astonishing how sunday evenings always feel so sundayish.

the clock is telling me that it is 8:54pm but to be honest…that cant possibly be true. i got home about tea time, joey is away, so i ate sunday night toast alone, curled up in a blanket, reading…i love that feeling…getting comfy and picking up your book and slowly slowly slipping away to another place. like slipping under the water in the bath and life muffles into the background, making way for a whole new world of sounds and colours. words on the page painting pictures on the insides of your eyelids, taking you away, showing you something beautiful.

and then for reasons sometimes unknown you gradually find yourself surfacing…the background noises and colours becoming louder and brighter and you feel like you’ve journeyed somewhere, known something.

and it feels just like a sunday all over again.

i cant remember why i decided to sit and write just now, i think mainly because i felt like i had done a bit of everything else.

danced wildly around the flat- check
sung and played the guitar until my voice actually gave up- check
washed dishes- check
tried on new work uniform- check
danced a bit more- check
drunk copious amounts of tea- check
sat and fretted about tomorrow- check
had a chat with the goldfish- check

i mean, i pretty much covered most aspects of life at 53 when joey isnt around.

things still left to do…

mainly…tidy up my room, but really this is a lifelong ambition that will never ever be resolved but only hang over my head until the day i die. i am unable to be tidy. physically impossible. sometimes this is very depressing.

anyhow. i think i might just revisit my first list again…

this today, yes please.

perhaps.

tired eyes
and weary bones
holding onto a notion i have no idea about

let the light in why dont you
let it in
my god i need you
i’ve been falling so short of my lowest expectations
falling. some kind of free falling

can you be found here?
hurtling downwards clutching at clouds that turn to mist as my fist closes,
further than that even
below below
below

and this all turns in the pits of my stomach and i wonder when that name,
the name upon my lips,
wondering when it will again feel weighty and real and golden,
and taste of sweet promises of hope
hope and glory
perhaps i will fall headlong into those arms
the ever raging arms of hope and glory
drawn into the eye of the mercy storm
carried on into the night, the day.

and morning spreads like wildfire.

again again.

today i would like to….

drive and drive and not stop. into the hills. the mountains. along roads with trees with tangled branches. and the sky. or to the seas edge to look out and not stop. to dream and hope and not stop. to live and not stop. not for anything.

not for anything.

to whom it may concern…

monday 4:27pm

night drawing in. fairy lights on. candles lit. coffee. music. dancing. singing. tidying. pondering what in the world possessed me this morning when i bought some kind of strange velour waistcoat from a charity shop, (i think i just felt sorry for it). anyhow, all in all, pretty perfect sort of afternoon actually. it is possibly lacking a natalie though perhaps sitting in one of the armchairs drawing things…you can come back if you like…

all i need to do is find you…

say your name out loud.

sweet musical music to my ears…

all the windows flung wide
on the rooftop looking out
hot tea breathing into the cold night
and oh gosh the record player sings sweetly into the evening
into the town
into the skies
and the moon listens in quiet and bright
and my heart listens in quiet and bright and still.

and still and still.

this song lOud today helps

the story

try it.

9:10am tuesday 27th at number 53….there has been some of this…

thank you letter.

things are stirring. every time i come to worship you lately i just find myself in tears and tears and tears.

i long for you father but often times don’t know how to put action around those feelings. every way i try feels stale and and forced from some idea of how you are to be ‘found’. when the truth is there is no ‘finding’ you.

you are always with me. since childhood. since the beginning. here with me now. even as i write this and feel like my words are echoing around an empty room.

you are near.

in reality, every word, spoken and unspoken, you hear with careful ears.

and where as i am so sure in thinking myself almost entirely unlovable, in reality, you are probably laughing at such self important notions, a fathers laugh.

i think this morning that you laugh and shake your incredible head and you say with a voice like a many trumpets

and you say with a voice like a thousand claps of thunder

and you say with a voice that reaches further than wide and to the place where the beginning and the end finally meet

and you say “if only you knew…”

and you laugh and at your laughter a hundred thousand flowers burst into bloom,

a flock of starlings is shaken from the branches of a tree into the sky the sky,

the sun breaks out from behind the clouds, dazzling.

