I love writing! It’s taken me years to acknowledge and accept it simply because I didn’t think I could ever hold anyone’s attention with my attempts at writing but here we are. 💃
I wrote about this very topic back in 2017 which you can read here. I still write for the same reasons and, in all honesty, I don’t think I can write it as well now as I did back then.
“When you’re sharing, it offers the opportunity for someone to help you.”
Marala Scott
Thank you for reading my posts and sharing your perspectives on the things that I write about in the comments. You teach me to broaden my thinking and help me grow.
Once again, my mum was my first thought when I read that prompt. Her name was Joy. When she passed, everyone would tell me how she brought joy to them through her smile. She always greeted everyone with a smile. Her baking was the other way she brought joy to people. She was a very talented baker and she liked to make note of (in her head), exactly who liked what cake. She always made sure she made a person’s favourite when they visited or she visited them. Of course, seeing the delight on people’s faces when she smiled at them and when they walked in smelled their favourite treat before they even laid eyes on it, made her light up. She was an introvert so she would try to hide it but if you paid close attention in that moment, you would notice her light up just a little bit. I think it is pretty cool that she deliberately did something to bring people joy every time they came into contact with her. She really lived up to her name in that respect. The thought of it brings me joy and inspires me.
What brings me joy are the simple things in life.
– Seeing my son light up when he is proud of himself or I am proud of him or when something good happens to him.
– Spending time with the cats that adopted us. They are such curious and innocent souls. Below is a video I created on IG. My son was movinga ball around with his hands and they were just fascinated. I added the song on IG and it just worked out perfectly! I was so chuffed!
Video: Created on IG by author. Music: I Feel Good by Pink Sweat$.
– Spending time in the company of toddlers and pre-schoolers. They keep me alert to, and appreciative of, the wonders around me.
– Listening to the bird’s conversation in the mornings. I really wish I could speak tweet and chirp. Their conversation sounds pretty hectic sometimes especially when they are shouting at each other😂😂
– Spending time pottering in my little garden and especially when all my efforts are rewarded with a new bloom.
– Books and the wonderful act of reading them. I am currently reading Game of Thrones. I love the way George RR Martin puts words together. It feels like I am reading a piece of art.
– I guess I get this from my mum, but surprising people with little gifts brings me great joy. Sometimes it’s the gift of an experience that they have never had before rather than a material object. Either way I always hope that I was able to enrich their lives for a short period.
– I will end with calling out writing as something that brings me great joy. I get so excited when I write so if everything seems a bit jumbled sometimes, now you know why.
These are just some of things that bring me joy every day. I hope you felt some of my joy just reading about them. Don’t forget:
The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B. Yeats
There are lots of interesting blogs on each of the bloganuary topics. If you would like to read more of them, you can follow the tag here.
Today’s prompt: What is a treasure that’s been lost?
The first thought that came to mind was my mum. She was a treasure to us and to many that she came into contact with. Her passing was a great loss to our family and to the community she lived and worked it.
There is another treasure though that also came to mind and that is our safety or perhaps I should say, our freedom. In South Africa, it’s often our physical safety and freedom. Like most countries, there are good spots and bad spots in every city and I try to keep to the good spots but there are still extra precautions we have to take like having burglar bars on our windows and having security gates on our doors and you can’t leave valuables in plain sight in your car. We therefore live in a state of constantly being on our guard which means that we constantly in a state of stress which can’t be good for us. I do believe that there are very few countries in the world where people are safe but I guess in SA, the risk of being the victim of a crime is higher than most especially in some areas.
I do believe that as wonderful as the internet is, it has made it easier for criminals to grow their networks and to get to us. It is actually so sad. I didn’t realise how vunerable we were until I read Jeffery Deaver’s book “The Broken Window” in about 2009. Although it was fictional, it was frightening to discover how our information could be manipulated and used if it lands in the wrong hands. While identity theft was always a possibility, criminals had to work much harder to get your information before the internet came along. So while it so much easier to connect these days and to share, how you put the information out there can put you at risk. This unfortunately is a global problem.
I will always take whatever precautions I can to hinder the criminals but I won’t let the fear of what could happen dictate everything that I do. If I did I wouldn’t have this blog and then I wouldn’t have met all the awesome people that I have over the past year especially.
Grounded African 