Day 201: Yearning #1 - A Change of Heart

And some cheese

Here's a new experiment. For the next 20 days, I'm going to focus on yearning. I came up with that while I was riding my bike earlier. I have many ideas riding my bike. Some of the better ones present themselves while I'm having a little wee too. This one's a rider, though,  so let's give it 20 days to start with. It doesn't rule anything out. The title of this blog is still  Reasons to be Grateful, and gratitude rumbles around in the belly of it. But let's think about yearning, not only in the sense of lack, but to look to the future and to shape a way to go. I want to observe what effect this has on my mind, my perception and my mood. Perhaps it will drag me into the treacly swamp of lack. Perhaps yearning will sit at the pit of my stomach and gnaw at me like an ulcer. Or perhaps this very gnawing will lead me towards making happen the things that I feel short of. Or perhaps, as happened with this blog originally, something unexpected will come of it. And whatever else happens, I may not be able to resist peppering it with pleasures, like seeing a very sweet girl dog squatting to have a wee. Girl dogs weeing has always charmed me. Not sure why, but it has. And I'm off...


See, I have wanted to change tack. I feel a bit rushed, because I don't know quite what it should be (I yearn for clarity, and the kind of clear-headedness and self-knowledge I see in some other people). But it's Day 201 today; it's time for a change.


I have yearned, over the last few days, or maybe weeks, for (as the song goes) somebody to love. Perhaps it's something to do with spring and all this burgeoning. Or maybe it's about time. I love lots of people, of course. I love Esther Lilley, Yot, Pudding, Ruth, Vic, lots of Sarahs, Sues of all ilks and so many more people. Most of them women. And much as I am still undecided, it's significant that I don't have any men on my list, even though there are men I love and respect platonically too. What about not platonic, though, either way? I'm too bloody careful with that. I can love these listed people (Grade I, all of them) in the platonic safety of friendlove. No risk.

I love you

It's like in the playground, where you are kind and gentle to those people you love that way, and you punch the boy you fancy, or ignore him (an old favourite of mine, which I still indulge in). Except that I had my first long-term relationship aged four. We were together for two years, me and Mark Looby. We kissed every morning in the cloakroom. We sat together. We held hands. I joined in all the boys' games and sang 'boys are fantastic, girls are elastic', betraying my kind. That's a separate thing, though. I truly believed boys were better and that I was one of them. And our love was innocent, of course, fuelled by sherbert dip tornadoes (get a mouthful of powder, head back, BLOW!). They were the most fun of all when we'd just promised Mark's mum we wouldn't, thus persuading her to buy the sherbert dips. Perhaps it's time to grow out of all that, though. 

I yearn, then, for clarity, and for love. I'd like very much to have that giddy fever of mutual admiration, that slight obsession, that focus. I'd also like to have that similar bubbling and buzz that sits in my belly when I'm being truly, regularly and bravely creative. Today, someone asked me what my greatest professional achievement had been. I was stumped. Still am. Maybe it's time for another little wee. Or a bike ride. Or both.