My Life in a Picnic

That's what it was.

It was my life in a picnic. There for all to see.

Red wine stains smearing themselves across a brash chequered cloth,
half eaten sandwiches, naked without their fillings, squashed redundant
onto the soles of unassuming shoes. Once delicate and pristine
vol-au-vents, lay as suddenly empty cases.

No one imagined it would end like this. I couldn't have envisaged that
the words would trip out of my mouth and hurtle to the floor the way
they did. And once I had said them, they lay there with arrogant
nonchalance. And I could not take them back.

Of course, everything changed that instant. Order screamed and became
chaos. Well laid plans exploded, leaving fragments of dreams scattered
upon the ground. Yet, whilst the debris of that constricting reality
settled at my feet, I felt a lightness forming around me. My life had
just capsized but suddenly I could stretch out my arms and it felt like
I could reach forever. I

was almost scared to admit what this was, but I knew, and I'd been too
afraid to let it in before. Living my life on the grand plan. Looking
so far forward that I never saw what was around me. This new feeling
was freedom. It was new life seeping under my skin, making me glow. It
was possibility and it was hope.

As I looked at my life in a picnic, I embraced its chaos and disorder
because they might keep me free. As if in a flash, the words of a good
friend I had made years before sprang to my lips. He had whispered in
my ear with such conviction, "Life is all about the little details.
Open your eyes and you will see." I hadn't understood then. I did now.
"Yes. Yes", and I smiled.

"Life is all about the little things", I said.