The Realm of Possibility

"The Realm of Possibility" is the kingdom where I dwell.
It is a place where injustice and discouragement do not exist. A place where people are honest and genuinely wish each other's best. I am a day dreamer, an eternal optimist and nothing seems to have stopped me from being so. When my mother was first diagnosed with cancer, I sat in the oncologist's study with her, my father and a doctor friend of ours. The oncologist was somehow brutal in his diagnosis of the case: two months of life expectancy if not cured, chemotherapy, nauseous states, invalidity, bone marrow transplant, more therapy, hair loss. Any sane person would have been disconcerted, to say the least. My dad grabbed my mother's hand and held it tight, mother had tears in her eyes, our friend asked loads of worrying questions. I sat in the corner, in my green coat; I smiled a reassuring smile. I smiled a reassuring smile knowing in my heart it was all going to be alright. The issue is that I smile all the time. I am no idiot, right? It is just that it feels like, in extreme situations especially, I am overwhelmed with an exceptional steadfastness and inner strength which enable me to react promptly and efficiently to the problem. When we were in Kenya last summer a friend of mine badly hurt his hand. Though a grown man, he got scared he may not be able to move his hand again… I got a little scared too. In a second reached him, pulled off the cloth that was over my shorts and rapped it around his bleeding hand. Held his hand and reassured him that ‘everything was going to be alright’. Eventually he was; so was my mother. And I wonder whether my great sense of Hope comes exactly from that sense of confidence in a divine providence whereby, even when the outcome of a given situation is not that we would have hoped for, I know there is a much bigger plan in a much wider spectrum of Grace. And on this warm summer night, I am well and truly into my anatomy textbook, carried by dreams of Hope, inspired by Grace, surrounded by Love in an unending realm of possibility where dreams, reality, impossibility, surrealism and, why not, a wee touch of madness create a unique mystic fragrance that makes me smile…even in a stormy day.

Water Every Growing Seed

You have heard me say that journeys, and bus journeys especially, offer me an opportunity to reflect. Sometimes it is as shallow a thought as "did I take the chicken out of the freezer this morning" or "how about capers and black olives in the sauteed aubergines?"(I am a deep kinda lady, ya see)..sometimes I read a book, and totally get absorbed by it. Other times, I simply sit there, observing strangers' every move. I often wonder whether I have a 'stalker's strike' in my genes, I am a good observer of life or I am plain nosey. I sit there - normally on the luggage storage box - don't ask: I know I am weird.. Guess Freud would have something to say about that one too! I observe people coming in, people walking out, how they relate to the bus driver, how they smile, how they graciously squeeze in, how frantically they push their way in, how happy they look, how weary their eyes are, the boys listening to their i-pods out loud, the girls talking on their mobile phones. Last night the bus home was rather empty. I sat down, just on the chair near the entrance. At the next stop a seven year old, a five year old and a one year old boy in a pram got in followed by their young father. Shaved head, track-suit-bottoms, heavily tattooed arms, bitten nails, hoarse voice, unsteady pace. Sits the five year old, still wearing his school uniform (happy-faced because his daddy had just bought him a small bottle of pop and a chewing-gum with a sticker in it), places the pram by a group of senior men; the seven year old maturely makes his own way to an empty seat. The dad goes and sits at the back, engrossed in his text-writing. The youngest one is a little smiler: smiles at every face in his sight. Smiles a little more. The middle one observes the world around him, often calling for his father's attention. The eldest brother offers them both the attention they crave: experience has taught him that their father will not respond. He has seen him like this before. As soon as those boys get a little attention from us, mere spectators, their eyes brighten up ever brighter than they had before. Bright lads indeed; craving for an attention that they may never receive and may constraint them to follow the same path, the same self-destructive pattern, the same destiny. I wish they could see how wonderful they are. I wish they could make the most of the life that has been given to them. I have worked with children all around the world. More and less disadvantaged ones. It always saddens me when in a world of plenty, not all growing seeds are watered.