A CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH SPRINKLES

Today rain and mist hold the scent of damp fallen leaves in the air.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a chocolate cake with sprinkles on the top. It is indeed. And to add to this description I would also say it is a birthday cake for my lovely wife. For this bake, I fine-tuned the recipe after making a cake for my debut poetry collection Magnifying Glass which had its fifth birthday last week. The book cake was delicious, but a little rustic looking after I piled on the buttercream and forked the number five on the top because I hadn’t really considered how I was going to finish it off! It was a good reason to enjoy cake, and it also gave me the perfect opportunity to enjoy the feelings of gratitude to have worked with Black Eyes Publishing UK to enable the book to have its place in the world.

I am also taking forward the lesson that it is useful to have an image of the end product in mind whether it’s cake or poetry so that the whole is not just delicious it is fully finished. When polishing poems I am pausing to remind myself the drafts are at the rustic stage until they do the whole job of saying what they want to say. For me sometimes the poem doesn’t know exactly what it is going to say until it has been written longer, other times it says it but it fizzles out instead of sparking. For a while I thought my trick was to look at the drafts as if they weren’t mine, but I found I was looking at them to assess whether they were a finished Sue Finch poem or still lingering in Sue Finch draft stage. I laughed at my feeling of indignation when I thought I was pretending they weren’t mine whilst I was editing. I definitely didn’t want them to not be mine; I wanted to be the author in a different stage of writing. I don’t think I have felt that switch quite so strongly before, so I am enjoying that and see it as a sign of having an extended patience and desire to craft my work.

The perfect poem almost happened in real time on one of my walks this week. Common features of this week’s walks have included the horse with the blue coat whinnying as I approach (but not when I talk to it or try to video it making the sound) acorns dropping from the oak trees, gusts of wind sending flurries of leaves from the branches. There was a moment on Saturday as I was pacing along when the horse whinnied just as the wind picked up and I watched a mini whirlpool of brown leaves drop through the air. If, at that exact moment, an acorn had detached and dropped onto my head I think that would have been a moment of pure poetry. I was slightly disappointed that it didn’t happen, but I will carry all of that as a wordless visual/sound poem in my head on my walks in the coming weeks.

Two years ago I featured my poem There’s a Doll Thumping in My Chest on this blog and I am going to include it here again now. I wasn’t sufficiently distanced from it when I first read it to open a set for a poetry reading, and I noticed feelings of nerves echo through my body when I put the words in the air. Now it stands for me as a poem framing something that I can gaze upon, and I like being able to view it like that. (I also like the fact that it came into being by chance because of my diction in a poetry workshop with Anna Saunders… I was reading out a line I had written about a minotaur and Matthew MC Smith misheard, ‘There’s a dull thumping in my chest’ and hence I was gifted a title for a new poem.)

THERE’S A DOLL THUMPING IN MY CHEST

I spend a long time soothing her to sleep.

And sometimes I feel I’m running out of options.

When she cries,

and trust me she cries easily,

her whole body heaves.

And even when I’m calming her

there’s that long hiccupping of recovery

still stealing my air.

I don’t know if it’s the thought of people

knowing she’s inside me

that scares me most,

or that she’s going to beat her fists so hard

she breaks right through my ribcage

while they’re watching.

FOCUSING

This morning the air brings the smell of old carboard boxes, and I do not set off the alarm call of a blackbird.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a close up of a person’s face. It is. And it is mine, and I have enjoyed reviewing some photos this week.

I always feel in slight danger of getting the answers wrong when I visit the optician for an eye test. Remembering my left from my right and blinking to see if it’s an O or a C requires an on-the-spot focus which seems different from the focusing I do in day-to-day life. My optician is friendly and kind, but I still wonder if I am seeing the right things when I cover one eye or need to look up or down. I also have an urge to get it ‘right’, to be able to unfuzz the images, name the correct letters.

This time there was no change to my prescription. And the visit also included a wonderful shiny moment of self-recognition when I heard her go on to say, “You said you were leaving work in education last time and perhaps training to be a coach…” That was what I said and was indeed what I did. It felt good to realise that was what had been going on for me between visits, and that so much more has also happened along the way between those two sits in her chair.

