A rediscovery and a new (old) poem
Some days we need reminding of who we are and today was one of those days. Long term lockdown is really starting to suck and this morning out of desperation I thought maybe a new Facebook profile picture would make me feel better LOL. Then I stumbled across this childhood photo of me on a motorcycle. I hadn’t looked at it for years but in that moment, I immediately felt a shift out of stuckness and into the relief of the rediscovery of something lost. I remembered what it felt like to be that girl on the motorcycle. The ageless, free, fearless, grounded and full of hope me.
Then I immediately recalled a conversation I had with my grandmother years ago. She was well into her 90s, weathered, sharp as a tack and with a glint in her eye. I remember her clearly telling me that regardless of her age, she always felt 18. I recall thinking that couldn’t be possible, that life must fundamentally change us. We are shaped by the years and by experience, but I’ve come to realise she was talking about something different - our unique aliveness that doesn’t age. The knowing we hear when our mind is off duty – wise, cheeky and hungry for experience.
The older I get, the more I realise that life consists of repeatedly losing sight of myself and finding my way back, sometimes deliberately often seemingly by chance. Every time, the joy and relief in the rediscovery of exactly what I’ve been seeking that has been waiting for me all along is the same.
I wrote the beginnings of this poem nearly four years ago and this morning, I finally knew how to finish it.
With love, xAmanda
I’m not sure when it happened
when I stopped being her
and became me,
full of self-doubt and confusion.
Sometimes I felt her take my hand -
in amongst the trees
or through the sweat and trance of the dancefloor.
She spoke to me in tongues in my dreams
leaving a yearning and a map for buried treasure.
I wandered lifetimes,
worn out from seeking and dissolution.
If only I knew then what I know now,
that what is lost is always found.
Underfoot for so long,
now chanced upon again
in the smile of that familiar stranger
who forever beckons me home.