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Island Blog – Middlemoon Smile and a Skinny Life

I love the middlemoon, the calm of waters and the gentling of skies, the chiaroscuro, the huge pines on the shore standing tall and unskittered. Birds can fly wing forward, scooping the air into helpful bundles of energy instead of backflipping onto bird feeders, thus sending them way beyond pendulum security. In short there’s a lot of wheeching going on when the full and new moon takes control. Life is just like this, I tell Jock the Blackbird as he flips and holds onto the seed tray, skidding somewhat and sending a shower of seed into the ether. There’ll be a few unsterilised seeds. grabbing the chance to root and grow and I’ll not be knowing what the hec this green thing is, come late Spring, and I will suddenly know and smile at this tiny opportunist. Again, this is life. The storms come, the dark holds like being inside a dustbin bag but someone, one someone is patient. A random thing happens, a blackbird skid, something, and that someone grabs at skinny life, no promise of success nor growth. So what is that energy, coming from nowhere, from somewhere?

My belief is that it isn’t planned. There is an extraordinary strength in all living things, not just fight or flight, and not calculated as some do, watching the stock market, pursuing business ideas, believing that to be financially wealthy will bring comfort and security. Live long enough and know that there is neither in the accumulation of money. It helps, yes, but never will it fill the human void. The random catch of opportunity, being open and aware and ready for the upset of moons will always bring growth, the ask to be spontaneous, to listen to hunches and random thoughts, to not explain them away,but to just go and to risk the wrong direction and then to try another one. Laughter and fun, work and focus, family and friends, food and sharing, listening and hearing, supporting and making hard choices. These are life skills and sustainable. I say ‘skills’ because they need honing and they need a ‘becoming’. They make us feel whole and a part of somethings and someones.

The birds fed in calm today, no skidding. There was rain, of course, but the land was at ease, the trees unskittled. There is no visible moon so the cloudal shift is light-blown and soft as wool, grey and light grey and white and off white and barely moving. That’s a rare for them. I can hear them snoring. This middling is short term. It won’t last and nor it should because that is life. If it was always easy on us we would never appreciate anything. We need the beginnings, middles and ends in order to grow into ourselves. It isn’t always pleasant but when I remember the rocks and the climbs and the falls and the fails and the sharps and the joys and the sunlight and the soft and the way I learned to grab opportunity, I smile.

I unloaded and stacked a ton of firewood today, aware as I always am of fumbly fingers, the way I can no longer grab as I once did and accepting, once I get through the fury of such a decline. After all, I want to do this for myself, not giving in to the dark thoughts. I listen to an uplifting audio story. as I climb onto the window seat to re-hang a heavy curtain. I check something on my car computer which tells me my engine is in trouble and here I meet a temptation. I could ignore it but I won’t ignore it because my wonderful Pixty Forkov is my freedom, my independence. Still, for seconds, the ‘Oh Whatever’ in me is loud in my ears because the complications of life are more tiring now. But NO, NO, I will not listen. I contact the garage and I get this response. ‘Hi Judy, we can fit you in on Wednesday next (tricky as I have commitments, but wait…) and someone can pick up your car early, delivering it back in the late afternoon. That ok? Hell Yes. My life is not skinny, even if I am. My life is my community, support, friendship and warmth.

I had my beginning, or so I thought but these beginnings keep beginning. I am not sequestered, not excluded, not abandoned, not that I ever really thought I was, but so many do. Thing is to keep moving on, or keep buggering on, in love and giving and being seen and dressing up and showing up and arriving alltimes in fun and playfulness. Maybe that;s how the moon feels at times.

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Island Blog – Nomatters and a Skilpperdoo

I feel a bit sorry for ‘and’. Always a small letter, lower case. It thinks me. It’s important, after all. Imagine a sentence without an and? We’d be frickin lost.

Moving on. I dilly about of a sunset, lighting candles, wheeching out the old and bringing in the new yet unburned. Oh, that just jolted me, the unburned thing as opposed to unburnt which has a different meaning, or it did in my English language days. I loved those wordish contras, curious as I was about how words work, how they do, or do absolutely not work even as they sound the same or similar. To be honest, this difference is mist now and although I know so well the structure of english language, it has had its time and, most definitely, its rather judgemental control. I love the sway and shift of language, the infused grandeur of new words from other cultures, the way they absorb into mostly young culture, and then, before you know it, the after school kitchen talk with teens scoots us out of a controllingly British dictionary and thus contests the rigid structure of the pages. I do confess to the miss of that structure. It was my catwalk, my scaffolding, lifting me, never into an ‘I’m so smart’ but more into a higher level of conversation and understanding. But and, ‘and’ I love the now of bonkers grammar and too many commas and exclamation marks.

