Elegy to a Writer.

I do not write to entertain. I do not write for amusement. I write because the words come rising up inside of me, like the music does when I can no longer hold myself back from dancing. I write because I cannot hold myself back, but also when I do place these words into form I hope, I pray that these might inspire one day someone, probably myself most of all. When I began to write a book the aim was to write something that I wanted to read - I couldn't find anything that fitted the sort of story that I wanted, so I began to write. It let me express feelings that I couldn't, it helped me know that I had something that was mine, that could never be taken from me or destroyed.

I've been trying to force myself to do academic writing this week, I am not well enough to do academic writing and I knew it at some point, but kept forgetting. I've been hating myself for not getting words onto a page, I've been remembering every moment where my identity as a writer was threatened, I've been grieving the death of a friend who used to sit with me as I wrote. I bought a ring yesterday to wear on the little finger of my right hand - I used to have rings on that finger and the feeling as I wrote was something special, then they used to mark the paper and so I would take it off and it would sit there as I wrote then be put back on. There were four rings - the first three broke for various reasons (the two of them had been replicas of sealing rings that I used to seal things - they hadn't been made for such work). The last one was stolen, the guy that stole it told me that he'd taken it later that week, I repressed that, I had no memory of that, until yesterday, suddenly it flashed into my head, this memory.

For years writing was all I had, a green exercise book and my Grandfather's Parker is how I started to collect my stories together. Then my first A4 black hardback and then my Waterman Ici Et La and A5 black hardback books, a green twisted glass pen with a pot of rose scented red ink as well. Together those stories sat, and now both a black A5 and a blue A4 collect my stories, my poems, my prayers, my thoughts, I write now with a Waterman Hemisphere, the ink changes colour dependant on my mood and purpose, most often grey because it looks elegant upon the page.

I no longer know how to write in desperation. There is too much in my mind to let the words flow without question. Yet I want to let them, I want to let go.

How do we live when the darkness seems to be all there is? We look to the light, to the brightness of the sun, to that which God gives us to illuminate the darkest of times. We are made beautiful, we are made perfect, our imperfection, our suffering is taken up by one greater than us. We do not walk alone.

We do not walk alone.

So I sit here, I rub my eyes again, the clouds clear the sun shines on me, my eye line reaches through the windows and the sun is shinning on me. I have to close my eyes because it is so bright, the warmth of this light upon my face and I remember. I remember who I am.

The desires of my heart are fulfilled, too great for me to achieve are the dreams I have, unless they are not my own dreams, then they will be brought to light this world. "This is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And his is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. Guaranteed." And I pray, I pray that the dreams that fill my heart, the visions that fill my mind are not my own, but they are his.

So I know, as I sit here, that I am becoming who he made me, I hope that this pain, this anger, this hurt can be turned to light, can be turned to purpose. Right now I need to reclaim the writer, the girl who would wake in the middle of the night to jot down an idea that could not be missed, the girl who could not leave without a pen and a scrap of paper, who has a supply of Starbucks napkin poems from those moments when she ran out of paper, who would spend a week perfecting an idea so that at the weekend she could sit and write, the line, the poem, the scene, the act, the movement.

The perfect book is like a ballet, ever piece can stand alone, every word is every step and they are beautiful alone, but together the symphony builds into a movement that brings tears to the eyes of the reader.

So much has changed in my life recently I'm starting to feel a bit lost. I gave up writing depressing self-indulgent blog posts three years ago except for moments of desperate need, this might be one, but also I just need to process and to write something and keep it hidden away in a diary feels like keeping something precious, writing it and burning it feels to radical, but writing something and letting it exist away from you, but be there, that's, somehow that's more comforting, more encouraging so if you're reading this and don't want to read something indulgently self-reflective then move on to something new, if not: welcome to my headspace.

The taste like an old familiar friend, the smooth watered down espresso, the sweet syrup, the warmth refreshing, remembering. Lying on cold polished granite, the echoes of noise a distance away, music in my ears, hiding the tears from the world, in this place that no one knows of, no one sees. Until the moment when the thoughts have been enough, when the fear has passed, when I can pull myself together enough to be alright, to be alive.

Unspeakable terror, fear that has passed on generation to generation, we know in our lives in our bones the horrors that cannot be talked of, cannot be fathomed, too much for those to bear, for those who love.

Unlikely Sanctuary

In the last few months I've found a likely sanctuary, a place which makes a lot of sense to be the place of peace, freedom and escape. A place of sanctuary is something that I have always needed, until the floods got in the way the lions mouth was always that place, a spring in the village closest to my town, it still acts as that sometimes, but I stopped wanting to walk around this town, it stopped being place and so to get to the village became something harder. Without realising it 9 years ago I began to find a place of sanctuary, though a very unlikely place. For most of the last 9 years it has been my sanctuary, though stopped being that after the death of a friend who I used to spend time there with, finally this week I faced that, I faced the memories all at once and the ghosts stopped hurting, the memories are there but not the sharp stab of grief which stopped me wanting to be there.

The year I started secondary school was the year I turned 13, at the end of August I got my school bus card, any trip anywhere on MK Metro for a total of 35 pence! At the tender age of 12 I took my first trip to Milton Keynes shopping centre by myself. The place confused me at first, especially when I realised I was getting lost walking in a straight line! The weekend before I'd been wandering around the streets of Oxford on my own completely oblivious to the need to think about where I was, confidence and knowledge was something that I had in Oxford, I knew where I was, a map of the city imprinted on my mind from about the age of 7, I could never get lost or forget where I was. Now I was surrounded by this place, glass and marble and palms, shops everywhere, I didn't know where to go or what to do, but I had my independence in this strange place and if all else failed I would go to the only shop I knew until I worked out what I wanted to do - John Lewis.

