Tag: Life

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Life

Sparking Joy

I folded the tee shirt and watched my hands.

They were beautiful as they moved, delicate in the way they twisted and rolled within the fabric. I’d never noticed them do that before. And just like that I’d found a way to enjoy a chore.

As I continued to fold, I paid attention to the creases and the folds. How sweet it was to fold the shirt in a perfect square. To run my hands over the smooth surface of the garment. Another new way to enjoy a chore.

I now have perfectly folded clothes, packed away in perfectly tidy draws and it makes me feel oddly at peace.I have opened the draws several times today, just so I can see all the loveliness again. Does that make me a little mad?

I found a way to spark joy, as Marie Kondo would say, and it reminded me to ‘spark joy’ in more aspects of my life than just the laundry.

Like here, for example. On this blog. In this post.

I might wish you a beautiful weekend. And you might actually have one.

That would spark joy.

That sure would spark an awful lot of joy.

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Categories
Life

Forgiven

And when she aches

she will know a world beyond herself.

Where thunder becomes her;

a raging fire, waiting to be.

How is this small softness

so wide with grief beyond the day!

How is this smile,

so often true,

suddenly drawn with a question mark?

They will know her pain

only as the tilt of an eye.

They will be forgiven by this one

before they see her sorrow there.

Always, they will be forgiven by this one.

Categories
Life

Hold Me Now

With this grace, I will hold my head high.

I will look to the sun

and grant it permission to fill my heart,

on this day, as with any other day.

There is a softness in the air that reminds me

of white clouds and open buds of rose.

Unbroken; there is no rain here

that I cannot meet with my spirit.

Hold me now, soft sky.

Hold me now, soft sky.

Hold me now.

Categories
Life

Goodbye Christopher Robin

I cried and I smiled as the credits rolled, and I knew, in that moment, that I’d found another piece of home.

The movie was ‘Goodbye Christopher Robin.’

And it was…really very beautiful, actually.

How very different the world looks through the eyes of time gone by.

How very different the world looks when you become another version of yourself.

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Categories
Life

Imagine

Sometimes, I wonder if I can still write.

Not just write, as in, write any old words.

I mean, I sometimes wonder if I can still write fiction that peels my skin from the bone. Words I read back after I’ve written them and find that they speak to my soul.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written any fiction. My poor novel is sitting desperately among the cobwebs of my computer, wondering where I am. The short stories I once wrote are just that: short stories I once wrote.

The truth is, I’m afraid.

Because I wonder if I can still write.

And so I procrastinate and procrastinate until I don’t even try anymore. I know it is simply a matter of starting. But. I don’t even start.

I am too busy to scratch my nose, also, so that is one actual fact I can’t ignore. Even if I was brave enough to face the looming blank page, there is no time for that in these early stages of newborn life. These moments, now, are stolen moments I am taking back from Motherhood.

And I’ve chosen to give them to this place.

My heart place.

My home. (Where all of you are. My beautiful bloggy family.)

If history has anything to say about this pattern of me, I will make my way, eventually, to the place of bravery that allows for creativity to run free of the well. I will, once again, bring my whole soul to the surface of my world. I will create worlds, and lives, and beauty through art.

But that time is not now.

Now, I am here. (Happily, peacefully, lovingly I am here.)

Savouring these stolen moments.

Waiting for the baby to wake, running from the fears I know are lurking in the shadows.

I am not afraid to sit still. Here. Now. I am not afraid of this.

I am afraid of losing my creative flow, though.

Because imagine. To lose something so precious.

Imagine.

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Categories
Poetry

A Simple Wish

I open my soul again and again.

Has my heart been heard this time?

So quietly it speaks for fear of breaking.

Hear me, please.

I may not carry the right words, always.

But my heart is pure,

my wish is simple.

To love, is all I wish.

To give

and to know

that I have lived in the world well.

Have I lived in the world well?

Have I lived?

Categories
Life

Fairy Lights

I sang about fairy lights as we drove. I remember. My tiny head bobbling about in the back seat while Mum drove us through the darkness to her weekly game of basketball.

