Keeping your innocence intact, matters.

The festive stuff…

…is out in force this week. Bells, baubles, tinsel and… stress.

This week my beloved sunburnt country reels from a shredding of innocence we sometimes take for granted in our ‘…land of sweeping plains’. I mourn the souls – young and old – but choose not to give any more oxygen to intolerance and terror, here.

Instead, I want to continue embracing whatever semblance of innocence I can find. And if life’s slings and arrows mean ‘a simpler time’, pure and unsullied is harder to come by, then I’ll seek it out in the most obscure places.

The other night I sat alone in my living room watching Wham’s Last Christmas video – with the volume turned up to, ‘soothe-my-soul-please-80s-scenes’. Not that cute people frolicking in the snow is a salve for sadness – but, for four minutes and 27 seconds, the innocence of that time, 40 years ago, was mine.

I look through countless old photos and linger on the younger faces, scenes and celebrations moments frozen in time. It’s hard not to wish for the joy that’s past. But I guess staying stuck in what once was means missing the beauty of ‘new’.

I’ve often heard that the magic of Christmas is only reserved for children and their belief in flying reindeers and fat dudes who fit in skinny chimneys. But us bigger kids deserve some of that fairy dust too.

So, dear friends … I wish you all the miracles of the season the biggest one being love.