Fresh start of the day

Image credit: @MaggieHongKong

“Invisible threads

Weave us together with love,

Touch, see, taste, hear, smell. ”

We could all take a moment here and spread this little poem onto what is right in front of us. The welcoming book on my desk by Paula Arai. The book that made my past two months more welcoming that I could think about. The book that I carried on the ferry, on the plane, waiting lounges, bedside tables or floors. The book that connects me to the home I carry inside my soul. Literally. “The little book of ZEN HEALING” became one of my best friends.

This book served as a connective tissue in between my worlds, the home where I was born into and the home I wake up to every day.

I found a post-it among my notes saying simply”Look at what is just in front of you”.

I know I meant it when I wrote it few months back. I find these rituals powerful and I also like repetition as in turning present, daily, useful, into personal mantras. While I aspire to learn and search beyond the spheres of my today’s influence, I ground myself in precisely the offers right in front of me. Abundant offers.

I start by feeling into the presence of the home I am flying towards. I could almost see the orchids flowers and their new buds as they started blooming just before the lunar new year. I wondered if the bamboo plant survived a temporary draught and sickness. I was intrigued by the oxalis and how she handled my absence. I wondered if the Japanese fir tree started flourishing after the windy new years on the balcony days.

Likewise, before traveling to my hometown I tend to imagine the balcony full of my father’s lilies( now super spoiled by my mum) and the geraniums towers growing taller and taller by the day.

I am thrilled to bits to see all the flowers here thriving. With good care, added nourishment and positive thoughts, they have welcomed me smiling largely.

You might wonder if this has been easy? Just taking in what lies just in front of me and turning it into the beauty and the zen healing that I talk about right now.

It is not.

It is fulfilling to reach this place of simply admiring my best companions. Books, flowers, my freshly brewed coffee, my plush doggie in lieu of a real dog- for now. These friends are the immediate resources that I can connect with.

My flowers make my heart bloom.

My books and the gems of wonders fill my heart & mind in a way that I find almost a miracle. There is a magic silver lining while I discover a new author or reconnect with a previous masterpiece - I always ask myself “How come we feel and think alike?” How come our backgrounds do not matter. How come our upbringing does not count. Where is this universal thread coming from and manages to link us both, the author and myself. The author and many others. This connection is indeed miraculous to me and offers me so much joy.

The place I might connect from might not always be joyful. I might reach out to a book in my searching for a healing balm through kind words.

I might reach out to describe all this especially because something might be just around the corner and help me, help you turn a {…} day into a blissful one. (I left that space blank so that everyone and fill in by themselves. Just by looking back from the day I landed back home here on the island,I can see already the transition and transformation if I dare to just amplify that bit. Travelling between homes it is never easy. One tends to find something powerful awaiting, while a let go process is also part of all of that. It is part at least of my story. So, at first, I might go through loops of anxiety, of sadness. Then the photos and videos that keep coming make you smile no matter what. Then you start cheering the others and hence cheering your own soul back. Then one day you come back from lunch only to find a gorgeous rose on your desk saying “I believe good things happen every day”.

I bet I believe that!

It takes no more ideas, words, gestures. I travelled that day back on the ferry eagerly to reach my home-away-from-home, my home where I believe that good things happen every day.

My parents are builders and I wish to carry forward something from their legacy deep in my cells. I always want to build the home where I can transpire joy from. They have built a foundation, they have shown that it can be done. It took efforts and efforts. It also took years and decades. A home that was a shelter not only to our family, a home that was a shelter to many people starting anew, a careers, moving from the village to town, kids who were coming in town for a new high school. Anytime my mum reminisces she tends to say” of, during her/his time with us” …that and that happened. This for sure might be a story for another time.

How do I choose to see my home as is, a shelter just to myself. And all that lies in front of me. How do I turn an anxious moment into ozone. How do I turn a sunny Sunday into a blissful one too?

At times just by looking around.I almost knew what a sunny day means here. It means this happy family of tortoises will enjoy their breakfast of green salad outdoors.

Did they make me smile? Yes, they did.

And then what else? We have already seen the flowers blooming happily.

What else shall we find to connect and be simply thankful for?

Here it is:

The coffee is brewing freshly.

The soup is boiling slowly.

The country music in the background is turning all my words in a rhythm.

The colours surrounding, the yellows, the pinks, the greens and blues are lifting my spirits.

The note I found in the book I grabbed from my hometown is bringing me back to the rituals we had twenty years ago and much more.

The rituals of offering any gift with a meaningful handwritten note ….

The sun is calling me now. The nature is saying “no time like this one to reconnect”

“Have you missed your home here?… the island and little bay keep whispering.

“Yes” ..there is only one answer. “Say yes to the calling” .