The Reward is the Journey

I went without expectations. It was my first première... The excitement awaited me. Outside the cinema a long queue had formed. They certainly were dressed to impress.  I was impressed (by some more than others). The start time was optimistic. But the feature was well worth waiting for... This incredible film about finding a way to overcome the most difficult obstacles life throws at us, has lived the tale it tells: it was made on a shoestring, and lack of funds meant it couldn't be filmed all in one go, it had to be filmed in blocks.  'The Journey' is a spiritual story about how we, as human beings, move forward when the very things that keep us going are taken away. The movie's themes spoke so clearly to me. It is about loss, and how we come to terms with the most difficult of our emotions. It is about the journeys we must take, in order to make the journeys we are forced to take. Physical journeys. Emotional journeys. From grief, t...

Years ago I went along to a meeting held in a small community hall, to find out how to stop someone I loved from drinking.  Years later I am still to be found in such meetings.  My mission proved fruitless, but I stayed and learnt some invaluable lessons for life. Addiction is indeed cunning and baffling.  It is also chronic, and progressive.  It is pernicious and insidious.  And it destroys far more than the afflicted individual.  It wreaks havoc with anyone who cares.  And those who are forced to stand by and watch those they love fall foul of addiction's grasping stifling tentacles can suffer worse than the individual who self-medicate in a self-defeating other-injuring attempt to manage.   I am powerless over anyone else's self-harming behaviour.  I know that now.  But knowing is not always enough.  For I am forgetful, and old habits die hard.  Which is why I need to be reminded.  There will always be a tempta...

She was, of course, right...   The weekend had been a long one.  We had kept busy and maintained a momentum I had not previously thought possible.  We worked long, and we worked hard.  There was much to be done.  And a deadline to meet.  Which we did. We had, I think, put off sorting through and boxing up these items until we had to.  Whilst they remained there, it was still a home.  Unoccupied perhaps, but a home nonetheless.  Their symbolism hit me powerfully as we locked the door for the last time, leaving only a note in the now clinically empty space to welcome the new owners behind us. As my mother's (now former) nextdoor neighbour said, it is the end of an era. The end of an era marks the beginning of another...

I felt inside my (oversized) handbag.  There is was.  Smooth and cool.   My iPod was there, but the earphones weren't.  Somehow, it doesn't seem to matter how large the bag is:  I still manage to forget something.   I sat down (with a disgruntled sigh), and became aware of the interaction between a mother and her daughter now beside me on the platform. They, like I, had descended the escalator just a moment too late to catch the train and watched it hurry northbound into a tunnel.  The little girl looked perturbed...   "Not to worry.   It doesn't matter.   It's not worth getting upset about.   There'll be another along soon.   You'll see." - her mother said calmly. I was mesmerised by the child's curiosity provoked by the novelty the scenario presented and, just for a moment, transported beyond my been-here-a-million-times-when-will-I-learn (this particular lesson: that from ticket gate to pl...