Navel gazing

As any blogger knows, sometimes it hard to find a subject to post about; sometimes, it's easy.

This week has been one of navel-gazing, and it's not even my birthday. Read it or not.

Tuesday saw the commemoration of the men and women who lost their lives in war. Thursday saw the coming home of one of those men - except he wasn't in the casket; another mother's son, wife, brother, husband was. And today...

Tonight, I walked up the street to the shops with mah dawg. It was twilight. I breathed in the scents of the sea, of chill autumnal air, of wood burning from heath fires, of spicey, fragrant dinners on the stove.

Ten years ago today, I was somewhere else: walking down the main street of Seattle, Washington, taking in the man in the three-piece suit with multi-coloured hair and facial piercings, the Seattle Coffee Company, the shoppers, the cafes, the homeless, the students, the view.

I recall that I walked the same distance (from home here, to the local shops) in New Orleans and had a black barrelled gun held by a desperate, grubby, and equally black teenager, shoved in my face; that the police cruiser in Dallas slowed down to allow the suspicious cops check out me and my backpack before speeding up; that I was followed by the calculating eyes of homeless people resting on the steaming grates in Washington, D.C.; that I heard gunshots close by in Chattanooga, Tennessee...

I don't mention these events to infer the world has gone to hell in a handbasket, that there are more self-serving and selfish people in the world, or that America is bastion of bad times. It's not. I spent a week looking over my shoulder in England in case the Mafia caught up with me because I'd inadvertantly worked for them before they found out I was a journalist (on holidays, but a journalist nonetheless). I did escape them by four hours, all on my lonesome, and it scared the tripe outta me.

No. I mention these things because those were adventurous times, whether I wanted them to be or not. Life happens. I mention these events because there are things beyond your control out there, and the relief at surviving is, momentarily, all consuming.

The last ten years have been pretty quiet for me; the worst, I think, was getting fired from a job and being blackbanned, but that's hardly a life-threatening occasion and barely rates a mention.

Life, as you know, moves in circles and maybe I'm coming around to adventure again, who knows?

What I do know, is that ten years ago, while walking down that Seattle street, I saw a newspaper, with the massacre of Port Arthur emblazoned across the top. It was a moment in time when I looked around me to see I was the only one gobsmacked. Australia didn't do that kind of violence. And yet... we often think of where we were on a particular anniversary that is pivotal in history.

The phrase "where were you when..." is bandied about. You now know where I was. What was I feeling? Exactly what I felt when taking mah dawg up the street: contentment, wonder and happiness to be somewhere I truly enjoyed.

We often don't take the time to stop, look and listen. We're comfortable where we are; we know where we are, but do we ever understand why?

After all the near misses I've had - and there are more than just what's above - I learned to appreciate what Mother Nature provides for me every single day, whether it's bucketing with rain, or blisteringly hot, or blowing two Gales and a Mary; whether it's storming like the End of Days, or still and quiet.

Of those killed or wounded that day, ten years ago in an historic convict town, how many truly appreciated what life had given them, what their loved ones had given them or what they gave to the world.

My advice? Take a moment to look around and listen, really look and listen, without prejudice; appreciate the beauty and wonder of this world no matter where you are in this global village, for during the good and the bad times, you may not have the chance, and it surely won't come again.