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The gentle squeeze of our lover’s hand
as one of us drives
(Where to? It doesn’t matter, just drive, love.).

A grace of silence
while the other momentarily
regresses into a tantrum
(A taciturn lantern that says:
There is light. Come back when you’re done.).

A soft space created
for all their quirks
and eccentric twists,
that we will never fully understand,
to land and expand.
A fertile soil,
a humus dense with nutrients
for our loved ones to plant their seeds,
not knowing what fruits they will bear
(if any at all),
yet staring at the sprouts with them
in amazement.
(Look at what you grew, love.)

With these almost whimsical gestures
brimful with tenderness,
we are ghostwriters
in the life stories of those we love.

Impacting them in the background,
slowly eroding at their
pointless beliefs and fears with love,
so they can find their way back
to themselves
with ease.

Though the work of art
that is another human
will only ever carry their name as author,
may we acknowledge our own life’s
ghostwriters.
And their persistent contribution,
never putting their pen down.

May we whisper to them
as we go on stage to collect
the accolades of our life:
“My name may be on it,
but you fully co-created this with me.”

I’ve done the work.
Though it never finishes, I’ve done heaps of it.
The therapy.
The self-reflection.
The dark nights of the soul.
The psychodelic delight with infinite life.
I’ve pulled out of the gutter of my experiences
many trolls that make me trip over my own feet.
I’ve connected to the light of my soul.
My wise woman. My sense of serenity with what actually IS.
I’ve been loving on my inner snotty toddler
and seen it steadily grow out of its tantrums.

Though being “complete” in this sense doesn’t exist,
I feel complete. Cooked. Ready to serve.
No more preparations for life.
I really just want to live life now.

Sure. I’ll keep improving.
That’s a given. And my default.
But can I do that while we hike?
And create memories
and build a healthy home (one we never knew but know how to create)
and meet people in the world whose lives we will improve.

I want to grow not in isolation and in theory.
In an unreal bubble of mental scenarios
chewed over to perfection.
I want to grow in the messiness of engagement with life.
In the kisses placed in odd places in post-wakeup grogginess.
In the challenging moments of a real toddler,
not my inner one.
In learning to love better and better and better
the humans we choose to keep close,
as they change and grow and challenge the (still)
broken parts of us.
In the rawness of mindblowing sex
with the person we share a daily life with,
the kind that reminds you –
you will never know the full depths of them –
making you all the more interested in this unknown being
you share food and bills and children with.

See how easy it is for me to write out
the details of a beautiful life?
Because it’s already here,
on the tip of my tongue
and mere inches from my fingertips.

It’s easy to make things hard,
but it’s hard to make things easy.

What if things already are easy?
Regardless of what the loud trolls,
reptilian brains and all the other unhelpful bunch say,
all of the above is ridiculously simple,
though living it easily can take time and practice.

I let the good life be harder than it should be.
The fears of others convince me of its infeasibility,
while my gut knows the simplicity of it.
It’s a choice upon waking up:
today I choose to love myself.
Today I choose to love my people.
Today I choose to be of service.
And then aligning
Every. Single. Action.
with that choice.

Not half-heartedly or sheepishly.
But all in.
As if there is no do-over tomorrow.
(Because there isn’t one, anyway.)

I can’t hear anymore the phrases: “I am enough. I am deserving.”
Enough for what? For whom?
I know it’s meant to be empowering,
yet there’s still a measure to live up to.

Enough to BE loved? To BE accepted?
You mean, we wait on others to decide if our behaviour
is just right to hit their sweet spot?
The precarious spot where their fickle needs
for a brief moment quiet down?

In the process of meeting their prerequisites for love,
you forget you are a person too.
And suddenly, like hit by lightning, you remember you have needs!
And you claim your stake, make your demands.
Tell them what price they need to pay for your sweet spot.

And on the cycle goes.
It’s exhausting.
And it’s all I’ve ever known.

There’s nothing to be deserved.
We shouldn’t have to earn anyone’s trust, love, affection…
these are inherent gifts to give to every soul we come across,
not commodities to barter and trade with.

I don’t want to be in this marketplace anymore.
I only like shopping for veggies.
I’ve been trading here daily
in this sea of “if this, then this” and being the just right amount of…
whatever others need me to be.

I don’t want to buy nor sell.
I am a horrible salesperson and can’t haggle for the life of me.
I want to embrace what and who I gravitated towards
and love in all the messy, peaceful, passionate, stagnant ways humans do.

I haven’t seen this modelled,
I don’t have a blueprint for this,
so I won’t be good at this at first.

I will regress, I will have breakthroughs.
I will learn a new language of loving
and speak repeatedly in the wrong tense.
But give me space to learn.
I am an ardent student,
and won’t accept anything less than acceptance,
from myself and from you.

“Ah…so, how are you?”
Asks a friend whose path crossed mine
as I sat in a café
sharing food, hopes and trepidations
with another dear friend.

The cafe’s blender rumbled noisily in the background.
Over the noise of açai being beaten to a pulp,
we told each other how we walk the Earth
these days.
Is it with chains on our ankles
or levitating ever so slightly.

