Perhaps
you might ask your heart what it wants.
Perhaps
you might listen.
Perhaps.

Perhaps
you might ask your heart what it wants.
Perhaps
you might listen.
Perhaps.
I must remind myself:
the wildflowers will wait.
We spend a great deal of our lives being afraid of the cookie, don’t we?
Too much sugar, too much fat, too much cookie induced shame (note to self, and the world: shame causes more damage than the cookie.)
If only we’d take a moment to just…love the cookie.
Just love it, and eat it.
It is a beautiful creation, gifted to the world by someone who understood that it was okay to enjoy our humanity while we are here on earth.
I’m no longer afraid of the cookie, and because of this my whole life has changed. The black soot of fear no longer owns every choice I make.
I just love the cookie. I love the cookie, and live my life being aware of any cookie danger, but not afraid.
I eat the cookie slowly.
The beauty of life is in the cherishing of it.
Shall I be sensible
a moment?
Oh, dying to live,
dear dreary day.
Let you find me
twisted beautifully
among the berry vines.
Let you be the one
to be sensible.
I am home when the beautiful song of my heart is at peace.
There is nothing loud, here, nothing beyond the birds and the rippling pools of shadow on brick.
I am just me, in all of my softness.
Me, in this beautiful place, home.
I have loved tenderly, here.
I will always love tenderly.
And when there is sun
such as this,
and when there is beautiful drift
and swaying trees,
I see life as it is
and I know it is good.
For, the mind, I know
tells stories.
And yet
perfect truth
is this touch of fresh air.
Just another season.
Another precious season
of darling life.
I made the beds as if it might be the last time.
I didn’t think, ‘Oh. Gosh. You know, I better take more care in making these beds, I might be gone by tomorrow morning.’ It wasn’t like that.
I just folded the sheets over in a way that made my hands feel one with the sheets. I folded the pyjamas and placed them on the end of the bed while watching the way my hands moved; I marvelled at how beautiful those hands looked and felt to me.
It’s the most delicious season of life, this point in time where I’m naturally going with the flow that turns planets and unfurls flowers and plants.
I am just so grateful for all that beautiful loveliness, and I really wanted to come and share some of its whimsical wind with you.
And so I say:
I hope you know you are loved, but…I hope you also know it’s okay to forget, sometimes. Forgetting makes the remembering so, so precious. Truly.
I hope you always remember mistakes are the beautiful door to the changes life has been wishing for you.
I hope you learn to forgive yourself and others, and then go and eat a massive slice of chocolate cake on a random Tuesday, just because.
And I hope you…well, maybe I’ll leave this last hope up to you.
Hope something beautiful for yourself.
I promise, this wish will bring to you the most beautiful things.
xx Brooke
As if
to fall asleep in the arms of another
could be anything less than a gift
to be cherished.
Life and her beautiful pages;
how precious she is,
indeed,
for the sweetness of it.
I see nothing but darling
and delight
in all things.
For the aches are there
to be held
by the beauty
that is love.
And the joys
rocket to the sky
on wings of their own.
Is this not heaven where I lie?
What sweeter perfection
might the illusion
of some other day
bring?
He bought it in 1946 for six pounds, which apparently was quite the sum back in the day. He’s 92 and wonderful, my darling neighbour, Joe, I’ll call him. The gigantic relic of a dictionary was his. Now it belongs to me.
Joe and I lounged in his well kept living room and sipped champagne to celebrate my family’s one year anniversary of owning our home. He had remembered, not us. We were flawed with gratitude and awe.
As we sat, he told me stories of his life; the pains, the joys, stories of beautiful friends and loved ones here and gone. I could have sat there all afternoon. Instead I settled for an hour and a champagne, and two home-made yoyo biscuits (made by a dear friend of his, and absolutely delicious, might I add.)
The dictionary came up in conversation and I mentioned how I’d planned to buy a special one myself, some day. Brooke, the writer; of course she’d need to invest in something so truly lovely, full of all that writerly goodness. And just like that, the dictionary, the precious illustrated dictionary, had become apart of our family.
I will cherish it for as long as I live. Not because it’s the dictionary I’ve always wanted, but because it will remind me of a beautiful soul that has touched my life deeply.
As I sat with him I told him, ‘Joe. You have such a pure soul,’ and it’s true. I’ve never felt a person quite like him and I wish there were more people in the world who felt as beautiful, to me.
The purest of hearts. The ones that lift us to be our best. The ones we all hope we might be for others.
I plan to go for tea again with him soon, my darling friend, Joe.
I cannot think of how I might repay his kindness.