This is so not my point. I seem really good at a wide traverse. Back to candles.

No matter the day, as the sun is tired of shining, I am candling. They are everywhere, lit and loved. The dark falls fast and yet the light is such an offer. We had loads of rain, nothing new there and yet today there was enough time to quirk out there, to don boots, hats, attitude and to just go, go and go. The Nomatters matter. Sprinkled on, puddled, we walked. I lost the back of an earring, it so didn’t matter because what mattered was the conversation between us and the two beautiful blonde labradors, the mud and squelch the fire and the fry in our collective heads and minds, the sputter of candles and the proffer of a matchstick later on. I walked up the track looking for the earring back, a tiny thing, might have sparkled at me. I employed two sets of specatcles for this looking thing, one short look, one long look. To be honest I lost interest quickly, the mud, the dimming light, the chance of a gold sparkle and do I actually care? But I did have fun beyond my initial seeking thing because I met an estate worker planting trees and then a young friend bringing her little girls home from school and (and, again) these two encounters, the exchange of hallos and a few questions on the safe ‘How Are You’ level kicked my boots into a skipperdoo as I walked back home to my candles and my woodburner and the warmth of my blessed life here on this island.

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Island Blog – A Precious Island Life

The mist is definitely on a mission to smudge. I saw it first around 4 am, woken as I often am when the circus of the skies, the cosmos, opens for business. I know there are conversations going on up there, ones we need to hear and to understand, but, sadly, I only talk human, child and dog. I feel it nonetheless, and there is a freedom in that itch, that discomfort, because it connects me to more than me, to more than the solo and the loneliness, to more than ridondulous concerns about which wheelie to put out.

Work today was busy, wild at times, and tiring, until I approached my own tiring nonsense and sharpened it into a soft lead pencil. I can write my own next sentence. I always can. It felt a bit limpy, nothing for a while and then a big invasion of lovely customers, so smiley, wanting soup, quiche, cake, hot chocolate, iced latte, extra bread, focaccia sandwiches, and yet, do you know what all of them really wanted? A welcome, a recognition, a pull to forward, an invitation and a hallo and we are so happy you came, thing. Chances are, not one of them will get that, but I do, and so do the owners of this welcome cafe. They, the visitors, are spinning through life, escapees from huge pressure jobs and lives and here they are under the mist mission with a chance of blue. It must take time to process. Actually I hate that word as I have never consciously, nor knowledgeably, processed a damn thing in my 70 years. And then, these big and possibly powerful folk are gone back to the whatever of possibly powerful lives, leaving us with the mystery of mist mission, the lift of sky birds, the wild of spatter rain, the thrum of maybe thunder, the friendship in the pub, the people long here, grown wild from the nonsense and fun and hard work and deprivation of a precious island life.

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Island Blog – A Puckered Life

We all live one of those, times when the material beneath our feet is straight, taught as Oliver before Fagan. Others when the ripples and concrete risers trip us up until, despite our best intentions, we fall, smack, face down, bruised and bloody. Some pretend they didn’t fall, tending towards a fluff of tissue, many dabs, a flappy hand, I’m fine. I don’t buy into that flappy thing, the ‘fine’ thing, not when the fall is mahousive, even as I do get it when the fall is a nothing much. In which case, why bother mentioning it at all?……hallo old age. Back to the point.

I witnessed last week a tsunami of grief, was there, stood beside it, kept close. This is a real fall. Standing witness to such a mahousive time-blast was like standing in a storm on a cliff with no clothes on, the tilt-wind pushing overness into a done thing. I could feel the fall, smell it, touch it, even hear the music of it, the angst singing through every moment. I am glad I was there. (I’m currently looking for an alternative to the word ‘glad’. It’s so slamdunk, so, well, concrete.)

There was a big crowd, There were singers, solo and choir, readers, vicars with spice and pink hair. There was line after pew line of those who valued this woman’s life. In short, there was a tribute which blew me away. Today, at a very happy meet of friends around a table, all of us crafting something or other over coffee and cake, we talked of what we might like to be said at our own funeral. We spoke of where and how we might be buried. We laughed, obviously (gallows humour) about what we might want to wear once our spirit had left us like a butterfly. We also shared times in our long lives which had tried to trip us up, and failed.

