Because

BritMumInNZ

She left the breakfast dishes with guilty abandonement. She knew she had an hour, if she was lucky. She wasn’t really dressed warm enough, but baby Alice was already strapped to her chest, so she grabbed a blanket and wrapped it snug around them both.

‘Exercise and fresh air; both high on the list of important things for good health and happiness,’ she said to herself, wondering irritably why she had to justify every action with a reason today.

‘The cleaning can wait an hour,’ her inner voice assured her.

She tapped random thoughts onto her iPhone as she walked, hoping to clear her head where the coffee had failed to take effect. Her ungloved fingers feeling numbed by the cool Antarctic air blowing gently today.

‘You need this, you deserve this, you have to make the most of the fine days to keep you sane till the Spring,’ her mind convinced her.

So she put her notes away and focused on the precious life nestled sleepily to her chest. She’d never taught any of her babies to sleep in a cot during the day as she had pathetically zero tolerance to crying. Front-pack, back-pack, buggy, car.

The waves rolling onto the shore kept her in step.

The snow capped mountains on the distant horizon, across the strait from Wellington, pulled her mind, with magnetic gravity, to a world of possibilities.

Kaikouras in the distance

‘Stop now. Enjoy the moment. Be grateful and try not to feel the walk inland, back up the valley to the house and the chores, is one of heavy steps. Go with a clear, thankful head and keep the beat of the sea in your heart as you work.’ The inner voice had spoken. She listened and smiled.

______________________________________

And she got home, cleared the decks with a happy heart and went off to pick up Sophie from Kindi.

There was no immediate rush to get home. The sun had warmed the day a little. A couple of hours at Island Bay, collecting beach treasures to make a fairy garden was time well spent.

Island Bay

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11 thoughts on “Because”

  2. that cleaning certainly wait
    I reckon
    enjoy your time with your babes they dont last long
    I envy you living so near the sea
    and my dear friend you did deserve that!!
    keep warm though 🙂

  4. Good on you Darling…as us girls say’go for the precious moment’ and the chores will get done eventually!! I know which way my heart would have told me to go!!

  6. This is really powerful, Sarah. Love the line about the magnetic pull, the world of possibilities. I think it really works that you wrote it in the third person and not ‘I’.

    It’s funny isn’t it, no matter where we live, we’re all going through the same feelings really?

  8. Gorgeous 😉

    I’m glad you were able to enjoy the little bit of sunshine yesterday. I walked the kids to and from school yesterday…like you, trying to get a bit of outdoor fresh air to keep me sane.

    We are outside, sunshine girls, it is hard to keep us bottled up in doors!

  9. Housework is like some mutated virus that always grows back however hard you try to get on top of it, best dealt with in small doses inbetween more inportant activites such as enjoying your family. You might feel Alice won’t remember these early forays but we lived 2 mins from the sea in St Ives and as a tiny baby my mother would wrap me up and walk on the beach or out on the Island. I feel my love and need of the sea and wild weather originates in these early outings.

  10. Well done for listening to that inner voice! It is too easy to get caught up in the stresses of everyday life & to forget to stop & take a minute to enjoy life!

  11. I know exactly where that is and how that scene looked to you. Even though I’m an Auckland girl, I do miss that clean brisk Antarctic wind. xx

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