Its great when you start feeling normal again.

Part One

An acknowledgment

This is the beginning. Many people have been involved in this journey. Without this network of brilliance and compassion I would be in a very dark place indeed. Some of these people will know who they are, some will not realise what an important role they have played, and some will perhaps not even remember who I am. But the fact is we all play a part in one another's lives in some form or another.

To all those people who have shown up and put up with my needs and demands. To all those who have been relentless and loving friends. To all those who shared seeds of wisdom to help light the way.

Thank you all.

Just because I burned my bible baby, it don’t mean I’m too sick to pray.

(Alabama 3)

Author’s Note

This is a book of scraps. The process I went through from initial injury to finally letting go of all the pain I was hanging on to, was not a linear process. Therefore this account is not a straightforward story. Some of the beginning is in the middle and the some of the end is at the beginning. I make no apology for this, but I do recognise that this is sometimes disorientating to read. However, I urge you to follow the thread to the end. This is the path I took through trauma and recovery towards the growth that I am now benefitting from. I have made it the first piece of premium content on SubStack because it is the beginning of the journey that brought me to this point in my life.

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Introduction

In the car park outside the flat, there is a large oak tree. Everyone sits under this tree at some time. Dog walkers to pet their hounds, the elderly resting their legs for a moment, young lovers lost in each others' eyes, and the multitude of young lads on mountain bikes consuming Haribo by the pound, and me. I like to sit underneath this tree early in the morning and let my mind unspool. On one particular morning, in midsummer, I noticed a leaf sticking up from its parent branch. This leaf appeared to have a different idea of which way it wanted to grow compared to the other leaves. It was different. Its trajectory was of its own design, rather than an adherence to the norm.

I would use this leaf as a meditation most mornings. I identified with this leaf. Having felt like an outsider for most of my life, I appreciated its unashamed bucking of the trend for growth in a southerly direction; it was of a Northern temperament. My morning meditations also caused me to ponder the falling of the leaf. The inevitable day when this leaf would become detached from its branch and tumble to the ground. This impermanence became the focus of my morning practice. In the morning I would greet the leaf and we would share this temporary space of being until I left for work. I began to fantasize that I would be there when the leaf fell, that it would fall for me. I decided I would share in that moment and bear witness to the inevitable and ordinary, as if it were unprecedented and strange. Such is the nature of an outsider.

The summer months passed swiftly and the leaves began to turn, each morning I wondered if the leaf would still be there. An urgency was rising in me as the year grew old, time turning what was once green and vibrant to mulch. So it was, one morning in September, I sat on the wall beneath the tree and looked at an empty space where the leaf had been. The leaf had dropped and I had not been there to witness it. This would not do, I urgently looked at the ground beneath the branch and considered hunting down my absent morning companion. Had our connection been strong enough for me to recognise it amongst its fallen siblings?

No. Of course not. What a ridiculous idea. But as I was looking a single acorn dropped with a barely audible 'tap,' at my feet. Immediately I was bathed in the warm glow of an enlightenment metaphor and saw the circle of life and death clear in my mind. The leaf, the tree and new growth all happening in a single moment. I sat on the wall again to enjoy this moment of vision, a moment I thought of - quite wrongly - as 'enlightenment.'