It’s all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect. What can you love about where you are now?I’m in a good place, a safe place. I’m warm and I’m dry and I’m in my study, my nest in the heart of this house, with a lavender candle burning, and Tony’s cheesy music drifting in from the conservatory. I’ve got a very long weekend: tomorrow and Friday off, and then Monday and Tuesday, and a party and a show and all sorts to fill it with. Tomorrow I’ll go out and remind myself how much I like this city I live in now.
Eighteen months ago, in the middle of all the terrifying changes, I identified four conditions in which I planned to remain, and here I am: alive, sane, married and employed. The sanity is a bit wobbly sometimes, but the more I remain in the now, the more secure it is.
I came off my bike on the way home this evening, but nothing was damaged except a pair of tights that was on the way out anyway. My bike, my mother’s birthday present, and I, are all intact. Tony ran me a bath and lent me his huge fluffy dressing gown. I smell faintly of lemon bath stuff, and my belly is full of shepherd’s pie, and I’m pleasantly sleepy. My nose isn’t bleeding. That puts today ahead of most of the last week. I’m getting better, and in the mean time I am being looked after in the most delicious manner.
This morning was stunning. I left the house at quarter to seven, and the sky was clear enough for a couple of stars still to be straggling above me, while the dawn was brightening across the river. The red lights and the white lights of the city glowed. This evening it was all moonlight and moody clouds, and there were ginkgo leaves on the pavement.
I like my job. I have reasonable prospects of moving up the ladder. I’ve written a novel. That’s a hell of a thing. I can and will write another. I’ve learned to ride a bike. All the time, I am growing. And, much as I whinge about being ill, I am an awful lot better. I am not just better than I was five years ago, I am better squared. I have discovered whole new dimensions in which to be better. I’ve come an amazingly long way and barely noticed.
I am thinking of various friends who are in difficult places, and wishing (really wishing, you know the sort I mean) them well. I’m thinking of my eldest little brother, whose birthday it is. I am thinking of my ex-colleagues, with some of whom I had lunch today, and how much part of my life they still are, and after I was so worried about losing them all. Thinking, too, about friends from way back with whom I have reconnected this year. I have such wonderful people in my life.
I don’t know how to finish this entry. Every word brings in a new moment, a new now, and each now another good thing. Now is all there is, the only moment that time touches eternity.
Kathleen Jowitt 