I will hold your ache in loving arms.
I will be the faith you have lost in the world.
I will shine a light on your breaking heart,
that you may hand stitch the truth
into the fabric of your soul
and know it is safe
to feel.
I will love you.
All the broken you wish not to see,
I will hold you.
I will hold you, love.
The darkness of life is a wonderful teacher.
I’ve been there a time or two,
and now I say, ‘no’.
Lovingly,
with fire and ice,
I say no.
No, thank you.
No. Thank you,
no more.
Such a lovely relief,
the roaring breath of certainty.
The trust of a self who deserves better
than they have given.
My worth is here to stay.
My love is mine to give,
not theirs to take, and take
and take.
Let others play in the dark rooms of maddening life.
Let this girl fly,
a darling wonder,
into the sun beyond it all.
Safe.
Loved.
And perfectly capable of asking for love,
respect
and home.
Home.
How beautiful it feels
to finally tell them I am home.
Some days,
I can’t be here for you.
Some days
I need you,
to hold my softness
and let me fall.
It is a beautiful drift of snow
that feathers the earth of me.
A gentle spring breeze
beyond the strength I’ve tried so hard to be.
And I lay me down to feel it all.
I lay me down to feel it all.
I will craft this scar into a fine rose.
Soft pink and berry, Mum,
like the sweet child I was to you.
Take this rose
carefully,
softly,
sweetly, remembering home.
I have been afraid
because of you,
and yet
because of you
love has broken me open;
I shine our memory into the world
like a moonlit day.
Take this rose
carefully,
softly,
sweetly,
for I am still afraid
I will craft this fine rose into a scar.
My
soul
knows
this
song.
I think about her, sometimes, when my heart turns to sun. Nan. Her heart used to shine like that, too, which is why I can’t help but think of her when I feel intense love radiating from my own chest. As an off shoot of the kind of love she gave to me (and, let’s face it, probably genetics) I am who I am. And I love, as deeply as I love.
We fluff our ways through life, bothering about the silliest of things: when really we should hold the beauty, longer. Feel the love of our loved ones, longer. Express our love to others, without fear: give them the beautiful gift of sun that Nan gave to me.
I often think of Nan, and when I do I wonder why I loved her so deeply, why I still feel her today just as beautifully as I did when she was here. I loved her because she loved me. I loved her because there was never a question when I felt her energy how much it meant to her that I was alive. What a gift to be given by someone. What a gift: to know that you have touched their life, that you have meant something to their moments.
I shine when I look at my children with the same kind of love my Nan did when she looked at me, and I can only hope the depth of that love sinks into them as deeply as it has me.
I’m waffling a bit today, and that’s okay. I’m in my love place. I’m in my world of grateful and I intend to make the most of it and spread Nan’s sunshine, while I’m here.
She would have loved that.
She would have loved that I’ve given her sweet sunshine to you.
Music brought me undone again, today.
Unravelled. Beautifully. Thoroughly.
And though it’s not a surprise that music can so easily undress my soul, it is often a surprise to feel the way it surges and dances through my body.
How it grabs hold of my belly, my arms, my legs, and drags itself upwards.
How it grounds me. So deeply, so powerfully I could never fly away.
I don’t know why this happens to me.
All I know is that it is profoundly beautiful.
And I’m grateful.
I’m really so far beyond grateful.
I knew it would take me there. To the place beyond everything, the place that shows me, really quite beautifully, who I truly am.
I can’t remember the last time I watched Legends of the Fall. A very long time ago. A lifetime ago, you might say, and if you did say that I wouldn’t argue with you. I last saw the movie before I had truly lived. Before I had truly ached. Before I had truly felt loss, and the echoing stillness of life’s fragility.
Last night I watched the movie through new eyes, and it tore me apart. Very beautifully, it tore me apart, but it tore me apart all the same.
It reminded me of the depth and softness of who I am.
It reminded me of the beauty of the human connection.
And it reminded me why I write: to feel and to help others feel, too.
Thank goodness I watched that movie, last night.
Thank goodness.
Is it worth these precious breaths?
This fight,
this blame,
this game?
Is it really so important?
People die
(people who are loved)
and still we take for granted
life.
And we fight,
and we blame
in this game.
It’s just a game,
just a bloody game.
Just
a bloody
game.
There is depth and beauty in loneliness.
It is quiet.
Peaceful.
And though I’ve never known it,
loneliness is the wave that has known me
a lifetime, long.
Its quiet waits for nothing,
it just hangs in the air,
aching,
holding me closer
and closer
until I am quiet, too.
I will try to let it be.
To never ask it to leave,
but instead,
let it fill me
until I have no room left inside.
I will let it be, now,
loneliness.
I will no longer be attached
to wishing it gone.
