I am a relentless romantic. I want life to be soft and yearning and beautiful and gossamer green. I want to live in the heart of Mabira Forest with just my little dog in a cottage for two. I want to steep my tea and breath in the morning mist and watch the dew slide off my little vegetable patch. Every afternoon, I want my family and friends to come over for the bread I have cooling on the window sill. They will walk up the patchwork path up to my door and my little dog will bark and run-up to their familiar smells and smiles to say hello, welcome, so good to see you again!. She will run back to me to let me know we have company and that I had better lay out the treats she is hopeful of sharing. I will smile and beckon them closer from behind the gently waving clothes I am unhanging from the clothesline outside on my vibrant verdant lawn. I want more than anything to create a space where every day, I can lie down and daydream and daydream and daydream.

I will write everything in my heart and beyond and I will be happy. In the afternoon sun, I will lie beside my favourite shrub with my twitching snoozing lady pup and see the red of the afternoon sun behind my closed eyelids. I will brush little trekking bugs going about their days from my skin and lazily fan my face as the afternoon heat swells and holds us in her embrace as though to say, “hello there sweet love, this day is for you and only you, let us sink into this grass and dirt and sweat our worries into the earth and tomorrow, they will rise into blossoms of bitter herbs that add to the earth”. In the evening, I will pick my vegetables, fruits and herbs from my little garden and rinse them off in the babbling brook next to the granary in the back. Into a large wicker basket will they go where tomorrow, my sisters and brothers will take them to their warm abodes. I will sing off tune a melody that reminds me of everywhere that has been home and promises them all that I will return and sing there again and again as I am untied and unrestrained and everywhere that I love and will love will always be home. I will sing a melody that stirs my cottage walls and plants and brook and ivy that creeps and sun that shines on me to understand that they are home too and as they are mine, so too am I theirs. Everything shall smile and weep and know that kindness and love and tenderness is ours forever and we will be soft and luminous as we all sing that melody and write of what has been, what is, and what will be. And I will write it all down.