Peace. Calm. Love

Lying in bed alone. But not alone.
The nightjar is vociferous tonight, hauntingly so.
Autumn is here, undoubtedly, but not tonight.
My heart is at peace, and content.
Today was also a productive, well balanced one.
Memories linger fresh.
Many years pack themselves close up together, like books on a shelf, the memories are as varied and colorful as a hundred dust covers.
I've seen many butts left in ashtrays, despite not smoking. Each one is a memory too, often intimate ones - before and after - or during: the smoke air blown through intimate conversations held on a couch overlooking the edge of the world, my world.
Peace. Calm. Love
Lights out.

Generous Joe

The words are overflowing, the silence in my head has been overwhelming, my heart is bursting its once string-built dam wall.
It's been five days of rest, and passion. My first rest since even last year.
My blog words are creaky; I lost an entry to the innards of my phone yesterday, before that I was as dry and blanched as a stick in the desert.
Even now I'm clutching at just as blanched straws; but I know the process has to be begun somewhere, that disciplined I must be, that this trickle will begin a flow, otherwise I'll die inside from saturation and words seeping out of my blood steam and into the parts of me where words should not be, and when they are there they become poison.

Saturday afternoon I drove to Ermelo: I left at 17h00 with a beating heart - the heart of Mpumalanga is in its autumn beauty, yesterday was the equinox - and I was surprised at Steers corner by the Greyhound I did not see.
Right now, as I sit on a red leatherette couch eating one of the last of the "summer delights" promotion - a Bar-One Just Chill for only R17.95 - at the Carolina Wimpy, the Greyhound of my content is ploughing it's way back through northern Kwa-Zulu Natal; earlier it was moored for a smoke break at Piet Retief, then Vryheid, now it's rolling down through that province's rolling plains.

For me it's back home, to a home and heart again forever changed; dinner tonight at Celeste, then in bed with the cats, up at dawn tomorrow, a new heart's week pruning all that's unnecessary from my unloved life so that it can make the transition from the un-lived to fully-lived. I want so, so much more than fully-lived; I want to, simply, suck the marrow from the bone of life.

I want the cherry.

I want the cherry.

I'm sitting by the window watching the rain and listening to raw water in the gutters.

I'm also seeping in the last light as it seeps away (with the summer), and feeling inside me, and on my skin, autumn's approach; and wondering why you've stopped your poetry writing; and liking that you're a computer nerd.

And feeling sad and happy, but more sad than happy, and wondering about the meaninglessness of life/my life.

Yearning to travel and live, I feel trapped in my own skin, my own life; I'm stuck in the pretty-looking chocolate sauce that covers the brownie. But I want the real stuff, to taste the brownie, to feast on the cherry.

I want the cherry.

Croissant

Taking a break.
Lying at the bottom of the garden, with the girls (they sit in silence, close-by, and I know that we are a content and close-knit family), drinking coffee (life without coffee is not life) and eating my last butter croissant.
I love croissants.
Derick visited on Tuesday evening, he packed my fridge full with city delicacies, like butter croissants. He has no idea what a treat it has been, as I've rationed them carefully out; admittedly this last one needed 10 secs in the microwave to bring out the bakery in it.
It's a beautiful day with tinges of autumn around its edges, which is undoubtedly arriving early this year.
I'm off to Sabie River Sun this afternoon, grateful I am.
Happy Friday everyone...

Place of shouting

Morning has just broken. I loved the inky, cocooning darkness of the night struggling to keep its hold on this part of magnificent Africa; sorry for you Mr Night.
I woke at 4:22 with a jolt. Awareness of what I needed to fit into this day, was enough to jolt me again. And I get the most done in the peace and quiet before the phones start.
It's a magnificent day.
A hardly believable, most gentle breath of dawn-icy air hardly caresses my bare legs.
The window is open and I'm sitting close to it; I'm listening to the early birds catching their worms, and breathing in the peace.
Life, today I love you.
God, I always love you, but I know that I'm loving you even more every day that passes. Thank you for teaching me about simplifying my life, on every level. It really sounds easy, but it's not. Rewarding, very rewarding however, it is.
Thank you for today God, thank you for what you do for me. But thank you, most of all, for your constant companionship (I know that you're here RIGHT NOW), your blow-me-away humour, and the great ways in which you communicate with me.
Can I ask you a favor, three things?
I pray for eyes to truly see with; please will you bless Africa; and will you show me what I can do (especially so that I can live an extraordinary out-of-the-box life).
I choose to live passionately, deeply, intensely... I choose to FEEL!

The photo I took last Saturday with Guy, we were walking through Emgwenya township, after our abseil. That is a profile of Imemeza mountain in the background - the place of shouting.

Dark

Lying on my futon in the shadows of the largish, quiet room where I keep most of my books.
I only come here for solace.
It's been a hard, challenging day, I've taken flack.
It's cooler here, soothing.
I've hoovered a house that didn't need hoovering. I've done dishes that didn't need washing. I think it's called managing my micro environment, at least I have control over that.
But I feel better.
On autopilot I was able to realize the depth of my negativity.
I was able to see my challenges and to know that every single one of them was an opportunity.

Affirmation: As of this moment I make a fundamental commitment from the deepest place within me that I'll no longer stand for mediocrity, and I dedicate myself to living the life I was destined to live. My best life

Paradise road

Been listening to an incredibly rumbustious (in the most magnificent sense of this beautiful word; I LOVE words!) version of Paradise Road.

It's a version (Jannie Moolman) that tingles, prickles my skin, unmanageably pushes up my pulse to sky level, and - simultaneously - breaks my still very tender heart (oh but for last week this time, I might have done things differently).

"Come with me down paradise road, this way please, I'll carry your load... There are better days before us, a burning bridge behind us."

With the broadest smile on my face, a bright red coffee-filled bodum plunger in my right hand, my Swedish coffee glass in my left, I careen around the house to the music and words; my greatest dance movements ever are oiled, smoothed by the polished oregon pine floors, despite fresh blood still on my dance floor.

"Cone with me down paradise road, it'll change your life..."

Track 12: I still believe in love

Happy-sore, I know I'm alive. I have emotions and I can feel them, even if it means fingering ragged-bloody-broken nerve ends....