Day 637: Warmth in the Cold

Tinkling ice and women who give a shit. The ice was thin and sharp and made a sound like criss-cross threads of plastic scratching against each other, but with music in. The women were all kinds of shapes and sizes and made a sound like laughing and listening and exhaling (it was officially Really Fucking Cold), also with music. 

Thanks to Alison (Allison?), who offered me a running coach for free and recommended her in the highest of terms and the warmest of warmths. 

Thanks for the photo of May Allen, beaming like an angel, with a crown of flowers. There was such joy in it, it made me cry. I had to ask her name. I knew she'd died. Photos like that don't appear on noticeboards for nothing. What I recognised was that pond bliss, that union with nature and that light of something in her eyes that told me she was, in that moment, deeply happy.

Thanks, Emily Cuphead Wilkinson, for being the most pleasing of friends and for making me laugh and for cupping my head and growling into it (as, admittedly, I did with you).  Thanks, Ruth, for an email that made me laugh. 

Thanks, dancers, especially the tactile ones. Thanks, great shouter, for your beautiful hug and thanks, slightly stand-offish (sometimes) experienced dancer, for an intimate, playful, forceful weave that warmed me. Thanks for being listeny when I sang and for bringing and singing your brilliance in the after-dance fundraiser for North Korea. Thanks, beautiful Jane Ith (with a non-silent Sm), artist and lovely thing, for being there at the dance, for your presence and your openness. 


It's all about the warmth on this cold and blowy night. I yearn to feel loved and there it is, on hand, on tap - I just need to open my eyes. And, of course, that heart.