Lessons from a Rose

On spring, movement & the feminine body

The sun is a golden yolk spilling through the window onto the petals of bright cadmium roses. A gift from my mother. The flowers are placed in the centre of our large, second hand dinner table. They take up space. Demand attention. A beacon of joy & radiance amongst seedlings & succulents hungry for their breakfast. The galloping wild horses of Life are pushing up through the earth. Fresh lime limbs are emerging from twigs & branches, stretching, shedding winter. This morning I walked out from the house, up past bramble, raspberry leaf, cleavers & sorrel. Up past the allotments, into a small wood. The wind was making music. The trees were dancing.

Fret. Hesitation plagues me. An intense worry that I will be caught in the act. Fuck it. I look up to the golden yolk, throw my hands up to the air. Spread my fingers like the newly formed leaves. Hips slowly rotating in a figure eight. Imagining now, what it must be to be a tree.

I am alive, I whisper to myself. We are alive.

It’s a curious thing being alive isn’t it. Being alive & forgetting you are alive. Being alive and needing to remind yourself that you are alive. Being alive and forgetting that one day you will die. That this gift of life is a miracle & it is temporary. That our organism is here, on this magnificent planet, breathing, thinking, loving, making. Today is all we have. All we ever have. It’s enough to make your heart crack open isn’t it. The madness & the miracle that we are here.