Thinking out loud about things that block us in one of Claire Pedrick’s supervision groups this week also had me thinking about focusing and about being temporarily stuck. I have some great strategies for getting unstuck and tackling things that are blocking the way to my next steps or simply getting something done, and I was happy to share these. But I found that I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something particular I needed to find out about being blocked when it comes to editing a set of a poems. How could I have these strategies and still be stuck?

Two kinds of being blocked came to mind – the ‘not wanting to do a thing’ kind and the ‘joy-blocked’ kind. These are the kind of blocks I need to climb over or go round. But here they were showing themselves to both be at play at the same time making the block seem huge.

I didn’t want to edit the poems and I wasn’t finding joy when I did sit down to do it. Thinking out loud with others and then allowing myself time to continue the think enabled me to hear the real stuff going on. Firstly, I had to admit they weren’t all great poems and those that had been sent back instead of being published did need work. I needed to kick into touch the hurry up driver that wanted a set of poems to work on and had pulled them together too quickly. I also had to take on board the feedback I had asked for and respond to it. I also realised that having an overarching theme to the work was hugely important to me, and I had been pushing this aside.

Having leant into all of that I was gifted time to truly focus at a body doubling session. I took along three poems, and during the session I binned one and polished the other two. Without another person sharing time and space it would have taken me much longer to get this sorted. It wasn’t easy, and I felt the twitch of wanting to give in or to check social media to avoid the difficult, but what a wonderful feeling to have cracked the blocks and squeezed through onto the poetry path again.

Here’s to the kind of focus that comes when you stay with something even though it’s hard. And to the joy of being inspired to write fresh poems.

The poem I am sharing here this week was penned in a workshop with Clare Shaw and Miriam Darlington and I was very glad of the space to write it. I am delighted to find that sections from it are now featured in a bottle of pills from The Poetry Pharmacy, and I even got my light box out to capture a photograph because it feels that special.

BROCK

In the dark of night

the silvered wisdom of a badger’s soul

lifts from its body,

rises above that final puff of breath,

leaves behind white bristles and black fur.

On the cusp of day

in the silence between dust and sparkle

the echoes are beginning.

Be steady along familiar routes,

mark out your path.

Be the shy, tenacious forager,

know the quiet of nature.

PLAY

This morning the air is mild and is scented with floral notes.

Alt text suggests this week’s photo is of a person wearing a yellow circle with leaves and acorns on. I can’t really add much to that apart from the fact it is me celebrating the Autumn Wreath that Kath’s Mum made in a craft session recently. I also say that it reminds me of the circles that can be added to profile photos on LinkedIn. I was not one hundred percent sure it was the kind of photo that would typically be shared there, but since it coincided with my Friday celebration of joy that’s where it was destined to go. I even made a couple of new connections there that day.

Playing always puts me in my happy place. So being a poet and knowing that the theme for National Poetry Day this year was ‘Play’ was a gift to me. One year ago, a friend messaged me on National Poetry Day to say they had read a poem of mine to a group of people at a celebration event. I messaged back to say I was delighted and that if they held a similar event I would be very pleased to go along. They didn’t forget, and this year I visited that group of people to read a dozen of my poems. It made my day shine. We also tried out a writing exercise from The Poetry Society which had been produced for the day. It worked well for those who considered themselves to be poets and those who had not done much poetic writing before, and each participant was able to create their own poem during the afternoon.

I had road-tested my set of poems earlier in the year when I read them from a bandstand in a park, and they worked well. This time I was also able to add in Toffee Hammers as the opening poem. It delighted me to have finally finished this poem after many years of wanting to write it but never really coming up with a final draft that said what I wanted to say. It was good to have been spurred on by the theme and by my desire to have a new poem for National Poetry Day. To celebrate the poem’s emergence I chose it for Poem of the Month on my YouTube channel. Sharing poems with a new group of people enabled me to hear the poems afresh and highlighted the joy of having a themed reading. It is refreshing to see how the poems land in different listening spaces, and which ones elicit specific audible responses. I chuckled this time to hear someone say “Oh your poor mum,” in response to the poem which recounts my falling in a pond when I was little.

Here’s the poem that has enhanced National Poetry Day for me by being shared in the same space twice:

HIS GUN

for the schoolboy who entered my office without really announcing himself

He shoots.

