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February was an eventful month, in the world and for me personally with extreme weather events, both inside and out.  There wasn’t actually Snow but I drove from Kent to Cornwall through floods, hurricane-strength winds, hail and rain, skirting a sink-hole that opened up on the M2 motorway.

Once there, I had an intense few days – book launch, teaching, catching up with friends and even an afternoon lying in warm sunshine on the beach at Trebah on the Helford. The full moon, on the night before my 51st birthday was a huge golden globe hanging low over Falmouth Bay and Pendennis Castle.  Everything was heightened and wonderful, ‘incorrigibly plural’.

Driving home on my birthday itself, the sun was bright, the roads were clear and a stop on the A303 to see the ‘new’ Stonehenge didn’t disappoint.  I’m often guilty of hyperbole but it really was the happiest birthday I’ve had. And then, as I checked my phone at bedtime, I learned that my dear friend’s father, whom I loved very much, had left this world for what he termed ‘light and silence’.

His passing brought back vivid memories of the time three years ago when I saw quite a bit of him, always enjoying his wisdom and compassion.  I was in transit, living in my friend’s flat in Salcombe, while she went abroad for a few months. I was writing a book-length memoir which meant dredging up often painful memories.  I’d walk the dog around Bolt Head almost every day to clear my head, seldom encountering anyone but grazing ponies.  Salcombe out of season is dark and silent.  It was a back-to-the-womb time.  Visiting David and his wife was one of my few social activities.

Now that I am so esconced in Canterbury, feeling embraced by all it offers, I find it difficult to imagine how lost I was then.  All I knew was that it was time to leave Cornwall but I didn’t know where I was headed.  I had a notion of moving to Wells – it kept featuring in my dreams – and went there house-hunting but had no epiphany to tell me why it was calling.

That summer, though, it became clear that I should move here to Canterbury, my childhood neck-of-the-woods, that I really did want and need to spend time close to my ‘oldies’.  I’ve since discovered that the 1960 bungalow I live in, is on a hill where an old monastic foundation was centred around a spring – possibly that was the holy well of my dream.

In poetry therapy, I often talk about tripartite time – our need to heal the past, live the present, create the future, not in a linear way but a constant spiralling.  Something was certainly healed, made whole and complete, on that visit to Cornwall last month.

My present present is rich and alive – like the magnolia tree in the back garden, full of potential. As for the future, I can only say I feel drunk on its various possibilities.

9 Comments

  1. glynwinchester March 2, 2014 at 10:25 pm

    How lovely! Happy Belated 51st! You are an inspiration! Thanks and continued Happy Trails! Big Hugs!

    • 6vicky7 March 3, 2014 at 6:03 am

      Thanks dear Glyn, hope my trails keep bringing me back to dear Falmouth. Hugs to you too xx

  2. mtflis March 2, 2014 at 11:34 pm

    You’re a top-shelf monkey—Bless you, mtflis (aka ~ one-legged-Chris in the Texas Hillcountry)

    • 6vicky7 March 3, 2014 at 6:02 am

      Oh Chris! Long time, no see – how nice to meet you here. Hugs to you in Texas xx

  3. Graeme de Lyons March 3, 2014 at 11:48 am

    I’m glad you had a positively eventful programme down here. I did think of you on your trip down – especially when I heard of the sink hole.

    The Mexican ladies also had quite a journey here from the Somerset levels where they were also working.

    If you let me have details of your birth date/time/place, I could work out something of what energies you were born i.e. those you are naturally aligned with via the Mexihkas’ Tonalmaxiotl (Counting of Destiny) which must surely be a tripartite calendar/ reckoner.

    • 6vicky7 March 3, 2014 at 2:51 pm

      Thanks Graeme – sorry not to have met the ‘curanderas’ – I hope it all went well. I will send you those details!

  4. Penny Shuttle March 3, 2014 at 12:28 pm

    What a beautiful wise and illuminating post, dear Vicky. Thank you. How fitting that your Canterbury home is on the site of an old monastery and holy well. I’ve never forgotten that lovely day we all had at St Clether. Hugs. Xx Lovely to see you in Falmouth and thank you for the dear card. Glad you liked the scarf.

    • 6vicky7 March 3, 2014 at 2:52 pm

      Thank you Penny – yes, St Clether was truly special – as was last month. I look forward to seeing you here when the fates permit! Love always Vicky x

  5. hazinedar March 3, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    Thank you so much, Vicky, for taking me back to Falmouth and Canterbury, places I have loved and thought I had lost until they came alive so vividly in your writing. Enjoying the notion of spiralling and sending you birthday greetings. Ann

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