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I sang Cloths of Heaven. Once upon a long time ago. Once a when I could sing. That was on the outside.

Now I sing on the inside. Only inside. And now I don't even need to take a breath. And yet I do.

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I would love to have heard that Sue, but I can imagine your voice, even if I can't hear it. https://youtu.be/3qvVQkbzklE

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Thank you Linda 💜

I remember. Especially when I sing inside. Though, on the outside, it looks as though I'm crying, strangely.

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If the outer loop is the departure, the where I started from, the what the world has already seen of me...it is the hard-worker, the completer-finisher, the didn't-know-she-was-a-people-pleaser. It is the goody-two-shoes (should I have had three? or maybe lost one along the way?) The departure point was all those years of education and earning a living and nurturing other lives and not so much my own.

If the outer loop is the departure, the where I started from, it is the broken heart, the grieving, the leaving of so much behind. It is all the things the world, and certain people, thought I was. And maybe me too. And maybe a little bit true.

If the outer loop is where I started, I cannot see it now, not from here. I have left so much behind - backward glances often, but so far not a single regret. All of it diminishing.

Now I am spiralling inwards, becoming who I was meant to be (as someone so well described decades ago - I wonder how she's doing now). I am unravelling and retwining.

Now I am spiralling outwards into a world I don't yet know, don't preconceive or prejudge.

I am beyond departing, beyond beginning, I am on my way.

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backward glances without a single regret sounds rather blissful Lesley and I love the way you are beyond departing, beyond the beginning and know the truth of being on your way.

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Films: Picnic at Hanging Rock. I'm drawn to the mystery and otherworldliness of the film, the sense that we can never be sure what 'is' and what 'isn't'.

Books: Mr Golightly's Holiday by Salley Vickers; in fact anything by Salley Vickers. This book is representative of the many I enjoy which encourage us to consider the integrity of Shakespeare's phrase from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Poetry: WB Yeats poem Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, especially the line "I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

If I take just these three as indicative of the whole of what draws my attention, then it's clear I am drawn to the unseen, the unknown and the obscure. I suppose this begs the question, is my psyche equally obscure? A point to ponder through the rest of today.

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