I’ve had lots of shadowy ideas lately but nothing that grabs. The idea for this blog flashed into my head a few weeks ago as I pushed Diaz , my grandson , along the back of the old Woolstores in Fremantle… Pondering once again about life and it’s different manifestations. The shadowy patterns of past and now moving slowly through my mind . Hence the title . I looked up to be confronted by the graffitied messages and posted adverts on the old walls.

I thought about my other grandchild walking cautiously on the “ rubbery “ sand at the beach last summer. Her description. An apt description of life at times : caution and uncertainty. The under layer , whatever is underfoot, is precarious. Yet we are constantly moving towards an expected happiness. All around are messages of how to be happy: excercise , eat well, meditate, be mindful , buy.

The walls which face me proclaim :Be happy. Be happy, this way to happiness. The dark , conflict -suffused graffiti serves to highlight dire alternatives.

We went to the library later as it started to rain . The same message on some of the shelves.

Like we need a formula for happiness

As if happiness is assured and life equates with happiness . Three year old Ava got it right, I think : Life is rubbery and needs to be walked with caution as the rubber has degrees of thickness , sometimes it’s perished so you can fall through, sometimes the halves are linked by a thin thread. But if you’re lucky , or careful maybe, you can walk on the thick bits and be content for a while.