She is falling,

staggering,

clutching herself.

Her hip seems to disappear.

She stumbles, hits the floor, stills.

He watches,

so silent he stops the air from moving,

her closed eyes flicker to find him.

He searches his words,

they both stare at it hanging from his limp hand.

He meets her gaze, speaks –

It’s just a banana, he tells her.

MANDALAS AND THE JOY OF THINKING

This week the air feels slightly colder than a week ago. The air carries a gentle scent which is reminiscent of the smell of the plastic ice box in the freezer. It reminds me how much I enjoy inhaling the scent of ice-cream freezers in the supermarket, and also that I haven’t done that for quite some time.

Alt text says this week’s photo is: a stuffed animal in a room with many circular ornaments. I say it is Ronnie arriving at Yarndale and being delighted by the ceiling displays of colourful mandalas.

There was something magical about the way the display made its own sky as we stood underneath it, and a beauty in the  patterns cast in the shadows they created on the walls.

I had been thinking about thoughts and self-talk before I arrived, and as I stood underneath this new sky and gazed upwards I felt a connection between the vast number of different circles and how thoughts spin and dance in my head.

For me particular jobs fit in best at designated times of day. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you will, for example, know that I like cleaning the windows in my pyjamas. (It gets the job done before the day has started, and the inevitable splashing of water doesn’t matter.)

I also like emptying the compost bin before I have a shower, but on Friday I forgot to do it first thing. To encourage myself to get on and do it after I was dressed I told myself that future me, returning from a weekend away, would be very glad of a clean compost bin. I laughed at both my need for self-encouragement and the fact that I knew this would work. And, if I hadn’t got on and done it then, I might have missed the real joy of the job…the blue sky, the freshness of the air and two blue tits finding plenty to interest them on the apple tree.

I love the way blue tits seem to dance as they fly. An admirable lightness and joy radiates from them. I am also glad our garden gives them some of what they need. They were finding something tasty on the smaller branches of the apple tree and we too had feasted from the tree earlier in the week when we harvested a good first crop of apples. It feels good to eat the fruit so fresh and not to write ‘apples’ on the shopping list for a few weeks. Our neighbour also invites us to visit his garden and share his apples which makes us super lucky.

So this week a compost bin visit and a yarn show have woven together so that I think about self-talk as colourful mandalas of thoughts dancing and interacting in my head. Here’s to colours and positivity and joy.

And as I finish writing this blog and wonder which poem to include this one from Welcome to the Museum of a Life comes to mind:

MY HYBRID HEART

I put my fist slightly off centre on my chest

draw round it, with red marker pen,

make a Valentine’s heart.

It needs to be bolder.

I outline it again

with black.

I recall the pages of my old Gray’s Anatomy;

add in a fat aorta,

ventricles, atria

forget where the vena cava goes.

I leave it out

press lightly to feather in the valves

laugh when they look like ghosts.

If I still had the book

I’d check what I’d missed,

but I am happy

with the hybrid I’ve created.

Once, I had an echocardiogram,

its peaks perfect,

despite the fact it felt as if you’d tied

rough brown string round my heart

and pulled it tight.

Connected to that machine

I tried not to think of you

didn’t want to feel adrenalin daring me

to breathe fast.

What would you say if you could see me now?

Call me crazy?

Ask me if I had nothing better to do?

I look in the mirror

meet the lines around my eyes

with a flirtatious smile.

This could be my first tattoo.

WATCHING THE JOKER ALONE

This morning the air is cold. I stand underneath two contrails and breathe deeply. I want to sense the scent of the day, but the chill seems to have made it faint. It carries a mix of silage and leaves and I decide to call it Autumn Green.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a book with a yellow figure on it. I say it is one of my yellow stretchy men on top of a copy of ‘Reels’ from The Broken Spine. I love this little collection of cinematic poetry, and it seemed appropriate to photograph it for this week’s blog. I took time to have a gorgeous reread of it while it was off the shelf too which was a lovely accompaniment to a cup of tea!

