Showing You.

Hey - thank you. For coming here, reading along and wishing me well. I suck so hard at replying back and emailing and tweeting you and showing my thanks. Blogging is an incredibly odd thing ... especially in this "personal memoir" genre that I seem to find myself in. Strange. Sometimes, I get the feeling that people come and think, oh man - what's that crazy bitch gone and done now? I sense PR's and media people come here and think - this? This is what we have to work with?

Why yes, yes it is. I'm not a brand, or a conglomerate, or even a business. I'm just a dickhead.

Truth is, emails like the one I got last week make me understand why I do this. A beautiful woman sent me the most GORGEOUS email about what my cowboy boots mean to her and her mum. It was just so nice, and blew me away.

Computer, you blow me away.

What even is blogging? When you get all self-conscious about it, it just feels SO DUMB. Which is why I pretend that only ten people are reading. Ten close friends, who only wish the best for me. I think, the biggest reason I blog is for a kind of show and tell. Like, being at the beach and turning over stones and bits of debris and beautiful shells ... and running here to show you all. And then, in your posts and your words and love, you show me stuff back.

Thanks for having some kind of strange faith in me. Thanks for giving a shit. Thanks for your encouraging words and kindness. It all goes straight to my heart, like a kind of reward. I appreciate it much much more than you'll ever know. Definitely more than I'll ever know.

::

Today we went to the beach for the first time in a long time. I bought helmets and we rustled up enough bikes. The kids groaned when I made them wear them ... then Dave turns to me and says, "Oh no hon, I'm not going to wear one." Oh yes he was. And he did. And after Rocco shouted the whole place down, he realised he loved his new bike seat after all.

Hon! We are just a normal helmet family right now in this moment!

I even packed a paw paw and lime and a knife and spoons and we took turns eating the flesh. I told Dave the very first time I tried it was when he made it for me on our honeymoon, in our hotel room after days of eating crap. He smiled a smile that I know means he's pleased that I remembered. I looked into his beautifully aging eyes and told him he was a good Spirit, sent straight to me.

                 The only thing I have stabbed during PMS week.

I cuddled Dave and watched them all play beach cricket and I had the biggest lump in my throat. Just from being alive, in the moment.

That's all. That's enough.

::

And I plucked this season's first shell from the sand .. like the beach version of the first blossom of spring.

And I knew I had to show you.