A space to Go Wild. Quietly.
“Home is where one hails from…but is also the places one has camped, sojourned and lived during the course of one’s own lifetime.
Home is a relationship lived between us…a sense of ‘being at home in the world’ – even as we go our separate ways.”
~ Michael Jackson, anthropologist
At Home in the World
Thanks to everyone who has travelled with me this year – you mean more than you know. Have a wonderful Christmas. See you in 2014!
Where will you be this Christmas?
On 21 June, I noticed a tweet by my dear Twitter pal, Tessa, that read:
“Paul’s very ill…Scared witless. Ambulances here.”
Not knowing it was the evening of her birthday, I immediately replied, sending hope that everything would be okay.
It wasn’t.
A few hours later, I was hearing the unthinkable words…
“The love of my life, one beautiful, funny, rock of a man has died.”
Since then, though we brush paths on Twitter, I observe her grief, feeling utterly helpless that, in this digital world, all we have are words. And empty words of comfort don’t do justice to a thing like this.
This is my personal attempt to imagine what it must be like to lose someone so dear – which is to say, unfathomable. It’s dedicated to Tessa, just because…I don’t know what else I can do.
Emptiness is not nothingness.
It is the absence of
Something.
That was there.
Once.
A void so great
It sucks life
Out of the air
And turns you
In. Side. Out.
Unsure, anymore
What space you occupy
What time you travel
Non-linear as the day
They left.
Where am I?
Who am I?
Were you even here?
And if so,
Show me the exact
Dimensions of the space
So I can stuff it full and
Shut. The. Door.
But no.
It’s a space where only you can go.
Never the same
For having met you.
Forever changed
Now that you’re gone.
Am I supposed to thank you?
Am I supposed to curse the day
You ever came and made a place
Where only memories
Echo
Loudly of your loss?
Time heals all
Blah blah blah
Well, fuck time.
And fuck the big bang who created it.
I’ll exist.
Right here
Beside you.
Wherever it is that you went.
Until we’re done…..
♦
Please visit Tessa’s post on Paul, while you’re there, read the Valentine’s Day post she wrote for him last year. Send her some love…
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Credit for original source images is as follows:
‘Dark tunnel – Please stay here’ by Karoly Czifra
‘Empty page’ by Shirin Winiger
I wasn’t going to post this week. Then I heard about Susie Lindau’s latest Wild Ride.
The Big C. Cancer. And a double mastectomy. Taking place today.
Just a twist in the road, she says. And, somehow, finds a way to laugh…
Susie is an inspiration – always cheerful, always welcoming. And I never cease to be in awe at how she does the things she does.
As fellow wild riders, Susie and I couldn’t be more different.
Where in snow I’d be hugging a fire and a mug of mulled wine, Susie is taking a plunge…
Where I am dancing on the inside, Susie is getting down Gangnam Style…
Where I am holding down the brakes, Susie is strutting her scars.
If I was going to pick someone to take the Universe on for me – I’d pick Susie, every time.
Whatever higher power is responsible for sending you this latest roadblock, Susie, with a spirit like yours, there’s only one thing to be said…
Many thanks to Maria, aka brickhousechick, for reaching out across the globe to include Australia in the Susie Strong message. Please head over to Susie’s blog and send her some positive vibes today.
As the sun sets on another year
In a world we thought we knew
As we honour memories
And we say goodbye
May our world be filled with
More than just a little Love
And may we greet with brave resolve
The path toward
Horizons unexplored
Camping with Pepi, Johanna Beach, Victoria, December 2010
There will be no new posts for the next couple of weeks, as I will be recharging with friends and family, and in the great outdoors. I’ll also be catching up on some reading!
Thank you to everyone for your support, and friendship through this year. Looking forward to seeing you in 2013.
If you’ve ever visited Melbourne, you may be aware of our obsession with the weather. Four seasons in one day is more than just a cliché here.
But in the past couple of years, since La Nina paid her visit and ended a decade long drought, winter rains have lingered into murky grey summers, only to return another season of gloom.
It’s been feeling like one endless winter of the sun-starved mind.
With the recent announcement that La Nina is officially over, we were just beginning to believe that summer’s on its way. But then she struck again.
Without warning, in the middle of the night, we woke to a bone shattering thunderclap. The heavens opened, and there came the rain.
It poured and thundered through the morning, only to be mirrored in our collective mood. With one mind, we thought – will La Nina never end?
But then, as suddenly as the storm had come, it departed. By the afternoon, its traces were erased by gleaming sun.
Sometimes, life is like that. There are people we meet for whom winter is especially long and cruel. We witness in their eyes a never ending rain.
It’s impossible for them to see the parting of the clouds, or the shards of sunlight peering through. And yet, for us, the miracle is plain to see.
This post is written for someone I care deeply about, who this week has been lost within the storm…
For anyone in pain today, I wish you Sunshine in the Rain.
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Credit for images is as follows:
Storm Warning by Katrin Blumenschein, courtesty stock.xchng
Rainbow Field by Jason Wickens, courtesy stock.xchng
Many of you will know the private blogger nightmare so well articulated in Valerie Davies’ post on Bloggers Complexes.
My own little complex was recently solved by the delightful and talented Coco J. Ginger. The next best gift, following her surprise visit to my blog, was being offered “an imaginary award in which you do not have to do anything, but just be happy”.
Like a blogger reborn, I found myself soaring with the weight of a lifted burden, and looking at my little bundle of neglected awards, I at last knew what I had to do.
To all those people who have been so thoughtful as to nominate me for an award – despite what may appear to be my ungracious refusal to participate – this one is for you 😉
♦
Delirious prose of supreme poetesses
Powerful rebirth of Phoenix goddesses
Dames of the nyght and the sun, moon and stars
You are the Venus to many the Mars
Young teenage men with ambiguous notions
World scholars dealing in happiness potions
Peace-loving fellows with wheels for their wings
Yours is a world fit for nobler kings
Kind hearted souls giving pause to good karma
Eyes tuned to hearing the wild’s hidden drama
Tread lightly trekkers whose world is their muse
You are the jazz to the ponderer’s blues
When the blog bites
When the guilt burns
What else can I do?
But simply remember what each blogger yearns –
And thank you for being YOU!
♦
Now, if I’ve made the fatal error of leaving someone out who should be on this list, please give me a gentle nudge below 😉 If not, tell me, for what do you yearn (or, alternatively, what makes you burn)?
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Credit for images goes as follows:
A couple of weeks ago, I was introduced to a boy with a hat.
He is worthy of admiration for having taught himself English in just three years. Now, he has greater mastery of the language than many natives that I know. It’s a bit intimidating.
One particular day, we were (or, at least, I was) bemoaning the demise of handwriting by its fine rival, the keyboard.
I happened to let slip that the only use I have for my scrawl these days is writing in a gift card.
“Oh! Will you send me one too?” he asks. “Leave it for me on your windowsill (tie it with a red ribbon so I know it’s from you)…”.
I had to ponder this challenge a while, which now makes me a little ashamed to call myself a creative writer.
The solution, though, is one of the reasons I had to free up space in my posting schedule 🙂
So, in honour of the boy who inspired me to let the moonlight in – this one is for you… 😉
Do you send gift cards? What do you love about sending or receiving them?
If you’d like me to leave you a gift card on my windowsill – don’t be shy! Just leave a comment, with a link to a favourite post of yours that may inspire or intrigue me. Tell me something about yourself and your passions – you never know where it may lead 🙂
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I’m no graphic artist, so credit for the images assembled goes as follows:
Alarna Rose Gray 