There has been much for me to enjoy at the cinema lately. I absolutely love going to the cinema – it is one of the places where I know I am likely to be fully immersed in what’s in front of me. Being focused on one thing at a time is a pure joy and sometimes it can feel rather rare because I often have a tendency to do more than one thing at a time. Kath and I have watched The Long Walk (I am glad I watched it after climbing Snowdon), Downton Abbey (Kath’s choice to make up for my choice of The Long Walk) and Inter Alia (A seize the moment trip to make the most of a National Theatre Screening.)

There’s still something special about having popcorn and a drink at the cinema, and of planning what goes on the ‘want to see’ list as a result of watching the trailers, and I don’t think I will ever tire of this.

I like company at the cinema, but I am also happy to sink into a seat alone. This week I was recording some poems for a thing and I was wondering what to record. I rather fancied a theme of some kind. First of all, I considered my rabbit poems and then I decided because there are likely to be more yet to come, they would be better saved for a future date. Whilst looking I enjoyed rereading my poem Watching the Joker Alone which was written in response to a call out for cinematic poems from The Broken Spine. This encouraged me to see which other poems had found their home with this particular press – and a setlist was formed.

Watching the Joker Alone is one of those poems that captures a specific moment in time, and which might not even have been written if I hadn’t read the call out from Alan Parry. On seeing the call out I had recently returned from a solo visit to the cinema so I picked up my pen to see what might evolve. I remembered the feeling I had as I walked down the stairs to the exit as the credits rolled, and the poem took form on the page.

WATCHING THE JOKER ALONE

As soon as the lights go up 

I stretch nonchalantly from my seat,

walk the centre of each step,

feel my mouth begin to twitch.

And there’s a roll in my hips 

that wants to give me a swagger.

I imagine my lips red,

picture my head back laughing;

everything that’s in me 

out in a fountain of sound.

Keep it all in, I tell myself,

just keep it in.

DREAMING MORE

This morning the wind is wild and whips up the smell of grass under a half-moon and a star.

I recall the scent of dry stone dust from our mountain climb and the fact that although we heard an owl hoot as we started out on the trek I did not notice a dawn chorus.

An app on my phone reminds me that it has been fourteen years since I cried tears of joy when reading an email. It’s not something I have forgotten, but it is something that I absolutely love to see pop up in my reminders. That email was what I always refer to as my Golden Ticket. As a child I loved the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the thought of unwrapping a chocolate bar to find a prize. I also thought I was going to be the one to win the trip to Disney World from the cheese triangle promotion when I was about seven, and asked for them for my packed lunch even though I preferred the cheese and tomato sandwiches my mum made. (I loved those quartered sandwiches, and on hot days the cheese was always slightly melty and enclosed the sliced tomato in gorgeous indents!)

I have won some things in my time, but nothing on the scale of the opportunity of a meet and greet with Dolly Parton, and the photo is a great souvenir. Alt text didn’t seem to offer a suggestion for this photo and I say it is me and Dolly Parton and it makes my heart sing.

I was thinking this week about how I approach the big things… I always have a desire to be ready early, I like to think about the thing in detail afterwards and I do like a memento of some sort.

So I was surprised that it took me a little while this week to find a place to put my ‘Defeat the Peak’ medal. I think I wanted to be beyond the stage where my leg muscles complained when stepping down or up kerbs. This feeling was accompanied by a real dip in energy. It was rainy and grey outside and I didn’t feel motivated to walk until the rain stopped. I was very grateful that Claire Pedrick’s Supervision Café was in my calendar, and I went along with the hope that a conversation with fellow coaches would help me shift my mood. And indeed it did. I found a shared love of metaphors which started to put the sparkle back in my day, and afterwards I went for a walk and wondered what my grey, cloudy slump had been telling me.

I saw an image in my head of me sitting at the bottom of a mountain and realised that I had been focusing on the tiredness instead of celebrating the human in front of me that had completed the climb. I also leant into the fact that I am missing those sunny walks of preparation for a thing, and that it will be helpful to rekindle the joy of stepping into a new season.

Beyond the metaphor of being in a grey slump I pictured the moment I went for a sit down on a stone wall near the end of our descent. Three things came together to make a perfect little cartoon moment of me rolling from seated to lying… the wall was on a slope, my legs were very tired, my rucksack took my balance. I might have had to stay there a while if my sister hadn’t offered me her hand to pull me up. That image makes me laugh now, but at the time no one in the group seemed to think anything of it or have the energy to find it comical.

