Blossoms,

Another day, another free printable poster + desktop wallpaper for ya!

I remember the moment I saw this quote by Martin Luther King.

It was a month or so ago, when on a wild whiff of sudden spontaneity one night, hunky love and I decided to go on a road trip the next day. Just to drive and keep driving.

We never do things like that. Never ever. I’m married to a planner. A man who loves to know everything in advance. Who thrives on routine and homelife. Any trips we go on are planned to the enth degree.

But we had cobwebs in our systems. Accumulated dust and ache from nine months of being housebound and bedbound while I rocked back and forth trying to keep enough water and food in my system for me and baby to survive. Hyperemesis gravidarum is one debilitating asshole of an illness to have. One that affects everyone. My eldest daughter had gone without a mum for nine months. My husband became a full time carer for me and a single dad. It was crushing and grey and sad and hard all at once. We took everything a day at a time. Just get through one more day. Just hold on enough for our second daughter to come into the world.

And she did come. I vomited right up until a few minutes before she was born. Our little midnight baby with dawn blue eyes and sunset hair. And she is soft and gentle and sweet and light. She is calm and healing and thank yous and endless prayers of gratitude. I gaze at her and say thank you. Thank you to her for choosing me. Thank you for my husband for giving her to me and holding me so strong through that pregnancy. Thank you to Mermaid Daughter #1 for calling her soul sister in. Thank you to all the ones who supported my health + spirit to get me through – Hiro, my acupuncturist Kellie and my sweet tribe of friends who listened to me moan endlessly. And thank you to you all – for your love and prayers and kindness. It meant so very much to me.

And after that intense period, me and my little midnight baby and my bright light four year old and my dear river stone of a husband… we needed some air in our gills. We needed to see new land and let the sun burn off the dross. And we did. We gulped lungfuls of air. Dug our feet in the sand. Followed the curve of the Queensland coast from top to bottom. It was good. Beyond good. Just the medicine we needed.

And then back up the coast, on the last eve of our mammoth two week trip, we were staying in a sweet little apartment in a tiny, quiet country town. Mermaid Daughter #2 and Chris were having afternoon snoozes, sprawled out in bed, catching up on the doze-inducing days spent in the car. Mermaid Daughter #1 was fanging on those little packets of hotel biscuits. And I was reading Dumbo Feather magazine about world changers.

And that’s when I came across this Martin Luther King quote.

It drew the air out of my lungs. It may me whisper out loud:

Yes.

I have decided to stick to love… hate is a burden to great to bear.

It always comes back to this, doesn’t it?

The stuff that really matters. The thing that makes the world spin. The inutterable life force.

It’s always going to win. Always, always, always.

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Years ago, I told a friend that I didn’t believe in hate.

That it was just people being confused and searching for love in the wrong direction.

And I think younger me was right.

For all the pain and dark and the awful, tenuous, messy act of being human…

Only love remains.

Love in every single direction,

wider than the sky,