Thursday, January 05, 2017

livelikeadam

I've written about Adam here before.

It sometimes puzzles me that he has stayed SO present in our consciousnesses. Not because he wasn't a singularly special guy - clearly he was - but he died so very long ago now, he featured in my life for such a relatively short time, it's been many years ...
And while I imagine it's because his death, and the circumstances around it, were so shocking that we've not ever forgotten it - and that we were friends at such a formative time of our lives - I also keep coming back to this: he was special. Like, really special.

So special that in December, 20 years after Adam left us, a group of 30-40 of his friends gathered again to remember him.





In their 40's now, a little rusty on their boards but more at liberty with their emotions, his brother and closest pals paddled out to hold a space for Adam one beautiful summers evening in a bay which knew him well.

Us land-lubbers stayed on the rocks, not even pretending that our watering eyes were the fault of the setting sun.

Many of us had not seen each other since back then, some have had misunderstandings and falling outs over the years, but we reunited with a frankness and gentleness that was pure Adam and the time we shared in the golden light as the day ended was in a bubble of his energy.

This is his legacy.

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

2017 is going to be YUGE

2017 is going to be hard. Challenging and scary and exhausting.
2017 will require us all to 'nut-up' (my very most worst and best expression of late).
We know this.

But there are things so much bigger than all that.


There are big skies and adventures.



Big open beaches and friendships big enough to hold all our collective memories.


Big moments of peace and remembrance, big emotions and spaces to hold them.


Big acts of nature to remind us of a power greater than ours, to give us bigger perspectives on all we hold dear.


And big love. Always big love.

2017 will have all of these - and they will make easier to bear, no matter what comes our way. Let's keep our eyes on the big picture, it's a lovely one.