{"id":498,"date":"2012-07-12T15:49:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T14:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2012-10-20T13:07:52","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T12:07:52","slug":"decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/?p=498","title":{"rendered":"decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them? People speak about what is in store. But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God.~Cormac McCarthy,\u00a0 The Crossing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Sally sat down on the\u00a0hand-made bench; a\u00a0special\u00a0gift from\u00a0her nearest\u00a0neighbour on opening day.\u00a0 She\u2019d grown quite fond of the neighbour and the bench and did a lot of thinking sitting here.\u00a0 The\u00a0neighbour had carefully placed the bench in\u00a0Golly Gosh’s small garden,\u00a0maximising the view.\u00a0\u00a0There was something about it that reassured her.\u00a0 It\u00a0seemed like\u00a0a wise old bench and she thought of the carpenter, the craftsmanship, hard work, dedication and love, that had\u00a0gone into producing it and wondered why and who’d\u00a0sat on it before her.<\/p>\n

A time to ponder.<\/p>\n

Sally \u00a0looked out across the sea and fixed her gaze on the horizon.\u00a0 Staring.\u00a0 It was calm today. She liked the stillness of it and shut her eyes for a moment listening for sounds. There was a dull drone of town activity in the distance. It was the end of\u00a0market day and she imagined people browsing stalls looking for a bargain and, in her imagination, she selected\u00a0at random\u00a0some of her precious\u00a0Golly Gosh regulars having fun.\u00a0\u00a0 And children and grandparents eating candy floss, healthy diet plans giving way to freshly made sugar doughnuts, dogs chasing flying insects and pulling on leads,\u00a0prams and summer sandals, umbrellas in bags just in cases<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Then, intervals of silence. Almost.\u00a0 She\u00a0could hear the waves gently lapping and appreciated the warmth of the sun on her face and a saltiness in the air. There was the hum of bees attracted by the fragrance of flowers in the window box and she pictured them now and gave thanks for this spot; perfect for her adventure into teashop ownership.<\/p>\n

This, this venture, was only supposed to be for a short time but it had turned into something other than simply providing tea and cakes for people even if they were Alice\u2019s and unimaginably wonderful. It\u00a0had become\u00a0a shelter, a place of rest, a meeting place, a quiet and rowdy place, a hiding place, a nurturing place, a place of creativity and laughter, of strength and wisdom. A safe place; enigmatic and graceful.<\/p>\n

She realised the role she played in providing a place for people to ‘be’ and felt hugely humbled but herein lay a responsibility that she wasn\u2019t sure she could honour.<\/p>\n

Her breathing had finally, slowly, fallen into a rhythm and she felt relaxed; her finely tuned senses enjoying the stimulus around her.<\/p>\n

Sally opened her eyes and noticed someone running on the beach with a dog in tow and\u00a0recognised the stranger as the man\u00a0who helped Noah with his kite.\u00a0 She made a mental note must ask about him<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the closed sign awaited, and she had a decision to make.<\/p>\n

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If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them? People speak about what is in store. But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God.~Cormac McCarthy,\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[31,5],"tags":[97,100,98,95,39,159,30,27,99,33],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2zQgS-82","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1777,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/1777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}