Being unable to answer the question
“how are you?” with something as
simple as words,
knowing all too well that
they often fail me,
I chose to make a shape.

I contorted my body
in a form inspired by a Picasso portrait,
imagining an elbow floating above my head
as one eye drooped at waist-level.
My mouth on my forehead,
and my skin having sharp edges.

“Like this”, I said still holding the shape
as I reached for my cup,
“but not deterred from sipping
my oat milk cappuccino.”

Our friend jumped on the invitation
and shapeshifted into
what his body would express right now,
if it wasn’t bound by
properness,
being a civilised adult,
being British.

With a smudge of hesitation,
he opted for a form
with a dash of grotesque
and taste for the dark.
And if he allowed himself to,
he would have growled and snarled.
I bet you he wanted to.

Yet there we were.
A Picasso painting and a creature of the dark depths.
Having a vegan carrot cake
while the blender annihilated yet another smoothie.
Talking in structured sentences.
Forming coherent thoughts.
Pretending that we’re fully upright and composed.
Fully adult.
Fully have it together.

Are we fooling anyone?

I am 37. My birthday is right around the corner.
I see the first clusters of grey hair
glisten cheekily from my scalp.
I notice the thin wrinkles take shape
around my eyes, reminding me
of the thousands of times I have
squinted, laughed, glared.

But it’s not those outwardly signs
that tell me I have grown. It’s something else.

It’s reaching to call my favourite aunt
to tell her how my heart aches,
and knowing that this is the last time
I call like this, me a teary-eyed child.
I am the wise aunt now.

It’s the time spent researching adoption
and knowing in my gut that I am ready.
Not financially, not in the practical scaffolding
needed to hold a small family upright.
Not yet.
But ready in maturity and heart.

It’s being struck by realisation
that I may not “get” what everyone
keeps telling me I am deserving of,
and being at peace with it.

“Just you wait, it’s right around the corner…”
I’ve been sitting on this bus stop for 37 years.
It’s not coming.
It doesn’t need to come either,
because I have healthy feet, I can walk the journey.
And I like walking.

That which I am to receive,
I am the creator of it.
“Create before you consume”
says the old adage about fostering contentment.
And it’s true.
Every smile, sigh of relief, jump for joy and restful night
I have created for others
is one in the bucket for me too.

I keep showing up.
Packing my bags and showing up at doorsteps.
I keep opening up.
Though my lizard brain screams at me not to.
I keep orienting towards kindness and love.
Albeit everyone tells me to
“toughen up, strategise, be more bitchy”.
(I won’t do that. F**k off.
Is that bitchy enough for you?)

I am 37.
And I’m ready to claim adulthood
in all the ways that matter.

The alarm clock buzzes 6am.
After an initial bout of squirming,
you eventually jolt your eyes awake
and in come streaming the colours.

The indigo blue of the wall in front of your bed,
the soft yellow hue of the bedside lamp you just turned on,
the unmistakably popping purple of the orchid
that flamboyantly exclaims: “I am HERE.”

But guess what?
If there is another set of eyes next to you,
waking up to the same alarm clock and scene…
those eyes will see the same quotidian spectacle
just a tad differently.

My eyes don’t see what your eyes see.
They never will.
Objective shared reality between any two people
does. not. exist.

“But hold on,” you say, “isn’t the point of US
to be on the same page?”

It’s a hard pill to swallow:
Others will never fully know your experience.
Gulp.

Here’s a bit of water to chase the pill down:

Once we truly dropkick that outdated idea,
what we make space for is the dance.
The tango of me knowing myself well enough
to find words and gestures
that will do justice to how I experience the world.
The bachata of you listening to my rendition with curiosity
and without needing me to see the world as you see it.
The waltz of me offering lovingly right back
the same full-bodied listening.

We might step on each other’s toes
as we learn to dance.
But we’re dancing nonetheless.

You are a mystery.
Slightly frazzled, slightly magic.
But I am not Poirot, searching to solve the puzzle that is you
to put you in neatly explainable boxes that my mind can find comforting.
You are always unknown to me.
I show up daily, though, to find out
what’s alive in you today.

You are a life in Technicolor.
The nuances of which I will never see perfectly.
But they will be loved anyway,
without “ifs or buts”.

May you offer this to those you love
and receive it bountifully back.
And may that exchange make even more colours
pop in the landscape of your eyes.

(P.S. Let it be known that this non-judgemental way of loving and living is a true work in progress for me. I do not *yet* embody this but I am adamant on learning it.
There is absolutely no other way. I know it in my gut and every bit of my “wise woman” is oriented towards truly learning it.
Not just masterfully talking about it, but having it concretely reflected in the quality of the relationships I am so lucky to forge in this short life.
I will know I am making the steps in the right direction when the people I love start expanding in my presence and breathing more deeply.
I will not settle for anything else, firstly, from myself, and secondly, for myself.)

Not that you’re asking, but if you were to ask
what percentage of myself I display to the world?
Vulnerably and bravely.
Thirty percent.
That’s how much of me is out there.

Where’s the rest, you ask?
Neatly tucked away in drawers.
Some bits deeper, some more close to hand.
But always far away from perceived
judgement, criticism, rejection, abandonment.

