Honesty and Policy

Hello dear readers, you may have felt it possible that I fell off the edge of the planet over the past month and that is why silence has reigned but the simple reason was I fell in love.

Now, at some point in early July I kept remembering Dorothy Parker's words: 'I shudder at the sight of men / I'm sure to fall in love again'. This is exactly what happened to me. I decided to remain a little crystalline single girl and then I went on a date and he kissed me. And at that moment I knew the game was up and I'd fall for him harder than one of those Sudoku quiz thingies on the back of the Guardian.

I am, quite simply, perfectly happy at the moment.

And so now I hit the quandary. I'm really proud of this blog and my writing. But there's darkness here and echoes of how hard the road had been over the past 18 months. I don't want anything to sully just how wonderful it is to be a semi-new person with a wholly new person. Half of me wants to tell him the address of this blog so he can hear my inner voice and experience this part of me and the other, selfish, part wants to keep it private so that none of the darkness here seeps out and stains my beautiful glowing present. I think of my soul as predominantly my writing voice so keeping it hidden seems somehow mendacious. And I'm an honest and upfront and upright person.

Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.

How I love now

There's a poem that I haven't taught for three years that I had to teach today. Last time I taught it I was with my husband and I didn't really understand it. Today, I do.

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

.

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

.

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

.

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

.

Derek Walcott

My class didn't understand it and for one dangerous moment I felt the tears dancing behind my eyes as I read it. Because this poem speaks volumes about who I am these days and how I live now. This blog is over a year old but the original posts - the first steps towards catharsis - date from this time last year. At that time there were suggestions from my ex that he might want to come back and I was very confused. I would never have believed the prophesy that 'The time will come' that I would feel at one with myself. That this would feel like my house, and mine alone, with no ghosts hovering.

I wouldn't have known that I can 'love again the stranger who was your self'. I've changed so dramatically in that one year: I'm confident, I'm a lot more attractive and, heck, I'm sexier too. Metaphorically and physically I've taken 'down the love letters from the bookshelf, / the photographs, the desperate notes'. I've thrown it all out. It doesn't clutter my home, my life or my psyche.

If you are someone who is on the first steps towards experiencing love after love, or if you are faltering on your path, I can tell you that this poem is full of truth and power. You will 'give your heart back to itself'.

Sit. Feast on YOUR life x