On The Right Path

Today when I was walking down the road, pushing the Moonpig in her buggy, there was a single feather in our path.

It reminded me of when I first arrived in Sydney, fresh off the boat, penniless and slightly burnt out after some serious South China travelling. I hadn’t yet met up with any friends, was pasty and unfashionable in stark opposition to the bronzed Bondi beach goddesses, had a bed in a dorm that smelled like vomit, a rucksack full of cockroaches and a vague snobbery about the Australian 18-30s-esque travelling scene.

While mooning around Glebe I met an aged hippy (y’know one of those leather skinned, Tibet flag waving, yoghurt weaving Aussie types) who stopped me, picked up a feather that I was about to tread on, and said “There’s a feather in your path. That means you’re on the right path.” He said that it was from a spirit guide. I was a bit like “Err, I have to go and… stand over here now…” and brushed him off as being a loon. But what he said stuck with me and I remember him better than I remember the scenery of the Blue Mountains, the 4-wheel drive on Fraser Island or the yachts in the Whitsundays. I obviously was on the right path back then in 2002, otherwise I wouldn’t be where I am today, married to The Kiwi and with a down-under half-breed inhabiting our lives.

This time last year the only thing in my path was a foot – one in front of the other. Plodding along on the same old relentless routine: Morning news, news on the radio, newspapers, newswires, Sky news, news briefs, news meetings, writing news, editing news…

It’s true that you lose part of yourself when you become a mother. But I think perhaps I lost myself before that, amidst the coffee cups and post-it notes; red carpet invitations, film premieres, press releases and invitations to Bungalow 8.

Perhaps that feather on the streets of North West London was nothing more than a rabid pigeon shedding its filthy winter coat, and perhaps that old yoghurt weaver was just a stoner with an avid imagination.

But a little part of me likes to think that maybe, just maybe, this is my destiny.