This past week I have been feeling particularly lost, unorganised and extremely short on motivation.  What I have been doing a lot of though is mountain gazing and I feel very fortunate to live in this quiet country town nestled beneath the foothills of the Great Dividing Range in all its magnificence.

Just ‘noticing’ is something I have to work at.  I tend to be far away somewhere in my head a lot of the time lost in thought about what’s next on the to do list or pondering something deep and meaningful.

I nearly stood on a blue tongue lizard once striding up the veranda by not paying attention to anything around me and I’m always frightening the parrots away from the feeders as I bowl out the sliding glass door unaware of their presence.  It’s a huge glass sliding door so how I can not see them before I go flying out is a constant source of annoyance for me… too often lost in my head and not enough being in the moment… like wearing invisible blinkers.

So despite being irritated by my lack of productivity and creativity this week I have found moments of joy in my noticing… and the parrots have been enjoying uninterupted feeding and bathing.

It dawned on me earlier that what I had actually been feeling was a sense of connection.  For anyone reading this that has suffered dark depression you’ll know what I mean when I say this light bulb moment took my breath away.  Feeling connected to my small world around me is something I haven’t felt for a very long time. If I’ve felt it once, I can feel it again… and that gives me hope.

Sifting through some old written thoughts I came across this piece (posted below) that I shared with my ‘fav cuz’ some time back. It reminded me at the time that the world is always there waiting for us and not everything in that world is something we’d rather not experience… there are gifts to be found.

Although the piece doesn’t really paint a picture for you through my senses describing how the crisp air hurt my cheeks and made my nose run; how the feathery colours of the sky seemed as comforting as being wrapped in a soft blanket; or how the sounds of ibis calling and winging their way home overhead suddenly broke the hypnotic moment and frightened the daylights out of me.

But what it does do for me, and I hope for you, is to remind me to absorb the moments of noticing life around you and its joys… for somewhere there must be light behind those obstacles casting the shadows in which we walk… and every once in a while the light sneaks by and gives us a kiss of remeberance.

 As I walk towards home lost in my own head after yet another day of existing, I happen to look up from my path and catch the sight of the sun going down on the horizon. So lost in my own thought and task I’d failed to realise that I had stopped noticing the joyful experiences of the landscape that surrounded me and how I could be touched by its simplicity or in this case it’s grandeur.

I found myself bolted to the spot, unable to move in awe. This moment reminding me that although the plain truthful fact is that life is far from fair, it still remains a priceless gift.  So whatever ‘unfairness’ your struggle may be… be it grief, illness, stress, burnout, loneliness, it is real and relative and you are entitled to feel the way you do… no one else is experiencing your life and how it affects you, only you are.

But also remember to embrace and savour the moments that make you feel anything other than your despair when those moments fall at your feet, or in this case virtually smack you in the face with a gasp.

Take heart in the fact you may still possess the ability to be swept away in a moment of loveliness mesmerised by the colourful hues in the splendour of a sunset.

You may still have the ability to possess appreciation for the gift that life is through all your adversity. That no matter what blackness and despondency weight your steps there is still hope and opportunity for moments in life to take your breath away.

So while you are plodding through each day with your cross that you bare, savour each moment that crosses your path and reminds you that life is a gift as well as factually unfair… no matter how small or simple the instant… no matter how spectacular or magnificent the sight… in whatever shape or form it hits you in the face or creeps into your heart, let it fill you with its gift of presence and allow yourself to draw strength from its kiss of remembrance, that you can feel alive in oh so many different sometimes duelling and variegated ways.

Do you need to work on ‘noticing’ like I do?