Life as 'Normal'?

Slow Mother Blog

May 30

Life as ‘normal’?

However hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about Fukushima – though it has left the media headlines here long ago, and life seems to go on as usual.

I guess this must be what its like in Japan too. How do you enter into any meaningful conversation about anything without feeling like a killjoy? How do you take appropriate action while still managing to care well for your children and your household?

The contradiction between this everyday, comfortable, joyful existence and the knowledge of the continual assault on the life support systems of the Earth is stark and seemingly impossible to reconcile.

Yet, life goes on, and perhaps that is the source of sanity – just the knowledge that life goes on and we have the privilege to celebrate it. We breathe, we eat, we sleep, we interact…and here in Woombah we have little to complain about. The weather is getting cooler, so we fire up the pot-belly stove from time to time and we set a bonfire blazing in the cool night air with our friends on the weekend.

Pacha and Yani have been growing and thriving day by day. Last week they both represented the school in the long distance running contest for the whole region. Pacha came second place ahead of 100 other runners of her age group and will go to the next level next week. What was most exciting to see was her smile even before she reached the finish line. Only Pacha can smile like that after 2 kilometres!

Yani came 29^th and looked like he would never move again at the end of the race…he must have put in everything he had. He says he prefers surfing! He was chosen by our local surfing club to compete against a neighbouring town, Angourie, on Sunday and was doing very well in the massive surf until a wave dumped him and the fins on his board slashed into his thigh. Now he has an impressive scar to remind him of this rite of passage!

We finished the weekend with a long walk with Ollie and a neighbourhood friend, finding a perfect place by the river to take the horses swimming. Along the way there were sea eagles, night-hawks, falcons, pelicans and any number of other birds. As the sun began to set the sky and clouds lit up in delicate colours and shades of grey…and I found myself asking to no-one in particular; isn’t that enough? Why do we want more than the priceless existence we have been given?