Life is beautiful, and I just took it for granted. Oh, I’ve met the puckers a lot, and often, but I had the feet to run, the body to lift over any ruts, the strong arms to gather up my children, the mind to accommodate, and the resilience to, not just survive, but to make magic in the present for those I love. One big life is gone. What do I owe her?

To live on. To bring magic, as she did. To welcome everyone, to lift when I can, any stumbler over this puckered life.

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Island Blog – Travelling in Light

Last full day, today, under an African sun, and, although I am (always) sad to leave this beautiful country, I am ready to fly back through space and time, to land in my own country, my own life. Visits to Africa heal me, help me move forward in renewed hope, and also allow me, by some magic, to let go of whatever gave me ants in my pants during the year before. This time, I had some tough shit to go through, the legacy of which rippled on through my body and affected my mind in ways that surprised me. I was, I thought, quite in order with myself. Then, when I fell very ill, and cancer was discovered, I still felt in order with myself. I am strong, a warrior, I can overcome this, or so I thought, and, to a high degree and with the assistance of an excellent surgeon and tremendous medical support and expertise, I did, or we did. But the body holds the score, as we all know, so that, even when a mind is made up to survive and thence to thrive, the body lags behind. In turn, this lagging thing affects a mind, so that, although I had moved on, I was constantly reminded of a new frailty. And a new strength. It was confusing, as if a fight was on between body and mind. No matter how clear I was on my decision to move on after such a trauma, I was often reminded that a new compromise was required.

This visit, around family, under sun, inside adventures and conversations, I rise. Not by mental force alone, but with a gentling of body and mind, as if they now move together and as one. I said I knew myself before, but was still aware of anxieties and hesitations around my new limits. Now, I work with those limitations as if they aren’t limitations at all, but just who I am now. And I have learned from this change, this rather strange pretence that I can force a collusion between mind and body, regardless of trauma, as if it was nothing much and blow it away on the winds. That doesn’t work, I know it now, even if that determination has held me up and bright in 2024. What I needed was time to heal and the patience to accept that truth, to walk with it, open and humble, until all of me finally got together again.

We have had many wonderful adventures, all the while sharing ideas and jokes, plans and observations. We have watched the wild Atlantic and swum in the warm Indian Ocean. We have seen humpbacks breach, dolphins burst the waves wide open, colourful birds flying overhead; we have dined and wined and picnicked and walked through Fynbos, Fleis, and across miles of white sand ,peppered with an array of spectacular shells I never see back home. We have seen the sun set the ocean on fire, stayed with friends who live between mountains so high as to disappear into cloud. We have wandered among shops in Capetown, laughed at the terrible driving whenever it rains, and stood in awed silence beneath the upside down stars. And all the while, I could feel the gentle hand of a natural healing.

I know I fly back into winter, but there will always be a winter. I know I don’t have enough warm clothing. I know I will have to drive back to the ferry through tricky weather and that the ferry may not sail through gale force winds. I also know my wee home awaits me, the wood burner, the candles, my friends, my community. I return as me, but renewed, re-jigged, at peace with my life, because I have travelled in light, one that is strong and sustainable, one that tells me who I am, and who I am is just fine with me.

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Island Blog – My Thinks Think Me

Today I walked, a little, into Tapselteerie, treading on memories. It wasn’t easy, body feeling clumpy and awkward, as if I was just learning this walking thing. I haven’t walked for many days, holding in, holding myself safe behind the stone walls, looking out but not going there. My maple tree is stunning, rain heavy, sun-kissed as this Autumn upsy downsy plays out hour by hour. A smur rolls in from the land, covering the hills, the sheep in the field, blanking out the landscape, but I walk out anyway. Even my boots feel odd on my feet, but I go. A robin sings its autumn song, so different from the spring Come-to-me melody, and I feel a settle in my gut. My garden is a spraggle of stalks that once exploded with wild rose, willow, forsythia, apple blossoms and more. Rest, my friends, I whisper as I climb the hill to my compost bin. I want to do the same. Leggy, bare, shifting in the wind, adapting to the incoming cold, accepting. What better way to live, knowing that they have flowered their very best, and now will sleep in the knowing of it. Humans, or at least I, don’t find that so easy to do.

