Image on Unsplash by Roksolana Zasiadko 

I am a subscriber to Megan Devine’s weekly and monthly writing prompts. I always read them, even if I don’t often write into them. But this week I want to write into one of the prompts she sent out recently. Even if it made more sense to me last night, when I was fully energised – if also exhausted – from a few days of being out up in the sunny snow doing sunny-snow-like activities for hours on end.

This morning I feel very tired, and less capable of bursting into flower. But even flowers have their off-days, I presume.

The potflower on the windowsill says to me
In words that are green-edged red leaves:
Flower
flower flower flower
Today for the sake of all the dead.
Burst into flower.
​
Muriel Rukeyser
​
Note from Megan: Can you write into flowering, not because you weren’t radiant enough Before, but because you are here, now, still? Can the pain you know become an ally in your heart, letting you know what is worth your time and your love, and what is simply not?

Because I am here, now, still, and you (plural) are not:

• I take more time to rest, sleep, cry, write, walk, take time off in the week to cross-country ski, read books, do my yoga, meditate, play piano, compile play lists on Spotify, cook, walk the dog, cuddle the cat, visit my parents, have a massage
• I take less time shopping, cooking, cleaning, negotiating, arbitrating, driving, planning, buying Christmas presents, wrapping Christmas presents, writing Christmas cards and standing in an interminable queue to send them off

If you just look at these two lists, it seems like my life is way better now. And of course it’s not, but I do feel like I am in a precious bubble of peace at the moment, within what remains a challenging period of my life. My life is still unequivocally “good”. Objectively. Or perhaps even Subjectively.

My parents are (still) in good physical shape.

My surviving kids love their studies, even if they find it all rather exhausting at times. And they come home today and tomorrow 😉 in shā’ Allāh (I am rarely so happy to go shopping)

My new (now 2 ½ years – so perhaps not so new? Even if it will always feel new, compared with the 30 years minus 6 months I had with Mike) relationship with Medjool gets lovelier and lovelier week by week, month by month, and he STILL has not put a foot wrong in the “crappy grief response” behaviour category (he says I teach him well; I say he pays attention well)

So this is flowering.

This is me bursting into bloom.

Slowly and tentatively.

Nourished by gratitude, self-care, presence and love.