Work in progress

Three incidents yesterday:

• Claire messaged: ‘Today I mused…’

Claire’s anxious about her 11-year-old daughter Lucy and the influence of social media:

‘…(Lucy) believes she only looks “pretty” in a filter and won’t let me take pics. Often she only does hers with a filter or tries to scrub her face out!… I feel sad that… she sees herself this way already… As a mum I want her to see herself as the beauty I see…. one that is funny, kind, caring, has a passion for injustice and a seeing the best in others. Why can’t she see herself this way?’

• I walked along the seafront:

There was a sea-mist… I passed a wobbly young girl on Christmas-present roller skates, clinging to her mother’s hand. It looked like her first time out on her skates.

At the end of the South Pier a couple of men were fishing. One rod started moving. A fish? I got closer. No fish – a seagull was tangled in his line. The fisherman gently untangled… the bird shook itself and flew away.

I returned past the half-finished beach huts… work in progress…

Lucy’s life’s misty… wobbly – still learning… getting tangled… a work in progress.

Musing…many of us – misty, wobbly, tangled lives… still learning – work in progress.

• Gus messaged: ‘A blog here somewhere.’

He sent a story from Turkey: ‘Missing’ man joins search party looking for himself:

Beyhan Mutlu had been drinking with friends… he wandered into a forest… he failed to return… his wife and friends alerted local authorities… a search party was sent out.

Mr Mutlu, 50, stumbled across the search party and decided to join them… when members of the search party began calling out his name, he replied: “I am here.”

Hope says… the mist will clear, wobbly uncertainty will end, the tangled will become untangled and fly free, the work in progress will be completed, the lost will be found.

True for Lucy… true for Claire, Gus and me.