I have a weakness for journals and notebooks. If I’m traveling, and I see a store that sells stationery, I can’t help myself. I buy them with the intent to step up my writing (which I often do), but what often happens is that I then stumble upon them months later, full of scraps of poems, all pleading to be finished.
Like many others, I’m using these crazy times that we’re in to think about what comes next for me, particularly in terms of my next relationship.
I’d like a supersized version of what I describe below… pretty please!
This is something that I started three years ago, and stumbled across it yesterday, still in its unfinished form. I’m not sure that the ending fits seamlessly, buts that’s rather like the subject of the poem itself, isn’t it?
As I write this, I’m in Medellin, Colombia. Yesterday, I spent far too much time reading my Twitter feed, inwardly seething at the incompetence of His Orangeness and his butt-licking minions in their mishandling of the coronavirus. He really wants to leave American citizens on a cruise ship, just so that the number of US cases doesn’t go up?? Anyway, I digress. I woke up early this morning, and came up to the rooftop terrace of the hostel that I’m staying at, armed with my journal, a pen and copious amounts of coffee… and here is what came out. Enjoy!…
2019 was a year of big changes for me… in both my personal life, and in my career. Some new doors opened, just as others closed tightly shut. Sometimes I was the one doing the closing, and other times, seismic changes took me by surprise. New and unexpected opportunities presented themselves, and while they offer new possibilities, they also mean that I have some important and consequential decisions to make.
I’ve baked bread on and off for 26 years. I started shortly after my dad died in 1993. He’d been pushed into early retirement in the late 1980’s, from the job that he loved more than anything… running a supermarket like it was a corner store. As for so many people, what he did for a living defined who he was as a person. Particularly since my mum had died in 1978, his work was his life… he had no hobbies, and worked long, long hours at the supermarket… going there long before it opened in a morning, and staying…
When one door closes in our lives, there is often the temptation to seek out another doorway to step through. We want to feel whole again, to feel in control again, and all too often, we choose to (in)conveniently overlook the fact that we first need to heal.
I don’t spend as much time writing poetry or short stories as I used to. I think that writing has often been a way for me to process things on my own, whereas nowadays I’m more likely to talk about things with others. I count myself lucky to have family and friends who are always ready to listen, to celebrate the good times and to help me through the not so good.
So many of us are wounded when we exit relationships. As we heal, there is often a conflict between wanting to love and be loved again, and our fear of being hurt and/or disappointed again. This poem is all about that conflict.
This is based on memories of all of those games of ‘Hide and Seek’ with my daughter.