Spring Home

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How many homes do you have?

I am not referring to how many properties you own, or else I would have nothing to speak of!

Here we are talking about homes.

Laying on my back in my garden underneath 2pm sunshine with my eyes closed: warmth on my eyelids, face, forearms, ankles and feet; seagulls call; bumblebee buzzing past.

It feels like home; like Australia-home: the heat and the sounds of summer approaching.

Then a British March breeze slices across my bare toes, the winter-scorched brunette hedge rustles dryly and I’m reminded where I am: Britain; my other home. I move into the sunroom, the perfect mid-season option: outdoors-in.

If you Google the word ‘home’, the adjective meaning is “home: relating to the place where one lives”. The noun meaning is “Home: the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household”.

I’m someone who has struggled with that word: ‘permanently’. The word ‘home’ I get on board with very quickly. I have had many homes; adjective versions. I have lived in many places, made a loving home multiple times. But now when I read the definitions of home I notice myself respond to the word ‘permanently’. It feels restrictive, constraining, improbable. Buddhist mantras I previously chanted ring true through my body: ‘impermanence surrounds us, impermanence surrounds us’. Perhaps those teachings provided me with peace when everything in life was indeed constantly changing – nothing lasts forever so enjoy this moment.

Yet ultimately within the impermanence we need grounding; protective safe Homes; permanent in some way because they will always be there.

For a while there the pandemic stole the idea of Australia as a home I could always return to. This is still a trauma that is hard to explain, deep feelings that are starting to re-surface as my partner and I prepare for our trip to Aus. It was like floating; not being able to go home. Like the cliché of no anchor. No roots. Not that I couldn’t reach the ground, but that there was none to reach for. I remember half way through the two year border closure, in May 2021, the Australian Prime Minister announced ‘indefinite border closure’ and the ‘zero Covid’ policy. While England was coming out of it’s final lockdown and seeing family, slowly returning to ‘normal’, the pain of forced separation was deepened for Australians overseas; indefinite closure: no end in sight to this harsh protective divisive practice; this floating. It was hard to align my head and heart; the protection of others versus the heartache of separation.

As we prepare for our trip, I get teary at the thought of the plane touching down after flying over terracotta roofs; cant even think of hugging family and friends as my lungs expand while my breathing tightens. Just have to focus on the practicalities of getting on the plane Covid-free.

Here has become my home too. I’m a dual citizen now, or as a writing friend chose to hear it, a ‘jewel’ citizen. Despite the last two years of doom, and in many ways because of it, I have come out the other side with a lovely home with my lovely man and the option of living two lives simultaneously across the planet; my self split but part of a bigger whole.

I must respect my privilege and luck, especially as we know Ukrainian homes are being horrifically destroyed. However that’s a much bigger experience which I can’t do justice to in my own words.

Tiktok-er @callhercarlotta said it poetically in her post about being away from her pacific island home, wondering about the meaning of ‘home’. She proposed that “home is the only place where the air feels right”.

I pray that everyone finds a place where the air feels right; feels safe; feels permanent in its impermanence. I found here and I am lucky to call on the peace of this place; the hamlets of healing; the nondemanding bluebells; the gentle house in a village where I have found my second home, whether its adjective or noun.

Where does the air feel right for you?

Calm After the Storm

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Storm Eunice; 2022

Do you do To Do lists? Or do you just Do?

It’s so nurturing to live in the country, constantly present with nature. I am regularly reminded that nature just “does” without having to “to do”. Daffodils push up through the earth during driving late-winter rain, without the need to prepare a spreadsheet of tasks prior to bursting yellow. Sheep huddle stoically in their field during the storm, without any last minute panic buying of fleece. No conscious forward planning, just being. What a relief that must be.

I’ve written about this before, the constant attack on our minds of what we need to do and by when. Of course being active is enjoyable and engaging in life is kind of the point of life, but the rate at which we engage and push ourselves is entirely up to us. It’s taken me many years to exhale and find peace in stillness. I’m still learning. Aren’t we all?

