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The bed’s so warm
It’s cold out there, and I am in freeze just thinking about it. I can see the air around the room, everything isolated in it, the Rothko hanging on the wall with its fake cloud pushing sky from the canvas not stretched enough for the frame, the blind slats at an angle but giving enough space for the parallel roof line to mark a tile horizon between them, and the little Pixar lamp on the side table with a bulb too bright for 20/20 sight any time of the day (I cant must the move to turn it off ) let alone morning.
This bed is afloat in two places at once: a clear sky with air so thin the room is holding its breath, and a sea so still you’d think the clouds were underwater. Who would want to ruin that natural wonder?
I should get out from under the covers, but I’m naked because I couldn’t handle having any fabric other than the seamless duvet on me last night. Though my heightened sensitivity could be a symptom of overwhelm or stress, the fear of my bare skin greeting the air outside this bed linen is enough to keep me here.
I should probably read, but I feel more productive commenting on a post of a clients competitor, yet I’m frustrated there’s not enough dopamine in that tap to relieve the freeze nor does it help me figure out what to do when the money stops in March.
I’ve got choices
Let go.
At the end of March, funding for some roles will stop. I have a few positions, a rehabilitation clinic, a city council mental health hub, a poetry festival, young writers group, and a pilot poetry collective I’m co-running for free. Three of those roles will end in March (funding cuts/ends) and thats a loss of a modest full time wage.
FUCK.
I’m about to lose over 1k a month….and here’s the freeze. What the fuck am I going to do?
You know I’ve been avoiding this, working out my finances. It’s like I’m looking at what I’ve cultivated and noticing that when, as soon as I take focus off searching for work, as soon as I start reading in the mornings, noticing the pigeons from bed with my morning coffee, casually running things from home with a few community workshops a week, as soon as I start enjoying making a decent enough living doing what I love, the world goes….
You’re not getting comfortable are you?
to which I replied, right here, yes, yes I am, I’ve earned it and I’m reading for just a minute, I have a minute more of enjoying this bed and then I’ll get up
and here it was…..
(image Melody Beattie - Journey to the Heart.)
Let’s act on this as a journaling prompt.
What’s right?
Right? Right is the opposite of wrong. Essentially, the only wrongs are wrongs we do on purpose to others or ourselves, and I don’t purposefully will or want to hurt anything. I have hurt, and I have done wrong, in the eyes of some, I don’t think we can avoid hurting people if we decided not to live in their expectation, yet the wrongs we commit, we can’t erase them. There’s a lot ‘wrong’ with me that I have to relate with better but What’s Right? in terms of ‘I’, of ‘me’, of ‘what I do’?
What’s right in terms of I is that I am capable of anything I focus on. I have an innate defect in having to prove myself and in proving, I do good or intend to do good.
What’s right in terms of ‘me’ is I am important and dependable, and people depend on ‘me’ and want ‘me’. I am wanted. I am called on. People offer ‘me’ kindness and encouragement constantly.
What’s right in terms of ‘what I do’? It’s emotion in translation. The biggest positive change anyone can make is get to know their feelings. Poetry is the greatest documentation of the human heart - Billy Collins, and I’ve witnessed it. Writing poetry, writing in response to poetry, reading poetry and finding yourself in the poem of another is validation, companionship and understanding. It’s confirmation that your experience is not isolate, but a consequence of your environment, whilst also showing how ‘in-common’ and ‘relative‘ your internal experience is with other people, the poet and the poems readers.
What’s good?
Crumpets are good. Coffee is good. Affection is good. I have a book coming out, that’s good. My children are really listening to me lately. That’s good, isn’t it? They’re good. I can read and write; that’s fundamental! I actually do have another month or so of good work. That’s good. I have experience. Thats important. My skin’s clear, that makes me feel good. I’m loved and in love. God. I’m in love, that’s true…
What’s true?
I’m in Love. I’m in love. I’ve fallen in Love. I thought I was before, and I was once in love, not fallen like now but in it - was being the best word for the past - I was before. I didn’t know I could fall but turns out I could and I did, and though caught off guard I’ve quite literally jumped off into it / ran into it / dived into it completely; it’s really really beautiful.
What’s true is I’ve been distracted from securing financial stability in my future because I’m going through a time of great change, where I’ve left a life that wasn’t right. A whole life. This reality is true, and as we’re being honest here, how turbulent a year it’s been.
It’s forced me to be reflective, and this analysis of the past takes focus from the future.
It’s forced me to face myself, and this witnessing introduced parts of me I’ve ignored, the origin of why I behave and feel sometimes - and how I must catch myself rather than react; at least catch myself in the reaction.
It’s forced me into survival, a bitter-sweet way to awaken in the now.
In enjoying the fall into love, I’m becoming aware of myself in the world. This is a life changing. Freeze is a perfectly normal performance in this circumstance!
What’s true is I was wronged and have wronged others, hurt people.
What’s true? What’s true? I feel a relief far greater than the loss. What’s true is I’m always sorry, but also brave. I’m peeling my image off the past and being/becoming the one I’ve imagined and read about, without makeup.
What’s true is LOVE. I love what I do, and what I do loves me. In that pursuit, I’ve carved a career, though halting a little, I have created this and I can keep going, recreating and do it again.
What’s true is confidence comes from trust and I need to trust in me more. I don’t know if I fully trust I’m good at anything I do most of the time but I have choices, and this morning I chose to trust myself, get out of bed and journal, with you because I made a choice to give in to the freeze and read, and in reading found what I needed to focus on. What’s right? What’s good? What’s true?
Here I am, unedited, not selling a thing.
There are so many people out there, making a living from being.
I want to be. I want to love. I want to work from love. I want to ‘be’ through work.
and here it is. I’ve just realised I’ve been holding my breath this whole writing session so I’m gonna breathe now and bathe in the bath that’s waiting for me. I chose to make space for me this morning and I hope it pays off for you reading this.
Tell me:
What’s right?
What’s good?
What’s true?
for you? Tell me. I’m here for you. I wanna hear you.
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