jacaranda

The morning game of "spot the jacaranda" has quietened somewhat. At every turn the purple foliage now dominates the suburban landscape. A beacon of sorts it's a reminder that even on the dull and grey days there is beauty to be seen, there is always beauty. And so, on one such grey afternoon we were found scooping up handfuls of fallen blossoms. Why? Because they were there and they were beautiful.

Then the rain came. While the warmth indoors fogged our windows we sat together, all five of us, and threaded. Honey, lemon and ginger tea for sore throats and the meditative process of selecting a flower, piercing it with the needle, gently pulling it along the cotton. Over and over, flower after flower until only the crumpled ones remained. Hung from the kitchen curtain the light illuminating their shape, their colour, their beauty suspended for just a little longer. Nothing spectacular, no raucous laughter or bountiful chatter. Just rain and flowers and people veiled by calm on an ordinary Sunday afternoon.

By the next day our jacaranda garlands were brown and hung limp and lifeless. By the end of the week, the memory of that wet afternoon had faded into the background of a busy household. Without the trumpets sounding of a fancy dinner out or a sparkly new toy, these moments are more often than not discarded from our memories.but it's these gentle times of togetherness that weave the fabric of home. Underlying all the five star moments are these quiet ones, the everyday ones, even the mundane ones. They're the boiled eggs with soldiers, the countless hair plaiting and games of drop the spoon, pick up the spoon, drop the spoon again.  It's the way he makes my tea just right, nudie runs after bath, and the carpet of crushed leaves on the car floor .

Their simplicity will be long forgotten; they'll be swept away by the constant mechanics of living. But over sweet time I hope they will steep this home and these people in feelings of warmth and slowness. Of this I am ever striving.

Steph x