Tag: death

Freelance Reflections #22

News

The start of the year will begin with the Living Record Festival, where I’ll be sharing ‘Circles’, as previously mentioned. I’ve been challenged as things have not gone as expected. My binaural experiment failed as it appeared the microphone was broken after spending an hour and a half setting it up, with lots of phone calls for support. I’d realised when I collected it that I could only test it out in the studio, and everything went perfectly in terms of set up, but it was just sod’s law that it didn’t work.

However, this has all been put into perspective and I’ve given myself more time to rest than ever. Yesterday, my maternal grandad died. It is still so raw and the shock is intense as he was in hospital only a week. As many others have experienced this year, it is the worst time to lose someone, as my parents and my nan are having to self-isolate after having seen him. But I am grateful they at least had that. He turned 80 just as we went into lockdown, and although we never got the celebration, we managed to see him in August.

I had 25th – 27th off to rest and relax, and likewise, I have given myself most of the time from the evening of New Year’s Eve until now to do the same, and just taking things slowly. Tomorrow is ‘Blue Monday’, but work may end up being a welcome distraction at the moment. Perhaps grief will allow me to work more in the way I want to, rather than with the stress and pressure I have been putting on myself on the lead up to and between these holiday breaks.

World Poetry Day: Palm Sunday

poems

Palm Sunday

For my friends and loved ones, the Year 11 girl whose grandma passed away this weekend, and for anyone else this may comfort.

Here, have these blessed things,
carry them with you as you journey home.
This knowledge will make you feel safe,
though you don’t really have that kind of faith.
It is spring now, and though you are alone,
soon you’ll be a pair of birds spreading wings.

Sometimes life leaves you standing in the wings,
and you can’t think of your lines, amongst the many things
going on around you – so many people, yet so alone,
and you’re sure what to call “home”
and all these months you’ve had faith,
but they were the one who made you feel safe

and you’re old as slang saying good is “safe”,
ending nights out with chips, fried chicken wings,
garlic bread, the echo of dance tracks from Faith-
less, swimming through the airwaves, thinking things
would always be this way, that home
would always be there, with family, not alone.

Never has the word held more weight: alone
like scissors to the nets that kept you safe
and in the truest sense of the word, you’re not home-
less, but it’s like being forced to fly with clipped wings.
Trying to remember how you dreamt of so many things
and you know you have to embrace fear, have faith

that this life is possible with enough self-belief and faith,
that you will have to build walls of arms, so you’re not alone
and force yourself to remember all the things
that seem so painful now, that you will be safe
because there are angels spreading wings
to guide you, and where you land will be your home.

Follow your heart home, and you won’t be alone.
Papier-mâché your faith, and you will be safe
as you spread your wings, you’ll see so many things.