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