Out of Edinburgh on the Friday, the rain was close, pattering and blurring everything. A heavy sort of day, though the mood in the car was light.
Now, today, the sun clips against the stone, the sky is open and away high up. I’m lying on the floor of our flat, trying to type, trying to focus on the task at had, Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts. There is a heaviness on me, in me. My body aching from the hike, and my mind churns – we must leave the flat soon, must find our new home. I must write the best book I can, while floating on this wooden river. While the day outside is more distant than the top of a mountain. While my finger stub against the keys, the rudder.
How do you navigate, let the current take you?
I read collecting words that resonate like little worry stones or once bright leaves. Take them with me to the day’s work and riff, at first off topic, soon a mix, then a new boyancy. Before long the wind picks up and I’m more than out of the shallows.
Beautiful.
You inspire.
Between the two of you, Helen and CJ, I am lost…lost in your words, inspired to find my own again, and humbled at even the thought of doing so. What I know is that they will come…sometimes speaking to the darkness that is inside, sometimes to the hope that works to overcome it.
Speaking to the darkness, yes, that’s apt. For all of us, I think.
I agree, Helen.
My compass is broken and I’m too much of a luddite for a GPS.
But nothing is ever as clear for me as when my body aches from exercise especially when the exercise is secondary to the task of adventure, living in color.
It is then that the words come in a simpler form than they do when my mind is cluttered. I hope your aching limbs produce the words for you in the space the tension left behind.
GPS is never as much fun or spontaneous as finding your own way.
Like Lyra above, my compass is a little broken these days.
But this, Helen, this little paragraph you wrote here, was gorgeous. My gosh.
Thank you so much. It’s lovely to hear so many kind replies.