SPOILT FOR CHOICE.

I wrote this last week. I'm writing it again as I'm in a different place now.

I went to a yoga class last week.  The instructor is excellent and like me he organises meditation at the beginning of the class.  He told everyone to pick a place where they had been most happy.   Visualise it and then breathe it in and imagine you are doing your practice there. And that every cell in your body was happy.   So there I was, lying on the ground, imagining a time and place when I was happy.
First thought, France. The home in France.  But I'm having to sell it.  And having a horrid time with that.  So I couldn't think about that so I tried to think about something else.  Second thought.   Having Tom as a baby in my arms when he was only a few months old. In the night. Two in the night when there was just him and me in the rocking chair and I was feeding him, away from everything and everyone. And then I remembered (although I was ignorant of it at the time) Tom's dad was sleeping with someone else, although then my mind clicked in and thought, hey, it was still a happy memory because that overwhelming feeling of love I felt towards Tom transcends everything.   At the time I could think about nothing happy and just ended up listening to my breathe.  But thinking about it now, I am spoilt for choice.  

I think about all my travels.   Some place that was good and wonderful.  Top of mountains in Canada, any mountain in Canada, dune surfing in Namibia and Australia, swimming with dolphins somewhere off Belize, playing chicken with seals in the Galapagos, giggling at the mischief of the knights at Excalibur in Las Vegas, walking along Deception Island on Christmas morning in Antarctica with Tom followed by three (probably wise) penguins, staring into the abyss of the Canyon knowing it was made by aliens, looking out over the Grand Canal in Venice from my bedroom balcony, eating a to die for curry in Rajasthan for breakfast, seeing my first tiger watching my son, watching him, a few hours later that day, doing a downward dog in Patagonia on the beach in Ushuaia, at the Mardi Gras in Sydney first time in Australia amongst the most beautiful sweaty half naked people partying in the parade, and thinking all Australia is like this and sort of wishing it was, seeing my first whale off Newfoundland in a small ship full of German tourists with very big cameras for hours on end and screaming my head off down the microphone when I did, laughing at a very polite, gentle ornithologist get very annoyed by puffins telling me they are the 'little shits' of the bird world in Newfoundland and very happy the Icelanders eat them in salad, swimming the Icelandic lagoon on New Years Day, haggling for a basket in Marrakesh, sky diving in Mauritius, seeing my son sky diving in Mauritius, listening to African monks sing gregorian chants in the middle of a Senegalese desert, running down the road from a hotel potentially on fire in Turkey with my best friend with our suitcases only to be told a few hours later it was safe to go back, just being in Beijing, ending up upside down on a  horse in Calgary (but clinging on for dear life) because I didn't grip tight enough, bimbling amongst blackberries in Autumn, meeting the most wonderful animal lovers and guides on my travels who prefer animals to humans….

I should just learn to breathe it in.   Nothing like a horrid year to make you appreciate the many blessings.