Hello friends,
This week, I wanted to share with you something I wrote during a Community Discovery Writing Gathering with Maggy Navin. I have mentioned these before, and I likely will again, because they are magical spaces.
Back in October, one of the prompts was βThe Time In Between.β For this prompt, I wrote a list (of course) and the list really is telling of where I was at β both physically and emotionally β at the time.
I hope you enjoy reminiscing with me and that you also check out Maggy's gatherings.
The nervous excitement between a text sent and a reply received
The choice to scroll my phone or people watch while waiting for takeout
The decision to walk to the next bus stop rather than wait at the current one for a busΒ
The longing and lust as the first coffee of the day brews
The transformation from when you sit in the barberβs chair and when you stand up
The long, cramped, crowded wait to hug loved ones on the other side of the flight
The three drops, awaiting one line or two
The memory of a place becoming the present again one day, and the imagination in between
The way a song can build and grow and take you on a huge emotional journey
The way a plant looks when you leave vs when you get back from a trip
Reigniting a love assumed lost when you see each other again
A love fading once time is spent apart
The start of a book and reading the last line
A brand new candle and the stump that remains, and all the things it lit up as it burned away
An ask and the anticipation of the response manifesting as an upset tummy
The flip of a coin and the time it is in the air before it lands, and ultimately relieves or disappoints you
The morphing of a face, and a body, from my twenties and through my wonderful, wiser thirties
The slower the dog you have always known walks, since your last visit
The shape of a body that grows as it nurtures a future baby you cannot wait to meet β in every photo a transformation
The regrowth beneath the lime green of a manicure, before it becomes midnight blue with the change of the season
Timezones and friends between days and nights and seasonsΒ
Letting go as it doesnβt matter anymore with time
Lovely reader, what comes up for you when you read The Time In Between? Thank you again, Maggy, for this prompt.
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here are three things I struggled with this week:
π Being with dogs is awesome but having to leave them is no fun.
π€ A little bit of Zoom fatigue, quite simply.
π One thing in and one thing out. Kind of a struggle, kind of a thrill. My suitcase can only take a certain weight so when I find the *perfect* thing at an op-shop, then something from the suitcase must be then donated to the op-shop. The circle of life.
here are three blessings from this week:
π All of your lovely messages of, well, love, after last week. Thank you!
π Saying what I want! Not giving people options that do not work for me, hoping they will read my mind with the magical perfect answer I did not provide.
πͺ© A really good playlist will make the world go βround.
here are three goals for the coming week:
π«Ά I have been good at pausing to do arm stretches and shoulder movements for five minutes here and there as I sit at the desk all day. More of that!
π€ Writing, writing, writing comedy but am yet to step onto a stage in Australia. I have been using the βI need to be home with the dogβ excuse but soon it wonβt be possible soβ¦
π§ My next housesit has an amazing backyard, so I am off to do my sunrise workouts on the grass. Please and thanks.
here is something I enjoyed this week:Β
and in particular, the latest volume which is beautiful, powerful and important: Zora Stood Tall and So Will I.Even more fascinating than Zoraβs fictional life was her real life. Anecdotally, it was said that she owned any room she walked in. I imagine her much as I do Jenifer Lewis, who can walk into a room and shout bam! Zoraβs the kind of woman who would have been just as at ease in an upper-class salon as she would have been in a speakeasy.
pics or it didnβt happen:
I love you. Iβm so grateful to those who read my substack 𧑠because I really love writing it to you,
LD
xoxo
Lists are so good for reflection.
π€
The time between. It's making me think of snapshots of my life. Each one a different me, as I've grown and changed. Sometimes, a lot of the time actually, I'm barely recognisable. But I'm always there. The core me. And that's the bit that comes clearer with every image π
What a great writing prompt! Love your list so much. Would be fun to do that exercise every few months as a record of where you were. Thank you for sharing the prompt and the inspiration!
Your donating an item from your bag when you thrift a new item is such a cool practice. It reminds me that itβs about time to do a spring cleaning/ de-clutter of my closet!
Have fun with your outdoor morning workouts! Sounds dreamy! π