I hear other life ongoing as I almost stumble over ground I know so very well. Seabirds, oystercatchers, the slidecall of curlews, the voices of many birds feasting on nuts and berries, high up in the trees, and I stop to look up. I can only catch the flit of them, but I know they are there as I am down here, and that is enough. Back home (very short walk), I try to congratulate myself for going out at all but it doesn’t come easy, brilliant as I am at harshly judging myself. I don’t think I am alone in this. I purposefully notice the brave roses, still thrusting out buds, still determined to flower. I watch a wee bumble bee burrowing into a bloom. Bumbles, the first and the last bee, always, even in the iceslice of spring and the crumple of summer, bumbles bumble on. Many are solitary, no friends to warm them, so I get it.

Listening, as I do, a lot, to an audio book today, something caught my attention. It was on the theme of choosing who you want around you, your five. They say you can count on one hand who are the ones you want around you, whom you trust, who would be there for you et lala. This number may not include immediate family, and that always tripped me up, heretofore. But today, in the aftermath of a challenge, I got it, I could feel it and it felt ok, albeit awkward. It also reassurred me. So, I can choose who I want as my close five, those whom I respect, understand, around whom I feel completely free to be myself? I could feel the tumbledown stairs thing as Appearances, Learned Patterns, Family Expectations, all smudged my sudden clarity, like a smur, a blocking, a confusion, a familiar landscape invisiblising. I could just see all those I have felt I had to fit in with, taking on a million different shapes, denying my own voice, and for so very long.

I’ll think on this, although, if I am honest, my thinks think me more than I do them.

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Island Blog – See You There

We do what we do, what we can. We step out there every single day, sometimes with the underworld sludging our forward movement, all those doubts and obsolete plans and the damn chatter monkeys that always fill the spaces. But we keep going and that is a very big thing. Being human, we have a strong hold on the life force, even when we might consider letting go. Finding a reason to be cheerful can be a daily frantic search through the dusty dark corners of our capacious minds, but we keep looking anyway, because the alternative is a steady sink into a pit with no footholds, and in the middle of the biggest of Nowheres. Even those around who make out they never feel low, sad, unhappy, depressed, disconnected, doubting, hopeless or desperate, do, believe me. They, perhaps, just see any such admission as a sign of weakness, and, perhaps again, they have managed to build multiple layerings of protection atop any rise of darkness, until even they believe it doesn’t exist.

Although it is over four years since Himself took off to join his mummy and the angels, I have never really mourned for him, at least not in any messy breakdown sort of way, nor into uncontrollable tears that might have rendered my nose blocked, my head pounding and my face a strew map of a continent randomly divided. I don’t want him back, not as he became, anyway. If I miss him, I miss the way he could lift my spirits, comfort, encourage and support; the way, I think, that he showed his love, not being a romancer at heart; the impulsive Shall we go out tonight invitations. Walking just now in the sunshine (how wonderful to even write that word!) I feel a powerful rise of emotion, the roaring in my ears which once would have heralded tears, tears I haven’t been able to shed for many decades. As I bring his face onto centre stage, he is young again and grinning wide, his eyes bright. Do I miss you? I ask him, knowing that I don’t. What I miss is Love, pure and simple and yet not simple at all. I can feel love all around me, from my kids, my sibs, my friends, my fellow islanders, but that love is not the same as one between two people for whom the other is the only other; the only one you don’t mind being stuck with in any situation, like a tailback, a broken down lift, outside a ‘sorry, no tickets left’ venue, anywhere, everywhere. There is always another option because the most important element in any situation is being with that other person, not the stuff around it. What a rare and beautiful thing, and one I realised, saw super clear just now, on a walk I didn’t complete.

So, I am open and honest about feeling deeply sad for myself, for my loneliness, full of self-doubts and confusion in my go-for-it navigation of a world I never wanted to inhabit. As I bounce out there like Tigger every single damn day, grinning, thankful, uplifting others, making friends, cracking jokes, it is my truth because this attitude is a daily choice, not a lucky-for-her gift from birth. Most days, really most of them, I believe in this attitude, and then comes a day when I want to cry me an ocean, never mind a river; when I just want to hide away, to not be seen by anyone, to disappear completely. I know, for sure, that everyone has such days, but that is not my point. To be honest about it, particularly to oneself, is to fully embrace the holistic human state instead of pretending everything is tickety boo all of the time. We all are the drivers in our own lives, and nobody wants to slop around in a cloak of gloom and misery, but it is exhausting to stiff-upper-lip (whatever that means) all of the time. And, it isn’t reality, and I honestly believe that good people who are doing their very best to live life to the full might stop judging themselves so harshly. Accepting down days, admitting loneliness, self-doubt and so on, isn’t comfortable, but it is real and honest and normal and understandable.

