ANOTHER SHACK DAY

I have had a lovely session in the garden - sowing some seeds on the full moon (well, not actually ON the moon more like DURING) and a few other nice little jobs. I have come in to have my one delicious home made espresso coffee per day plus the last piece of my Christmas cake. Despite feeling almost skippity doo about picking up a roll of carpet underfelt from the front yard of a house nearby, I seem to have fallen into a peaceful and calm time and I can't for the life of me write something humorous even though I desperately want to - maybe its got something to do with the moon ! So I will type in another of the bits I wrote while at our shack and I hope you enjoy it...
There's not much less you can do, really. Each day stretches out and could, theoretically, be filled with things to do, jobs to get done, words to be said. I reckon that after 2 weeks here, its unlikely I could do any less in a day than I do today - I have achieved that perfect state of non-busy-ness.
I said to Roger yesterday, after a lovely snorkel at a remote reef we know, that we have to work pretty hard over summer to fit in all the activities (such as this one) that have become traditions since we got our shack 15 years ago. I mentioned 2 such activities and he said "Yeah, its tough. That's one activity per week so far" ! He was right. As I explained at the beginning we couldn't do less if we tried.
This morning I announced that I thought I'd go for a nice, long paddle on my board - an hour or two's quiet movement through a magical scene, with just the sounds of the water and the birds and, if I am lucky, my favourite sound in the world - that of the puff of air being expelled when a dolphin comes to the surface nearby before it takes in another breath . I worked up to this yesterday but didn't go in the end. Roger said he might come too, since he wasn't all that busy today. So off we set. After about 15 minutes paddling the wind came up and then got too strong to make it a pleasure so we headed in to the beach and went for a swim instead. Maybe I will head off again tomorrow or maybe next holiday. You see, whether I complete the journey or not is of no importance to me at all. When I reach this state of mind, I am interested only in the now and if the plan falls through, its because I choose to do something else better suited to the conditions - mental and environmental. It is pure life. Something to think about while having a coffee out the front.
That's interesting - "out the front". Some visitors call it "the back" but to us the sea is much more important than the road, so it gets the title of "the front" since it is on the seaward side.. The shack only has 1 door and I say its a "back" door because it faces the road and when you look out through it you see the shed and the clothes line which are between the shack and the road. A man we met brought us some whiting he had just caught as he said he had too many (I wish that was my problem!) and instead of knocking on the door he walked around the shack probably looking for a back door. He was a bit confused about there not being another door so he called in through the window! Of course we met up at the door eventually !
Today, after the paddle, the swim and the coffee I thought I would turn on the radio for the first time these holidays. But it was hard work having my thoughts guided by someone else and I kept taking out the earphones to hear the sounds around me - the birds, the sea, someone arriving at the shack next door, a car or boat starting up, even Roger ! Soon I gave up and turned it off - I am not ready for that yet. Ah....pure life again. Time - plenty of time - to sit and think about stuff or about nothing - just open the senses and let it all come by itself.
You know that song that has the lines "...I've been to Georgia and California and anywhere I could run. ..I've been to paradise but I've never been to me.".
Well, now I have been to me.