The sun sparkling off the swell of the ocean, the light dancing on the blue ripples and the meeting of two lines of horizontal white waves racing together like the ignited wicks of two dynamite sticks end-to-end, compelled me to stop the car and park myself on a bench at Manly beach. These horizontal waves clashing together seem to happen quite frequently during a strong current or ‘rip’ at the Northern end of the beach. A young surfer waded in with his boogie board and before he could look around, his board had drifted sideways for several metres, the current was so strong. ‘Pay attention’ I thought ‘to what is in front of you’. This seemed to be the theme of the day.

I noticed a Mother slowly pushing an empty pram whilst her toddler very slowly and carefully wobbled along beside her. He gingerly put one foot slightly ahead of the other, wobbled for a bit, then stiffly plodded the left foot down, chubby bowed legs shakily spread apart trying to stay upright. His mother held out her hand for support if he needed it. Sometimes his hand reached upward, knowing support was available if needed, but then he focused and set upon the task at foot: remain upright and then try to move ahead. It was a slow process. His mother was very patient. It took ages to move 10 steps, during which time I was also looking at the seagulls and some of the surfers, checking back periodically on the toddler’s progress. Next time I looked over, Mum had walked ahead a few steps and when she turned back, her son had wavered, taken a few backward steps, thereby losing ground and about 10 minutes, and he was sitting on his bottom. Mum raised her arms, indicating “what happened?”  The toddler was over the walking thing for the moment and was tired, so a nearby bug was capturing his attention. After a rest and some food, he was ready to tackle the next few steps of his journey.

So I started to think about Life and this whole journey. Would we enjoy each step of this life more fully if we remain like toddlers? What if we placed all our attention in the present moment, looking at everything that is going on around us right now? What if we allowed our attention to focus on the ladybird that landed on the glass door at home and spread her wings to show us her orange and black jacket? Or the magpie that called in for a visit and landed on the balcony railing to sing a few bars. Do we notice when the Jacaranda trees burst into purple bloom? (October in Sydney because when I was at University if we had not finished studying by the time the Jacaranda came out in bloom in October then it was too late, the exams were upon us.)  Do we look up to notice the Angels in the clouds playing and lovingly watching over us like parents? At what point do we stop concentrating on the next step, really placing all our energy and attention there, and start looking out into the hazy clouds of some faraway future we can’t even see and isn’t even real? We become so worried about the imagined destination, about when to get off the bus that we miss all the lovely scenic stops along the way. The bus will take us to the destination, the co-ordinates are set, the SAT-NAV is programmed. Why do we need to keep bothering the conductor to tell us when we have reached the terminus? The bus will stop. The end will be apparent when the bus no longer moves. By that time we will know that the whole purpose of this journey is to learn from and appreciate each step along the way, to be Present here and now, to just BE. We are the best we can be right now and that is good enough, we can relax. We are at the pinnacle of our collective experience and life lessons, in this moment, otherwise we would be something else. It’s not really about what we do but about how we do it that is important, with love in our hearts, with gratitude and appreciation for this journey with awareness and focus and attention and presence. If we can approach this journey now as we did when we were toddlers learning to walk, perhaps we will find meaning and beauty to fill our lives and ignite our hearts in each moment, each step, each day.