The soft girl whispers in my ear.
I drift each cushion to the foot of the bed and carefully place it off to the side, as if it were made of precious, gold leaf.
I peel back the doona; the sight of a crisp sheet peeking out beyond its triangular puff will never cease to satisfy.
The world runs fast.
I run slow. Smooth. Deep.
Just the way I was made to run.
I see the pace of the world, I do not choose it.
I see me, now.
I choose me, now.
Deep within my heart
there is a river, raging on.
And I ask this river to be careful.
‘I am fragile,’ I say, on the softest breath.
‘Sway me,
always,
never to rush me,
never demand.
Hold me carefully, river.
Hold me carefully,
I am not like the others
made of brick and bone
and steel.
I am only like I am.
I am only like I am.‘
If sleep could touch my cheek,
I would ask for her slender hand
a thousand times.
If sleep did fall upon me now,
I dare not wake.
No.
I dare…not…
Some days,
I take a deep breath
and ask the world to soften.
The world never does soften.
So I fall behind its wind,
and I find my own
peace.
Here I am, now.
Me.
And I fly and I fly
and I fly away, now.
Still me.
Flying, flying away.
They tell me not to fly away.
They tell me not to fly away.
Living carefully and beautifully,
I know I am home.
The quiet moments when we see
we’ve been wrong.
They melt the ice of life
into sweet drifts of frost on wind.
I have been wrong
to my own heart,
often without knowing.
I have been wrong,
some days,
some days, it’s true.
Now I float in the mist
of a forgiving heart.
A forgiving heart
to soften the frost,
to sweeten the day around me.
This day.
A try a little, day,
I think.
You are the beautiful breeze that knows you.
Take this life.
Make it your own.
We tend to just do things, don’t we, without thinking too much of it. We go places, we see people. But do we really go places? Do we really see people? Most importantly, I suppose: do we do this life as we’d truly like to, from the absolute quiet of who we are?
There was a great chunk of my life where I didn’t follow the quiet voice that, only ten minutes ago, whispered to me: ‘Grab a candle, your computer, a cup of lavender tea. Go and sit on the couch. And Brooke? Dim the lights, will you?’
This voice, of course, belonged to me. The Soft Girl, to be specific, and how lovely it was to feel her presence in the quiet of the evening (the Soft Girl is the name I’ve given to my intuition/spirit for those of you who are new, here.) 🙂
Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t interject with a teeny little side-note, to take us deeper into things. Self Care is the label most would glue to what I am currently doing with my body, my soul, my evening. But as the memory of the Soft Girl’s whisper returns to me (it was as I reached for the tea bag, if you’re wondering) I find myself rejecting this label, slightly.
Living fully, it seems, is what I am actually doing. Hearing the whispers and living them all the way through.
To me, the current collective perspective of Self Care implies a lack of something, a need for something nice to fill the spaces in between it all. For example, we often say: I’m so tired. I lack time. I lack energy. I am going to gift myself a beautiful little slice of Self Care because I lack all the above things.
The thing is this, though: don’t we all deserve to live a beautiful, care-filled existence simply because we are alive? Don’t we deserve the deeper level of care we innately have to offer ourselves, because our hearts have asked for it, and for no other reason?
I think we do.
So I’m going to start listening more carefully to the Soft Girl’s whispers, and gifting myself life to the fullest, whenever I can.
I so hope you do, too, my sweet bloggy friends.
You deserve it. Because you’re you.
xx Brooke
There you are
behind a soft, uncertain smile,
surprised that you are loved.
You are loved.
It is your expectation
that has made it seem not so.
You see the world and ask it to hold you
as you wish to be held,
and yet this is not the way life works.
Life will hold you as it holds you
so that you may learn
and grow
and be.
Love is born in the quiet room
between expectation and reality.
Hold yourself in your quiet
and you will finally say:
I am loved.
I am loved.
