Deep Gnarled Roots....and Accompanying Change

Sunday morning early mist clears into fabulous warm blue spring day.

I hang washing on the line and sweep up dead winter leaves in the drive, start weeding and clearing the pots and the borders. And pull out brambles in the hedge - except the deep gnarled rooted ones which defeat me.

Frosty ground this morning,

but like yesterday it clears into 

another warm blue day.

 As I'm  in Exeter after my therapy session, although I wasn't planning it - except it has been on my mind a lot recently - I drive to Higher Cemetery. I'm finally starting the process of replacing the wooden cross with a more permanent headstone/ marker of some kind. I want some inspiration.

I find a twisted fallen branch nearby and drape it over his cross, like the arms of old friends.

I scatter the yellow rose petals - a past its sell-by date bunch from Waitrose - and two deep rose pink rhododendron blooms that I stole from a bush in another part of the cemetery. 

 I stay a long while in the shade of the fir tree thinking about what Robin would like me to say.... what to write in stone....what would capture his aliveness in a forever way.

Then I walk along the paths, shaded with the bare branches of tall spreading trees, and cherry blossom too, and between the grave stones, in and out of sunlight, secluded from the traffic of Exeter below, walking with the calls of crows and magpies and the spirits of the loved departed ones.  It is so peaceful and beautiful.

 Back home I was going to do more gardening but my gut problems have returned so I stay quiet with  a hot water bottle and a mug of miso soup.

 It's only temporarily I'm sure...stirred up by all my anxieties around change - so much change to digest -   the inevitable uncontrollable march of it all -  getting older - grey hair and swollen joints - learning to live alone, my home in flux.

 I want to embrace it all..be positive ...be grateful. And I am that too.

 But at the moment I'm entangled in the deep gnarled roots of my early child hood survival strategies -  trying to control everything to make my self feel safe.

It was a good survival strategy at the time. And has become like the arms of an old familiar friend.

 But I can't control time. I couldn't control Robin's dying and death. At the moment I can't control my insides.

So I made 2 new affirmations with my therapist today. To remind me that there is another way to feel safe.

I allow myself to be nourished on all levels.

And,

I accompany all changes that come my way with love and trust.