Living through two hugely destructive storms in the UK have taught me how to truly switch off and lean into peace, although not immediately! Do you remember the Beast From The East, March 2018? Sudden snow drifts and cars abandoned half way up hills because we didn’t really believe it would be that bad. I remember sitting in my one bedroom flat in Frome, watching the snow build up around the windows and across the front door, ice layering the inside of single-pane windows. I was alone, yet so incredibly calm. Forced indoors, no expectation To Do. Just Be.

Likewise after Storm Eunice calmed down and we were safe I found peace in the power outage. No buzz of electrical currents pulsing around and through me, no laptop to distract, no Netflix to consume or life admin to actively avoid. Just a slow-burning fire, a mild-whistling kettle and my thoughts and dreams. No expectation To Do. Just Be.

Would I get bored if it were all the time? Possibly. But possibly not. I’m coming to terms with my life here, now, in this space, and recognising the peacefulness and creativity that could naturally grow here if I can just let go of the subtle gnawing anxiety that I need to always “be producing output”. Living alongside fields I can switch into a peaceful inner space more quickly than in a city. A few weeks ago I journaled about how nobody else really cares if I “produce output”, that my inner world is my world and if it’s chaos, it’s my chaos. If it’s calm, it’s my calm.

“as I exhale and realise, as if for the first time, how all my life I’ve crammed myself into boxes; into spaces too tiny for all that I want to experience; made me shorter, smaller, faster, more hurried and therefore more harried and anxious. I’ve sped up to keep up, at times enjoying the speed and the chaos. Perhaps because it mirrored my internal chaos. It fit. Now, however, as I sit in this warm, quiet room enjoying how winter trees are leafless yet golden by the sun, I feel a change in me internal; an appreciation and connection with peace; not craving chaos; not needing it. Put less on the to-do list.” – Journal 04/02/2022

This all requires trust: trust that I can allow myself to let life come to me; trust that it will still be active; trust that I wont feel like I’ve gotten old too soon in the village; trust that I can let go of the city-me who needed multiple doses of external goings-on; trust that my gentleness and peace will still reach out and naturally connect with others; trust that I am enough.

Engage in less more fully, rather than fracturing my mind on many things.

As Storm Eunice battered us, I spent part of it curled up on my sofa, watching it slam its way against the trees. When hail began I could see the patterns of the wind, thrashing nonsensically. Suddenly, I noticed a piece of hail caught in a spiderweb in the external corner of my windowsill. It was bouncing about manically, as the wind whipped through the spiderweb. The hail was holding on very tightly, given the fact that it’s water. Eventually the hail melted and the spiderweb remained.

So, we can relax into the now, be light and somewhat thoughtless in how we capture life in our web. Gentleness is a survival skill which doesn’t require pushing and shoving and forcing life, extensive to-do lists and a never-ending sense that we are never enough. Remove the expectation To Do. Just Be.

You are enough.

Beast From the East; 2018

A Hopeful January

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January is where the hope is.

Here we are again; in January. Here we find ourselves once more, with the perception of a new beginning, a new year, new you. It’s like after you get home from a holiday and see your home through fresh eyes again, see the painted walls properly, remembering the names you chose from the colour palette – French Turquoise, Dark Truffle, Cider Rose, Nancy’s Blushes. In the past few years you’ve spent so much time in between those walls that you began to see them just as blue, brown, pink and mauve. But it’s a new year now so the house is vibrant again, filled with promise of French Nancy’s Dark Cider.

My boyfriend hung up the 2022 calendar in our kitchen on the 4th January. He hung it on the same hook as last year’s calendar, directly over the top of 2021’s calendar. Some may see this as laziness. I saw some beauty in it. He didn’t remove last year, hide it away in a drawer or throw it away. He just layered this year’s hope and potential directly over the top of last year’s experiences. Ultimately we aren’t replacing the year or ourselves. Each year builds upon the previous ones, layers and layers of who we are. Sometimes you need years of Magnolia Not-White before French Turquoise will take hold.