and you laugh because your heart is made entirely of joy and peace, hope and love.

the heart of a true and victorious king.

the heart of a saviour. The saviour. My saviour.

you are always sending your love to me. you are always reaching out your mighty hand to meet mine.

i am so thankful for that ancient moment, the moment when a cry rang out and the skies darkened and a veil was torn apart and the heavens in the same breath were torn open.

an almighty rift tying this earthly place to another kingdom, a kingdom that in a divine and lavish rescue mission, was unleashed upon the earth without measure or restraint, releasing every great and glorious thing into our very midst.

what a day. how unforgettable.

and yet today i cause myself to remember. to perceive.
taking hold of my cold heart and shouting into the day, into the night, into the dark and light. “i will see you”
choosing to see. choosing to understand this love. this love so fierce. so forgiving. untamed.
a gracious gift like nothing else from a god like no other.

my heart swells this morning as i think on you father.

my eyes fill.

the shadow of a butterfly crosses my path and my heart is yours again again

loud enough to hear.

i haven’t written in a long while.
my thoughts have been too much of a flutter
flitting and incoherent
walking streets and avenues with traces of colour and sometimes none
or
all is colour and my eyes dont know how to open wide enough to
take it all in.

i try to think upward, out of the haze. squint my eyes to really see something. to perceive, to understand, and i am writing and writing now, my pen scribbling over the page.
tracing not enough of how i feel. only small parts
here
and there.
how many lines can be filled? how much can i paint and will i understand it? how much can i carry without seeing it for what it is?

and i awake in the midst of this night and the indian man next door has finished his shift
i hear his singing through the wall and i want to join in
make a harmony loud enough to hear.
i listen for a while and enjoy the distant song seeping through the bricks and plaster.
i enjoy the carefree of it. i can taste the carefree of it. i smile.

and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

question?

so…i was just wondering if any of you lovely american folk could help me out? i would really like to try and make some of that delicious angel food cake that you guys have but i dont have one of those special pans…you think i could just use a cake tin?

i dream of eating angel cake everyday for the rest of my life.

rabbit heart.

just pretty much had this exact conversation with jo…

had to teach her in the ways of the unemployed…

these are nice.

these old drawers came from the post office…i like them. i’m going to keep only important things in them. like…well…i’m not sure just yet. maybe for now i’ll put highly confidential secretive secrets in there. yes.

hello cheerios. i have missed you in my life :)

important things to remember to do tomorrow.

#tidy UP.

#not eat ANY chocolate (surely i could manage just for one tiny little day?)

#finish writing letters.

#knit some more of that thing i’m knitting.

#watch the man on wire documentary and get inspired.

#schedule in some official day dreaming time.

#wait for joey to come home so we can begin our 24 series 3 marathon courtesy of one steviejb.

#feed and snuggle the rabbit.

#squeeze in some quality time with a kfc fillet meal with accompanying pepsi max.

things i like about today already

*actually sleeping and waking up without a headache for the first time in weeks.

*red shoes.

*sisters.

*rabbits.

*letters.

*drinking flat pepsi max from a wine glass.

*knitting and films.

*sisters.

*lunch.

remembering meirion today…

a whole year since the day…. meirion’s song.

midnight birthday celebrations…happy birthday joey!

and night sweeps in full of tomorrow…

blue sky day

im hoping for a blue sky day
im hoping for a little time away
i’m hoping for the hand that stays
i’m hoping for a blue sky day

all i want is toast.

honey on toast to be precise. well, ok, thats not true there are a great many other things that i want but right now even though i’m not even slightly hungry i am craving honey on toast…and i will have it and it will taste like childhood holidays to granny twinks tiny cottage and for small moments as i crunch away at my toast i will feel a kind of peacefulness. maybe its a kind of edible prayer. soothe my mind, my heart, my thoughts, my soul. my mind is swimming with a million thoughts, some good, some difficult.
its funny how you can be fine and (carefree in the right sense) and then you get caught by something very other than that and it takes you by surprise. there are flood gates i do believe, to fed upness and that dull numbness that occurs when you feel overwhelmed. and surely that is how i feel tonight. a little overwhelmed.

and it will pass and the edges are already beginning to fade and thaw.

today i am trying not to feel

miserly