No.
Nothing is more important than peace.
Not to me.
Me who has faced the wicked fire of others.
Me who has held my own heart
and felt it break in my hands.
I have broken,
but I am not broken.
I am ready to find and keep the softness.
I am ready to find and keep the peace.
Sometimes I wish I had been born of another culture, a culture of eyes wide open, a culture of hearts wide open.
They say to resist ‘what is’ is to cause your own suffering. Am I suffering? No. But I certainly do ask the question: what if?
Would I be further along in my life journey if, as a child, my sensitivity had been celebrated by my culture, rather than shunned? Would I have saved myself years of healing from the innocent unconsciousness of those around me? Because of a rigid cultural narrative, those who have loved me have accidentally hurt me. I shudder to remember those who have held me in their lives as an insignificant supporting character.
I hope humanity soon understands that the world they see is a choice, rather than a given. I hope the beautiful little soft girls of the world are one day celebrated for the depth and gorgeous attention to detail they bring the world. How shameful that they haven’t been, thus far.
Am I angry that I was brought up starved of female role models? Am I angry that not even my Mother knew how to teach me to truly grow into womanhood? How could she? All she knew was what the western world was. Hardened. Money hungry. Black and white.
There is an aspect of me that is angry. But a bigger part of me understands. There is no one to be angry with. We have all been brought up in boxes. Every single one of us, and when you’re inside of a box (we call them cultures) you truly cannot see there is another way. Another way to see, another way to be. And if you cannot see or be, you cannot teach. You cannot change.
I hope enough eyes are opening, now, to the beauty of individuality.
I hope enough hearts are ready to be free.
On days where rain settles on the window, I look to the future with dusty eyes.
How does one peer beyond the droplets there? How beautiful can the horizon appear when my eyes are glazed with the muck and haze of old?
There was a time, once —when I was young and stainless— when the window was free from drizzle, the horizon: apricot sun over a sea of gentle destiny.
But lovely as life seemed without a shadow, I have seen rain awash the hill. Where, in this wild world, truth and softness is but a dream to be wished, and love, a precious ornament easily shattered.
Still, I choose to be grateful. To count the rays of beautiful sun and see beyond the ghastly truth on the hill.
I must choose this light.
The alternative is too dark for me to bear.
I’ve come to realise that creativity is just the art and flow of being yourself. There’s really not a lot more to it than that.
At its core, creativity seems to be made of the absolute depth of who we are. And the depth of who we are is always waiting, somewhere beneath the surface, to be shared in its most resonant form. (I believe this is true for every human being. Not just those who are considered creative types.)
For me, the purest form my creativity takes is music. My voice, in particular, seems an extension of the calming, soothing essence that naturally seems to spill from the deep, internal parts of me…and so my music always does seem to reappear in my life, no matter how far I stray from it.
For a lot of years I judged myself (my voice, my performance capabilities) based on what others were doing with their own musical talents. Somewhere in my teen years I grabbed a hold of the idea that, although my talent was constantly being validated, I didn’t have a voice that could compare to a real singer. According to young human me, real singers had a range that reached far beyond the heights that my limited range could. Real singers were perfect, never to stray a note in pitch at all.
How sweet it is to have found the most beautiful new gift of evolved perspective when it comes to my music: that being…my music is my essence. Unique and beautiful, and only mine, never to be compared to any other. My voice and my music are here to achieve their own purpose. And this purpose has nothing to do with an out of this world range or perfectly crafted technique.
There may be singers who use a wider range of skills to express their musical essence in order to thrill…but to thrill is not what I am here for. I am here to express the depths of my heart. I am here to heal with my voice and perhaps to bring peace, calm and emotion to those who connect with my music, writing and creativity. How beautiful, to finally come to know this of myself.
And so I continue to release my musical essence as it is.
No more excuses.
No more foolish voice within trying to compare my musical self with others.
They are all beautiful fruits to be savoured and cherished in the fruit bowl of musical life. I am a different fruit, who finally understands that apples and oranges never will compare.
How deep is the sea that clutches
and drags me to the muddy floor, within?
How many days will I tumble
into the swell of inner life
unspoken, unwanted, unkind?
Shall I stand here, now,
battered and smiling, beside this beautiful life?
Still searching.
Still searching.
Always searching, but for the fleeting days
of clarity,
of home neat and tidy.
The creative knife;
sharp, yet desperately beautiful in shine.
Still searching.
Always, still searching.
Life is for living. It’s a lovely sentiment, isn’t it?
Lovely. And vague.
Because what, exactly, is living?
I turned thirty-eight this year, and I’m still fine tuning what living means to me. I imagine I always will be. Ever evolving. Ever learning and growing.
One of the beautiful things I’ve learnt about what living is to me, is that I have these five senses for a reason. For most of my life, I woke of a morning, achieved the mindless list of tasks laid out ahead, went to bed, and repeated the whole thing again the next day.
No wonder my soul was starving.
I’ve started to understand that, to fully live, you need to know yourself and how your senses interact with the world around you. I, for instance, am extremely sensitive and I’ve come to the realisation that because my senses are heightened…I need to be particularly conscious of my environment.
For example: I need to try and keep things tidy, both internally and externally. I feel calm when things are tidy. I feel calm when I am completing one task at a time. Overwhelm, for me, equals poor mental health and activation of either the fight, flight, or freeze response (and, I assure you, none of these survival responses have ever worked out well for me, in the past.)
This time in my life is where I’ve begun to really use my senses to enhance my world and wellbeing. I’ve come to understand that everything we perceive in life has a texture and depth, and I try to utilise this knowledge to better my life, as much as I can.
For some reason, my nervous system tends to do much better when it comes to perceiving softer, lighter more porous textures. Wood grain soothes me. Light, drifting plants soothe me. Soft pinks, mauves, light greys: these are all the colours of me. And yet, for the longest time, I surrounded myself with bright and bold…because the rest of the world did. I hadn’t learned to know myself yet.
I often think back to (and I’ve mentioned this story on here before) the discomfort I used to feel when driving to work with my Dad, listening to the two negative, grumpy radio hosts on the morning show. Every time I heard them speak, I wanted to run. I had no idea why I was feeling this way, at the time, but now I know. It was the density of their energy. The texture. It was not at all light, it was heavy and bold: never have I thrived when surrounded by this kind of dense energy. Never have I been comfortable in my own, unique (big ol’ sensitive muffin) skin.
I can’t avoid density, I know that. Life is full of the dark, the negative, the heavy. But I can try to be mindful of surrounding myself as much as possible with the softness that brings me back to life, so that’s what I try my best to do.
Humans are funny creatures. How our worlds shift and change with time and age.
And though reality often hurts, it is also very beautiful.
Life is for living, isn’t it.
And so it is: I live.
I’ve always looked beyond.
Always searched for the more.
Sometimes I wait for the more,
craving the sweet beauty of tomorrow.
Other times, I wait in fear.
For horrors that may, or may not come.
None of it is real.
None of it is now.
None of it is me…
until it is.
And even when it is,
it is not me.
It is always only life.
Life that has come.
And life that has gone.
But if you only have eyes
for the way you think life
should
be,
then surely you are forgetting
to live.
To truly live.
As you are.
In this moment, this
version of life that you
so desperately wish
to escape.
No rose
(not a single one)
ever bloomed in an instant.
Listen to the silence
of the journey.
Let the rose bloom
as she will.
Sweet aching quiet.
Soft night, curled up beside me.
I know you.
I know your fragile whispers, well.
brooke-cutler.com 