in between

My fingernails are ruined from an hour's scrubbing of the shower. My lounge is full of books and bags and three-quarters of the video set of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady ... we've lost spring somewhere along the way ... and a tea cup, camera, cardboard boxes, notes.

By Monday, it will be pristine for the landlord.

Words are flaking from the Book, and other words are slipping in like a tide under stones. I've changed my hero's hair, his name, and that has made everything else so much easier to change that I wonder why I ever complained. It's going to be okay after all. Stories can't seem to help themselves, you know? Give them a few sentences, a little encouragement, and they just go and go and go. And they draw other stories to them - do you ever notice that? As if all stories want to sing a part in each other. But I'm going to start talking about holy harmony and the universal song so I'd better quickly move along ...

My daughter is growing. She has to bend a little now to hug me. But I don't really mean that kind of growing. These days, what I know she can do doesn't always match what I feel she can do. I have more confidence in her than I've quite trained myself for. But I don't wish her to stop growing, or even to slow down. There's a certain sparkling joy in running to catch up to her, after all those years of leading her.

These times, they seem like inbetween times. And I always feel most secure here.

Between shores.
Between hoping and knowing.
Between dark and moon-up.

The moment to inhale.