Social media is uplifting twaddle a lot of the time, although I have uplifting quotes stuck to the walls of my kitchen, and they do help. The hourly news are about as ghastly as can be. Some days feel just as ghastly. Our culture is all based on couples. Two steaks, two tickets, two, two, two. One to hold the front end, the other, the back; one to check this, the other to check that; one to joke, the other to laugh; come for supper invitations are usually for two, adventures are shared and somehow a tad pointless alone. Going out is always uncomfortable at first as an unwilling single. Do I look ok, is this the right wine, should I mention this, how can we (we) avoid that, or him or her? Somewhere in between, we live on my lonely friends, doing our best, falling, rising, laughing, crying and then doing it all again, over and over again until the wind changes and our candle gutters to the wick, once and for all.

See you there. It’s guaranteed I’ll make you laugh.

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Island Blog – Leave it Out

I notice, as I ding about the island, that folk tend to spread in the Summer, much like the shrubs, although shrubs tend to spread from a single point, whereas humans sprachle. You can look that up. Chaotically, as if in a wild abandonment, the controlled collation of tools, wellies, toys which could be the first landers on Mars, considering our winter storms, just sit out there, all confident and cocky. The weather is kind, or was once, and we still behave Summerly. I know, I know, that the cold winds have dampened our spirits somewhat, if not a lot of what, but we still jump to it whenever there is the chance of light and the length of days. Even beneath clouding, we grab our teeshirts and flowery whatevers, our sandals and flip-flops, our pretty bags and tags, our summerwear. We may love the seasonal changes, but we do, absolutely, need the seasons to remember themselves, instead of becoming a gloop of grey. We want to know where we are with the changes. We allow the endlessly slow shift of the Winter King, him with his frozen jaws and his refusal to release the earth from his grip, but not this long. The man needs therapy.

On the island, we don’t risk leaving much out, beyond cows or sheep, because, out here in the strut of the wild Atlantic, we know what we know. The weather can change in minutes, clouds gathering as if nobody has paid them attention for ages, the mountain and hills colluding, and we can hang washing out at 9 and regret that by 11 as our underpinnings head down the village. However, I do notice a leaving out thing going on, like a challenge. Folk still sport their summer colours, but underneath warm cardies and fleeces. T’is a weird old time. However, and this thinks me somewhat, are we, out here, living with cloud collapso, with cloud sneezes, with winds quite unsure of their origins, North colliding with West, East with South, and all in a dayo , more ready for this particularly weird Summer? Maybe.

And does that mean we are cocky? Oh no. We still want seasons to change in an orderly manner. We still want to sit out on a rock in a flowery frock (and fleece) to eat a seafood bun, or whatever and to watch the sun sink into the sea; to walk to the pub and join friends of an evening, to leave things out, and not just wellies, cows, sheep, toys and so on, but the verbal stuff that serves no purpose. Just to connect no matter what the weather, the politics, the troubles out there. To laugh, to share, to show strong no matter the changes in our world.

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Island Blog – Lemons, Zest and Loving

I was angry, and anger, in my life has played two roles. One confounds and limits, sinks me. T’other fires me up like a rocket. I have heard so so many people tell me, intelligent people, I thought, who told me any anger is a BAD thing. Much research and even more inner work has taught me this is not the truth. Anything in ‘overdose’ is damaging, yes. Any emotion without reflection, introspection and direction is damaging, yes. But with inner work, intelligent work, and with a heart that does not want to entertain any controller, and certainly not the control of any emotion beyond the timing of its natural flow, anger can turn into a flower garden, a new path snaking through old undergrowth, old limitations, old beliefs, old stuff. Anger is random, sudden, a boom to the gut, the heart. It traverses a whole body and not just then, but perhaps for days, weeks, months, but if what a goodly loving and trusting human being wants are peace, dance, chances and a new path, the latter will reveal itself. It always, always does.

