Thursday through to Sunday the road is frequented by cars adorned with bridal ribbons.
I love driving myself, so on weekends, pretty much as I choose any day of my life really, I'll often take the uncommon road less travelled.
On Valentines Day, a gorgeous day, on such a road I came upon a sight most curious and unexpected:
A bride, fully gowned and veiled, carrying her shoes in her hand, was slowly walking along the edge of the unsealed road. A tiny, beautiful bride that had not made it down the aisle.
Alone.
In the middle of nowhere.
Not close to any venue, accommodation or even a home.

I had slowed when I saw her, and even more as I went to pass by her (after all, you don't want to throw a stone up into thousands of dollars of gown!) but as I drew closer I could feel the dark weight of desolation emanating from her...

She didn't look at all at the car as it approached or passed. Not with hope nor with fear. Her eyes did not even glance up from her focus upon the slow passing earth at her feet.
She didn't look up. Which I why I stopped my car.

My mind went powering into overdrive as to what this girl's story could be as I gently walked toward her, trying to anticipate what I could be dealing with.
You do not see a bride alone for any length of time on her wedding day. No-one else was even close. There was no car close by. The dirt upon the hem and the train of the dress suggested she had walked some way already.

Valentines Day can be a cruel beast for many. Based upon a farcical perception of what someone decided love should be like, it finds its roots in obligation. Obligation by its very nature, driven deep by expectation, always ends up in resentment.
Now add that burden to the expectations of a wedding...I wondered what had happened...

"Excuse me..." I gently touched her arm and she spun around in alarm.
Stepping back, I went on, "I didn't mean to frighten you. Can I help you at all? Do you need a lift somewhere?"
Silence. Staring me in the eye, dry-eyed, her face was erased of any emotion but a small furrow of confusion in her brow. The furrow didn't belong to me, it seemed to belong Life itself.
I spoke even more quietly, softly taking her hand and indicated upward, "The dappled sun through the trees is amazing,  isn't it?"
A little smile flickered over her face and she looked up, closing her eyes, feeling the sun.
I was relieved. She was still in there. But buried deep beneath the day it seemed.

Deliberating what to do next as I elevated her vibration (via my gift in frequency), there was an eruptive noise from my car.
Johnson, my big pup of a dog, had been waiting in the car. He had jumped from the back, over the seats to the front of the car and launching out the open driver's door was galloping joyously at us.
I had no time to explain that he was friendly. Due to his size alone most people would have simply run.

Going too fast he overshot and slid past us on the gravel. Then trotted back happily, sitting down before her, he tucked his chin down and put his paw up to shake her hand.
He waited.
She looked expressionlessly at him.
He put his paw higher for her.
She still didn't take it.
Instead she looked down at the shoes in her hand and slowly passed them to me to hold.
The moment I took them, the very moment they left her touch,
she fell upon the big brindle bear of a dog.
Her arms clutching desperately around him, Johnson leaned in on her as she sobbed and cried rawly. Then as fast as it had happened it stopped. She pulled back and looked at Johnson, his big head in her hands, patting him and smiling at him, the gratitude in her sweet warmth for him.

Then she stood up and silently, started walking again.
Not a glance back.
Not a word spoken.

Johnson, my dog, and I watched her until she went around the bend out of sight. It seemed we both knew our part in the journey with her was done.
It was only as I got into the car again that I realised I still had her beautiful bridal shoes in my hand.
turning the car we went down the road after her...only to find no sign of her at all!
No other car had passed. There was nothing and nobody for her to disappear into.

Eventually I let it go and went on to where I was expected to be.
But as I said, she has stayed with me.

A bride, alone, in the middle of nowhere on Valentine's Day.
I have wondered again and again what her story might be. What had happened? How was a bride alone at all, let alone where she was?
But oddly, I know she's ok. She will heal eventually. She will love again. She did not need to be rescued.

All is appropriate. All happens with purpose.

I do not understand the purpose behind this.
I love that I don't.
I love that Life insists on keeping me wondering.
That Life, unlike Valentines Day, ensures no obligation. That any expectation is my own. And all experience is free.
Thus, it is a life lived free of resentment.
(A life now also left with the momento of a tiny, size 6 pair of exquisite bridal heels) 

The Loudest is often the most Fearful

Walking with my children through a car park, moving between the parked cars,  my daughter jumped as a dog in a car we were passing erupted into a flurry of snarl, bark and growl. Through the window we could see him loaded backward, like a coiled spring on his haunches, his tail low and wagging with his vocal explosions.

"Look at him! These people should never bring a dog like that into a public area!", my daughter was frightened, edging away from the car, "Look! He's vicious!"

