It is a softness that wanders the fields with me.
Everywhere I go, it is there, sending me off on my uncertain way.
Sometimes, I feel like a small bird, left to battle the raging storms of life.
I do not fight this softness. I only seek to know it well (though sometimes I wish it were a tiger, fierce and free.)
It is me and I am it, this softness of heart.
Let it become.
There is a tear in my soul.
They want me to smile,
all the time, they want me to be fine,
this world.
But I am not
(though I am.)
There is a weeping tear.
A wound unhealed and breaking
ever deeper,
every day.
I will tell you this:
I am fine.
And I am,
six colours of the rainbow, fine.
The seventh colour.
It is a golden tar.
An aching soul,
searching.
An aching child
within the hardened walls
of a happy one.
The wind was crisp
and the sun sang warm to my skin.
The rest of the world was too fast
to know bliss like that.
The truth is: the truth is too expensive;
a depth of emotion most are unwilling
to pay.
Humanity can’t see through true eyes.
Can’t see the fighting is a small child’s game.
Who are the adults?
Let me know when you meet them.
Wounded and scared;
don’t you know how deeply you once felt the world?
The carpet is there for a reason.
The broom is used by all until the carpet
spills the truth.
The truth, they say,
will set you free, and I am free
to tell you that.
But, then again,
the carpet is good, too.
I walk the streets listening to music that makes me cry.
I suppose I will do this until I have made peace with my past and become all that I am in this moment forever onwards, but for now, this is me: and me feels achingly beautiful. Like snow.
To walk the streets in this way, releasing newly risen anger and pain, is the gasp for breath I’ve needed to take for so long. Was I holding my breath, all those years? What did I do with anger and sadness before I learned to tie them in a ribbon of apricot sun?
I am no different to the one who reads this. Each of us travel through childhood gathering scars we will carry for the rest of our lives, or at least until we face them. I am facing mine, now.
I am feeling the anger and the pain.
I am also feeling a greater love than I’ve ever known.
For the sweet little girl I was, and still am in many ways.
For the beautiful people who loved me. How they nurtured my softness, how they pained to see it tarnished by the hardness of the world.
This is the gentle home of me.
Please, come in, just the way you are.
In another world
I would be a pizza eating fairy.
Just because I could.
And would.
I’m not the victim of circumstance. Of uncontrollable life. Of this eternal river that constantly flows and changes, sometimes lifting me right out of the water, sometimes flowing me steadily along. That’s what I try to tell myself, anyway. That I don’t believe I am a victim.
I try to tell myself that I am better than to play the role of victim in this life, but the truth is…I do sometimes fall into the belief that I am the innocent victim of others’ selfish storylines. This, of course, coming from the perspective of my own selfish storyline. You see the insanity of this, don’t you? It’s one of those funny things. A blind spot.
Many people can’t see past this particular blind spot in their day to day interactions with the world. I understand that. Even those who do have awareness of the me zone are still often hijacked by the small frightened human inside. I’m sure even the most Zen of buddhas has a cranky pants child in there somewhere, still a little bit shitty that Mum didn’t give them the lollypop they truly deserved. (They really did deserve that lollypop, you guys. We all deserved that lollypop. (*Wink face emoji*)
As humans, we can’t escape the glaringly obvious, can we? We are all biologically wired to be animals (and small children) on some level. I find this part of life so hard to make peace with, because there is a higher part of me who laughs at the little girl I’ll always be deep down. That little girl finds it SO liberating to be ever so passionately cranky at those who (she perceives) have hurt her. To really let out a great big you’ve done this to me! is one of the most freeing experiences there is. It also has the potential to wound others, and I will never subscribe to team an eye for an eye. Not ever.
The truth is, there can’t be an actual right way to be. We’re all programmed differently, and many of these differences are passed down to us from DNA born in a body, place, and time long ago. What if people are me-centric because they need to be in order to learn greater life lessons? What if there is a greater reason for all the chaos and nonsense we tend to judge as bad? I tend to think there is.
The other day, my inner lollypop girl wrote a poem, so frustrated by the victim mentality that seems to get in the way of life really shining for many of us. I’ve deleted it. It’s not my truth. My actual truth is love and compassion, it always has been, from very early on in my life, at least. And though my early life conditioning created many a limiting belief — that I’m slowly, but steadily freeing myself from—unconditional love is one belief I know I want to keep.
I do believe that I, and others, fall prey to the victim mentality from time to time as a result of being…oh, you know, human (omg, life, right?) But I’d like to continue to look at all aspects of myself and others from a place of compassion if I can help it.
With all that said, it’s liberating (and psychologically necessary, I feel) to release the roar that truly does live within, however irrational or me-centric its origins were. Creativity is such a beautiful way to do this (my goodness. Those crack the mega shits poems feel so good as they tumble out of my body.)
