Patchwork Feet

The clouds of monsoon start to curl over heads, slinking into the atmosphere, cyclical rainstorms which remind to us that we end as we began. Its very nearly a year since my first drenching. Its a strange set of circumstances which lead to a bemused relocation of heart.

When you leave home for the first time you punch a hole within yourself and it irrevocably becomes a subconscious mission to fill that hole, be it with food, art, an amazing book, an attractive biker, a bedazzling view; for me it was my itchy feet...sometimes we try so hard to fill that hole that we convince ourselves that we're happy. Then we wonder why our hearts are aching.

Through a haze of planes, planes and more planes, buses, boats and bikes; a tangled kaleidoscope of books, encounters, reunions and goodbyes, reunion, goodbye, reunion, goodbye, fantastical encounters with circus performers, a vague mugging, street fights, noddle soup, fluorescent seas and landscapes to melt the coldest, I turned on the lights and finally I arrived home.

Home is the ever running road; the fire dancers who carry their lives on their backs to enrapture themselves in glittering world immersion. The scientists, the singers, the biters and saxophonists all wheeling and trudging their way to the mountains, taking only the most absurd, fantastical route they can. Home is within us, wherever we find our hearts, home is the River ever winding and silently unstoppable. Eventually I stopped trying to fill the hole with what I was told I should fill it with and began patching it with every kind of fabric, every pattern I found in a tucked away market, every scarf tied to the back of a rucksack and now I am becoming filled with colour, reveling in rainbow souls.

Inspiration is out there, its waiting loudly and resplendent in sunset glitter. Find what it is that makes you happy, whatever makes you want to do cartwheels and throw your arms over your head and use it to patch yourself into a masterpiece.

In amongst the constant noise of deadlines, outside voices, expectations you have no desire to fulfill and pleasure pushed aside for pressure, we need to pause to remind ourselves that everything will be okay if we let what really matters in, if we just jump and let the universe catch us, if we let our hair grow long in the wind. Everything will be okay as long as we always, always remember to dance in the rain.


It helps if you're listening to: If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow

(because no big decision was ever made without the help of Sheryl)