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“The screen is the empty mirror where the simulated shadows of things relentlessly replace each other. In our craven fear of being forgotten, we remain glued to the empty window” - John O'Donohue A year ago I decided to quit instagram and facebook. To delete my six year history of posts and catalogue of carefully curated squares of lovely and hard life: things baked, clothes made, babies birthed, eggs cleaned, poems penned, plants tended to. I wrote a blog about the decision to quit here. Thirteen months has given me room to ponder what it was I needed in that decision. First and foremost it gave me a sense of agency to let go, and in actually letting go, I noticed how good it felt to make a decision for myself that other people wouldn't necessarily want or accept or even need for themselves. A friend said leaving instagram was like "coming home to herself" and I couldn't agree more. I also needed the gift of space it afforded me. What happened in the space freed from spending hours every day on instagram and facebook? It was simply absorbed in the day (and night) as little pockets of moments between the chores and doing and going - to simply be: to pause, to take more care or a deeper breath. These pockets, like the best placed, generous pockets of a beloved dress or coat, are warm and homely. They are essential to being comfortable, safe even, in the middle of the mess and clamour and unpredictability of life. I am sure there are ways to carve out digital pockets that are relaxing and constructive, and perhaps writing and reading blog posts and long-format news pieces is mine, but it still pales in comparisons to the real life sun-on-your-face pockets of pause and breath. I wouldn't cut them out now for anything. It has also given me a renewed appreciation for waiting, that easily neglected, yet necessary part of being human. I love Marnie Kennedy's reflections on waiting as a kind of prayerfulness: "Instant knowledge, instant gratification, instant success are the messages of the media. However, waiting is of the essence of creatureliness and is the characteristic of genuine prayer, for it helps to purify the heart of impatience and consumer addiction. Waiting is in itself a deep place of revelation and leads to the unmasking of illusion, prejudice and fear" I realised I could wait before taking a photograph of something beautiful or sharing something with friends or family. I could also wait before purchasing a new knitting pattern or ordering beautiful fabric to recreate something I'd see someone else make. I could wait before writing something that others would read in my newsletter, for ideas to come and go more gradually. I could also wait for feedback which didn't come very often and was perfectly alright to keep creating and contemplating without instantaneous feedback and encouragement. I can wait for relationships to simmer and grow in real time. I can wait - and am still waiting - for my body to heal from illness without any guarantee or when or how. I can wait with less instead of impatiently craving and cramming in more. I'm sure you've come across these famous lines by Mary Oliver from her poem "Sometimes": Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." But what is she saying here? What does the whole poem speak of? Is it a glittery prompt to document our lived experiences for all to see? To labour over photographs and catchy descriptions on our digital devices? Or is it simply to remind herself - and us the readers - to sit with the present moment, however mundane or extraordinary, and drink it in. To savour the sublime ordinariness of grasshoppers and afternoon light, and the gifts of idleness and solitude, the messiness of faith and relationships. What if telling about it was just bearing witness to our own senses? To the stories and feelings of others in real time? I used to live a life of squares beautiful confines to capture the seasons: bread still steaming children in play flowers opening kind of thing. You saw what I saw but you didn't see me with my phone body rigid and fingers tapping the scene heart hurting. What if paying attention to my own body is the gift? That it's enough to feel my senses hold the present: clouds gathering, jaw loosening, wind wavering imperfect things. I live a life off-grid now a beautiful freedom to savour the seasons. We have the sky in common
when we can see the stars, a place to gaze in union. Yet bent down, flung afar we worry about our futures, we have the sky in common. There's a world above us, further and closer, a diadem mother - a place to gaze in union. What wisdom sits in wonder: forgotten maps and visions are. We have the sky in common. Woven webs of golden scars our nighttime reservoir, a place to gaze in union. Our faces bright like lovers when we can see the stars, we have the sky in common: a place to gaze in union. Anchor me
to your lovingkindness steady my feet on soft grass Tether me to the gentle stream may I bathe in living water, drink from your wellspring Moor me at the harbour of your grace a place to rest my head for dreaming Ground me in the hope of new life where space for stories grow, compassion and belonging. Secure me to the still small voice that I would hear you in the clamour and in the silence Down by the river no boys playing, banks submerged with rain - everything rushing, gushing, gurgling, sodden and soaking, debris caught and foaming. I watch the water mesmerised, it's a funny kind of sympathy she reflecting me: that spilling out, forcefully, an overflow of feelings days of rain and howling winds bring - of wondering, half-sleeping, weeks of lockdown and isolation familiar paths, unsettling us again and again. I'm a mess of worry and relief we know we're the lucky ones with animals safe, with house in tact that's dry and warm - spirit within us, hovering, rest and disturbance. Down by the river I'm a woman lingering, listening to the flow - birds are singing, darting in the trees and on my face blessed sun, shining. there is life in the vine
in each and every season our growing and remaining a place to dwell in love in autumn as the leaves fall when mornings grow darker fruit is stored for what will come: cheer, loss, communion winter brings frozen things ground, breath, tired limbs, when we are slow and needy of every clear sky, of warming springtime flush of green life budding from branch and tree and the steady hum of bees, of children in bare feet in summer work and play, beating heat and flowering, when days begin to sprawl each raindrop brings relief there is life in the smallest leaf, in stretching and growing, ripening and rotting, in pruning and resting, refreshing at the roots each season is necessary its own kind of beautiful when we remain in love, there is life in Him. Above the bookshelf sits an accordion
a birthday gift, she's older than me but we're alike in dusty ways leathery, blue, spiny ways, weathered with sounds and unspoken ones for six years I've played a melody of a painterly, light filled life: beautiful squares to return to, contain and be contained, and stare into I hold the accordion in my hands pull out a slow, long wheeze and contract into myself: an uncomfortable yet necessary thing I have given birth three times surged, panged, sore and singing a song as old as life itself - three living bodies emerged from my own I prepared myself for the labouring for expanding, expectantly, but it was afterwards, with babe at breast I felt my body do a strange and painful thing: my womb contracted, retreated in completion, shrunk itself and so I think it is with all creative work we puff up and shrink, concertina-like, we make and miss notes, we glimmer with goodness, dust and who knows what else: we grow, birth, contract, rest again and again and again. Down by the river
three boys barefoot looking for fish, frogs, and yabbie claws We marvel at the shallows, green and weedy, banks covered with reeds willows flowing with leaves poplars tall and shimmering, the littlest boy is crouching on a rock watching water bugs he sees me watching him and grins, It’s a mud pie heaven a place to sit watch rocks sink, forgotten fence posts stick up like rusty thumbs dragonflies land on them we notice tiny blue moths, flies and native bees. Three boys rivering, above them galahs flying, their mother revelling in watery reflection, thinking, we seem to come on the days we most need it. Low days
always creep up and surprise me, a long overdue catch up with my body and she tells me I’m sore, spent the world outside mirrors feelings, the cold and unsure ones clouds smattered with sun and rain It’s enough to watch them to breathe a little deeper roll hunched shoulders back sip broth in a nice mug, to be frazzled and drink grace in, stroke kindness into tired skin. early morning landscape
unfolds like a concertina of green leaves and bird song plantain, clover, magpie and wren - we breathe it out, breathe it in. |
ABOUT the authorEmily Clare Sims is a farmer and mama to three young boys. Each day she looks for ways to notice beauty, contemplate her faith and savour the seasons... Categories
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