Space and Time

Finally, a little space appears for my writer to creep out from the undergrowth and breathe into life once more. What luxury. What freedom. No desire as yet to return to ‘the book’, only to unleash the skittering deliciousness of words and feelings upon the page again.

It’s cold today, that crisp blue skied chill that means Winter is coming; and yet with this slow recovery of illness I’m both frozen and glistening with sweat, unshaven, unkempt and just a little shaky. Yet my hands, quivering with the unexpected physical exertion of writing (yes really), seem like eager children grasping at crayons, exuberant with the joy of splashing colour on walls once more.

Odd to have a feeling of being so alive, ignited, excited, whilst feeling my body contracted, withdrawn, slightly sullen even. What is that energy all about?

Grief. Illness. Fatigue. Age. A mind and body sore from all it’s suffered. Two close deaths recently. Long Covid for eighteen months, plus a random flu to knock my inexorably slowly recovering body back on it’s heels again. My body offering a feeling of winding down, slowing. But I’m only fifty-four! I should be vital, energetic, enthusiastic still, sucking the very marrow from the bone of life and relishing filling the days with adventure and joy. Taking moments after moments of joy with my grown children, my grandchildren, family, my beloveds and my friends. I miss them. All.

Yet I crave peace, presently. A slowing down. A letting go of all the hustle and bustle. I crave, and am taking, solitude. They worry, all those who care, yet I worry equally they’ll all feel neglected. And they do.

I’ve done enough. I am enough. I deserve to rest.

Perhaps I did too much, so what I actually need is a rest ‘for now’. Perhaps a gentler time, restorative, less demanding. Maybe when the Spring returns I’ll unfurl, breathe in deeply, and allow the beauty of gentler shifts to ‘more’ of what I wish the garden of my life to look like, alongside ‘less’ of the things we feel we ‘must’. New, different, joyful and peaceful, rather than frenetic and busy, hard and too much. I most assuredly like the sound of that.

But for now, I choose to ‘furl’, rather than unfurl. I choose to draw in, like the energy of Autumn drifting towards Winter, to close down, quieten, settle in. I find myself withdrawing naturally from the busy-ness of life, from all the doing, chasing, achieving and solving. I find myself drawing inwards, more dwelling within my own mind, my own heart.

I like it in here. It’s quiet. Peaceful. My own mind and heart wants to snuggle quietly, alone, with itself. My life is blessed and beautiful, I am surrounded by loved ones, those I take care of and those who gladly take care of me. My life is awash with people both professional and personal.

A few times per year I take a few days off to myself, off grid, away from the world and from people, often for just three days and two nights, but it’s generally plenty enough to sustain me. Time to be with just me. That’s what this feels like, only more so somehow, deeper. Shaded by gradients, inch by inch, mouthful by small, slow mouthful, taking just a little more of me and my life back, for myself. For me.

Selfish is not a dirty word. Self-care the buzzword. I just want self. For now. For me.

I need space, and time, and rest.

Shake the tree Rachel says to me, and see what falls. I hope the vista when I unfurl is still just as beautiful and blessed as it already is.