They’re just not the message I want to share with the world.
This is the message I want to share.
Peace.
(Ps. Lollypop, anyone? 😛 )
When I was little, I was the curly haired girl.
It was a point of fascination, my hair, a reason to love me more than the reasons that already existed inside my little girl heart.
I wonder, now, how many adults looked into my eyes and really saw me there. Looking back, my hair was the perfect ‘surface conversation’ starter.
And then there was me, waiting somewhere inside to be seen.
Yesterday, a beautiful little girl at the pool was in tears. One of the soft ones. Like me. The adults saw her, of course, but they didn’t really see her, I don’t think.
I wished she would look at me.
I wished that she would see that I could see her. And that I thought she was beautiful just the way that she was.
I would have told her that she’d probably always cry a little more than some, but she would also be kindness, and heart, and magic.
I’m pretty sure that would have made her smile.
I’ve just been to my little boy’s kinder disco, dressed as a cat. A black one, with some white bits included (because black and white cats are just a little bit less evil than pure black cats, wouldn’t you say?)
We advertised it as a dress-up disco, which of course would mean that upon arrival there’d be a sea of adorable little muffins dressed as Disney Princesses, Queen Elsa’s, Spidermen and all the rest of the Marvel universe— and indeed this was the case. ALL the adorable little people.
ALL the adorable escapism.
And then there were the adults. All very there for their children, and all very kind and lovely and ready to chat. But all very dressed as… Mum and Dad. I was the only one dressed as a cat (meow, by the way, thanks for asking.) And apart from the entire fundraising team, who made the effort to dress up AND run the whole thing like absolute champions…none of the other adults were brave enough to come in costume. ALL the sad faces.
I really do feel so sad about that. Not because we were the only ones dressed up and we looked silly or anything, nothing at all like that. The actual reason for my disappointment is that we’ve broken each other, us adult humans. We’ve judged too much. We’ve labelled too much. And by the time we reach adulthood, the general rule is that we are sensible and that we obey the rules of what it means to be a mature adult.
Bugger-that.
I won’t be silent on this issue any longer, guys. I just can’t—because it makes me way too cranky to think of how much we limit ourselves because of how others might disapprove. I’m going to make a vast call and say that beneath the sensible of most adults lies an authentic human being who is screaming to have just a little more fun than this.
If you are like me, I’m sure you’ve felt this kind of pain before, and If you are like me…then let this be our war cry. Let’s choose not to care about judgment. Let’s show the ones who are a little afraid, that it’s okay to be exactly who they are.
Please don’t misunderstand me on this. I am absolutely sure that some adults really just do-not-care to dress up, and do not actually want to let the inner child off the leash. I have no judgment at all toward these people— this is them, expressing their authentic selves, and no one could ever ask more of them than that.
It’s the rest of us I’m talking about. Those of us who receive the invite to the dress up party and instantly see ourselves dressed as a Minion.
Seriously.
Let’s do this, guys. Let’s take our power back and let’s be the Minion!
Come on.
You know you want to 😛
My wings are quivering.
Ready to fly
into the waiting arms
of Neverland.
Dear Santa,
It’s the second day of Christmas and here I am writing to you!
Surprise! I know. It’s been FOREVER. I’ll try not to leave it so long next time.
I wonder if you’ll even get this little email of mine. Do you have a computer in the North Pole? Do you even know what a computer is? Oh. Ha ha ha. Of COURSE you do, Santa— I’ll bet you’ve given a million of them away, in your time. Maybe even a billion. Well! However many you’ve given, I’m sure they’ve helped to change the world in some wonderful way.
Or not.
I mean, I don’t really know…
Umm. Santa? I truly am sorry I haven’t written for so long. The thing is, somewhere along the line someone told me you weren’t real—which is completely ridiculous, I know, especially considering I can feel you right here in my heart.
I’ll never let you go Santa.
Nope. Not ever. And do you know why?
Because I believe in magic. I believe in the magic of you.
That’s okay, isn’t it? For a big kid like me to believe in you always and forever and always, again?
Because, Santa, you’ve gotta know this: the magic of you lit the fire inside me. The magic of you helped to build me—helped fill me with all the bits of happy—and I am just not cool with letting you slip away quite so easily.
Big kids are allowed to believe, aren’t we, Santa?
I really hope you write back.
I really hope you write back and say, ‘Yes, Brooke, it’s okay for big kids to believe, too.’ Because I think my joy butterflies need you to keep them alive, Santa, I really and truly do. After all, joy butterflies eat magic for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. Without you…my joy butterflies might starve!
Anyway.
I really have waffled on.
I just wanted you to know this, Santa, I haven’t forgotten you. You’re still here, always in my heart.
Always.
Lots of love,
Brooke. (The biggest kid of them all.)
brooke-cutler.com 