I caught her arm and quietly moved her back toward him, "No, he's not vicious. He's anxious. He's scared."

"Scared? Are we looking at the same dog, Mum?"

"Apparently not. It seems you're looking at some idea of what someone else has told you...", I looked in at him and he became louder,  "I'm looking at fear."

Already contained in a confined space within the car, he had nowhere to go or run if anyone were to enter or threaten his space. "Flight" was not an option, "fight" is all he had left. He had to make his threat as aggressive, as alarming as he could in the hope it would be enough to discourage any intruder and avoid the fight.

" Do you see, babe?" We looked in at him snarling, his little back against the wall furthermost from us, "The most frightened is often the noisiest. The guy with his back to the wall and nowhere to run."
 

                      

Photos of "Little Holly" care of Hope For Paws animal rescue organisation www.hopeforpaws.org 

Dog trainers working with military, security or police forces often measure the capability of a dog recommended to them by this first reaction upon meeting. It is requested that they enter the dog's yard or space without introduction to gauge the response.
The loudest is often not quite right for the services. It is the quiet dog that holds mind under pressure that they will take into training.

The loudest is often the most fearful.
In all animals.
Including we humans.

MHH

The Great Art of Life...

Transcendent Existence

Shhhh! She is travelling between worlds right now. You can see her holding the tension of not knowing ~ she is simply breathing into her unanswered questions. Sometimes she drinks her coffee with quaking hands, not knowing where her relationship or her bank account is going.

But this time, she is holding on to the tension of not knowing, and is not willing to hit the panic button. She is unlearning thousands of years of conditioning. She is not being split between the opposing forces of fight and flight.

She is neither naïve nor ignorant. She is a frontier woman, paving new roads & making new choices.

She is willing to making a new transcendent possibility emerge. You may see her now ~ standing at thresholds, or at crossroads ~ breathing into her body ~ intently listening for inner signals. She's learning new navigation skills as she arrives at a most magical moment of her life.

No Heroic Quips. Just Do Better than Me

I wasn’t awesome today.
Please do better than me.

Today is the babies “half birthday’ (six months) and we decided we’d celebrate by eating out for dinner at our favorite restaurant.
I was teasing my son (quadriplegic with cerebral palsy/autistic), playing, and he was being his cheeky self right back at me. Laughing and quipping, it got a little noisy.
That was until a young woman sitting at the next table said loudly, with intent to be overheard, to her friends,

“Maybe she should shut her stupid retard up!”

We all fell into a silence, smarting with shock.
I looked across at Jack. His head had dropped. All of his animation, his light, his laughter was extinguished. His gentle gaze was into his lap when he quietly said the worst thing he could of possibly said,

“I’m sorry, Mum.”

I cancelled our orders and we left.

I didn’t throw a heroic quip at the girl. I didn’t insult her. I didn’t even look at the table. In fact I accidentally ran Jack’s wheelchair into the doorframe as we were leaving because I couldn’t see through the tears pouring down my face.

No matter how much you think you know it, unless you live with a child with special needs you don’t know how hard it is. How complex and difficult it can be. How much a thoughtless,  ego-driven line like that girl’s will decay my son’s confidence. Jack and I live this journey, 24/7.

Its hard.

I’m not sharing this with you for sympathy.

I’m sharing this because I have an awesome community of friends on here.
You are, each and every one, awesome.
So please, do better than me:

when you’re out amongst life, be awesome.

And now we can say "Merry Christmas"

In the pressurised crescendo to the big day, it can be all too easy to forget what Christmas is really all about. As diverse as our populous is, so is the cause and celebration of Christmas Day for each us. And yet, despite in some cases extreme differences about what it means to each individual, if we but take a little time to see, there is still a point of commonality for all of us...

We were forced to do it. We had to brave a major shopping centre, a few days before Christmas to grab some last minute items. The sweat, the throngs of desperation, the madness, the accelerated mental fatigue, the tantrums, the social ineptitude birthing from utter self-centredness in the fight for retail survival... And the crowds would be there too.

Our schedules being our schedules (never dull) it had unfolded that the kids would need to come with me. Five kids, identical twin baby girls in tandem stroller, two tween daughters, one autistic and wheelchair dependant teenaged son, its never an easy journey Christmas crowds aside.
Amid reminders of, "Best behaviour, guys. Let's stick together. We're in the last few days now. You don't want to blow it and hit the naughty list in the last minute!" Their protests fell on my ears deafened by the pulsing ebb of impending throngs as the automatic doors drew back, sucking us inward...

