The universe moves in mysterious ways doesn’t it. Yesterday I bought a few songs on iTunes, and one in particular filled me with something so… hopeful… elated… light-filled, I have been playing in non-stop, on repeat, over and over. I am listening to it right now… I emailed the song to Madeleine last night, and it spoke to her too. After we got off the phone at our usual time of midnight, I picked up a pen and wrote this poem, with tears falling down my face, plump hot healing tears, the song bringing out something that has been brewing, growing, letting itself be revealed these last few weeks.

The song is called Quicksand by Natalie Walker … this is where I was last night.

“I will rise from my sorrow”

I don’t miss you so much
these days.
Like the wind, you drift through my mind,
rustling the pages,
the dust of the past swirling up
to tickle my nose.
But now, in the quietest moments,
I do not miss you.
For the longest time
I could never imagine I would find this place,
one filled with smiling faces,
a peaceful heart.
You left when I didn’t want you to,
but now I do not hold so tightly to
the strings that joined us together.
My hand no longer aches to touch you,
my body releases its need for you.
My heart is mending, stretching,
opening.
The time is coming when I will
let you go, my friend;
my friend of lifetimes.

For more poetic musings, go here. Photo borrowed from here

This photograph of a damsel fly was taken by a very talented friend of mine… this haiku is for you… For more haiku poetry, go here

Shirley Conran once said that life is too short to stuff a mushroom. If there is anything I have learnt this last year, it is that life is too short, full stop. Life is too short to be scared, or fearful, or embarrassed. Life is too short to worry about what other people think. Life is too short to not get on that plane and explore the rest of the world. Life is too short to not to make a phone call, or write a letter, and tell someone you love them, or that you are sorry. Life is too short not to take a risk and fall in love.

We spend so much time worrying and analyzing and weighing up the odds, we miss out on what is really happening around us. My love lived life to the fullest expression of who he was, and on that very last day he did the things he loved the most. Now I choose this to be the legacy he left me – to learn to have no more fear and to live every day as if it is my last.

If today was my last day on earth, I would go skinny dipping in the ocean. I would gather together all the people I love the most on a beach and drink champagne. I would climb to the top of a mountain and shout my thanks to the universe for giving me one more day. I would make love in a field of poppies, with the sun on our skin and the wind in our hair. I would jump out of a plane with a parachute strapped to my back, and visit the birds. I would build a bonfire and burn all my clothes so I could glory in the deliciousness of my own naked skin. I would write a letter to my father and tell him I forgive him.

What would you do?

(Picture from shutterstock.com)

Yesterday, as I worked, I thought about whether I would move back to London again. For months this has been the expectation, that eventually I will remake my home in the city and pick up where I left off. But I’m starting to see that that might not be me anymore. Living in the capital had always lent me a certain confidence, an identity, but that no longer fits. Now I live by the sea, and having dealt with the fact that it’s my hometown, which to begin with felt shameful, as if I had returned with my tail between my legs, a failure of some sort, I am finding a new appreciation of space. The sea and the surrounding countryside speak to me. I went to the beach this morning; the sky had clouded over after days of non-stop sunshine and less people were around, and I sat quietly, drinking a frothy cappuccino and watching the horizon, everything so very blue. Maybe it was the tide that called me back home last year – perhaps growing up beside the sea means you will always be drawn back, the tumultuous energy caught in your soul. I don’t know if this is where I will stay, but London no longer holds such an appeal for me – this is a new feeling.

I think there are cracks forming in the armour I wear, fissures that are letting the light in. My first instinct is to get out the soldering iron and draw down the portcullis. This whole ‘feeling more alive’ gig is, frankly, terrifying. If I open a door in my heart it will all come unraveling out, like a parachute, and no matter how much I try I won’t be able to fold it back in again. I think I was more comfortable being Miss Haversham… I will wait to see what the wind brings me, painfully aware of the fact that the roar of my heart could overwhelm whatever comes.