Beautiful

I recently saw the preview for "Eat, Pray, Love" and something that was said resonated with me in a big way.  I read the book two years ago and it was a fun read, but at that stage nothing particularly life changing. I decided to give it another bash.
Last night I came across this sentence "You where given life, it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."
When I read that I thought I would write about all the beautiful things in my life, the things that I have to be grateful for, the things I so often forget about and the things that are so amazingly beautiful they fill me with wonder every day.  But when I started the beautiful-things-in-my-life list I realised - it is a looooong one...which in itself was a good food for thought exercise!

So I have decided to choose only one beautiful thing to share that I have recently discovered...my bedroom's balcony...it has been under my nose for nearly 9 months and only now I am starting to enjoy my new found haven of tranquility...well, as much tranquility as you can get on any given day in an African city!
But I have taken to spending dreamy Dar evenings on my balcony with a glass of wine, a candle and a kanga wrapped around my shoulders.  More than once I have fallen asleep there cuddling Konyagi very much against his will.
In the early mornings I exchange my glass of wine for an essential cup of coffee and listen to the sounds of Dar rising.
And it is here that I am doing a lot of thinking..seeking...MUSING...about life, about people, about dreams, the future and the past, about love, about expectations, ambitions, desires.  In Afrikaans there is a quirky saying that goes "die liefde en die leed" - roughly translated as "the good/love and the bad/pain"...so I suppose on my balcony I am contemplating "die liefde en die leed"...and this little tiled space of stars and sunshine is what I have found to be beautiful in my life right now.

Andizi