Skip to main content

WAKE UP NOW (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 26)


WAKE UP NOW

Podbean Link for those who like to listen

ALT TEXT: A box full of toys. Or a box full of interesting things with most of the letters on top to spell ‘CELEBRATING’.

ALT TEXT: A picture in a frame. Or a photo of a discarded elastic band in the gutter which makes a heart shape with letters on top that spell all of the word LOVELY and show where the letter ’l’s get used up.

This morning there is a tight frost on the ground and I cannot sense what rides the air. I stand under a lavendered sky and something makes me sneeze, but still cannot get my senses to grasp anything other than slight bark.

Episode 26! Having only missed one blog writing week for Christmas Day I can clearly see how many weeks I have been on my new journey. (It still makes me laugh that Christmas Day was a Monday and although I knew I wasn’t going to put a blog into the world that day I actually forgot to smell the air!)

So, a new journey for over half a year. With the arrival of spring and the joy of having pro bono clients to work with this is a pretty good place to be on my path I reckon even if today the scent of the morning eludes me somewhat.

I have felt tired this week though and know I need to sort out my mindset about walking more to raise my energy levels. I do know I want to walk each day, I know I sort of don’t want to do it at exactly the same time, but I also know I need a better plan because I often end up not walking as much as I need to in order to feel refreshed. There’s that thing that sits in me about wanting to have achieved something by eight o’clock each morning. And I think that goes back to all those years of starting work at half seven and using the quiet time of the morning to get some jobs done before the more peopled part of the day began. Perhaps that’s why my hydration before eight feels important to me or my day starts better when there is a little job on my writing desk to attend to. I am not sure that fitting in my walk before eight each day will be the thing to do, but I do feel there will be a benefit to trialling this.

‘A good coach should be able to coach themselves,’ there’s that internal voice, and when I listen there’s another one chiming in with ‘Yes, remember how well it worked when you were procrastinating about painting all those fence panels!’ I will see what I can do with my walking goal this month.

Asking myself what I have done before that helps it is easy for me to recall my love of seeing the sunrise or the early morning sky rolling out the day, changing by the minute, on the drive to work. I was reminded of this too when the birds woke me on Sunday morning singing with their loud, joyful chorus. There’s a wonderful feeling to waking up naturally when my body and mind seem to have completed a sleep cycle. This is quite rare for me and I think I have also encouraged myself to have one too many snoozes lately.

I do however also have the perfect alarm clock which might just help. Not my first choice of wake up track by Mary Chapin Carpenter or my second or indeed the bird song on my light up clock, but this... My sister telling me it is morning. (I think the sound clip of this only works on the podcast version of this blog!)

I found myself celebrating the celebrations of people I share thinking time with a lot this last week or so. I love that I get to hear these joyful moments and I love the fact that there is a lot of brave and powerful work that goes on in a coaching room in order for these celebrations to shine.

I spent a pleasant chunk of time searching through old journals the other day because I wanted to find the origin of ‘Unwanted Rabbits’. I had received an email to say the poem will be published by The Broken Spine this month and after I did my little happy poet dance I began wondering about the drafting of this poem. No sign of it in my past three journals, but my computer tells me the first computer draft was written on a Sunday, a couple of days after writing on a Wendy Pratt course. I know it was not related to that, but I recognise that feeling of the creative energy continuing when I have been in good workshops. I also found out that I wrote my fondant fancy poem on the same day. I can clearly remember how that came about because it was part of an advert which caught my eye. As I write this I love the fact that I can remember seeing a headline and that I can also almost feel the silk inside a magician’s hat when I think about the rabbit poem. I don’t think I have ever actually touched a magician’s hat, but it is there at the end of my fingers.

I can remember telling Damien there would be more rabbit poems when I was interviewed by him for Eat the Storms. This one is likely to raise a smile rather than the one in my forthcoming collection which is a bit more visceral!

I will leave you now with fondant fancies...

 

This is the Last Day for Cherry Fondant Fancies

 

and I don’t know if it is the final day this season

or the very last day ever.

 

I have never eaten one,

but know that the chocolate,

lemon and strawberry ones

from my childhood

came in neat half-dozens.

 

They looked like the kind of cakes

that Alice would love in her Wonderland.

But no matter how many times I tried them

I could never love them.

Too sweet, too sickly

on too many Sundays

 

And yet if there were cherry fondants tomorrow

maybe I would take a box just to test

how my tastes are these days.

 

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MY YEAR IN REVIEW (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 114)

 MY YEAR IN REVIEW   Listening Link This morning it is raining and the almost unchilled air carries strong hints of green.   Alt text says this week’s photo is a collage of a group of people. It is indeed a collage and it is made from the photos that accompanied each blog post this year. I do like to take a look back before I look forward and I thought this would be one way of doing it for 2025.   When I was little I loved an annual. To me it was a book of delightful snippets collected together to be enjoyed in a period of time that involved a break from routine. I can picture myself reading in my pyjamas, the seemingly bottomless sweet tin, and the advent calendar that left its glitter on our fingers with all its doors open telling me that it was indeed Christmas Day. This week’s photo is like the cover of my 2025 annual.   This blog has been my way of building a good relationship with Mondays, and the fact there have been 114 episodes since Sept...

LIFTED (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 108)

LIFTED Listening Link  This morning, the cool air brings the smell of hash browns as the traffic builds its familiar rush.   Alt text offers no suggestion for this week’s photo. I say it is my sister, me and my mum in the lift after coffee and before a little shopping spree. I love this moment in time from our lovely, shared day, and the fact I remembered to take a photo.   This week I learned that I am a competent pumpkin carver. Good company, a simple design idea, a whiteboard marker pen and a last-minute pumpkin purchase resulted in a Trick or Treat worthy exhibit which made me smile.   It has been like adopting a mini half-term this week... catching up with a good friend, time with family, carving that pumpkin, having a toffee apple, going to a big firework display, landing on the settee of lovely people and having a photograph taken... and perhaps there will always be echoes of school holidays even though I no longer have these as ...

EVENING SUN (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 96)

EVENING SUN Listening Link    This morning, at ‘The Angel of the North’ the air smells of heather and lavender. Alt text isn’t offering a suggestion for this week’s photo, but I say it is Kath and me capturing a photo during a stroll by the river after the first day of the yarn show we attended at the weekend. After a full on day it was nice to walk in someone else’s city, and I love the way the evening sun makes the white on my hair glow and puts an extra shine on Kath’s blue. A moment of quiet in a busy world. I know that it relaxed me because I then became curious to look on a map to find out whereabouts in the country we were. When we drove up I was solely focused on being helpful with yarn type things and although I knew we were in Newcastle I didn’t have a clear idea geographically of what that meant. My phone map was super helpful and I realised how different it feels from turning the pages in a road atlas. Very helpful for putting it all in context especially for someo...