So my wondering this week takes me to goals and dreams. I didn’t set the goal of meeting Dolly Parton, but it was definitely a dream and I didn’t dream of walking up Snowdon, that was a goal. I am however interested in the overlap and that will keep me thinking, and perhaps dreaming more, on my daily walks.

Here’s a poem that I wrote after walking one Autumn when I could not remember the name for acorns. It was recently published by Black Bough Poetry as part of my #SilverBranch feature.

THEY ARE AUTUMN

And they look delicious

smoothed brown on the ground

with their snug little green hats.

And I want to eat some

but I have forgotten their name

and I don’t know if you can.

I give in to the temptation

to tread on some,

to feel them hold out

before my weight cracks them open.

All I know is they fell from the tree above.

Its leaves are telling me it’s an oak,

and I know so much depends upon this tree,

but it takes me all day

to remember acorns.

SNOWDON

This morning the air brings the gentle cool of herbed Autumn and a tinge of car fumes.

Alt text says this week’s photo is two women taking a selfie. I say it is me and my sister fresh faced and ready just before our midnight walk up Snowdon. I also say we looked fresh faced in a rather different way when we had completed the walk!

It has been well over a year since I decided it would be a good challenge to climb Snowdon. I needed a long lead in period to enable me to work on my fitness levels, and I am very glad I did because it was definitely a challenge! It was one of those experiences that had me digging deep for reserves of energy and determination, and my legs are telling me they know I have climbed a mountain. It felt exciting to walk up in the dark and to tackle Snowdon in a way I have never done before, and there were times when not seeing how much further there was to go was very helpful.

I remember writing on this blog about counting a rhythm of eight when out walking and I had to laugh when on the steeper inclines I heard myself counting to four in my head as my way of keeping going. Slow and steady and not stopping, on some sections was a super helpful way of cracking on, and those four steps at a time helped. I learned that I do indeed need to walk with walking poles so that will be next thing to practice. I do have some, but had not really factored them in properly to my walking so did not take them with me. My knees are fine today, but were telling me on the descent that they would benefit from the joy of walking poles. Time to crack that rhythmic walking. Other parts of my legs are saying “Wow, thank goodness you gave us some practice, but we are definitely letting you know we have had a challenge.”

It was good to share the experience with my sister, Katie. She said quite a lot on the way up the mountain at times, including some swear words, and now she says: “Although I found some of the journey slightly terrifying and at one point did cry thinking ‘Oh my God what the hell am I doing?’ I now feel a great sense of achievement and actually am contemplating climbing a mountain again.”

We celebrated meeting our challenge by having a lovely meal out, and then zonked out shortly afterwards. We even got a medal and were presented with these when we arrived back at the community centre for our breakfast. The group we went with raised more than £31K for Macmillan and as well as our donations for taking part in the walk we raised an additional three hundred and fifty pounds.

It feels good to be writing about a medal for this one hundredth blog, and it would also be lovely to know what the air smells like where you are today to mark this occasion. Do let me know!

Here’s a poem for the full moon because it was full and bright above us as we took our trek.

STOP EATING THE LOVE HEARTS

We scatter snow warmth,

swell soft gifts.

Thank you, thank you.

Near wayside evening birds, 

more bread.

Thank you.

Then all our food gifts –

love hearts.

Refrain.

(N.B., this poem was found in the traditional hymn ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’ and after it was found it was gifted its title.)

COBWEBS BLOWN

This morning the air brings the faint smell of wood smoke and whispers Autumn.

Alt text says this week’s photo is two women taking a selfie. I say it is me and Kath having a seaside stroll on the last day of August. One of us paddled and we both had chocolate ice-cream. A quick jaunt to blow away the cobwebs which is our way of saying let’s be us and make sure our souls are shiny.

During the week I had a couple of walks to stretch myself. First, I made sure I could walk up Moel Famau without stopping, and on a different day I went for the kind of walk that needed to last for three hours and include some hills so that I could test out my stamina levels. Kath had bought me new socks for the occasion, and I wore my fully loaded rucksack and took two peppermint creams in my pocket. I enjoyed making up my route as I went along and am looking forward to seeing how well it has prepared me for walking up Snowdon for sunrise. I think I will take another snack to accompany my peppermint creams and am also predicting that my legs will ache the following day!

