Better Out Than In
Like a chef whose proof is in the pudding, mine is in the publishing and, if I'm trying to practice what I preach about not procrastinating, I had promised to share something of my experiments.
A few years ago, the world went a bit black around the edges and - in addition to the incredible support of friends and family - one of the ways I coped was writing those awful feelings out of me and onto the page. People manage in different ways, this was one of mine.
What I'm sharing is one of those pieces that might only make sense to the original author and in the moment it was written. I'm sharing it because it's a glad reminder that I made it through and when these darker days come again (and they do, now and then), they too shall pass, as all things pass.
It's walking through storms and dry clouds of noise wishing for the rain on your face.
It's searching and wandering --
\\ hoping and pleading \\
-- for the sun to warm your chest; -- for the wind to dry your hair; -- for gravity to ease and lift you from your knees
when your reflection is unbowed, but you'd sooner cower behind them all at the first order, honouring One's beckon call.
It's waiting for that moment between cracks in the sidewalk when the white wash of the world swells, crests... and ebbs, streaming into peak hour, throngs elbow-to-elbow in their impatience.
It's rising with the roar of the tide between your ears, behind your eyes and on the bow of your lip.
It's gasping for that perfect hush: one moment, one beat of gratitude; one tear; one thought; one paralysing euphoria.
Don't move; move and the moment is over. Move and concede, and you already keep so little for yourself of the things that really matter --
-- because you exist in binary orbit to the hungry, black, violent core of you (pounding, rushing, storming, screaming, and always, always so sorry for the witnesses who remember).
And you stagger past every queue searching for that balance of forces, that improbable peace when the halves of you settle on the scale.
And you just want to get out while you're ahead.
So, I did.