For me, this January I have started to look for hope and understanding about not having had my own children. As I stare down the barrel of turning 45, reality is hitting me, and I’ve realised that my childlessness is not because of one standalone reason. It’s like the calendars, multiple layers and years of various reasons, building on each other to arrive here where I am – reasons like life choices and explorations, health, travel, career, loss, healing, an expensive society, relationship messes, relationship standards, fate, freedom, finding love and stability late. Some days it makes sense. Other days it’s like the gods go distracted, forgot to lay the stepping stones beneath my feet and now I’m landing face first in a filthy grief pond. Regardless if it’s a good day or a pond day, I’m holding tight to hope.

I’m not processing this all alone, I didn’t find the hopefulness hiding under the bed. I found it in the first few pages of a book by Jody Day, called ‘Living the Life Unexpected. How to find hope, meaning, and a fulfilling future without children’. The Introduction helpfully begins with acknowledging “This is a book about hope. Right now, that’s probably not where you’re at. Maybe you’re holding this book at metaphorical arm’s length thinking, ‘Really? I’m going to read this?’ when actually it’s the last thing you want to do…” She goes on to write about how we can bury our hope, how hope is quiet, and about how letting go of dreams and therefore letting go of hope can be terrifying. Ultimately she advocates for letting go of hope for one (important) thing, falling into the darkness, but finding hope for another (also important) thing – light in darkness kind of metaphor if you will; process and feel the loss to move forward. Eek. Wish me luck. For my fellow childless wild women, I see you and I hope you have support around you to grieve, process, reflect and find re-newed hope.

Thankfully, hope has been floating all around me this January. My peers in a writing for wellbeing group used Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” as a writing prompt in January; a friend who runs a writing group explored hope in her January session; and, well, we have a new calendar up in the kitchen.

I know January doesn’t always feel hopeful. It can feel dark and damp, and meaning can feel allusive. Let’s lean into the winter together, explore the undergrowth, re-root ourselves for the year ahead. Let’s think about where we can repaint our Magnolia selves to be French Turquoise; not replacing ourselves with a fabricated ‘new me’, but building on the layers of ourselves; strong and hopeful.

January is where the hope is.

A Very Pandemic Letter

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April 2021

Dear Family in Australia,

It’s still pandemic season, but I’m on a holiday. It’s been a year of fear and death and change and challenge and a winter too deep to imagine. Restrictions are lifting and now I’m in Cornwall, right by the sea. Staying in this caravan has reminded me of you all. The 80s style décor has sent me travelling back in time to childhood; to every holiday I ever took with you all; my brother and my cousins; we are many.

There’s something about the detail of it all – towels drying on window ledges; sneakers flopped down by the creaky door; jumpers strewn across bench chairs; boardgames jenga-style piling up on the floor; argumentative scorecards abandoned next to beer glasses; swimmers drying inside a too-small shower cubicle.

It all takes me back to times together, times we would meet in tents, caravans, red brick apartment blocks along coastlines more stunning than we would ever know. When the sun would bake us; when we’d cycle around campgrounds making friends we’d never see again; when we’d capsize boats we couldn’t steer; when we’d stay out late and kiss boys we’d just met; find the nudist beaches to waterbomb from above. When we’d play cards so loudly that the noise can still be heard in space; when our feet were always grubby. We’d play beach cricket French style with plastic cricket bats; give the younger ones “a chance”; body board until it hurt; jump waves all afternoon. When we ate breakfast in bikinis, when we ate lunch in bikinis and when we ate dinner with glowing red shoulders covered in aloe vera, amongst the constant chatter.

When we were always allies.

