This morning I went out to buy some croissants, chocolate ones to be precise, and when I got to the shop they were sold out, sold out of most nice things due to the fact that it was first communion day in our parish. So I did not want to arrive where I was going empty handed and I ventured a little further to the lower shelves and discovered paradise squares, a totally new type of cake/bun/nice thing. Even better they were pink and had cherries, yummy. I also bought my favourite Saturday paper and later in the day I decided to read it while lounging on the sofa drinking tea, very decadent really when the house looked like it had been burgled and my daughter was having a friend over to stay. I came across an ad for a hotel, it was titled paradise found. It brought me back to when I was my daughters age aprox and I spent a wonderful week staying in a hostel near that particluar luxury hotel and it was the closest thing to paradise I had experienced them. My friends parents were alot older than mine, better educated and more adventurous. They were lovely gentle people and never raised their voices. The really loved their children who were both adopted and it used to make me wish I was adopted as they would tell their children how they chose them and were so lucky to have got such lovely daughters after loosing so many babies of their own. It was one of the best summers of the decade. One of those perfect Irish summers, sun gentle breezes, an abundance of honeysuckle and fushia and sun,sun sun a rare thing in Ireland in the summer.
I spent the summer perfecting my tan and eating fruit. It was a blissful time: Paradise. As I wandered through my day today I wondered why I lost the feeling of paradise or just abandoned it . All my memories of being happy involve me being very attuned to nature, to being outdoors with the plants and birds, noticing the passing of the seasons, waiting for each new plant to blossom, the leaves to fall the storms to pass. Mindfulness is achieved through noticing your surroundings, being present at that moment. On my walk down the track today I was noticing the flowers in bloom and the ones which are about to come into bloom when I thought what will there be to look at when the flowers die off. then I noticed it a single pale really white almost translucent mushroom in the midst of a fluff of bright yellow trefoil. Ah ha then there will be the mushrooms of autumn, the falling conkers, the beauty of the autumn leaves, in the winter there will be the frost and the puddles and that amazing blueness of the winter morning sky. There is always something there to notice. So I realised it was not because I was stopping to look at the flowers that I was happy, it was because my mind was open enough to notice my surroundings that I was happy. Happiness is a peaceful mind. Paradise is a peaceful mind on a May day in Abbeyside down the causeway looking at the flowers. Recently I have been thinking of moving as my daughter is so unhappy here and I thought how much I would miss my favourite walk. I got to thinking that it will always be there, well for a long time anyway, and I can go back anytime to walk there. So often when I have moved in the past I never maintained the links with my previous friends and areas. I suppose it is all part of my tendency to compatmentalise. It is my fervent wish that I stay whole and all joined up. I like myself now and am ok to show my vulnerability. People do laugh at me when I do not understand things but it is kind laughter. I have a tendency not to fully understand what peoples real motives are but lately I have noticed that other people are looking out for me. Because I am open to showing that I am not perfect people tend to pick up the slack for me now, before they just assumed I could do everything. Perhaps before I assumed I could do everything and had to do everything myself so those that could help me were ignored so much they gave up offering me help, or maybe I just never accepted it before. I am now the anti-little red hen. So much so I think I will write a sequel to the little red hen; Little red hen recovers from burnout or maybe little red hen learns to accept help, or even Little red hen gets by with a little help from her friends.
I spent the summer perfecting my tan and eating fruit. It was a blissful time: Paradise. As I wandered through my day today I wondered why I lost the feeling of paradise or just abandoned it . All my memories of being happy involve me being very attuned to nature, to being outdoors with the plants and birds, noticing the passing of the seasons, waiting for each new plant to blossom, the leaves to fall the storms to pass. Mindfulness is achieved through noticing your surroundings, being present at that moment. On my walk down the track today I was noticing the flowers in bloom and the ones which are about to come into bloom when I thought what will there be to look at when the flowers die off. then I noticed it a single pale really white almost translucent mushroom in the midst of a fluff of bright yellow trefoil. Ah ha then there will be the mushrooms of autumn, the falling conkers, the beauty of the autumn leaves, in the winter there will be the frost and the puddles and that amazing blueness of the winter morning sky. There is always something there to notice. So I realised it was not because I was stopping to look at the flowers that I was happy, it was because my mind was open enough to notice my surroundings that I was happy. Happiness is a peaceful mind. Paradise is a peaceful mind on a May day in Abbeyside down the causeway looking at the flowers. Recently I have been thinking of moving as my daughter is so unhappy here and I thought how much I would miss my favourite walk. I got to thinking that it will always be there, well for a long time anyway, and I can go back anytime to walk there. So often when I have moved in the past I never maintained the links with my previous friends and areas. I suppose it is all part of my tendency to compatmentalise. It is my fervent wish that I stay whole and all joined up. I like myself now and am ok to show my vulnerability. People do laugh at me when I do not understand things but it is kind laughter. I have a tendency not to fully understand what peoples real motives are but lately I have noticed that other people are looking out for me. Because I am open to showing that I am not perfect people tend to pick up the slack for me now, before they just assumed I could do everything. Perhaps before I assumed I could do everything and had to do everything myself so those that could help me were ignored so much they gave up offering me help, or maybe I just never accepted it before. I am now the anti-little red hen. So much so I think I will write a sequel to the little red hen; Little red hen recovers from burnout or maybe little red hen learns to accept help, or even Little red hen gets by with a little help from her friends.
So when someone offers help, accept it even if you think you dont need it just so that you know how to take it when you do.
Happy Sunday
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