Journeys Into The Unknown

A few posts ago I dedicated a poem called Footsteps to my friend and fellow blogger, Renee. Her daughter Angelique let us know of Renee's passing. When I wrote to Angelique, the word verification letters spelt her mother's name. My own mother, sitting beside me, was moved to tears, but I felt happy and utterly, confidently assured that Renee, like all my spirit guides, will always appear when she is needed. I also feel sure she must be generously visiting all her many, many readers, sprinkling a shiver of laughter and that unexpected pleasure that only comes with brushing fingertips with the happy unknown.

Into a different unknown, travels my elder brother on the second leg of his globosocial adventure, the first part completed in Central and South America, this time to India. The journey began in Mexico City last October, and after 1000 hours of pro-bono work across 60 social enterprises and NGOs working with literacy, poverty, social discrimination, media branding and financial sustainability to name a few, you can imagine my pride at being his sister!

Of course, at the moment he is, as usual, cutting things very fine... the flight leaves in a few hours from Heathrow, London, and Rizwan is still very much at home, in Cambridge, watching the IPL cricket with my father!

My brother carries with him precious cargo. A few of my father's paintings for his friends. My parents' paintings have been travelling across the globe for thirty years and reside in homes I have never visited. Someday, when I least expect it, I shall come across one of their paintings or portraits...

Perhaps our journeys are not so very unknown. After all, we are always travelling together.

first image from Renee's blog

second image, one of Father's treescape watercolours