We’re allies still, I know. But now we’re allies in this distant way; in this Zoom arena, in this Whatsapp land; in a dreamy way as I drink my morning cup of tea and pause before starting work, wonder how you all are doing; really doing; in your hearts. I miss you; my never-ending, boisterous clan.

I have the most lovable ally here with me. We swim in the 9 degree sea and play boardgames and we’re letting our feet be grubby. We haven’t eaten any meals in our bikinis, it’s a bit cold for that, and he looks much better in a wetsuit if I’m honest. But we laugh and swim and cook meals in the one-person-only-galley-kitchen; and somehow this 80s caravan has given me the space to share my pain of missing you with him, properly share it. I’m quite certain if I asked him to eat breakfast in a bikini that he’d consider it; for me. Or maybe we’ll save that for when you get to meet him.

The pandemic still rages across the globe, restrictions tighten and then lift, tighten and then lift again. Our countries oscillate and there is always a part of my heart under government grasp; never a complete exhale; constantly quietly waiting for this to end. The barriers between us are high, expensive, unpredictable. But they, unlike the décor in this caravan, will change. This too shall pass.

When I see you next I expect the loudest card game we’ve ever played.

All the love and all the hugs

Kerryn x

Vaccine Day

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It may have been divine timing or just my perception, but I’m sure it became instantly sunnier the morning I received my Covid-19 vaccine.

As I started the fifty minute drive home afterwards I could have sworn that the sun was warmer on my skin, the music louder, the roads wider and the air cleaner. It was a chilly English February day but I put the windows down to enjoy the rush of fresh air against my skin and took big gulping breaths. I hadn’t really breathed deeply for nearly twelve months.

Twelve months ago, on 12th February 2020, I had driven to work as usual, sat in my clients house for a few hours, unrestricted and unaware of what was to come, and drove home thinking about the local gig I had been to the night before. This day, twelve months later, after my vaccine I hightail it directly to our local GP to hand deliver the forms for my boyfriend’s registration, determined more than ever to get everyone in line for the jab.

The vaccine had made me feel different. I didn’t cry with relief, I didn’t whoop with joy, I didn’t crack open a bottle of bubbly or hug every person I saw in the supermarket on the way home… although I felt like it. But I did feel different.

It all softens:

The distance

The disconnection

The monotony

Four walls and

A video link: be gone!

It all softens

The relief comes to me quickly

One by one we will get there

Safety and sanity are nearby;

I can hear them whispering

I exhale and it all falls away:

The fear

The dodging

The flinching

The ‘you’re too close’

The tight chest

The friends who test positive

The friends of others’ who passed away

The stats quickly mounting

The worry

The waiting for our turn

It all softens

I exhale

One by one we will get there

Safety and sanity are nearby;

They are made of science

It all softens

Now I allow myself to dream into the future again; just the simple things. Maybe there will be that time again when I will perch on the arm of a sofa in a pub, wedged between my friends and a table of strangers and a friend will arrive unexpectantly, tap my shoulder and I’ll squeal with surprise and delight at her face, all glittered and glossy and glam. I’ll fall into her embrace, one glass of bubbly leaning me into a tight wonky hug and the strangers will glance over, not in judging suspicion but in warm recognition. Then we will sit two of us on the same arm of the sofa where moments ago was just me already squeezed and we will share our simple stories of why we were out that night – me: a friend’s birthday at the yummy new Greek restaurant and I’ll rave about the dolmades, you: leaving drinks for a colleague you barely knew. We will gossip of unimportant treasures of our lives; the moments which matter least and count for the most. We will keep it light because the heaviest days are past and because the bubbly sparkles in our eyes, and well, because we’re giddy just to be there. When they ring the bell for last drinks there will be a communal groan across the whole pub yet secretly we will all be happy to return home to bed as we’re still re-adjusting to the new-familiar-normal. As I leave the pub I will see a friend leaving with a new bae, met that very night, and I see her skin electric with expectancy; touch, finally! I will share a taxi with strangers going in the same direction, fall asleep in my man’s arms, content with all the tiny unimportant memories of the night. I will sleep deeply, dreaming of open borders and seeing my family again.

