French Toast.
Our worlds are being carved.
Hello dear reader,
In the archives of my collected poems and words, it felt important to send out my very first newsletter with poetry in the company of French toast.
The first part of this love letter will bring you a sense of ‘being’ (so pour a glass and lean in) . The second part will call you to a feast, inviting you to “play”—something to save for when time allows and your appetite asks for it.
Importantly, I wanted to begin by thanking you all for being here, for being patron to the art and its evolving process. I am in deep awe of the support you have sown into this new place of practice.
A close friend articulated it so beautifully this week upon generously sharing my work to her own ‘Patronus’ —
“In these modern days, Substack has become an old world way of being a patron to the arts and the artists that are brave enough to share their inner worlds with us, the viewers… The word patron comes from the latin word ‘Patronus’ - “Patron saint, bestowed of benefice” … to think we the viewers, the readers, the ardent admirers can somehow play a part in benefiting the lives of artists and creators through the realm of Substack is a blessing onto ourselves, for it is by the work and gifts that artists share with the world that cultures shift, differences become strengths and we find hope in the collective.” —
Vishnu Hedemark / Studio Espichel / Fable Bookstore
Before we feast upon the poetry and roll out the makings of French toast both metaphorically and figuratively, I wanted to speak and share from my current place of being.
A little point of reference for the place I am currently writing from.
As I approach the white and shimmering blank sheets of this new discipline, I’m cautious in un-packing my poetry in a full bodied way, I want to be honest here but tether the lines that believe poetry must have a certain element of mystery to it, for it to have personal meaning for the one who digests it .
The poems are my lived experience, written honestly in the happenings of my life—It’s my hope that the poetry I write and continue to share has space and breath to land in a way that allows sincere reflection of your own kind. I hope you can hold the poems and prose and thread them into the meaning of your life in a way that grants language to your own unspoken highs and sighs. I’m looking forward to becoming of second nature in building words and stories around the poems, ones that lean into the poetry without completely unfolding the scaffolding that holds them up.
I am new to writing longer pieces, I am essentially exercising this on your clock. You are here at the beginning…
It’s time.
Nestle in. Let us catch our breath for a little while.
There are lots of new things happening in our home in this chapter of life. My most prominent earmark being— all three of my children are in school. This is a new and unknown place of being.
Last year was a big year for my family and I.
A bigness we chose.
I have pages and pages of poetry in my notes to show for it, a year that was stretching and growing and hard, and beautiful too. I leant into poetry and prose like a lifeline; a sacred place to process, to be at one with my thoughts, a means in choosing gratitude over and over and finding the beauty in it all. Poetry does this for me.
As last year came to its close it kindly gifted us the longest and warmest summer sun.
We unfolded.
Summer was a gift of reprieve to us all, in essence one of our greatest summers yet. With time to feel, it was instinctive and clear to call end to the past 5 years of all my existing art; time-stamping it all and allowing it to be time capsuled in the books from where it all came. Essentially, I was choosing an extended time away from making for a living and rather making way for open space.
I can now see that the sense to do this was pure God-speak— this current year and place I find myself in has required a kind of presence that I could not have planned for.
I am learning that when the Holy voice gently nudges and a season is calling itself to a close, it is important not to over stay a welcome. I feel this in both the realm of life and in the process that is art.
So we are here,
now
in real time
finding ourselves growing, stretching, falling and rising and somewhat opening ourselves up to things of new importance. It seems there is less space for some of what has been, and new and once hidden spaces are opening up, showing us that this is
a different time,
a different place.
I feel the emergence of this new place of being could be the outworking or happenings of a mother moving out of the earlier art of what it is to raise babes, while simultaneously dipping toes in waters that are unlearnt and full of newness, the middle work I’ll call it, in a new place and time.
I feel very in the middle of something new and unfamiliar.
All the possibilities and unknowns and newness— beautiful and ground shaking too.
My 9 year old daughter is in the newness of learning violin at school whilst insisting on extra lessons on the side, she is diving into three different genres of dance, crocheting wrist warmers and coffee cup holders. There are colourful wool ends found in all her pockets and all over the house. There’s cartwheels instead of walking and the frequent asking of why’s and how’s? I’m often finding garden dirt and seed bulbs living and growing in my most treasured ceramic bowls, they are left on tables and bedsides and back steps from the green thumbs that are planting and harvesting vegetables, that have names I have never heard of. She is all extrovert,
all in,
all across it,
all about it.
I whisper “slowly” to her and watch her wide eyes ‘see it all’ while coexisting and learning the art of eye-to-eye when speaking, sharing, conversing. I see her trying and failing and giving it all a go, with her learning and stretching and exercising of the things her heart is made of— doing it well and horribly and imperfectly and beautifully whilst shining mirrors to the work I still need to tend to. It is very human here.
She wants to cross roads by herself to connect with her independence and at the same time it’s not a rarity to have a mattress lay on our bedroom floor, because she wants closeness. She is waking and wanting to eat all of life whole (but with a refusal to eat anything that once had a heartbeat or fur). Essentially she is announcing who she is.
She is daring and willing to explore new expressions for the untamed within herself. I am here, in the middle of this new place and time, with her and a van full of skateboards and bikes and scooters perching up at the skatepark most afternoons. I have learnt a lot about my daughters these past 2 weeks on the floors of concrete. I have stood intently, watching, affirming and somewhat coaching a sport I have no idea about. I saw my eldest in real time mentally tackle fear in the channels of my heart-speak and it wished me back alive, reminding me how much she needs me to be here, in this place, with her. She is made of fire and storms and rain and songs and I am on my toes and knees—
prayer language
is
of
importance
here…
Our twin daughters are also in the throws of an entire new galaxy—that being, the very first year of their school journey. Most weeks it feels like all our energy sinks deeply into simply making sure all things are in a rhythm that can sustain the newness of this beginning, they are bravely befriending a new kind of learning, without us. It has been large for them.
A cause for early nights and big breakfasts, protein in bellies and good starts and less of the back-to-back-to-back social swings with more time for bare-feet on grass or sand or shoes and socks (preferably not the itching kind) cuddling feet while eating fire side, sipping magnesium elixirs and choosing things that allow a nervous system to be housed how it needs and settled into its home.
There is a-lot of decompressing going on in this newness when the gaps are offered up to us as weekends.
Our twins, in all this newness have forced us to
slow
life
right
down.
We are their walking barometers.
Reading and feeling and waring our way through the waves of them x2. We are careful in making sure gaps aren’t too full, because if so, we will most definitely be led into the audience of the most electric and stormy kind of theatre—overstimulation x2. Right now our sights are not set on longer views but more so in the here-and-now - “give us this day our daily bread” kind of presence — and even though it’s been 6 months of all this newness, it all still feels quite new.
If I’m honest I didn’t see it to be this way on the dawn of this new place of being— last year, when I felt to take an extended Lacuna knowing my daughters would all be in school, I imagined long lunches, reading books and baking bread… to which I am doing in small pockets, but what actually fills my day is the out-working of hands holding hearts through large masses of newness and change— this has become my long lunch…
… slow cooked meals and prepping and washing and sorting afternoon tea and house-resetting and lunch boxes while carving out a chance to write. I like to make practice of finding moments to sit in stillness on the couch for an hour to gift myself the long awaited novelty of silence. I have also made sure to make space for the sheer luxury that is sitting in cafe and giving my friends undivided attention and full finished sentences without sugar bowls and baby chinos being spilled all over me and the table.
This is new.
