As he breathes gently next to me, I move to touch his feet with mine. The radio stirring us awake. Sometimes a hand is forced and in a moment everything you thought you knew changes. To learn to move forward often involves turning to the past, so I find myself looking back.
As the world shut down around us I found pleasure in the simple things. A calm in the flurry of daily life. I was entering that phase where a mother becomes a taxi driver, football coach, hours sat at the edge of the swimming pool waiting for their turn to display the latest belly flop and eagerly awaiting a high five in the changing rooms. I have delighted in not worrying constantly about being on time.
But I am also afraid. I was learning to accept that busy life, an inevitable path I had to choose to quiet the resentment. I’m hurt and angry. Another memory waiting to be made is cancelled. It’s harder to lean on people you can’t touch. And with routine abandoned where is the direction? Is there something new I can be, will my hand be forced again when so much has already changed.
I’ve never been one to conform. My life has taken me on a range of twists and turns I have tried to embrace. I have found resisting only makes it harder. Leaning into the corners means you don’t fall over. With there always being something to respond to I have felt called to living a life in crisis, I seem to seek out the chaos. In a forced quiet I can’t stay still, why am I searching and yearning constantly for more. Will I ever be satisfied, why am I constantly bracing myself, waiting for the next gush of wind to take me in a new direction.
So I return to something familiar. A pondering on who I once was. What do I want to rediscover. What should I leave behind. I allow it to wash over me, flitting from one memory to another rambling. The ideas and excitement and fear rushing at me in one great blizzard. I can’t see. I’m confused and exhilarated.
I look deeper to a place I thought I had left it behind but here it is, staring me in the face. So real I lean out to touch it. But my finger tips don’t quite reach anymore. There are too many opportunities. Too many I might have wasted. I look for them in the storm but they are whitewashed and barely visible. Just a distant idea of a life that could have been. Did I loose myself in the chaos? Or is the something new I have become enough. Is it even new at all. Moving forward often involves turning to the past.
As he breathes gently next to me, I move to touch his feet with mine. As the world attempts to come back to life his warmth let’s me know a future. It isn’t the one I planned, but it is the one I hoped. The noise on the radio is different. But here, in this moment it is enough.
At Louise's House 