Emergence

*from here, Édouard Boubat, Sans titre, 1972

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

- Virginia Woolf

For the longest period of time I have been struggling along - amidst broken promises, heartbreaks and inner turmoil, evoked by an irrevocable wreckage of a relationship that I was so dependent on. Looking back at the past few months, I was actually surprised that I have pulled through a rather difficult winter, thanks to the unwavering support from my friends and family (words fail me - how grateful I really am!) and my own little cocktail of happiness, containing -

*poetry, literature: Philip Larkin, George Orwell and Charles Bukowski were my saviours, for their sharp humour and sobering matter-of-fact tone

*fresh cut flowers, and read An Apple a Day for the most delightful arrangement

*tea with friends: make sure you have lots of tea, and meet up with lots of friends

*long walks, getaways: the pebble paths and starry sky of Cambridge, the quietude of the Heath - all sentimenatlity becomes a fleeting modality in the face of nature

*exercise, the biweekly swim in the middle of the day that makes me feel senior

*radio 3: for live jazz and monotonous book-reading to fall asleep with

...

Almost a hundred days later, I realise that the best way to heal is not to efface or evade from emotions, but to rise above them, ride on them as if they were waves - and to hold dearly the belief that, in the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

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