The Simple Sunday.

My Sunday is usually governed by how the emotions of the week that preceded it. And what a week I have had; it began wth a tidal wave of something verging on despair as the truth behind my title of Nomad made itself apparent to me. Today, if i had chosen a certain course for last night, could very well have been tainted by the heady mixture of guilt, remorse and self-pity caused by an excessive taste for wine. This can be borne out of upset or a lust for life, gone awry. But, when it comes to the week that I've just had, I believe wholeheartedly that when we reach that desolate place, whether it be grief via death, being destitute, loneliness or just a straight-up awful chemical imbalance in your hormonal existence, we reach out in our own way and, YES: the only way, my loves, is UP.

And so my own way up and out of my sadness was, unlike the wine efforts of latter days, found in the pages of books. And the words that I read leapt out of the leaves like my nanna's hugs at the most needed moment: 'Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness'.

Pearl S.Buck spoke to me.

I confided to you already that I have spent the week nursing my mind and body and now, as we sit here together on the Sabbath day, I am at relative peace with all that I felt was wrong. My parents, my grandparents, my cherished old friends ARE going about their own Sunday on the opposite side of the world but I do not feel lonely without them. Nope, I am revelling in the lazy early hours that I spent in bed this morning, quiet but for our gurgling baby in her room, ready for mummy's milk and the warm satisfaction that would be served to us both from it, and a mischievous 4 year old princess reading books to my husband and I in our bed. We have chatted and cuddled over breakfast and have had a wonderful time at a cheap but amazing leisure centre's swimming pool. My little lot are, as we speak. getting overexcited on the Wii and little baby girl is playing with her hair. She's tired. A chicken is roasting in the oven. I can smell asparagus steaming.

None of this is profound but in it's simplicity it is abundant. I am the mother, the wife behind this family and at the end of a long, sometimes difficult but mostly insightful week my nurtured body and mind feels rested, recuperated and responsive to the very things in my life that are constant and pure. I am needed and it does not do for me to be needy for things that are simply, practically out of reach and insignificant.

Sarah Ban Breathnach has helped me in more ways than she can ever imagine this week, from the honest memoirs and reflections that her writing has put in front of me. When she whispers to me that 'there is really only one wat to deal with Misery. Accept her presence.'

Yes, Misery, I accepted that you were here. I saw you off on your way. Glad to see the back of you....i'll deal with you another time.

Happy Sunday to us all xox