A New Blog.

For many reasons I have decided to leave this blog and start a new one.

You can find me here...

http://oliviamanners.blogspot.com/

I am going to leave this open so that people may still visit but I shall no longer be posting here.

Obedience.

" There is rare pleasure in obedience. The answer of a good conscience brings into the heart a peace and satisfaction that nothing can destroy. The girl who can fold her hands at night with the knowledge that throughout the day she has been obedient, finds in life a gladness and quietness that nothing else can bring. "

Touching Base.

It's been a while!

Life has been busy and I've had little time to sit and reflect or when I have caught the odd hour in the day I've come here to write and my thoughts would never settle in to a post.

When things feel balanced, grounded and in harmony it almost feels harder to know what to write, but isn't that a shame if all I feel able to do here is write when I'm sad or confused or conflicted.

I think too that now I have offline contact with many people from this community as well as some private blogging havens that I've been invited in to by authors with whom I most often conversed, my engagement with this blog has lessened.

So, Olivia is still here, and thank you for your emails and messages, and she will be back, all spring like and with some stories ( perfect time of year for some birch stories ! ), she is just taking her time..... and thanking you for your patience.

Back home and teetering on tipsiness.

"What do you want in 5 years time?"

That was the question posed to me at dinner this evening.

I know that they all wish for me to be happy, I know that they all wish for the best for me, and I know that they all mostly wish I'd make some different choices.

But what if I don't know what I want in 5 years time?
What if I am okay with not knowing too?
What if another way of seeing things is the day by day, the moment by moment?

Sometimes I think that if I wanted those things that I am " supposed" to want, then it may be clearer to me what I should do. I'm at the beginning of my 30's and friends around have been marrying and conceiving and parenting.
I've never really felt that maternal. I love being a mentor, a good/god mother, an Auntie, just that crazy girl that we visit sometimes will do. I have a lot of love to give but feeling a desire to bear my own children hasn't ever been there, maybe, of course maybe, it will come. It may be that I've not met the " right " person, whatever that means, and I certainly never say never.....

Marriage, did I dream of this when I was a little girl, walking down the aisle in a pretty dress with a pretty bouquet of flowers? No. I think the only part of a wedding day that ever touched my heart was imagining how my Dad might feel if he were able to walk down the aisle with me, but that will never happen....
And really in all my adult life I've never imagined that I will get married.
Maybe it isn't even a question of marriage as I've not often even pictured myself growing old with just one special someone, not that I picture being alone either, I think I picture a place of solitude and community all merged in to one. And lots of times, celebrations, occasions where love and friendship and kindness are the theme.

"But don't you get lonely?"

They look at me as if something is missing and base their questions and care for me from that premise, and because they are seeing my world through that tint of colour, that sense of less-than,  it is maybe harder for them to see and understand why it is that I am choosing to be where I am.

It is not filling a gap.
I feel I'm not seeking anything because I'm not looking for this, or for that.
So you see, all that I share in our intimacy is an add-on. It adds to my experience of life, it is not about meeting a need, but about flourishing. It has no limits and it colours my life with more beautiful shades and depths.

Sadness & Arousal.

Maybe it isn't that surprising that the two would go together.

They are after all, a part of being alive, feeling alive.

Still, it is a powerful tonic that I drank this week.

It is not an isolated feeling, I've felt it before, just a few times as strongly as this though.

Once before, years back now, I felt it with an unequalled intensity, but that was because it was grief.

My ex partner was in the deep belly of grief, the sudden loss of a young family member brought unsettled darkness. We sat there together night after night, grief wrenched her body and I held her wails in my cradling arms until they softened but the rawness was still there. The rawness became passion, laced with tenderness and we were fucking. Hard. I remember thinking then that it had been devouring, like a need to suck and take all of the life there was in the room so it existed. Life was still there.

And then to now. And indented with this most recent experience. 

In one moment I was softly gasping, in the next I was softly sobbing. One lead to the other, and then they were both merged, like a pool of tears and arousal slopping around in my gut. Every part of me felt so fully and viscerally connected to him, I had clammy cheeks and it all stayed with me throughout the day. It needed a leather belt to thrash in to it.

I'm not grieving, but sometimes there is just a sadness there. A beautiful life-connecting sadness. If you feel something so intensely then maybe it's only natural that a contrasting emotion would then appear; joy tipped in to sadness, or sadness and joy always there together teetering on the edge.

There is not really a purpose to this post, it is just that the feeling won't leave me, so I wanted to try and understand it.

Snow.

Today when I woke and drew back my curtains the back garden was there in full white glory. It is rare to have snow in London and the sight and feel and smell and sound of it still captivate me.



It was definitely beckoning those first few footsteps. I knew that I wanted to tread each one with care and attention. Not to rush out and trample over it, but to be mindful of each step. A white wash of possibility.

It was quite breathtaking stepping outside. I felt the chill on my legs as I was still only in my fine Pajamas, but it was a tingling and prickling chill that felt alive-making.



The garden here is magical at the best of times, but in the snow that magic makes it truly enchanting. I visited my favourite places.

Right at the back of the garden, hidden against the wall, down a narrow pathway, is a Goddess, or that is what I call her. She looked majestic in the snow.



I made a wish at her feet and then turned back to just stand and take in the awe-inspiring virgin whiteness. Untouched, a clean slate, a cleansing, and one that as the snow still fell, felt both soft and unrelenting. It wasn't a glistening snow, it was, it is, a heavy, deep, all-covering, thick snow. There is something very comforting about that.

There is of course nothing comforting about sitting on these chairs just now! ( unless you needed to cool down a toasty and smarting pink bottom ).



It was the stillness that struck me the most. Like everything was being packed in by the snow so it had to stay still. Not trapped. But held. Asking us to contemplate. And I think we will be here for a while, the sky had traces of blue this morning, just faint ones.



But it is a light grey again now, almost a reflection of the ground, and the snow keeps falling. I think I'm going to be staying still in my attic for a little while. There is only one thing right now that I wish the snow would allow for....but the warmth of a sore bottom is unlikely to come until there is warmth to melt the snow away, and actually I'll be sad to see it go.


                                          That is a view of the attic from the back of the garden. 

Sweets. And a little post before a more thought out one.

Yesterday afternoon I had a tea party for 10 of my closest friends. It was my christmas present to them all and I had organised for us to do a range of different activities that I hoped would be fun and inspiring...

Needless to say I also wanted to decorate the attic and seeing as it is coming up to Valentine's, I found heart shaped balloons and heart shaped confetti, and heart shaped biscuits...and lots of love heart candy that I scattered about the place...there was definitely a lot of love and warmth in the room and that wasn't just from the roaring open fire!

Anyway, when I was shopping about on Friday for some little gifts ( I wanted to make up party bags for them like the ones we used to get when we were younger ), I came across the shop Hope and Greenwood. Apparently it isn't a new shop, but it was new to me, and full of the most lovely old fashioned confectionary and gifts.

One particular gift caught my eye, " For A Good Boy " , full of chocolate stars, and I was most disappointed to find out from the Bettie page look-a-like sales assistant that the " For A Good Girl " boxes had all sold out. It is quite amazing how much those words pinken my cheeks and make me smile inside, and I also couldn't quite believe that there were really so many good girls out there that all of their stock had gone! Then I thought of Constance and Mr.C. and their use of gold stars ( which was similar to the gold stars that used to be on my discipline reports last year ) and wondered if perhaps Constance had been SUCH a good girl recently that Mr. C had needed to buy them all.

It was a shame not to be able to buy them for all of my friends but I was happy to learn they would soon be restocked.