Within forty meters of entry, my nine year old daughter cops a stroller running into her ankle from the side, with the hostile father pushing the stroller hissing at her, "Watch out!".
Shoving powered wheelchair into his path and halting his progress entirely, I caught his eye, "I believe you meant to say, "I'm sorry. Are you ok?"." The now crippled nine year old sitting on her brother's lap on the power-chair, we moved onward...

Entering the depths, I lead the troops into the belly of nonsensical purchasing: The market.
More would follow that first hostile stroller incident, subjecting us to complaints of "taking up the whole moving walkway with the wheelchair" (how inconvenient of us!), a fearless four year old slapping my eleven year old daughter for holding the last pink ball, minor tantrums from my gang when Mum refused to purchase another DSI so "we don't have to share" (where am I going wrong?) and Jack blatantly taking advantage of his disability to barge in, completely jumping the waiting queue, to speak to Santa with the announcement of "Santa, thank goodness! I've needed to talk to you..." And once again, as happens every single year, Santa looked at my kids, looked at me and said, "Are these all your kids?" (who else would work this hard, I ask you?!)

Eventually we made it to the back of a four-deep crowd queuing at the butcher. People were yelling across the counter with items of meat and money flowing back and forth in rapid succession. Chatting with the gang (the kids) as we waited our turn, it took me some time to realise the crowd was laterally shoving one another but not progressing, the atmosphere frazzled, feet were tapping impatiently.
At the counter was a gentle lady, somewhere around the eighty-year-old mark, leaning heavily on her walking frame and trying to be heard over the counter that towered well above her. 
She was trying to buy a piece of corned beef for Christmas Day.

Her frail but friendly voice called, "Could you please weigh that for me? Tell me how much it might be..." the piece the butcher held was not much larger than an apple . However upon weighing it was apparently far too expensive.
She asked, "Do you have a smaller piece?" 
The butcher procured a piece barely palm sized. But alas again, with a slow and sad glance in her purse, it was too costly...
"Could you cut it for me please?"...

My daughter Colby, all heart, grabbed desperately at my hand pleading, "Mum, we have to do something! Can we give her some money? Please!"
"How can we do it, Col, without making her uncomfortable?" All of us huddled, three of us rapidly whispering different theories of how we could help this lovely lady without embarrassing her. Jack, my son, however wasn't sharing and instead kept saying, "Give me the money, Mum. Give it to Jack!", grappling at my hand with his clammy, cerebral palsy grip.
The crowd was shuffling, impatient, blatantly rude...To keep Jack settled I handed him the $50 note that we were still busily plotting to drop in the lady's bag somehow.
The crowd's muttering started to become decorated with audible baubles of "Ouch!", "Oh, excuse me." and "Oh, sorry, mate." A perceptible shift that tells me my son is on the move. I looked up to see Jack guiding his wheelchair through the crowd, ramming whoever would thwart his path (something he never does!) bee-lining for this frail little lady.
"Can I help you?" a voice called. It was our turn at the counter.
I smiled, "Please! First of all, I'd like to..." I began using Jack's distraction to my advantage.

The sweet lady only noticed Jack once he was right beside her.
"Excuse me, " he said to her, and with that Jack smile and a huge amount of effort he raised his quadriplegic  affected arm grasping the $50 note, "This is yours."
"Oh no, it couldn't be..." she protested.
He interrupted, "No, it is yours. It is. Please take it."
She stared at him, then looked about the now silenced, watching crowd.
"Please." Jack said again, "It hurts to hold my arm like this."
She tentatively took the $50.
He smiled and cheerily called, "And now you say "Merry Christmas Jack!""
Her voice shaky, her hand trembling, she said, "Oh yes, yes. Merry Christmas, Jack." Then to the crowd, "Did...did someone drop this?" And the crowd all smiling, shaking their heads, murmuring utterings of "saw you drop it", "sure its yours".
I sidled over, grabbed the handle of my boy's chair and we quietly made our way through the gathering.
We were moving away when the butcher called over the counter to her,
"Here's your corned beef, ma'am.", handing her a large parcel of corned beef. As she again began to protest he went on, "No charge. Already paid for. Merry Christmas, Love!"

Well clear of the butcher's queue, safely camouflaged in the moving crowd, we turned to glance back. This lovely lady was softly crying, happy, the flow of her tears coursing the face of a life well lived. Several people from the once impatient and hostile crowd, strangers, taking time, warmly and gently comforting her.

We all looked upon the image from our distance and a quiet whisper came up from the wheelchair beside me as he looked on,

"And now you say "Merry Christmas"." 

“I am eternally, devastatingly romantic..."

“I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, 
and I thought people would see it because ‘romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sugary.’ 
It’s dark and tormented — the furor of passion, 
the despair of an idealism that you can’t attain.”                                                                                                                               Catherine Breillat