So, yes, maybe there will be that time again; that time when it’s all soft again.

It all softens and I exhale.

My Very Own Dock Leaf

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In Britain it’s common knowledge that if you are walking in a field and a nettle bush stings you, just look nearby for a dock leaf. You rub the dock leaf on the sting and it eases the pain. Of course, for this to work, you need to know what the dock leaf looks like.

So, within the turmoil of the last seven months, have you been able to identify your nettle; nature’s sharpest sting; where has Covid hurt you? And, more importantly, what has been your dock leaf? Often it’s closer than you think. Apparently.

I guess for me, my dock leaf is my love story, and I’m just starting to own that reality and share it, because, well… it sounds corny doesn’t it? Perhaps the voice of King Lear’s Fool has also been ringing loudly in my head recently, with his “have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest”. Survival mode has kicked in this year for most of us, so if you’re like me you have been keeping your stories tightly gripped inside your chest, maintaining life, responding, enduring, carrying on, waiting for the exhale.

This thing; this year; this time – it isn’t over yet. But I can’t keep the stories inside any longer. Let’s share.

My Nettle

There is PPE in a white plastic bag, inside another plastic bag, wedged in the crevice of my car door, in the space where I usually keep a box of tissues and discarded chocolate wrappers from meal deals. It’s medical grade PPE – Personal Protective Equipment – issued by my employer, a local council in southern England. Gloves. Masks. Thin, white, plastic aprons. It’s been there since April, since I walked through the empty hallway of our office and scribbled my name on the PPE register, unsure how many to take and secretly, ashamedly, hoping I wouldn’t need any. We were advised that it was for emergency visits, ‘essential visits’ which may need to take place during Covid Lockdown. We printed off official confirmations on our home printers: “Essential Workers”, permitted to be out of our houses. I packed a few pairs of PPE, disinfected my hands and pushed the fear down into my feet. Did I miss the PPE lecture of my Social Work degree? I’m not prepared for this.

My Sting

“Lockdown was so quiet” my hairdresser mused.
“Yeah, was it?” was all I could manage in response.

Sure, the house was quiet, the town subdued, I became aware of the owls. But, inside my head it was all very loud; raucous. Closed off in a spare bedroom for 8 or 9 hours a day, I grappled with guidance. We all did.

“PPE”
“PPE training”
(so you take the gloves off first? What? Really? Okay)
“Essential Visit guidance”
(but which visits are essential?)
“What is Considered an Essential Visit guidance”
“If a Foster Child Is In Your Car guidance”
“If a Foster Child Is In Your Car and Under 5 Years Old guidance”
“Vulnerable; clinically vulnerable; shielding; asthma; COPD; categories; categories; categories”
“Risk assess the foster carers”
“Risk assess the foster children”
“Stay at Home, Save Lives”
“Stay at Home, Save Lives”
“Except for you perhaps. You go out there and help lives”
(but what about my life and my family?)
(it’s your job. It’s your duty. Be thankful that you have a job. Be grateful.)
(c’mon now, you’ve given evidence in court in abuse cases, you’ve held the hand of a 15 year old client during her baby’s first ultrasound, you’ve got thick skin; dig deep again; toughen up princess)
(Covid deaths are rising; 800 per day)
“New guidance from IT”
“IT guidance changed from new guidance”
“Guidance about government guidance”
“Guidance about which government guidance doesn’t apply to us to allow an essential visit”
“Guidance about government guidance which is different to yesterday’s guidance about government guidance”
By the way, why aren’t you meeting your deadlines and why isn’t that GP replying to your urgent request for information?
Spend 2 hours on Skype with clients.
Feeling unprepared, winging it, feeling thankful for professional-muscle memory, pray nothing significant is missed in the chaos.
Talk to manager, try to decide if next visit is “essential” or can it be done virtually
(look at guidance: it guides us to make the decision at our discretion)
Spend 3 hours on another Skype call with another client, advising them why they are not going to be approved as foster carers.
(have a strong cup of tea)
Re-deployment? To Safeguarding? Inhale tightly.
No, staying where we are. Okay. Exhale slightly.

