Those days and those other days

Some days the sun shines and it's warm on your skin and the easy train journey takes you past gorgeous views of golden sand and blue skies and turquoise sea. And you get to unexpectedly perform poems outside under the warm sun, and speak words of hope out into a hidden square in St Ives. And you visit a friend in a craft market who loves your poems and has a colleague who's a twin.  And you've happened to bring your twin poem, so - in your happy sunny mood - you recite it right there in the craft market and the other twin totally gets it and you can hand her that poem on the wrinkled pieces of paper (and you think - definitely get more twins in the audience in future!). And then you go to the spoken word event you actually came for and your friends turn up to watch/listen to you and you get to stand on the stage in the Arts Club and tell some of your story for ten minutes to a listening room. And then you buy a beer and walk on the sand in bare feet and drink in the wind and the evening light and think 'YES all this is what I'm made for'.

Other days, you decide to restart the 'happy pills' because even with all that sun and poetry you can't shake the heavy cloud cloaking your head and shoulders. And you worry a bit how you'll cope with all the coming change and uncertainty - even though you quite like it - you don't know that you can trust your emotions to hold any resemblance to your thoughts. And you hurry off straight after work to catch a train to go and read some more words to another room of listeners, but halfway there you find out the trains are cancelled for the second half of the journey, and you hang around debating whether or not to get on a replacement coach - worrying about whether you'll be able to get home later that night, knowing you're already going to be late. So you eventually get back on another train and head home. Over 2 hours and several pounds down. And you try to be thankful anyways, for those other days, for an excuse to sit and finish that book, for a chance to get an early night instead. Even still, you catch your reflection - and it's not exactly smiling.

And you've got half written posts about enjoying Cornwall and about politics and plans for plenty of others and slight guilt over abandoning them. But you're trying not to be guilty - because you know that doesn't solve anything.

And you'll go ahead and public this slightly self-absorbed post because... - those days like Saturday and the days like today - they're all part of the journey, aren't they? They're all part of the picture.