This morning the air is fresh after the rain, the sky is blurred grey and the magpies are sounding their rattles in the trees. I think I can smell horse chestnut leaves; I call it autumnal. My mind is on the changing of seasons and the passing of time.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a group of people posing for a photo. It is in fact a trio of siblings having their cobwebs well and truly blown away on a boat trip to the forts off the coast of Kent. I loved this summer holiday day and I love the fact that this picture encapsulates a moment in time where we were truly in the moment out on the water.
Three years ago I decided to get up and sniff the air each Monday morning. I also decided to write a blog. The reason? A pivot. A very large one where I decided to step out of my thirty-year career and see what came next for me.
And the first blogs were rather short, but I was starting, and it was getting me up early for myself instead of early for travelling to work. I love watching the day unfold. I love sunrise and the peacefulness of a day when things are just beginning. When the kettle’s on for the first cup of tea and the air is relatively free of fumes there’s a freshness and a sense of another new beginning to be grateful for. I wanted to make the most of these moments, and I also wanted to set something down in a similar way to my three years of early morning driving to work tweets that had kept me sane and noticing after covid. I needed one stable thing to mark each new week, and that was standing outside each Monday morning and breathing deeply.
Doing something regularly has a beautiful familiarity to it which marks time rather than letting it slip by. And because I am someone who, as my sister puts it, is either climbing a mountain or not sure I want to go for a walk, I like the fact that this habit has stuck. The writer in me likes writing and it feels good to me to mark a new week.
One of my poems has been published in Molecules Unlimited Poetry Journal: Issue 1, and I am glad that Stephen Paul Wren chose to include it in this anthology. Poems submitted for consideration were on the theme of the heart and this theme reminded me of a maths activity I used to enjoy working on with the children where we compared the heart rate per minute of different mammals. This poem was written in response to the call out for submissions and started with me remembering this lesson and seeing where I could find a poem within that thought. It felt cathartic to set down the words. It also seems apt because this time three years ago when I was starting this blog, I was also starting to focus on reading my poetry out loud to more people and that came with a whole range of thoughts and feelings that the newly training coach in me wanted to explore.
Reading the poem
My heart is guinea pig fast
and the trick here is not to become a shrew.
I keep my mouth closed
hold in that small mammal squeak.
I focus on what can slow me down.
Pause and swallow.
Take a deep breath,
notice the scent of grass,
rise above its slight dampness,
resist the urge to turn and leave.
I tell myself no one is noticing
and even if they are it’s ok.
—
Sue Finch is the author of two poetry collections: Magnifying Glass and Welcome to the Museum of a Life. She loves the coast, peculiar things, and the scent of ice-cream freezers. You can find her on https://suefinch.co.uk/
Sue Finch 