So.

Here we are.

I’ve started practising music again. Plugged my 20 year old keyboard in and got a beginners piano book and, well, here we are. Practising scales again after all these years.

Phil  – dear departed Phil – was a musician. Oh I never knew, I never knew until I sat down and started to play, but music reminds me of him and playing it, playing it makes my heart ache so slightly.

Here we are.

I’ve got so many friends who are in dark mental spaces right now. Birds of a feather and all that, although it’s unsettling to be standing in the brisk air of dawn but seeing people still in their personal night. It aches, to know that I can’t lead anyone else out, that it’s a blind crawl we each have to make on our own. God I wish I could help, I wish

if you’re in that space, lost inside yourself, then I’m sorry. I can’t offer you any more than the cold comfort that I’ve been somewhere similar, too, and somehow made it out, after so many years lost in the twilight and the night, and the blood red earth.

And here we are.

Between jobs right now – I still wake early, listen to any Buddhist talks which takes my fancy. Meditate. Practice German, practise music. Gym.

The language is a good thing. I’d been learning Spanish but stopped when my 2017 breakdown really hit – not much point trying to learn another language if you’re going to be dead soon and I was expecting very much to be dead, soon.

But here we are.

I cried just now. Grief crept up on me, then came invited; a wounded animal, untamed, seeking shelter. Small tears then big tears then that strange keening howl beyond pain or tears, at the edge of human sound, at the edge of human being. Cried and rocked and held myself tight, sobbed, gasped. Gasped. Softly wiped away the tears, carried on breathing.

Still.

Here we are.