All change here
I’ve met a man
He’s lovely and
I like him so much
I like to chat with him and then
We chat and laugh and chat again
He puts strong arms
Around me now
I’m not alone
It feels so good
No longer lost in deep, dark woods.
Seb is gone
And that’s OK
There’s someone new
Oh how I pray
It lasts and lasts and lasts and then
I have no need of other men
He is big
And he is kind
He kisses me
He doesn’t mind
The cancer hasn’t put him off
I’m grateful now.
Now life is good.
My precious angel fluffball
I love him to distraction
He’s not a man of thought
And he’s not a man of action
He is a man of furry tail
A man of apricot paws 🐾
And every time I see his sweet face
I love him more and more.
He has four breakfasts
And he has three lunches
If you can’t find him in the house
Just follow the crunches
You won’t hear the last of it
If you don’t feed him again
I love my cat more than all men
If you don’t feed him even more
I can’t answer for his actions
In a world of constant pain
He’s the best distraction
So give him his third supper
Then he’ll go to sleep
On top of Mum on her bed
Stretched out so he can keep
The whole bed for himself
He clambers up on and
Walks around on the precious objects shelf
Darling, sweetest fluffball
I love you with all my heart
Don’t ever leave me because
It would break my heart.
He is the best at kisses
He gives the fluffiest cuddles
He steps gingerly out when it rains
He jumps over the puddles
And then he rests inside again
On his spotted sofa
He grooms his damp fur with his tongue
He sleeps for many hours
In him G-d has invested
Many special powers
He can growl and he can meow
If you don’t meet his needs
And now it is time again
For another three feeds.
He sleeps the sleep of an angel
Tail wrapped around his paws 🐾
And I gaze at him again
I break all the laws
Of how much to love someone
He has my whole heart
Let’s end this poem now
With the sentiment at the start
He’s my precious angel fluffball
I love him to bits and pieces
And he loves me so we are square
And for once things are fair.
*2018. By D.J. Conway. Mythology, folklore, spirits and spells. The history of the cat and our relationship with this magickal creature.
Hi Cordelia,
Apologies for this long message – I felt like it was the best way to talk to you about all of this given the chats we’ve had before.
The next Detroit trip has come together today – all very last minute due to the nature of the job we’re putting together out there. But it looks like I’ll be flying out first thing Saturday morning – and I’ll be out till mid November at least, so a long trip (and not long to prepare for it).
It doesn’t really change anything, but it precipitates a chat that I think I’ve been needing to have for a while, and it’s not fair on you for me to leave it whilst I’m away.
I’ve not been in a good place for a while. I’m crying every day. Sometimes I’ll break down two, three times. I feel like I’m perpetually combusting inside. I’m struggling to stay on top of work and it’s not a productive place to try and do the therapy work I need to. So that’s why I’ve finally decided that I ought to give myself the option of going back on meds to see if it levels me out.
One of the areas that I’ve been feeling increasingly emotionally stressed is in the context of being in something, a relationship in so far as it is.
A lot of the work I’ve been doing in therapy is around the impact of the important relationships in my life (principally my mum), and redefining where I fit as an individual in those.
And I’ve got a lot of work to do before I get to a place where I’ve got a healthy sense of self and a relationship will be a good thing for me that I can embark on and move forwards.
Fundamentally I can’t do this work on myself and continue in the same way as we are at the moment.
So for my own health and well-being I need to step out of what we’ve got and the direction I know you’d like to take it, and just be friends – should being friends be something you’d be comfortable with. (I understand if it’s not).
I need to be clear about where I’m at emotionally, where I feel like I’m driving towards, what I’m capable of and what I’m not.
I’ve not been very good at stating clearly or managing my needs in the past, but my health depends on it and I do have to listen to them for once.
I’m sorry, this isn’t a fun message to receive, it’ll be disappointing, maybe hurtful. I’m so sorry for that. I really, truly am. I want to be able to support you and not be a source of stress or pain so writing this is painful for me too.
I want to say that this isn’t a result of anything you’ve done, you haven’t done anything wrong. This genuinely is me needing to take the right steps to look after myself and recover.
I’m not able to talk this evening, I need the time to stabilise myself out so I’m going to turn my phone off and get some sleep.
If you’ve got any questions I can try and answer them tomorrow.
Again, I’m sorry Cordelia. I hate letting you down.
*******************************
OK darling I am surprised to be honest and shocked – I thought things were going well. But I understand and I’m sorry but I can’t be friends. I will give your lovely scarf to someone else when it’s finished. Anyway, I wish you all the best: I think you’re a lovely person and I have really enjoyed the times we’ve spent together. I don’t want you to be unhappy – the last thing I want to do is to exacerbate your unhappiness. Fingers crossed that your drugs start to work soon.
Sending lots of love. You know where I am if you change your mind 💖🤗💕
So there we go. Film Chap has split up with me 😭💔.
