I want to learn the guitar

Better and to a pro level

I began

But then something else came along

I want to learn the piano properly too

I want to get back to painting

I want to mould the clay

But there is only so many things we can accomplish

On any day

We have to make choices about time

And how we spend it

Who we spend it with

As we grow older

It appreciates

As do we

That there is only so much

That we can give away for free

Carelessly

If there is one thing I miss about youth

It is the feeling of expansiveness

Like whole days could be blown

Lying in bed

With a hangover

The currency of time thrown at people who despised us

Yet we still tried

Some nights would pass

And the sun would come up

And I would still be engrossed in a conversation with an idiot

Who would never change

Still, I would feel that I could

If I just argued more passionately

That I would be understood

And the dancing was all about the song and the beat

Where now it is almost spiritual

As is music

And I think both less and more

About things that matter

And the things that matter

Are deeper

Finite

I can see the edges of things that were once blurry

And yet need my glasses to see the edges of things that were once clear

Life

Is a juxtaposition of loss

And gain

And the more we let go of

And change

The more some things remain the same

And although it seems circular

I pick up news

On each revolution

And by the next

It is already losing sense again

Just when I understand something

It slips away

The “I am smart” moments are fleeting

So now, I don’t ever bother with a feeling of achievement

There is no time for podium steps

Or even stairs at all

There is a narrowing

A broadening

A quickening

That’s quite extraordinary

I’ve been thinking about death

As the edge of a stone

Eventually all knives must be thrown away

There is a point where they are sharp and useful and keen

And a part where they lose blade altogether

Become thin air

And the handle that once held them

Is all that is left

And then we find out

It was never the handle that mattered anyway

*my husbands father has a butchers knife that was probably his own fathers. It has been stone sharpened to a paper thin curving strip – which fascinates me. How long has it got that knife before it disappears altogether?

Photo taken ages ago…