I have taken a glance backwards this week to see where I have come from to get to this point. So many years of September marking the start of a new year makes this the kind of habit that is ingrained for me, and I do like the freshness of any kind of new beginning. I can see I have been determined to improve my fitness, and I love the way I have heard continued echoes of self-encouragement as well as wonderfully wise words from friends and family. I have definitely improved my ability to work within a stretch zone instead of a comfort zone, and I can see how I can make even more of this going forward.

There is something spangly about this being episode 99 of this particular blogging where each Monday sees me recording what the air smells like, and I love the fact I can clearly remember some of the scents without even rereading the entries. A webinar with Ruby Wax this week (and I am still kicking myself that I didn’t speak to her when I saw her walking the same road as me in Chester) made some interesting points about mindfulness. For me the anchoring of my sense of smell and the rhythmic nature of walking are my favourite ways of being in the moment. They suit me and do me good.

My new relationship with Monday mornings began two years ago when I made the promise to myself to get up early each Monday and see what the world smelt like wherever I was. It came about because I knew I wouldn’t be driving to work each morning and therefore my morning tweets would disappear. It was also enhanced by my noticing that the air smelt of raw meringue one day when I was out walking in the rain.

Next week to mark episode 100 I would love you to join me in recording what the air smells like where you are and if you think you might forget and want to take a deep in breath through your nose today instead then feel free to send me your observations.

I note that the first poem that was included in this blog was the following and I include it again now for old times sake and because there was an Autumn spider in the hallway the other night. I wouldn’t have even noticed the creature if my walking app hadn’t said I needed another 232 steps to reach my target and I decided to walk up and down to achieve them!

This Was Once a Good Poem

but it has eaten cheese and pickle rolls for a week now

and it can’t work out why the vitamins aren’t working.

It rocks in the chair until its eyes are too tired to see

and has scared itself with thoughts of Autumn spiders

under glasses in the hallway.

It is wondering if it is true that conkers in corners

keep arachnids at bay

and is now standing in the dark

sniffing last year’s horse chestnuts

desperate to find their scent.

Originally published by Ink, Sweat and Tears

NEW SHOES

This morning the air smells cleansed and grassy.

Alt text says this week’s photo is pairs of shoes on the floor. I say it is a set of insoles that have gone in the bin beside a pair of new ones that have been inserted into my old walking shoes.

Late August was always the time for new shoes for me. Part of the ritual of marking the approach of a new school year was the selecting and purchasing of a pair of shiny black shoes. This year I bought new walking shoes instead, and I bought them early. I also bought new insoles for my old walking shoes in case there wasn’t time to break in the new ones before climbing Snowdon. My old walking shoes have had lovely adventures in Guernsey as well as being part of my local walks, and based on how long I have had them I predicted that buying a new pair would be the last time I would need to make such a purchase. I felt a little bit sad until I realised just how far the new ones have walked in their first month. My older ones had only lasted so long and stood the test of time so well because they weren’t used so much in the past. They have a few more miles in them yet and are certainly improved by having their new inserts, and it will be interesting to see where the new ones take me.

The most recent Mary Chapin Carpenter album ‘Personal History’ has been the soundtrack to every solo walk I have taken since it was released at the start of June, and I laugh each time ‘Bitter Ender’ comes on because I think I might be a bitter ender when it comes to shoes. As well as clocking up the miles in designated walking shoes I walked the heel area completely off a pair of slip-on shoes in the past year or so. I think the ease of putting those shoes on tempted me to wear them far more than they were suited for. Pleasingly my Hurry Up driver doesn’t appear these days when I am putting shoes on so tying laces does not make me feel like sighing or lead me to wearing the wrong kind of footwear. A quick check of the apps on my phone says that’s over 7000 minutes of the beautiful singing of Mary Chapin Carpenter, and I still love listening to it.

I read this week that in September they will be closing the road where I take my country walk. Because it will be shut for twelve weeks this feels like the end of an era for that particular routine. It will also mark the summiting of Snowdon so even though I won’t be ditching my soundtrack I reckon I will be enjoying finding a new route for strolling out.