On the plus side:
Here is a wild lion 🦁 that walks into the house this morning:
Roger and Sascha are 5 – 2 up in the first set. Apparently Jack Sock is the Best Doubles player in the world but the Swiss Goat 🐐 is dominating proceedings at the moment. Sascha is playing much better than he has been recently.
I miss my lovely boyfriend and feel sad 😭 💔.
Happy Friday everyone!
*1986. War drama feature film 🎞 🎥 directed by Clint Eastwood. Stars Clint Eastwood, Marsha Mason, Everett McGill and Moses Gunn. Written by James Carabatsos.
Oh G-d I’m nervous for Rafa for tonight: anxious, nervous, worried.
Watch Serena vs Bianca and it just shows how dangerous someone young, hungry and fearless can be. Bianca breaks Serena in the first game and takes the first set 6 – 3. She leads 5 – 1 in the second. With Bianca serving for the title and achieving a Matchpoint, Serena mounts a comeback at the eleventh hour and wins the next four games, to the delight of the twenty seven thousand people in the crowd. But it’s too little too late as Bianca breaks her and then serves for the title, which she wins, throwing herself in a star shape 🌟 on the court and then climbing up to the box to hug her coach, physio, trainer and finally her parents.
Bianca is just nineteen but possesses the complete game. In the first set her first service percentage is about 84%. She doesn’t struggle with Serena’s serve and sends it back with interest.
Serena is struggling: she’s still not back to full fitness and huffs and puffs when forced to run. She tries, and fails to intimidate her teenage opponent who is fast, super strong and fearless. She’s a beautiful girl too – her cheeks luscious and she glows with the bloom of youth. She has an old head on young shoulders: she hits the ball So Hard. She refuses to buckle under the pressure of throwing away Championship point and although she’s over-cautious in the next four games that she loses, she pulls herself together to break Serena again for 6 – 5 and then serves for the match.
Serena is just Not Right: losing the last three Grand Slam finals, garnering just a handful of games in each match. Her fitness isn’t yet fully back after giving birth but I think what’s missing is something mental: she appears to crumble under the pressure and hits two double faults in some games and countless unforced errors.
Last night I ask the cards whether Serena ought to retire and this is what I pull:
This seems conclusive and damning. It seems what she needs is a new sports psychologist: she’s lost the habit of winning and the superhero cape of invincibility she used to throw on.
Have fun at my cousin’s thirtieth last night:
Pass out about 10.30pm last night and wake up well-rested this morning.
We finish the Major Arcana at my Tarot Course this morning. Am so fascinated that I don’t need the loo during the whole two hours, which is a record: I usually have to go about every forty five minutes. We learn all about the History of Tarot which is grounded in Egyptian, Jewish and Christian mysticism. Am enthralled by it and am good at it: deciphering the symbolism such as the tetramorph – the four Evangelists – with ease.
Just feel that everything is coming together at the moment and that everything I touch turns to gold. Am making great strides in my Pilates teaching, Memoir writing, art, knitting, socialising and Tarot. But then I always feel this when my mood is up. Positivity begets rewards and it snowballs.
A wonderful thing happens this morning: find my Doreen Virtue Magical Mermaids 🧜🏻♀️ and Dolphins 🐬 Oracle Cards and my Gillian Kemp Mermaids 🧜🏻♀️ & Dolphins 🐬 and Magical Creatures Of The Sea 🌊 Affirmation and Divination Cards. Look:
There’s even a card for me, look:
It’s amazing: bought these cards years ago and am so happy to find them again.
Spend some time with my Fluffy in the garden before setting off for the flat.
When I arrive my Rafa hairband is here:
Film Chap is coming round to watch Rafa’s Match with me. Warn him that may be in a bit of a state: it will be good to see him but feel vulnerable: the mask that I wear to hide my anxiety, nervousness and worry may slip and this may put him off. Hope not of course.
Please G-d let Rafa come through this to achieve his nineteenth Grand Slam title: 💖😍🥰👑🐐🙏💕💓🇪🇸🏆🙌🥳🎾🦁🌟.
The Rafaholics WhatsApp group is in overdrive today, as you can imagine.
Watch some of The Thick Of It for some much-needed laughs and now am watching the Women’s Doubles Final for a bit of light relief. It’s the hors d’ouevres before the main course of Rafa vs Medvedev who’s young, hungry and on form.
My wood pigeons are outside and I see my robin earlier.
Right, it’s suppertime.
Happy Sunday everyone!
*1983. By Anna Clarke. Tennis crime fiction novel.
Achievements Of The Day:
Happy Monday everyone!
*1988. By Edgar Allan Poe.
It’s my bestie’s 41st birthday tomorrow and I wrote this for her:
Happy Saturday everyone!
*2001. By Martha Moody. Novel.
I cry to fill the marble halls
To quiet the wren who with me falls
Into the depths with acid rain
She should have flapped her way again
Down my windpipe it is plain.
She flutters in my stomach now
I sweat and sweat and mop my brow.
I listen to the gentle fan,
I climb the walls of ancient halls.
