Categories
Life

A Dog’s Life

A neighbour from across the way walked by as I stood in the driveway with the leaf blower.

‘Hi, Brooke,’ he said with a gentle smile. He was out for a walk with the family dog, a beautiful old Labrador, who I know has been quite unwell of late.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said back, with a smile in return. ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods?’ I asked, knowing the journey between our two homes was at least a couple of blocks away. He looked down at the dog.

‘I just let him walk me, these days. I don’t even have him on a lead. He used to run as soon as I let him loose. Now, he just wanders along, and I let him.’

My heart did that thing a heart does when it knows it’s witnessed something precious. The dog, his belly still shaved from surgery a couple of weeks before, just stood at our feet. Panting. Being. Watching life go by as the two of us talked about the adventures he once had as a young pup. Long ago adventures, memories, wonderful and sweet for his loving family.

I couldn’t help but think how beautiful it was that my neighbour had gifted his dog the freedom to explore the world at his leisure. It seemed ever more sweet when I looked down to see the dog’s heaving chest, knowing that this world likely wouldn’t be his to enjoy for much longer.

We want so many things, us humans. To go where we want, when we want, is usually one of the things we hold high upon the list. My neighbour had chosen to let the dog own his own time and make his own choices.

I still sit with that beauty lighting my heart, and I doubt I’ll ever forget that dog.

Or the lessons he and my neighbour unknowingly taught me about love.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Categories
Life

Broken Hearts

‘Why do we do such terrible things to each other?’ said the softly spoken man at the library, who somehow knew I’d be the one person in the room who would listen.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, looking directly into his eyes. Because what was I to say? He’d just told me he’d raised his son into adulthood, knowing the boy was not his biological son. Knowing his wife had betrayed him while he was away. Knowing he’d live with the consequences and questions for the rest of his life.

Why do we do such terrible things to each other?

To teach us the power of love, is the only answer I could come up with. To teach us resilience and surrender.

To teach us the only way to healing is forgiveness. And the only way to forgive others is to forgive ourselves for the parts of us that we do not wish to see.

Terrible things, broken hearts are. My heart aches still from the sorrow of times gone by. Deep, deep love: known, and lost. Beautiful dreams, stolen by life.

Once, I looked straight towards the silver lining of the clouds that surrounded me.

Now, I sit in sorrow with the world, knowing the sun will rise again.

Knowing also that the night is part of the all.

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Categories
Life

Being

My being in life feels slower. Gentler, and yet I’m sure this too shall pass, as all of life does.

I just read an old blog post, from 2019. The words were mine, written with my hands, dictated by my mind. And yet none of it felt real. It felt like a run away train of energy, and though it was my energy…this current version of me wanted to capture it. To slow it down. To calm it.

How strange life is.

I came here needing to write something, but I wasn’t sure what.

Now I understand.

I came here not to write but to feel. To notice.

To notice the change in me.

To feel the way my words want to linger in the air, rather than race full speed ahead.

These words, this energy wishes for authentic flow.

Here it is.

Here I am.

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Categories
Life

A Place To Stay

I close my eyes and ask to be held in this place.

There must be love. There must be only love or I am broken.

Why was I born this way? Able to feel every ounce of life, unable to process its wrath and swiftly and easily swat it away without a care.

This soft heart.

This kind heart.

She has fire in her veins and hate in the spaces in between.

She has a river, cool and smooth; gently rolling along.

She is lost, again and again.

Oh, dear life, let you find me a sweet home to rest.

Let the rapids turn to ripples.

Let ‘home’ become a place to stay.

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Categories
Life

Tender

It’s late, and I need to sleep.

My heart has been tender, of late.

So tender, and I struggle beneath the weight of my own judgements and expectations of myself and life (as many of us do, I’m sure.)

Sleep will be good.

Rest.

Dreams.

And tomorrow will be a brand new darling day.

Sending all my love, sweet bloggy friends.

You are all so dear to me.

Thank you for walking beside me.

xx Brooke

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Categories
Life

Autistic

I will go to her too-white office, and she will smile from behind her desk of all-knowing. Then she will tell me I am Autistic. (Or something like it.)

I will say to her, I understand, and yes: I do believe I must be.

I will say I feel the world.

I will say the small child within me still remembers the nightly news; the drownings in the Yarra, the little bruised boy’s funeral song, the kidnappers and the murderers. Most people watched these things. I felt them. Just like I felt eggs. (Eggs have a nice feeling about them, although I never did much like the taste.)

Being Autistic would explain it all. And though hyper empathy is not typically seen as an autistic trait, it can be in women, and it certainly is in me.

There has always been an underlying discomfort to my existence.

A difference in what my brain seems to be telling me and what the brains of others seem to be telling them.

My Mum said I was unique and perfect, just the way I was. And perhaps I was. Perhaps I am. But my life was hard.

My life is hard because I live in a world not made for a sea as deep as me.

I have tried to be okay my whole-life-long.

I have tried alcohol and isolation to hide from the big wide world. I have tried avoiding all problems, by telling myself there are none. I’ve tried losing myself in chocolate, in books, in dreams, and in men who held my heart with eyes and whispers that soothed me.

But my soul has at last said, hush darling.

Let the others help you to understand their world. Only then will you fully understand your own.

So I will try to open, and I will try to trust.

And the rose shall bloom a petal and a day.

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Categories
Poetry

Rolling

It is how I am today.

This darling tumble weed,

rolling

slowly down the precious hill

they call life.

I no longer search

for a deeper wind,

to roll faster

or better…

than what?

I simply roll,

and sigh,

and roll and sigh again.

Then slowly come to rest

at the slope’s grassy end.

Categories
Poetry

Rain

I wish only to walk in the rain.

As life thunders around me

imperfection after imperfection

(often mine)

I wish for peace.

And I wish to walk in the rain.

Categories
Poetry

Cruel Deception

What is this sorrow?

It is a shared siren

wailing through the silver

of our human chain.

But darling, you say.

You must smile,

you must

find the joy beyond

the day.

The heart cries

when the heart cries.

A smile

to hide the pain

is but a cruel deception.

Categories
Life

One With It All

I am tired, my body understands this as truth.

And yet there is so much my heart wants to say.

I am desperate to speak.

Longing for home.

I will try to come again, soon.

So my words might fall onto these pages and I might find the home I’ve been missing for so long.

I need to write, as I need to breathe.

My words are one with my breath.

I am one with it all.

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