Some of my favorite things in Australia?

Kangaroos under our deck.  Really.

Fox bats, clouds of them.

So many languages and bodies and children and parents enjoying each other and being on a catamaran trampoline and feeling the spray and the wind.  The sun so hot it is remarkable.  The sand on the beach so white it is near blinding.

At the pool today there was a young man gigging.   He played his guitar and sang to those of us bobbing around in the water and I thought to myself:  It wasn’t so long ago that was me.

It was me singing while others played.

I find myself dazed by the immensity of this gift.  The time, the exotic beauty, the never-did-I-believe-I-could-see-and-be-in-it of it all.

I know that the Holy isn’t a deal-maker.

And yet.

Some forty years ago while on the way home from our honeymoon, Jim and I hit a semi truck head on.  In a two door Opel.  I had no seat belt on.

We lived.

It changed everything.

Given a chance to inhabit the years that may never have been is no small gift.

Forty bonus years.

I continue to relishing the unpacking.