As if there’s a tiny, snotty desk clerk
sitting at the edge of my prefrontal cortex,
making snap decisions as to whether
a dance
a request
an opinion
a need
is safe to put out…there.

“Denied!”, he deems. (Yes, interestingly, I chose a “he”)
And ushers the act under the proverbial rug.

But when I stand up for my needs,
forty percent.
When I dance or sing without scanning the room
for wrinkly, disapproving faces,
fifty percent.
When I say (and mean it) that I like myself
for a quality that makes a loved one run far,
sixty percent.
When I stand up to protect you
or call BS or sit with the discomfort of someone calling mine,
seventy percent.

But beyond seventy…
a mystery.
The vast unknown of self-expression
I have never ventured into,
nor seen modelled growing up.

The zone of unsmothered voices.
Of emotions being heard and accepted.
Of making mistakes and still being loved.
Of the bold and outrageously beautiful
bravery of proudly being.
Unapologetically and without flinching.

Seventy plus is the name of the club.
It has a bulky bouncer at the door
that scans not your IDs,
but your willingness to love who you are.
Am I underage?
I can only find out by trying.
So, on that door
I.
Am.
Knocking.   

You’re high above ground
with one foot on the line,
below a gut-wrenching ravine,
above the skies so divine.

You’re about to ambulate
a shaky one-inch rope
that depicts this fickle life,
with all its trials and hopes.

Once you’ve set foot,
there’s no turning back.
You better know what you’re doing,
the rope bounces with slack.

The line you’re about to walk
is as thin as a crisp, mate.
On the one end there’s apathy,
on the other is hate.

The middle, though, ah…
that’s where the balance is had.
The place where all is peachy,
nothing frustrates, hurts nor feels sad.

I see you chuckling, thinking:
“This place doesn’t exist!”
It does…kinda sorta…but it’s
as fleeting as the mist.

You still dare to step forward,
what gives you such trust?
The walk is exhilarating
and you know you’re robust.

Winds will attempt to shake you,
you will stumble, maybe slip.
But your inner compass is pure
your feet will maintain a solid grip.

Look, you’ve got this.
Go on now. Shoo.
If anyone can walk this,
it’s you. It’s always been you.

I’m a grown-a*s adult
but cry on a whim.
Just this morning I wept
over the news so grim.

I’m a grown-a*s adult,
so my ID card says,
but I just want to be cared for
on my less perfect days.

I’m a grown-a*s adult
tired of being called such,
because full-time composure
truly is asking too much.

I’m not an adult,
I’m not even fully grown.
I am a complex human,
who can cry, sulk and moan.

Maturity doesn’t mean
being emotionally repressed.
It means accepting the ways
in which our souls are expressed.

I don’t particularly like it,
but I love it nonetheless,
that I’m full-on with my feels,
whether joyful or a mess.

So, what if we abolish
the outdated “adult”?
A word that’s restrictive
as a hillbilly cult.

I’m now a wrinkly human
with taxes and higher stakes,
but I still need the softness
we give a child that makes mistakes.

For the end, a funny truth,
that makes me giggle from my core:
when I allow myself to “child”
is when I don’t need to anymore.

She waited for my acceptance,
nothing less and nothing more,
and the moment I gave it,
she dropped the tantrum and skipped
Right.
Out.
The.
Door.

I have a chip on my shoulder
which goes unnoticed, even if you try.
It’s there nonetheless,
invisible to the untrained eye.

This chip has a voice,
a high-pitched one at that,
which makes my neck hairs raise
right off the bat.

This chip has taken a liking
to picking at my successes,
warping them to unrecognition
and spindoctoring them into messes.

His favourite this week,
one over which he rants and raves,
is a quality I’m often described with:
being courageous and brave.

This chip ponders my actions,
my big steps into the unknown,
and instead of cheering me on
wonders which fuse have I blown.

He says oh so smugly:
“Mhm, yeah, alright…
so you’re living your passions
and spreading your light.

You’ve given up comfort,
and the big golden cage.
You’ve kept yourself open
though you could’ve gone into rage.

You stepped away from a bond
in which there wasn’t space for you,
though your love hasn’t waned
and the distance makes you blue.

You’ve done all these things,
and on paper they sound big,
but are they maybe not all
an illusion and a fib?

Cloaked sneakily as bravery,
are these acts not just attempts
of keeping at bay
your feelings of self-contempt?

You speak of self-love
but absolutely no room you make
for the part of you that’s battered
by the streaks of heartbreak.

Every “courageous” act
you manifested into being
came from a drive to survive
and a deep sense of fleeing.”

This chip squeaks away
but he’s not utterly wrong.
I move my own mountains
because I am both fragile and strong.

I am first moved for change
because I hurt from inside,
but to choose my steps wisely
a different motive I need to find.

The reason you see me move upwards,
and this not even the chip can deny,
is due to my well-tuned gut
and my vibrations that run high.

So, yes.

My first “brave” steps
on whatever new road
may be spurred on by pain
and the survival mode.

But the subsequent steps,
those that form a good life,
are fuelled not by fear
but a clarity gone rife.

Suck it, Chip.