Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Remembrance Day: I read, in those lines of names, all the fresh emotion of loss. It is easier to think of it as in the past, to fix that hurt to a time long gone; to empathise, but not be involved. This is not how it is. War has not ceased. The lines of names are not static. And, beyond this, we ourselves are not immortal. We will be leaving this world, every one of us. Loss is what our lives should seek to balance. Be grateful for this chance - be cheerful and bold and embracing and mindful. Accept yourself. The best person you can be is not the one who beats you up for not being better. Push yourself. Outside the comfort barriers, living begins. Who died for your right to shuffle in drabness, bored and unfulfilled? The dream was freedom from oppression. What would they want to tell us, the people whose names are on that list? What would they say was important? Love. The comfort of a well made sandwich. Sunsets. How Aunt Flo never forgot a birthday. A sea

Slept so deep I went underneath sleep, underneath dreams. I think I slipped out of the universe entirely. And woke up here. Warm as summer, the bright air full of small, noisy birds. I will peg washing out as an offering to this sun. After walking by the glass river, arms bared; home to drink coffee and eat ice cream, sat at the wobbling pallet table. The seats are damp, nobody cares. Just sit and taste the bitter-sweet. Enjoying, before winter comes, a late autumn palliative.  

I knew that there was something wrong. Why do we do that? We know that something is wrong but don’t want to seem silly and somehow that is more important. We do things even when there is a voice in our head shouting not to do it: fear of looking foolish overrides self preservation. I never knew till then just how strong that desire to fit in was. I am not what other people would call conventional. Got purple hair, a half sleeve tattoo of skulls and mermaids, a pierced lip. Did I listen when people said not to dye my hair or get inked or pierced? Clearly not. Did I listen when my instincts told me something was horribly wrong here? Clearly not. I was lucky, in a way. I survived, anyway. But the others didn’t and that is impossible to forget. I’m here, alive, but I’m stuck with those images for life. I lost one finger and my peace of mind. I suppose you want to hear about it. Everyone does, like it was something awesome that happened. It was different; I u

Michaelmas is long gone and no one has told the blackberries up here. I wasn’t about to let on. Under stripes of cloud and sun, a fruit feast is plucked, is popped, piece by piece, in to a thirsty mouth. Cut stalks noisy under walking feet, fingers tinged purple; from fields to moors over the river, I spy out. I shall traverse this open ground, I announce, whilst the air holds dry. But into the small woods we are drawn, Dog and I; her by scent and me by leaf. Sometimes we see more, standing in shade. Structures in bright relief. Dog can easily follow the path as it tunnels under fern and bramble. I follow, stumble, trousers caught in thorny twine. No less happy - this is adventure. This is story living, story making. We become what we live, so we should live with care and abandon. In the light, to stride, to acknowledge happiness. In the shade, to know the light shines through. To be of structural interest. Leaves are falling, as we head home along our winding la

In the polytunnel. Draped in sun, I am sitting. Contemplating on this, sitting, listening. Absorption happens. Bird chatter, scent of damped soil warming. How the sun has dressed this lawn, in beaded rainbows. Even Dog gives in to the bliss, lolls her head on the doorframe. Yesterday was the first frost. The first new moon in the tenth month. I had stood indoors, where the sun streamed in, where it poured through an old glass bottle-stopper; the facets of it spread a party of light on the wall. I knew the physics of the trick and remained in thrall. Everything is illusion, coloured by perception. And lit, by design or accident, by this thrall. From us, through us: it matters not. Absorb, and surrender to the trick. It is beautiful.

Yesterday I walked in the small woods. Up the steep slips of fallen leaf. Found myself under a dome of tree cover. Something about it caught my attention - the circularity, the floor of dark leaves, when the rest of the woods is strewn with fern and bramble. There was only the sighs of autumn leaves to be heard, high above. I raised my eyes, un-expectant, to where an owl was asleep. Yellow eyes opened: we stared at each other. I willed it to read my questions. I have much to ask. Time paused. Then the owl flew. I clearly heard the brisk rustle of its feathers. I had never before woken an owl. I walked out of the cut field into redemptive rain. Just before home, the rain stopped. Out of the hedge, two ripe strawberries were gathered. In the night, bad dreams came. In the morning nothing factual remains, only the fear. Had the owl answered my questions? I hoped not. I went back to the small woods. Today the sun shone, the owl was not at home. Dog sprang a deer o