I had taken to going into Smiths and buy a magazine once a month already - I would walk down to Midsummer and sit and drink coffee. Now I had time and freedom I thought I better try to find somewhere else. That summer day I wandered into Silbury, it wasn't busy, and I took the money out of my purse thinking hard, the guy behind the counter looked at me, I was looking up trying to work out what I wanted to drink - I wanted to drink Mocha, the delicious concoction of chocolate, milk and espresso with vanilla flavoured cream (the vanilla made all the difference), but I was 5 pence short. At the enquiry I told him, he smiled at me, don't worry about it, he said to me and made me a mocha.

From that point on whenever I wanted to stop for coffee it was always Silbury, then I started to write there. I was only writing short stories and I realised how nice it was to sit there with the people walking past, the smell of coffee, inspiration surrounded this young writer. I began to know the staff, they would remember me, and I would always remember the smiles that were returned, the laughter and the coffee they gave me. I would try something different everytime I went in, and it was a lovely place to be.

Slowly every month became every fortnight, every fortnight became every week, and very slowly every week became every day, and sometimes more often than that - though it went back to every week a lot of the time. Secondary school had not been what I had hoped for, I had hoped - naïvely so - that secondary school would be a place where I could learn, where I could use my mind to understand the world, literature, philosophy, to excel at mathematics and chemistry, to learn what I was good at and challenge myself where I wasn't good. Instead it was a fight, a daily battle to learn anything, to do more than sit in the back of class having finished all the set work within the first ten minutes whilst people threw rubbish and insults at me. It was the sort of place that I needed to escape from, and my house felt like a building site (to this day we have an archeological dig in the front room). So slowly I realised that I was happy to be sat in a coffee shop most of the day, the people around me were lovely and I could spend the time out that I needed.

Then I began to write a book, a hefty task for a 14 year old to take on, but I took it in my stride, soon the hours wasted at school became places where I would escape to the place I was writing about, working out the characters one at a time, I would think through a scenario in every way possible, saving it up until I got to Silbury and I would sit and write. Though when you're spending that much time somewhere it no longer becomes just about the writing or the coffee, it became about the people, the people who surrounded me, who made me laugh and smile when I was trying not to cry, the community that existed for me in this place. It became the only place I really wanted to be, and it became my escape, my place of sanctuary, that place I needed more than anything else at that moment in my life.

I could spend many more thousand words talking about how those people stood by me in my times of trouble, how that place was the only place that I was safe, and if anyone tried to attack me there I had defences around me, people who would jump in and save me and when it was my own mind that pressed against me, my own fears and doubts I had my writing, I had words that moulded themselves into people on a page. Of all the things I never expected in my life, I never expected a community of friends who stood by me to come through a Starbucks store in Milton Keynes shopping centre, that place was my sanctuary, where I was found for many years, where people who knew me would look for me, it was a safe place for me to be when I need it.

Right now I don't want to be in this room, this house, this town. I'm rubbing tears from my eyes again and I realise I've spent more hours crying in this room than not, it feels so familiar to be crying in this room, with baskets of flowers on the walls, black paint from the beam falling into my hair and the rattle of the window as the traffic passes by. I don't want to be crying, but I can't seem to stop myself. My chest aches near my heart, I know it's just stress, I just wish it wasn't.

I'm not made not to care, I'm not made not to want to understand, I'm not made not to love. I love unconditionally, I love without hesitation, I love those whom I cannot trust, and those I cannot trust are only those who have broken my trust more than once, I love before I do anything else, that is who I am, that is how I am.

I do not use this word lightly, I do not talk of romantic love - that I have chosen to sacrifice, I talk of the love that God has shown me, the love that binds me to Him and to the creatures I share this world with, the love that IS God. He has shared with me love that is unrelenting, sacrificial, unconditional and my love is a reflection of that, though a poor one compared to the original, I am but creature. I love because He loves, I strive to love that which He loves.

I would rather love like this than not, yet this love has cost me dear. This love is the reasons for all my tears, this love for those who have hurt and beaten me down, my love for those who have fallen away, my love for those who are lost, have been lost and will yet be lost, my love for those who have thrown me away, rejected and feared me. This love is costly, it is painful and so as a friend once told me - for those people whom we love it is right to cry and we walk down the street with tears in our eyes for the broken, how much better is it to cry for them rather than be someone who does not see them, does not notice them, does not care, does not want to care.

Now I think it is time with to let the frankincense fill the air, let the psalms fill my mind and sit at the feet of my Lord and pray.

Grief never helps when I need to work. Seven years ago yesterday my Grandmother passed away, seven years ago today I was sat in silbury crying into an americano with irish creme syrup trying to write something, anything to take my mind away from the pain, I did that for several days, there was nowhere else that I was safe, nowhere else I wanted to be, nowhere else I felt I could be, then I called my Dad and we went over to the house, my Grandma's house, my Aunt and my cousin were cleaning, I can't even remember what I did, I just had to be there. Then I was there again before the funeral, walking down the stairs as my Great Aunt looked up at me and mistook me for my mother. I was wearing a black skirt and aubergine top, my cousins stood outside smoking. I hardly remember the church my father spoke I'd never seen him with tears in his eyes before, at the crematorium they played Vaughan William's The Lark Ascending, the pub after was called the Chequers, I wrote it into my book.