Yesterday, and, if I’m honest, the day before, too, I just wanted to sleep. And so I did. Although Sleep and I will never be easy bedfellows, separating many times during the hours of darkness, whilst the oystercatchers make a right bloody fuss of pretty much everything down on the shore, I could sleep these past two days. Not all the day, but in bits and bobs for it was necessary that anger calmed his boots within me. He is calmed. I went to work today feeling quite the thing, as they say on this lovely island, and I know, now, what I know. I let go, or try to, of self-hatred, of the sting of rejection, the confirmation that I am not the vibrant, exciting and fun-loving woman I believed myself to be for a few short weeks. Well, I try to let them go, tell myself to let them go, insist in fact that they bloody go, and they do for a short while until they curve back to me with renewed energy. It is hard work living alone when that is not what I want. Others have confirmed this belief. In order to be cheerful, I have to start the process. In order to see a friend, it is I who must make the call. In order to laugh, I must pop one into my mouth prior to a visit to the shop or into the harbour town. It is, oftentimes, exhausting, all this DIY living. If I want to build a new life, I must find the tools and get to work, I know this, and, before he came to mess things up, I was actually finding my stride. Now, back at the start, I have to summon up enough get-go to get going all over again, erasing, as best I can, the memories of happily shared days, of conversations, of plans and of companionship.

But, (again) I have fire, yet, in my belly, fire for life, for a good life, for the one I want, and no-one can extinguish that fire, unless I hand over the water bucket. Which I will not do. There is too much zest in my thoughts, my heart, my imagination, my brilliant brain and strong body. I think of others who have been rejected, of children, teens, older women like me, men, boys, those whose sexuality brings in black storm clouds, the marginalised, the unwanted, the extras in this game of life. I am fortunate, indeed, to have so much loving support from family and friends. And, one day, I will laugh at this, at myself, my reaction, my sinking into negativity. I will say, Oh, this happened to me, once, trusting me, loving me, and, believe me, time will heal the cuts. There will be scars, but scars are beautiful things. Scars hold compassion, empathy and understanding. Love your scars because, one day, you too will laugh at this pain, and you too will be quick to hold another who has been rejected.

This is how we love the world.

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Island Blog – Lightening and Just Me, Just You

Same sound as Lightning, but with an E. It seems that just one E makes all the difference to the meaning of a word, spoken, that is. Written, all is clear. How confusing is that! When we write a text message, this can mean that, and ‘that’ can blow your pants off. We must be so careful with words. One message, meant to explain an inner drift, shift, split or maybe just inviting understanding, can send someone into a swirl of inner doubt, into childhood, when who I thought I was, wasn’t, pretty much. It thinks me.

I play with words, with wordage all the time, but I am canny, cautious, and still make mistakes. We all do, and, as we observe A. N Other living out their lives as best they bloody well can, who feel the ok enough to tell us about what they did with this, or him, or them, we might think before we text back, if we feel a judgement coming on. That damn judgement, that speaks in the voice of a long gone parent, grandparent, teacher. That is our own thing, and thus irrelevant. I always want to bring in an elephant here, I can see it, the mahout, turbaned and brown as a nut, and grinning through betel teeth, the elephant pondorous and on a steady trajectory, but that, also is irrelevant, for now.

How we did this or that, demands questioning. So many do not, question, and so the pattern continues patterning. Until someone stops it, just like that, in a lightning strike. Where does that intelligence come from, being as it is a newborn in their lives, in any life? It seems that, if we are open for change, asking for it because we are tired, so tired of living in a loop, meeting ourselves over and over and with no change in sight, and someone will just shout. SHOUT. And, as in a lightning strike, something falls.

Today I went to visit dear friends and we talked (or I did) for ages over tea and a beautiful dog and a view across forever, had the mist allowed. There was a lightening. I have known these two for a very long time, met them here and there, now and again, and yet, today, I was there with them, in their home and I felt so connected, so happy. We talked of dementia, of caring, of the village, of our beloved island, of bees, of woods, of trees, of the times we remembered dancing in the village hall. A lightening. I drove home in a different set of thinks.

Although I have always known my place is here, my people are here, over past times, I have felt isolated, of my own doing. I look for both lightning and lightening, but it was dark. I made it dark. And, in the dark, for all its shadows and demons, an essential part of the damn process of recovery is birthing from any number of wotwots. Not one single one of us would choose to go through it again, but we have learned to believe than light exists, and more, that we are needed in that light show. Just on our own, limping, awkward, with our own broken hearts, just us, just me, just you.