An Open Book

9th August 2011 Tuesday

Sitting with a dear friend and a cup of tea - she asks me what I think the hole in my leg is about. I find my self crying. So then I know what it’s about. It isn’t finished yet - feeling bereft, feeling sad for those lost things - the way it used to be with my husband, the way it won’t be now.

It’s not as if I keep looking back with regrets or looking forward with fear. It just feels like I’m floundering in a deep well fed by an underground river that keeps flowing and I can’t stop it. And I think I should. Stop it now. Stop all this grieving. Especially as my husband seems to be happy. It seems churlish somehow. As if he’s sailing on and I’m holding him back by still drowning in the river.

But the hole in my leg is open wide and weeping. No hiding it. So being open - opening up my heart - all the mess of it - instead of keeping it to myself - which has been my habit - seems to be the way I’m choosing to heal. However long that takes. Being an open book and letting you read me.

And today sitting with my friend, her voice like an a Tibetan singing bowl piercing my heart, I feel all the sadness of the world flow through me like a cresting wave and then break into a flood of emerald green light. Filling me up with the colour of love.

In the bath tonight my husband says,

‘Are you blogging about the plums and the blueberries?’

(The wheelbarrow full we picked at the allotment yesterday).

‘No’, I say, ‘I’m writing about the hole in my leg.’

‘Is it getting better?’

‘Yes, I think it is,’ I say, remembering the pulse of the emerald green light.

‘And I’ll write about the plums tomorrow.’