I am going to make the following poem my poem of the month for September on my YouTube channel – it was recorded for Poetry Archive Now WordView 2025, and entries for videos close on 31st August. I always enjoy listening to all the poetry videos submitted for this feature and seeing which ones would be in my top ten.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACHIEVE?

A gold medal pings into my mind as the question lands between us in the silence. But I can’t say gold medal because I don’t know exactly what I want it for. My mind pictures me standing there at the award ceremony, bowing my head forward a little in readiness for the presentation. The ribbon brushes my hair, and I feel the warmth of the fingers of the woman transferring the medal as her hands knock against my ears. My head is cumbersome. People with cumbersome heads shouldn’t be getting medals. The applause suddenly feels false, and I didn’t even hear the start of it. I need to hear the beginning of the congratulatory clap. I need to be in the moment. I change my wish. I want a gold medal that fits easily over my head. No, I know what I want… I want a head that fits through the gap in a medal ribbon without causing a kerfuffle for the person handling the ceremony. I want it all to look flawless so everyone remembers me standing on that podium being given a medal. Given, that’s an interesting word. Medals are won not given. Not in a tombola, one in a hundred chance kind of way. You earn a medal by setting a goal and working on it. Over and over again until you are the best you can be. There’s that question again, What would you like to achieve?

CLAPPING WITH MY HEART

This morning I am glad of the smell of cold air with a tinge of earthiness as I push my nose close to the gap of the hotel window which does not open far. Yesterday the corridors smelt of warmed bodies and hot food, and with no draught to waft it fresher it was not the kind of smell I wanted in my nostrils if you catch my drift! Hence breathing out the window to note the scent first thing this morning rather than facing a possible revisiting of last night’s findings. I am hoping that you will join in with what the air smells like where you are for my 100th blog (it is only three weeks away!) and I am sending positive vibes for clear scents that awaken your senses in a good way.

Alt text suggests this week’s photo depicts a statue of a person falling off a hill. I say it is Ronnie making the most of jumping for joy whilst visiting the statue of The Angel of the North.

This week I have been reflecting on how much joy it brings me when poetry and coaching combine. There is something there about the role of poetry in coaching and something too about seeing where I have got to in my journey and how well I know myself since I changed my career after thirty years. That’s quite a lot to think about so my brain has been interestingly busy on my walks this week!

In simple terms I summarise this to myself as poetry giving me the words to express myself and coaching giving me the confidence to enter rooms. Of course there is much more at play than this… friendships, welcome, connections… but I am enjoying finding the spaces that bring all this together. Having two hugely important elements of my life mingling and intertwining feels refreshing and I am excited to see what else will evolve from this mix.

This week I have been clapping with my heart. If you have shared time with me then you may well have experienced my joyful clapping alongside moments of connection and moments of hilarity – a vibrant, energetic clapping that is spontaneous in its appearance. This week I shared space with people that led to the gentle heartfelt clapping of pure gratitude in recognition of human kindness – this I call clapping with my heart. It happens softly in the presence of friends. It happens empathetically when being part of a group joined together by words and love. It happens when people recognise one another and take time to say so. It happens when I lie in bed after taking time to stand under the night sky and wait for shooting stars.

Here’s to all kinds of joy… exuberant joy, cartwheeling joy, and the kind of joy that rests in the heart and echoes.

This week’s poem (a poem that gives me joy in a prose poem kind of way) was written recently in recognition of the times it is difficult to find peace.

EVENSONG

Today I am in church again. I have come for silent reflection in one of my favourite seats, but it feels a little closer to the edge than usual. Shuffling footsteps in the aisle have me predicting who might be about to go past. Slowly and steadily polar bears are settling into the pews around me. Their black claws lightly clasp copies of The Book of Common Prayer. One across the aisle is flicking the pages randomly as if speed reading, another puffs out fishy breath in celebration of finding the right page. One on the row in front asks me if I am going to sing today. I open my mouth to answer but nothing comes out. The bear smiles encouragingly before turning back to face the altar. The pair who held one another’s hands to get to the front row wink at me when the rector says we’re going to the pub afterwards. There’s a dubious stain on the opening pages of my hymn book. I keep it tightly shut, resist the urge to look again at the hint of fingerprints within the brown.  And I am worried that the youngest bear is going to bite the gold cross and I won’t know whether to try to stop him or not.