Dark, and deep, and quiet here
I rest a while, it is clear
I never will be free of Seb
I never will be me again
The trickle only of the rain 🌧
The gentle puff of every train 🚂
The chug, the whirr, the dragonfly
The birds and insects why oh why
Down in the depths:
The sparrows now in Greek they sing
I do not hear the doorbell ring.
Night time: now they are asleep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep.
And now within the halls it’s deep
I must, I must now try to sleep
Until morning: if I start soon
I gaze outside, I see the moon 🌓
The passing plane ✈️ her lights all flash
Is it dot or is it dash
Is it her or is it him
I love you Seb 💓 .
We can’t begin again you say.
I need the light, the light of day 💡
Inside my heart ❣ now it is grey
I rip down curtains, don’t delay.
Estella’s gone: now Pip’s alone,
Dying soldiers in trenches moan.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light,
Anxiety the wren takes flight.
Down and down and down we go,
Tied together for all time.
Seb is gone now: really gone.
Fourteen years I’ve spent on him,
Can I really now begin
Can I: who knows, I can but try –
I really don’t, don’t want to die.
I pop some more Promethezine.
The last time my love was seen
He said he had to now be alone
I can cry and I can moan
I can howl and I can roar
It can’t be how it was before
It’d be good to feel anger now
Not this sadness. I mop my brow
The room cools down now,
I must rest but
This poem is not my best.
I lost Seb and with him love,
They catch and kill and eat the dove 🕊
*1843. By Alfred Bunn. Lyrics to the opera The Bohemian Girl by Michael William Balfe.
Look what have just received. Excited to read it. It’s about a real locked room mystery case in 1860. Can’t wait to read it.
Don’t make it to the gym as my new chap comes round to cook me breakfast. He’s been on the scene since March. Haven’t mentioned him as don’t want to jinx it. Anyway, he’s lovely and hopefully he’s going to be sticking around for a bit. He’s a film director and has to go away a lot for work which is why we’ve only just achieved seven dates. But hopefully Film Chap will become a fixture here now I’ve finally mentioned him.
Go to sleep after he leaves at 1.30pm and don’t wake up till 5.30pm so have missed the gym today. Seeing my trainer tomorrow at 11am and have booked all my classes for next week.
Am lying on my new sofa. The panther lies next to me, resting his heavy head in my lap.
Watch The Danish Girl last night and it’s really good. Recommend it. Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander are outstanding and it’s a fascinating true story of one of the world’s first transsexuals in Denmark in 1925.
Happy Sunday everyone!
*2017. By Sinclair McKay. True crime. Non-fiction.
Wake up and watch Silent Witness and knit.
Go to gym:
Do four sets of all my weights. It’s a sunny day. Have lunch and a sleep and then spend two and a half hours working on Technique Principles for my Pilates Instructor Course. Pass the worksheet with a score of 9/9. Am pleased with self for working so hard.
Make contact with the girls in the Goddess Collective. There are a couple of Pilates Instructors in there which is good. They may be useful later on.
Need to have a wash and clean lenses as have a Second Date later, well done me.
Happy Sunday everyone!
*2001. Episode of Silent Witness. Stars Amanda Burton, Stephen Moore, Mel Martin and Anthony Head. Written by Nigel McCrery and Tom Needham. Directed by Rob Evans.
To all the boys I’ve loved before,
To all the graves I’ve dug – and more,
To all the clay I’ve shaped,
Reshaped and shaped again.
To all the ways I thought I’d changed,
To all the pots I thought I’d made,
To all the cracks that let in light,
To all the tracks I’ve stepped at night,
And all the roads not taken then.
To all the parts of self I’ve changed,
To be the one to make him stay,
To be the one so he won’t stray.
To all the boys and all the pain,
To shape reshape and shape again.
To all the starts I thought I’d made,
To all the trust that they repaid
With all the barbs and all the hurt
And all the silent, silent graves
Of all the loves I thought I’d won.
To all the novels, all begun,
To all the balls of yarn I’ve turned
Into the flesh, the flesh, the word
The word made flesh and flesh made word again.
To all the first times, first lines, first kiss,
First miss, another miss and miss again.
To all the catches that I’ve dropped,
To all the stitches that would knot.
To bloody messes of my face,
To bleeding hands and ulcered feet,
And all the ways I tried to win his love.
To all the times I lost one glove.
To all the freezing damp and dirty plates,
To all the bloody awful dates,
To all the pubs and all the bistros where –
I touch and touch and touch my hair.
To all the times I thought I’d won,
To all the bloody work I’ve done
To make him stay.
To all the times I’d pray
To be delivered from this pain,
And now I’m on my knees again.
Oh make it, make it, make it stop,
I hear the ticking of the clock,
It draws me in,
It draws me home.
I search for him, and search again,
On all the sites and sights and trains,
On all the blasted heaths in rain,
And all the words, and all the cries,
How quick love jumps,
How soon love dies.
The sparrows sing in Greek again –
A different road. No: it’s the same,
The same road walked again, again.
And even though my feet are lame
The blackbird sings “Begin again.”
*2014. By Jenny Han. Young adult romance novel.
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