Good news, whichever way you look at it...

I've been meaning to start blogging again but life keeps getting in the way!

Sometimes I feel like I’m watching my life from the perimeters. I notice the details; such sweet-natured boy companions, skittering along beside me,  my thrown-together look, a hapless mix of make-do-and-mend but with enough in the way of wacky accessories to look vaguely styled. So many other details conspiring to present a person and a life that is wholly mine. But sometimes I feel like a character in a story being written by someone other than me. I like what I’ve seen so far, but there’s no telling how it ends.

There’s SO much to say and so little time to say it. I feel like we’ve transitioned to a higher gear, where life thrums along at a faster pace and if I stare out of the window trying to capture the view I only end up dizzy. There’s little time for the reflective moments that fuel blogging.

And when I sit here, heart full and fingers poised to spill the secrets of my day into the blogosphere, I find I’ve no inclination to share it.

I can’t even summon up the interest to analyse why that is. “It’s my flow, and you don’t argue with the flow,” someone said to me this week, in reference to a thing they’d written, a detail of which I’d queried. I felt like I smiled all over in recognition of the truth of that. I’m in a flow these days, and you don’t question the flow.

That leaves me feeling as though I’ve nothing to say but this space waits for me, ready to welcome me back to my little nook of the internet as and when I find my voice.

In the meantime I’ve got only snapshots. Broad beans growing like weeds. A head full of plans for the garden. A bucket awaiting beetroot seeds. Pacing around the garden in sky-blue crocs, watering the flowerbeds with an old empty wine bottle. Running, and marvelling at the way it chisels away at babyfat. Abandoning the healthy eating and enjoying three peanut butter sandwiches and two bags of hula hoops. A heart full of hope for the promise of good things, tantalisingly within reach. A fervent prayer for guidance, and a small measure of angst as to where this all is leading. Dropping my phone in a public toilet. Again. Giving up tea and coffee. Finding I’m drinking more coke. A depth and tenderness to my interactions with the boys. Quiet pride in who they are, joy that comes from knowing them.

I finished my book and it left me feeling free. Exorcised is too strong a word but I’m loving the joy of dropping responsibility. It’s out there now, on other people’s task lists, and until such time as it comes back to me I’m enjoying the distance between us. I have a new idea but I’m letting it sit a while.

I feel like I’m always in a flurry of activity. Ideas, possibilities, intentions, all  tumbling around and making me feel sometimes-impossibly busy, and yet there’s almost nothing to show for it, at least not in terms of income right this moment. So often rushing, too.  But good at making time to walk slowly through the woods or on the beach, talking about how God can be everywhere at once and listening out to woodpeckers. I feel like I’m putting things in place, laying pieces of my heart in carefully crafted ways, like sticks of kindling in the fire grate. Building up to the moment when there’s enough to light a fire, looking forward to holding my hands against the warmth caused by the blaze we’re building.

I cried unexpectedly this week – happy, powerful tears springing forth against my will as I told a story that is my only real secret. “Someone help us here, someone must have experience with this,” said a friend, looking around a circle of relative strangers and yet deep friends, and I sat on m hands and took deep breaths and wondered where to start. In the end I left the details out and spoke without a sense of what I’d say. But I think I saw bones that had been left for dead stand up and turn themselves, for a second only, to thoughts of dancing. We talked about outcomes and conditions and I said something unintentionally persuasive about how we’ve got everything wrong and have been sold a lie about how happy we’re supposed to be. My concept of good news has been radically shaped by an unexpected encounter with the bad news. I’m not afraid of bad news anymore because I know it leads the way to a deep engaging with the good. You can’t know good without first knowing bad. Afterwards I felt unburdened, and I pretended not to notice while a friend watched me closely with an expression that I couldn’t read but it made me feel somehow validated.

 Writing something work-related I paused mid-tapping of the keyboard and stared out the window as the pieces fell into place. I noticed themes, scribbled through the pages of my life. Threads picked up without me even noticing, woven through to now in ways that from one side look beautifully crafted. But I’ve been looking at the back, seeing only ugly knots and straggly ends.  It made me sea-sick, to look from the other side, but ever since that glimpse I’ve been pacing from one side to the other, comparing the mess with the masterpiece.