South of Christchurch, the Canterbury Plains roll on. Tussock grasslands: full of grazing livestock when green; twig-dry and prone to fire during droughts. The Hundalee Hills loom in the north. Rivers run through these plains and in the south they merge into the plains of North Otago beyond the Waitaki River. Waimakariri, Rakaia, Selwyn, Rangitata.
It doesn’t go on forever, but it sure looks that way.
The land stretches before us, seemingly without end. We left Christchurch but half an hour past though it seems like an eternity now.
Life sometimes get in the way. Routines get derailed. Looking at the fields that fly past us as we drive, I tell myself maybe that isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes we need an interruption, a break from our routines, to remember to breathe. It’s okay if I’ve been holding my breath for too long, without realising it, without knowing why. All this vastness, this flat splendour, this repeating scenery, is reminding me that I can always return to my breath.
That the simple act of breathing will always be there for me.
Slow or fast, deep or shallow, it doesn’t matter. I breathe and I return to the present.
I breathe and I am always here, with you.