I’ve been watching and listening to Kate Bush. In awe and appreciation. And to get my nerve up. For I don’t know what. Not yet.
And now I’m up here again, up on this hill at the top of Liverpool, where I spend so much of my time these days. These mornings when I keep thinking, if I walk up here again I’m going to find something, except I haven’t. Not yet.
All I’ve found so far has been the nerve to stop everything except this walking. All this year has been a stopping, a clearing, retreating from all kinds of things I didn’t want to do or be any more. From most work, from that go I had at being a Quaker, and now, this week, from being at University. From going back and doing that PhD like I’d planned at the end of this retreat I took from it. These six months off from the only work I’d kept.
Retreat, that word. This whole year and much of last has been a retreat, really. From what and for what I don’t know. Not yet. Only that I think I’m getting my nerve up. For something I won’t find, while all my time and all my attention are taken up with other things. Things not quite wrong but not quite right either.
Like this week and that being at University. I’ve done so much walking and so much laboured thinking now. Through all these months of being supposedly off. About should I, shouldn’t I? Will I or wouldn’t I? Go back and continue. Or just stop? I stopped, because of its not being quite right.
Though there’s still something about the subject of these last years, something of that utopia, that still sticks to me. Up on this hill looking over Liverpool. That make me think maybe that’s yet it. The thing I’m waiting for the nerve for. Something about utopia and Liverpool?
Or maybe not? Maybe that needs stopping too? So something new can come to me.
So I’ll stop here a while yet. And see. Up on this high hill. Stopped and waiting. While I get my nerve up. For I don’t know what. Not yet.
Maybe I’d make a deal with God if I thought there was one?
This retreat from the busyness of my life recently leaves me with a sense of an ending of not just a chapter in my life but perhaps a season. Is that why I find it easier to de clutter and let go of things that I had been clinging to? It’s as if something is around the corner but I’ve no idea what. Making space just for that sense you get when you look out at a fabulous sky. I love Kate’s lyrics too. Great choice of that line against your photo today. Thanks for sharing your writing. I appreciate the calmness that arises in me when I read your words.
The sacred pause. It’s so wise to know when to stop and sense the wholeness of just being. It should be on prescription. As should Kate.