hope is beginning to lick at my fears again, her tongue a raspy balm, and just when i had begun to give up on ever seeing them again {i have only recently walked through a valley with no end in sight, selah} there were yellow freesias in a bucket when i went to the shop and the fragrance climbed right inside my head and it is still there, even now as i write this in the early hours, there was hot coffee around a table, and me sitting with the soft bodies that i love, and whilst walking the aisles unhurried {do you know what a gift this is} i bought Spanish olives, their middles stuffed with fat cloves of garlic, i held the names of new friends on my tongue as i chose pears over peaches, courgettes over leeks, and there was my son with his long-legged happiness, his ears closed to the noises of the world, but oh! how his mouth is filled with curiosity {do you know what a gift this is, the shape of this grace} and i had a dream about my father and his vegetable garden, and it was saturated with peace, so much peace dripping from the vague edges, so much peace that i did not want to leave the borders of that place, didn’t want to wake up from it. yes, i think this might just be it—the turning, me having somehow found my way through the dark to the open door, the light in glittering pools on the floor, and my fears, reluctantly scooching up on the sofa, making space for hope to squash right in the middle of them, her legs swinging, kicking the new air with her bare feet {how she never wears shoes on sacred ground} whistling that tune that always sets the inside of my head on fire, her hands full of emptiness, just ready to receive everything that arrives, everything that responds to each day’s fierce ‘thank you’.

{📷 loveliness from my afternoon}

liezel