I have been wanting to write something since we started this period of social distancing but I hadn’t really known where to start. I kept opening up this space to share my thoughts but those thoughts became elusive, hiding in the shadows. Part of the problem is that I associate this place with normality and the life we are living right now is anything but.
The second problem is that my blog title, which was also my Instagram and Twitter handle, felt uncomfortable to me for some reason. What was supposed to be something to motive (yes, she writes, she really does) just became something that felt far too close to shame. Tiny, insignificant shame. The kind that you don’t even know is there but gnaws away at you softly so you barely notice it. Yes, I want to write. And yes, I love to write. But am I doing it all the time? Or as much as I could? No. But I am doing it as much as I want to so that should be enough.
This space was much in need of a spring clean. It has been such a strange spring after all, full of cleaning (of hands, of rooms, of door handles, even of post and parcels). So why not clean this space too.
I was casting around for ideas for my new online incarnation, reading through my journals and writing, songs and poems I love, looking for something that felt right for right now. Then I found one of my weekly journal prompts sent by Erin Loechner as part of her Year of Reflection journalling project.
This is what I wrote:
Wow. This one hit me hard. I recognise the words, ‘Colourless world of despair’. And the remedy is so simple. It seems too simple and yet I know it works. I have done this. I have spent time looking at a ‘single glorious thing’ and felt that liquid joy fill me from my toes to my head, like nectar poured into a willing vessel. I worry that I have spent too long feeling out of love with my life when I have no good reason to be.
Now it feels like the perfect way to move on with this site. To focus each post on a single glorious thing, no matter how much darkness surrounds us. To focus on gratitude and on noticing the magic in the world around us and in my own bountiful life.
