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Hi guys,

I need to escape every so often for that wonderful moment either in the midst of the action or sitting down to relax when it's all over when I feel an immense sense of gratitude.  Gratitude for just wonderful it all is.

I'm sitting on a bench in a park writing this and a toddler has just gone past and gone into raptures over "flowers, flowers, flowers", as if the first purple flowers of spring were a miracle.  Which, of course, they are.

Sometimes the miracle is an escape that goes horribly wrong; it rains, the bus or train is cancelled; I get crushed in a shopping centre or freeze in the open air – and then the miracle becomes a hot bath, a hot cup of tea, a nice movie on the TV – all the things I would otherwise take for granted.

Last night I walked back from Richmond Park having been blessed with a whole herd of deer wandering into the spot where I was standing.  One minute I was on deer safari hoping for a single glimpse of a pair of antlers, the next I was watching two dozen does and stags fluttering through the grassland.  As the sun set I felt blessed again with the gorgeous view and tickled to see scores of other people watching the sun go down.  An ordinary, everyday blessing which we are so much more grateful for when we have a hot coffee or cold beer in our hands.

I need to escape from the trick that I play on myself when I think that life is getting the laundry done or paying the bills or cooking, shopping, planning… anything other than the moments when I am truly glad to be alive.  Of course these are part of life, but most of this stuff can honestly wait on a sunny day, most of this stuff will be forgotten.  The problem is that I (and probably most of the world) decide some arbitrary work schedule in my head so that it makes sense to spend the whole of Sunday cleaning or doing DIY or any one of a number of dull thankless tasks because we've forgotten that this is not what we were put on this earth to do. 

Our value is not in the work that we do, whether it's cleaning or writing a novel, our worth is not in what we do for others, I don't think it's even in education or workshops or going to the gym, because I believe we are all created equal.  What does that mean?  That means that I believe the person who spends all their day lying on the beach is as loved and blessed by the universe as the hard working carer who spends all of their time looking after a disabled relative.  There is no us and them, no haves and have nots, no somebodies and nobodies.  We are all children of the same universe, no matter how gifted, hardworking, lazy, unpleasant or misguided we may be.  We are all given equally, the sun sets for all of us, whether we are minimum wage slaves (I'm self-employed; I make less than that!) benefits slackers or titans of industry.  There are just as many free, beautiful places to watch that sunset as there are rooftop gardens (probably more).  Our differences lie in whether or not we open our hearts to all that the universe has to offer, it lies in being aware that when we choose to spend the day working on the plumbing we are ignoring that bounty out there that the universe has laid at our feet.

I find myself thinking in terms of the parental.  I remember spending ages finding the perfect gift for my mum on Mother's Day (carefully hunted at the school jumble sale – remember them) only to have a nod and "that's nice, dear" and my trophy shoved in a drawer forever.  Children are just as bad, they discard the present and play with the box, right?

Ingratitude is naïve at best.  At its worst it cuts the giver to the core. 

There are so many wonders of this world laid out for us, and most of us ignore them, even when we say "I would love to…", "If I win the lottery…", "When I have time."  "When  I find the right person to go with." and we spend our lives making whatever we do in order to live more important than living.  We're too busy playing with the box to play with the gift.

We need to stop overprogramming our lives.  I NEED TO STOP OVERPROGRAMMING MY LIFE.  And I need to create the space around me that is needed to allow life in, allow love in and most of all to allow gratitude to ring from me.

And now it is cold, the park bench is freezing and it's time to go home for a nice cup of tea.

Much love, Pearl x