fly

little bird

little bird

spread your wings

take flight

be brave

look

perspective

beauty

you are loved

fly little bird

flying

you are strong enough

stretch

the view from here is amazing

flap little bird

wow

look at you go

it's ok

there you go

keep going little bird

lift your head

it's time

it's your time

fly.

9/11

Wondering if this will always feel like the weirdest day of the year.

It hits like unexpected bad news although we've heard it a thousand times already.

Longing to forget it, but desperate to remember.

Fire engines covered in ash and dust. Central park- our guess at the safest place to be- an absence of tall buildings, but even there every unfamiliar noise being terrifying. Humming planes vigilently patrolling the sky, but glared at by everyone below, to be feared as the enemy. Emails and 20c phone calls to the people I loved the most. Hotel lobbies, confused people and bags. Screaming to my mum in the hotel corridor, knowing that the sound wouldn't travel four-thousand miles to her ears, but incapable of doing anything else. Thinking 'this is it'. Lost. Being too afraid to sleep where I was, but helpless to get anywhere else. Stuck in a New York that was afraid, grieving, confused, angry, hurting, numb. The most heartfelt prayer I'd ever said until that point. The significant change in how I thought about life. The horrendous number that flashed accross TV screens and increased every minute, telling of the number of people missing. Every single one having a story, a home and a family. Stars and stripes and posters of lost faces on doors and walls and windows. Sirens, almost a constant background noise but one that was never habituated to. Running one afternoon because that's what everyone else was doing, but none of us knowing where we were running to or what we were running from. A greyhound bus being the ticket away from it all a few days later. The relief of being away and alive, but the strange feeling of being with people who hadn't been there. The man at the check-in deskwondering what it had been like, but unsure if there was a seat for me on the plane. Flying being the only way home, but the last thing anyone felt like doing.

The plan which had been to wake up early on the 11th, to leave my sleeping roomate and to go to the top of the world trade centre. Sleeping in that morning. Still not grasping what that means.

The photo of us grinning infront of the towers with the date Sept 10 2001 stamped in the corner.

The following summer, meeting and loving some beautiful children, mothers, wives and husbands who cried over the people they didn't see after that day. Watching them let go of balloons beside a lake in Maine. Messages carefully felt-tipped onto fifty white balloons. Staring upwards, hoping that the tiny white dots they were shrinking into wouldn't disappear.

9/11/2006

New beginnings.

Photographs from a walk along the Water of Leith with David yesterday and some of my thoughts over the last few weeks.





























Green leaves, new beginnings, anticipation, looking forwards and looking upwards.
The realisation that to let this happen there has to be a letting go of old things, letting them fall to the ground, allowing them to die.
Taking space to recognise that there was beauty in them, and there still can be, even in their death. Their goodness isn't lost, but is passed on as they replenish the ground, feeding the growth of new leaves.
An antithesis of loss and gain, the old and new, a beginning and an ending. The struggle to let go.
Their time has come to an end and there is sadness in that.
There is space there too, for thankfulness. A gratitude for what has been and for what will become.
Hope in the new growth. Beauty in the life that can flourish.

Thirty.

Next month I turn 30. Maybe it's making me reflective. Maybe it's just today.

Ten years ago this September was 9/11, a day I can't forget and seem to be remembering more lately. It feels right to do something to recognise it this year. Something that will help me to look back, but to let go and look forwards too. I haven't quite figured that out yet, but it's going to happen.

Since that day, and maybe partly because of it, life has changed in many ways. I started to grow up. I started to figured out who I was.

God is real and I know that now because I know Him. Life has a whole lot more meaning.

There have been enormous ups and downs. I have walked through some very bleak days. I have come out the other end knowing myself infinitely more, beginning to learn how to love and to care about myself. Above all, I am increasingly aware of God's almighty grace to catch me in his loving arms, usually when I least expect it.

Seven months in South Africa changed me. A strange mixture of tough, but incredible and sweet, fond memories. The last two and a half years working as a nurse in the neonatal unit in Edinburgh has made me acutely aware of how precious life is and has shown me the meaning of compassion.

In the last two years I fell in love with and married a man who knows me, loves me and makes my life richer and fuller than I ever realised it could be.

There are times where darkness and fear linger. There are definitely moments when I feel like I'm walking backwards and wonder if there still is a way forward. In all of this though, I know that the Light can break through even the bleakest moments of life. There is Hope and there always will be.

Thank God for the last ten years. I'm now looking forward.

I wonder why I stopped using this as a place to write, and I wonder whether I might start again...

"Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier than he was himself".

From the Magician's Nephew. C.S.Lewis.

Someone read this to me yesterday and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. So beautiful.

Monday Morning