It’s just a little over 2 weeks before it hits the 6-month mark since we left Melbourne to come and live here in Canberra. It feels like we have settled into a routine, with rhythms, and perhaps cadence of sorts. Feelings that make life appear settled, normal and well, take on a form that allows one to dive deeper into one’s inner thoughts. And reflect I guess.

Since returning from Malaysia nearly a month ago now, I’ve planted some little shrubs on our front yard. Peter the landscaper has more or less finished the job of making over our backyard mainly, and the front yard, a little. On Anzac Day, we had brunch with Kiddo and her mob in Rodney’s and I picked up the plants I had in mind. Some nandinas, golden diosma and grevilleas. Natives that add a bit of colour and hopefully, attract birds, when they are fully grown.

Then on election day (3 May) we went and voted at the Duffy Primary School which had, other than the mandatory democracy sausage stand, a plant vendor. We picked up some kangaroo paws too and those have also gone into the front yard. I have been watering them most mornings, as Peter has yet to finish installing the irrigation system there in the front yard.

The backyard has been watering well, and a couple of Saturdays ago, the new lawn past its one month mark and it has grown well, with thick and luscious grass screaming to be mowed. I obliged and the lawn now looks better than before, sans old tree stump and dry arid red dust peppered across parts of the backyard. Lawns and new shrubs in and they look like they too, are settling in. They added to that sense of having settled to allow routines to take shape.

The routines that see Tress and I dropping into Kiddo and Mic’s home on weekdays, after we log off work, have been the real cementing elements. Playing with the little girls, helping with dinners and tidying up, seeing the girls grow and develop into little angels, have all made me think we have been happier. Sure, I have missed the footy games at the MCG, the Malaysian/Asian food choices, going into the office and being in a wonderful Christian community like St Alfred’s. It appears like we gave up wonderful things – enjoyable things – to come and live in this quiet, semi rural and strange capital city. Being with Kiddo and her family however, have more than made up for anything we may have foregone. Every night as we say goodbye to little Abby and her family, to make the 10-12 minutes drive home, I tell myself I have seen Tress far happier. Not that she wasn’t happy before, when we lived in Melbourne. She just comes across as being more fulfilled, and her happiness appears to have come from a deeper source. One that satisfies far more than those experiences the Big Smoke offered. I share in that contentment and the derivative joy, and not just because I see that in Tress.

Like our new lawn and shrubs and flowers, I feel we have added colours and life attracting visits to our experience. Sure, true contentment and joy need to, and do, come from that relationship with our Creator God. These little anchors however, provide guiderails that let us hold on to more tangible sources of contentment while we take in the “here but not yet” higher experience.