Tag: Community

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Life

Enough

I am only me.

I am only here in this small body, with this small, helpless voice calling out.

I reach out to hold them in pain, while others seek to tear them down.

What are we doing, in the name of the law?

What is the law?

What is punishment at the highest level?

Isn’t it the feelings of heartache, guilt, shame, loss, that arise as the natural consequences of our mistakes? Do we need to drive the pain and the self-hatred into them more by casting them out and throwing away the key?

My heart breaks for those who have lost their way, who have committed an accidental crime for which they must pay a heavy price.

Why can we not hold them deeper?

Why can we not see their pain and feel it so deeply in our bones that rehabilitation is our only wish for them?

I could roar with this anger within.

It is why I wrote the post I deleted last night.

A man who’d been jailed for causing an accident that killed a child. He was a fool. He made an impulsive mistake, driven by ego.

And now the law stands, throwing stones at him until his soul is dead.

His soul is already broken beyond measure.

The child he accidentally killed was his Son.

How can they not see that this man could be their own Son?

How can they not see that we should be holding him through this tragic, tragic day?

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Categories
Life

Happy New Year

It’s just gone 12:30, a new year has rolled in.

Of all the people I have to wish a dear and beautiful new year to…it is you, bloggy friends. My soul folk.

I ache to express what words cannot.

I love celebrating New Year’s Eve, which is quite funny, really, considering my perspective has changed quite a bit over the years.

What is a year, but a day after a day after a few hundred more days?

What is a day, but a spinning of the giant ball upon which we sit?

A year is a human construct.

All of life as we perceive it is.

Can you imagine the first cavemen sitting around the campfire discussing who they aim to be ‘next year’? To them, the sun rises, the sun falls.

There is no day. No month. No year.

Think of all we frame in a year. Time frames can limit us in ways I’m not sure we entirely understand.

But I will still always celebrate the new year as a beautiful way to express gratitude for life. It’s especially beautiful to have a reason to connect and celebrate with each other.

Anyway. ☺️

Happy new year, team.

I send you bucket loads of unconditional love and care.

Take it and sprinkle it every where.

xx Brooke

Categories
Life

Merry Christmas

None of it makes a difference to me.

Some of you I barely know.

Some of you I have known and loved to the depths of my soul.

None of it matters.

Because each of you has my heart.

And each of you deserves to hear this on Christmas day:

Life is a journey.

You are not always going to get it right, and it is not always going to make sense.

But you will live.

Isn’t

that

wonderful?

I so adore you, bloggy friends.

Thank you, again, for allowing me to be as I am.

Merry Christmas.

Love, Brooke.

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Categories
Life

I Miss You

I miss you, my beautiful bloggy friends.

My goodness my heart misses you.

It is truly a strange thing, that here, more than any other place, my truth shines her beautiful light.

Everywhere else on earth, I am partly starving.

Here, I am free.

Like a feather on the wind.

I am free.

Thank you for holding me, here.

xx Brooke

Categories
Life

Fully Human

I’ve seen that image, again.

She sits alone (you could not get any more alone) at her husband’s funeral and we all just sit here and shake our heads, because what else is there to do?

I’m speaking of the image of the Queen at prince Philip’s funeral, but you already knew that. You must have. Who could un see that quiet ache, just another handed to us by the raging depths of humanity.

***

I have hidden from life.

Strike that. I am hiding from life.

Because it wasn’t the Queen sitting there alone that day, it was me. I feel the pain that deeply.

It wasn’t someone else’s little boy sitting in the back of a war zone ambulance, parentless; it was mine. That one slices my heart.

I can’t hide from that darkness, though I want to.

I have to see it.

I have to say it: I am torn to shreds.

***

I cried in my husband’s arms the other night.

I mean I really cried, remembering a time in childhood where I was chosen last of all the children in my class to join the netball team.

I cried, at first, for the poor and beautiful little girl whose heart broke that day. But the depth of my tears came from the realisation that that very moment in time made me the person who will always go in to bat for anyone who needs me. That girl will try her very best to lift others, so that no one else has to feel the pain of being unloved, unworthy, unchosen.

Born is the true beauty of aching life.

And born is the paradox. The knowledge that the other needs to feel that very same empathy-birthing pain, in order to truly see. Even though I’d give anything to protect them from it.

***

You see it, don’t you?

This ache, this wide open ache of humanity, has birthed the very best of us. It has grown our hearts and gifted us the ultimate; the chance to hold and love others from the very core of our being.

But, goodness gracious me.

It hurts to be fully human.

Fully seeing, fully being…

everything.

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Categories
Poetry

Unity

Unity is the magic pill.

But unity

does not look like

shaming the broken.

Hear it.

It is this,

my truth,

I speak.

Categories
Life

She Drifts, Again

It really did seem like the perfect plan.

And so I did it.

I set up an official page on instagram to act as the much longed for social media home of ‘The Little Blog of Everything’ and all things creatively me.

My goodness, it will be lovely to share an expanded version of ‘the creative journey of me’ with you.

There’ll be drawings and art.

No doubt, music and books.

There’ll be updates on life and the journey to picture book publishing I’ve just restarted, after baby.

My name on instagram is brookecutlercreative.

See you, there, my beautiful bloggy friends.

Or just, here. I’ll still be here, too. xx

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Categories
Life

Far Too Long

It’s been far too long since I’ve written like this.

I’ve just been reading over old diaries, feeling my voice through them, knowing my heart.

It made me think of how I used to do that, here. How I used to be unafraid, how I understood that sharing my heart was something I needed to do, like breathing.

I write my heart because I want you all to see it is okay to be vulnerable.

More than okay.

Necessary, even, if you are someone like me.

So I wanted to find you again, in this place, as myself.

And I wanted to tell you, whoever you are, whatever your story: it is okay to be yourself.

It is okay to be your beautiful, however you are, self.

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Categories
Peaches In The Darling Sun

A Little Story

A little story. A lovely one.

While standing in line at the shop, today, holding a baby in one arm and a pram in the other, the lady in front of me turned.

‘Please go ahead of us. I see you have two little ones and a baby. Please go ahead.’

I could have kissed her beauty.

I could have held her love in the air and said out loud for all to hear, ‘this is the kindness I choose.’

Instead, I said thank you.

Once. And once again.

True sunshine.

The end.

Day 26. The good in the world.
Categories
Peaches In The Darling Sun

Kindness

Kindness is everywhere if we look hard enough.

Photo by bin Ziegler on Pexels.com

And you’ll know how it feels, because you’ll know how it looks.

And if you know how it looks…

you’ll know your most important identity.

You’ll know how to be beautiful you.

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Kindness is beautiful.

See it, feel it, know it kind of beautiful.

Or…not know it.

Kindness is kindness, either way.

Photo by Min An on Pexels.com

Kindness isn’t something we need to think to life.

It is not a plan, it is not an order.

It’s a heart thing.

Our job is just to listen.

And breathe.

Photo by Eva Elijas on Pexels.com

So, don’t try to be kindness.

Just move over.

To the left of the Sun, to the right of the moon.

And I promise you,

I promise.

Kindness will be there soon.

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Day 8. Just breathe.