‘I love your beautiful songs, Brooke.’ It was a line she’d repeat all the way up until I left home; the warbling six year old I was never did stop making up songs.

Fairy lights. They really were beautiful in the distance. Just window lights shining from houses on the horizon, a lot of them. So many it looked like a sea of twinkling stars dancing beside us as we drove.

I’m not in the most peaceful of places. Looking after a newborn is not the easiest of things, and it’s especially difficult when your body begins to misbehave. Mine has done so spectacularly of late, many thanks to all the regular post birth complaints. Crunch, screech, ache, sob. But life can’t stop because I am in pain.We cannot pause our children, we cannot pause the laundry and the cooking that must be done in order to keep us all happy and healthy.

Fairy lights. I needed something to get me through the chaos and through these achy, sleepless days. And here I am, typing away, every now and then gazing up at our ornamental bookshelf, tired but grateful for the unexpected burst of creativity that found me earlier. Fairy lights. I’ve strung some up around the bookshelf frame and it is the most beautiful thing to stare at them and just…let them take me somewhere.

I love my children beyond it all and I am grateful to even have a home and things to care for. But sometimes I need a breath. Sometimes I need to raise my head above the water and find one of the joys of my soul waiting to soothe me.

Fairy lights. Beauty bringing me back to peace, once more.

Ahh. There it is.

There it is.

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Categories
Poetry

Dark Cupboard

I’m in a cupboard, peeking into the light.

If you looked, you’d see my eye,

and I’d see you.

All of you.

Even your well worn Volleys.

Especially those.

White.

(Not so white at all.)

I’d smile, but you’d not know it.

All you’d see is my eye, remember this.

Here, in this cupboard, it is warm.

It is warm,

and I see you.

I always did see you.

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Categories
Life

And Then The World Changed

It’s funny, isn’t it. How we zone in on the things that happen in life that signal an ending of something and the beginning of something else.

They roll on in, these momentous happenings, and soon they pass: although we do wish we could cling to the beauty of them. We do wish we could hold on to their quiet precious hands just that little bit longer than they allow us to. So we can breathe them in. So we can close our eyes and know something bigger than ordinary is actually happening to us.

That’s a lot of waffling just to get to the point isn’t it, my lovely bloggy friends. And yet I’m certain you all know me well enough to understand that waffling is my way of holding on to the precious moments of my life a little longer than the average human might.

So.

Without further ado…

It’s a girl.

A beautiful, darling, button nose girl: isn’t that just the loveliest thing?

She’s been flip-side of my belly for a week and a day. It’s been a foggy time. A time where my hormones have screamed abnormal things and my rational side has begged to make it all feel a little more normal than that. But I am perfectly okay, and that is just about all I am asking of this post birth phase.

I am being so, so, so well cared for by a husband I love even brighter the second time around. I am kept busy giggling at my other children who tumble around, daily, and so often remind me of tiger cubs at play (especially when the tiger mum nudges them away and gently snaps at their tumbling bodies, in order to pull them into line.)

Life is both foggy and good, for now.

And to me, that is perfect.

Perfect.

Just the way it was meant to be.

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Categories
Life

A Beautiful Epiphany

From the depths of the ache came a beautiful epiphany.

A knowing that the day could be different, and would be different, if only I’d offer myself a brighter choice; something beautiful to fill my cup to just enough.

I stood in front of the bed, exhausted from lack of sleep.

How can you love yourself in this moment? said the whisper.

The answer: make the bed. Admire its softness.

Again, I stood in front of the bed, exhausted from lack of sleep.

How can you love yourself in this moment? said the whisper, once more.

A glass of warm lemon water. A candle on the ledge of the shower.

It was a normal weekday morning. A weekday morning that could have taken my whole day down had I not listened to the quiet voice of my heart.

I sat on the couch, still exhausted from lack of sleep.

Knowing I had lived beautifully.

Knowing that had been the difference.

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