Eat. Sleep (sometimes); Wake up; Repeat.

My Dock Leaf

I fumble downstairs and wedge myself between you and the back of the soft sofa
I want to feel something solid; something real
I can’t respond to any reasonable question you ask me
(please just anything for dinner, I really don’t know…all the food perhaps?)
You take my hand, lead me to my walking boots and grab the house key
We walk at dusk
We wander through fields
We side-step cow dung
We pause to count tiny snails halfway along a branch
“Are you feeling better?”
I think of my friend who lost her father-in-law to Covid
It’s all a bit too much
I squint and squeeze your hand and we keep walking
We sit together in the evening chill on a hard park bench and watch birds swoop like starling
Until my heart slows
Until my shock passes
Until my tears dry
Until the light plays tricks with our eyes
Until we are both thinking about dinner again
As you cook dinner I curl up, sinking into the sofa and suddenly remember that you have hardship too at this time; your work and industry decimated and with it your entire income, lifestyle and friendships floating in the air, waiting to be grounded
I feel suddenly selfish for all my needy; hope I give to you as much as you need
Then you sing out “tea’s ready!” and for the briefest moment I forget about all the tomorrows I will spend working in the spare bedroom and we eat alllll the food for dinner
Somehow amongst it all we always giggle
Giggle and nuzzle and wind our way through the stings and the nettles and the cheap and nasty bites of life;
Finding solace in our home and in the fields around us, the owls getting louder each day.

So the next time you are walking through a field and you get stung by a nettle, be sure to look for a nearby dock leaf. Sometimes they are tricky to find. They don’t flower when they are crowded by other plants so for them to grow you may need to carefully spot the ones blooming wild and free on their own. Apparently.

flatten the curve

/ kerrynannalt / 4 Comments

My boyfriend likes to be on the bottom. The bottom of the swimming pool that is.

When we go swimming at the local pool we sometimes end up sharing one lane, with me swimming on the surface and him gliding along the pool floor. He likes it down there as it’s nice and quiet. I like it too. I like that due to our difference in speed he tends to glide along underneath me at different points during each lap. I like that when we are moving in opposite directions it still feels like we are connected. I like the bubbles he blows out as he passes underneath. I like when he comes up for a lap along the surface and we’re swimming directly towards each other, it’s like a game of swim-chicken except there’s no concern about who will move as we both know he’ll wait until the final moment to take a sharp inhale and dive below, scooting underneath me like a playful sea-lion pup.

As you can imagine, this all gets much trickier in the shallow end! Yet, passing in the shallows is my favourite; because we’re closer. We are trusting that the other is going to keep on their path, flatten their stroke, stream-line their body, get as close as possible without actually touching. Sometimes I slide my hand along his back to give myself a little push along and because ultimately, even while swimming, human touch is important. Being close is crucial, narrowing distance between the me and the you is the most instinctual act of all: intimate, friendly, healing, necessary.

Our last pool swim was a few weeks ago. With all UK gyms and pools now closed due to the new treacherous super-virus we are missing the pool, missing our swims. During our last swim we knew the pool was closing that night and knew it would be our last swim for an indefinite amount of time. As my sea-lion-man went gliding along the bottom of the pool that night, a few metres beneath me in the deep end, my desire to reach out to him was heightened. As pub doors close I feel thirstier. As restaurants shut up shop I feel hungrier. As my 70-year old mum started her self-isolation with my brother backing down her hallway without a goodbye hug because he just received a call from a colleague with symptoms, I feel her sudden tension, palpable across the globe.

Flatten the curve? Yes. Of course. We must flatten the curve of this virus; stay at home, follow the guidance, protect lives.

