one from the heart...

...where the gladness of foundness meets the mourning of lostness and makes a friend.


well, that's the end of one shitty week. today started out with tears... and here i am in the evening typing on a wireless ibook in the kitchen with carols in the background... i made it through my last day of work...

so, rather dwell on its crapness i am instead going to express my gratitude
at having some amazing friends and focus on what i have rather than lack...

i won't do a roll call but today several people in belfast, new south wales, ontario and washinton state all connected with me with supportive texts, cards and gifts, hugs and even laughter.

so i'm out of a job, but this christmas i will surrounded by people who i love and with whom i'm sharing this journey... and when i feel my heart in pain and sadness i will look up and be reminded that i have more than i ever need already...

the cottage is opening up a little for the coming festive season days and will be inhabited by me, gareth, and ricky in all our waif and stray-ness, and indeed Easter and Chloe in all their furiness. and as i type this i am praying that we've enough love and care and gentle tenderness to be something that looks like home to one another and soothe the edges of our loneliness and fear and brokeness in just the right doses for the duration... or at least i pray that's what i can be for each of them...

so here's to the crackling fire, the sparkly lights, to smooth port and strong cheese, to little gifts under the tree to open on christmas morning with a good cup of nashville coffee and kindnesses from friends near and far, who have the tenderness of thought and care to be just what i need when i need it most, and the courage to acknowledge their own fragilities and need for care, and allow me the treasured honour of sharing their lives and hopefully one day being as gentle to them as they are to me.

here's to my family for allowing me the space to make fumbled attempts to have the christmas i need even though it means me not being with them and knowing it's not because i don't love them... but because it sits right with me to be here in this strange corner of the world... and may they know that i am being so well cared for and rest easier for it.

what becomes of the broken hearted? if they dare, they let the love of others slip in through the cracks and take the risk of remaining open to the idea that they are not alone...

so here's to all of you who visit this little space in the web, peeking over my shoulder at my musings... so many of you have brought so much redemption to my life these past few months...in gentle missives and tender care... three months ago this week i had barely the will to keep breathing such was my bereft lostness... and now here i am taking a faltering sneaky peak up at this wide open plain into which i've been forcibly rebirthed, in all its terrifying expanse and unknown-ness, and wondering, if i don't have a map, could i draw (or speak or sing or paint or write) one in the same way i am being re-drawn...and one day make it my home...?

you have my profound gratitude, my love and my prayers for every blessing on your hearts in this season of fragile expectation and surprising incarnation...

the people who are walking in darkness have seen the whispered hints of a great light that looks for all the world like a star filled sky...it is called Love. i am filled with gladness at its dogged persistance and quiet beauty.

may you have a wonderful, peace filled, childlike, magical Christmas, if only in small momentary starlike doses... and wherever you find yourself, may you feel safe and bubble wrapped.

so afterall that's been said and done,

::maybe there's hope::

LB, x