Yesterday, I went outside to feed our family of feathered friends and familiar others. It was raining so I checked every time the rain eased up a bit, just to see if they’d come out and were getting about, searching for some tucker.

Isn’t it strange how we can get easily attached to things? It really doesn’t take very long at all. I think I’m an attachment type. Like a fridge. For some reason, most fridges find magnets of all kinds attached to them. It’s not their fault. I’ve never seen a fridge out and about searching for magnets to attach to it self. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen, all it means is that I’ve never seen it happen. That’s all.

Any way, while I was feeding our friendly and growing even friendlier family of feathered friends and familiar others, I realised the stress and worry that seemed to attach itself to my action of being their own personal, ‘Bird feeder/minced meat dispenser’.

My heart skips a beat every time I drive past a magpie, butcher bird or kookaburra dead on the side of the road. I’m constantly thoughtful of our feathered mums in their nests and the eggs they will lay. In the back of my mind most of the time I’m wondering if all the eggs will hatch and if they do, are they safe from all the predators lurking, searching for a little chick to eat.

Mind you, I think we’re having chicken for dinner tonight - Hmm…

It’s real you know and our worries and fears don’t have to make sense. They don’t have to seem big in the eyes and opinions of others. They are very real and do affect each of us differently.

Just now, just for today… I think to myself - gosh life can be beautiful sometimes.

Challenging, but sometimes so very beautiful…

Perhaps there's more than meets the eye?

(Above) A bow shock is created in space when two streams of gas collide. The young star LL Ori emits a solar wind, a stream of charged particles moving rapidly outward from the star. The material in the wind collides with the gas evaporating away from the centre of the Orion Nebula, creating the crescent-shaped collision area in the image.

(Above) This pair of galaxies, NGC 4676, also known as “The Mice” for their tails of stars and gas, have collided and will eventually merge into a single galaxy. Streams of material have been tugged out of the galaxies by the force of gravity, triggering new star birth.

It's a lot like us - Wonderful isn't it?

I am not your problem to solve. You are not my problem either. So what IS the PROBLEM?

Can it be that love is simply a decision one makes and the out come of that relationship depends on if one simply chooses to stick to that decision or not? Gosh, that makes it all very boring doesn’t it? What about all the ‘romance’ and the ‘feelings’ and stuff? What about that?

And…

If everyone’s life has a general story line which involves all the good guys and the bad guys and everyone in between; that story line in full by the time they reach the age of six or so … What?!?!?! What are we doing here then?

Why? Why would we even bother?

I just WISH that Santa would come and bring me my “happily ever after” or Grimmy (the grim reaper) would come and do his ‘stuff’.

But then…

This morning in the warm winter sun, sipping on my cuppa as I watched our Magpies (Mr and Mrs M and son) and Kookaburras (Mr and Mrs K) and our new friends the butcher birds (Yep, I call them Mr and Mrs B), enjoying their breakfast at our out door table … just the way the light filtered through the leaves and the scent of gum trees in the thick moist chilly air…

You know? I really like being alive…

Ohh! Hang Santa and Grimmy, I’m going outside for another cuppa! Cheers…

There’s a ‘thing’ that lives inside. Deep inside…

I guess it’s like some kind of symbiosis where one thing offers something and another something else, so they live off and with each other for as long as the relationship lasts. Some would say “Till death do we part”, others may say, “Till I’ve had my fill”, yet others suggest, “Till you don’t need me anymore” or “…well, you know how to find me”.

Sometimes I wish it were just a figment of imagination – this need, hunger, longing…

I wonder – sometimes I wonder what is it that is lacking? Don’t you? I do...

I wonder do others feel or know the emptiness of being so lonely in the big busy bustling world where we live - phones, computers, doorbells, shopping, work, driving in traffic, eating out, television, family, friends, neighbours, pets, passers by - just the world in which we live. Yet loneliness echoes deep and long; a beautiful rhythmic surg of ebb and flow, sweet sadness with a hint of deep sorrow together mingled with the warmth of the lighter side of life. It takes the lighter side of life to make some kind of comparison; a basis to give the portrait it’s shading – light and dark.

There are also those moments where we laughed till we cried, cried till we laughed and just sat in silence contented and placated with the wonder of living…