And. We must also flatten the curve of isolation. We must maintain connection. We must realise that connection is akin with, yet not dependent on, touch.

 

stay side by side;

glide along the bottom, float along the top

aware of each other in arms reach

flatten your stroke, streamline your body

allow the water to hold you up

distant yet always connected

even while moving in opposite directions

We must ultimately trust that this cruel game of virus-chicken is in no way stronger than our connections, patterns which run deeper than touch.

Adorable

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Who do you find adorable? Or, what do you find adorable? Or, where?

Also, why?

“I adore you.”

“She’s so adorable.”

“What an adorable house.”

“Oh my god, that puppy is friggin adorable.”

I’ve started to notice a certain feeling when I use the word ‘adorable’, an uppity energy. For example, an adorable person makes me want to jump up and hug them, ruffle their hair, praise their sweetness to the world. Adorable puppies beg to be squeezed. Adorable houses ask for every nook and cranny to be explored and lived in; every window seat to be read on. There is a certain reverence to it, and a spark; it’s hard to sit still with adorable.

The word ‘adoration’ is Latin in origin – ‘adoratio’, meaning “to give homage or worship to someone or something”. Over time and though cultures, this worship has taken on different forms. The Ancient Romans would perform adoration by raising their hand to their mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction of the adored subject/object. Initially this was an act reserved for paying homage to the Gods, then the monarchs received the same recognition.

It seems a kiss was symbolic of adoration across cultures, also being used further throughout the Middle East, whereby Persians would kiss the knee of their adoree, often a prince, and then fall to the floor, kissing the ground and striking their forehead on the earth. This painful version has the taste of Martyr-adoration.

Of course by now you will recognise the common custom in Western Europe also involving a kiss – a kiss to the sovereign’s hand, a gentleman’s approach to that person whom he adores or worships; a custom fading.

So, what of adoration now?

Who do you find adorable and how do you adore?

A quick Google search of “adorable images” would suggest that rather than gods or princes or any deity or sovereign, it would appear that we now pay homage to puppies and kittens. Should we survive the current environmental mess then the next generations may very well believe that we made dogs our gods and cats our royalty. Can I make a leap to suggest that we have come to worship nature, all souls and beings. But in particular, puppies and kittens.

Okay, fair enough. Carry on.

#dogsasgods

#sovereigncats

Quiet Night

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There’s such a quiet emptiness around, that almost anything at all could fall into it.

The possibilities of fullness are endless. Also, the possibilities of nothingness are frighteningly never ending: an eternal abyss.

Of course, nothing remains a constant. Eventually the emptiness will be filled, whether by accident or intent. A thing, previously outside of the emptiness will fall over, knock itself in, like a magnet, find its new place; its new begin.

Then chaos will commence:

desired chaos;

a shift

a shadow

a light

There’s such a quiet emptiness around, that almost anything at all could fall into it.

Ode To A 6 Year Old

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Raffy pic

Like a child I’ve turned my back on darkness; refuse to look at loss. Instead, I choose to play.

I want to make pretend trains from recycled cardboard boxes, power them with fart noises and leave trails of homemade fluoro goo on all the armchairs.

I want to jump so high on a trampoline that my skin scrapes the sky and my bounce sends you flying high in triple, your delightful squeals matched by mine; we bond. You fall and roll to one side, then just as quickly back again; unpredictable.

In the summer heat of the afternoon we lay on our backs in the cool of the lounge room, faces upturned. We photo-filter ourselves into scary dragons, light-filled faeries, alien heads; your giggle so infectious.

At 6, your giggle holds all the wisdom; your heart so huge you can’t contain it; an over-excitement, a shared joy.

When we have to say goodbye, we cannot bear it; we giggle and wiggle away.

Like a child I’ve turned my back on darkness; refuse to look at loss. Instead, I choose to play.

 

For RJB and all my little people far away xx