Time and Light Switches

  I have tried to tell my story eloquently, my story of leaving on a trip that I wan’t sure I’d bother to come home from. I’ve tried to write it with peace and with a look at the silver lining. But every time I sit down to write all that comes roaring to the surface is anger. All the left over feelings and mess of a season that didn’t go as planned. Anger and disappointment and some semblance of sadness.   It’s the kind of disappointment that gets stuck in your bone marrow and trying to dig it out is just as painful as leaving it to fester. It’s the kind of anger that is really just pain hiding it’s face. It’s the kind of sadness that isn’t sadness really, it’s all the left over empty space from unmet expectations.  I have this nagging desire to write about happy and cheerful things; in fact I tend to end in a shame spiral when all I can write about is the truth and the fact of the matter is, my last season did not go how I wanted it to and it ended in the exact way t...

  And the hills are alive   with the peace of dreams and the stillness of joy. The mountains say  welcome  we are glade to have you. And the house is full with singing and dancing  and the love of a family. The trees say  hello a new friend you may be. And the road are worn with memories of play and times of thought.  The grass says here is where you need to be.  And the desk is loved with scuffs of passion and the nicks of work.  The ground says home for this time this will be home. And the walls are colourful  with the springs of life and with years of love.  The sky says  dream there is space for you. 

I’m not very good at writing about the things that make me happy. Maybe it’s because I didn’t start out writing about the good things, I started because I didn’t see another way out, I started writing because it was my lifeline. All that said I’ll try my best to tell you a happy story today.   I haven’t seen my dear friend in over two years and in only a few days I’ll be off to see her. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I last saw her, crying in Amsterdam saying I would never forget her. We met at a school in Amsterdam and have kept up with each other as best we could. She has become one of my dearest friends and I have missed her much. I also haven’t been back to the country of my birth for longer than a few weeks in many many years. I’ve visited a handful of times over the years but never for longer than a few weeks. Now I get to go to what I still call home for almost three months. Suffice to say my writing schedule is gonna get a little messed up, but it will be well w...

I wanted to sit here and write to tell you all about the lonely things that have yet to happen, the exciting change and trip I’m about to embark on. But it hasn’t happened yet and I’m not quite there. I think I’m still in the anger stage of grief and that makes for some very honest writing.   The last two years have taught me countless things about grief. I learned grief doesn’t like to stay in its lane, it doesn’t really care if its an appropriate reaction or time. Grief has a mind of its own and will appear when it sees fit. It only designs to leave when you have given it time and space and even then I’m not really sure it does leave. I think it finds a dark corner to hide in and will jump out again when the need arrives. I’ve learned that grief doesn’t only appear when someone dies. I think grief is more like a river than like a mountain. It doesn’t stand resolute  it ebbs and flows and occasionally a storm comes along and floods the banks. It isn’t some rock to ch...

  I have spent much of the last few weeks in the company of my youngest cousin. She is 20 years younger than I and she is very dear to my heart, the same as her sister. She is a true miracle and no one who lays eyes on her can deny it. Her being but a baby it has sparked a few wonderings of the human heart and how it ages. One of the first things to jump out at me has been her relentless tasting of the world. Which is to say she licks and kisses everything she can get her mouth on. From what I know this is true for most if not all babies. They bite and lick and taste any and everything. And it occurred to me one day while I watched her giving a particularly slobbery kiss that there was a simply intimacy there. An intimacy known down deep in the core of humanness that the mouth is more than it seems. She often puts a finger to my lips wanting to look in my mouth. Written in words it seems silly but it’s as if she’s looking for where the words come from. Another thought that has ...

  The phase ‘my heart skipped a beat’ is wildly unrealistic. I read once that if your heart were to ever really skip a beat something was seriously wrong and you could die. A heart skipping in reality isn’t some beautiful romantic sentiment, it’s tragic. The idea that you could love someone so much that you heart could’t handle it isn’t beautiful, it’s sad and maybe a little too close to sacrifice. I also have read that heart strings are real strings in your heart that can in fact break; You know like the saying ‘tugging on my heart strings.’ It also said that extreme emotion could snap the strings and it would kill a person. Once again it’s not beautiful it’s tragic. I don’t know if any of this is scientifically true, it’s been years since I happened upon this information. Even if I went back to try and find the study’s I read I wouldn’t know where to look. It’s funny, in a way that isn’t funny, that we equate dysfunctions of the heart to love. Even if both of those things are on...

  A bomb was thrown at me and hit right in the centre of my chest. There is fire and gravy and confetti all over the wind strewn catacombs of my heart. Because ‘what cannot be said will be wept,’ and my eyes refuse to dry. I’m not alright. All I ever wanted for the last three years was to leave this war torn heavy place far in my rear-view, so why does it hurt so much to say goodbye? I’m not even gone yet and my heart refuses to stay where I can see it. It’s off far away and ready to begin anew.   But we’re still here, still here in this place that’s the home I’ve known the longest and yet has never felt like home. And yet only in these last few weeks has this felt real, has it felt like maybe this has been home longer than I thought.  And I made this choice,  it was to stay or to go and I said go. And here I am, ready and waiting to leave, but my heart has been saying goodbye for over a month and I just want it to be over. I’m done, I’m ready to be gone, but this ...