04

The stories these walls would tell. The entire house is calm. Still. always.

this house is our home - because we make it home. this is my home - because everything that is me is here.
my soul is here. 

Throughout my life, my heart has broken, over and over. I can tell you that it does heal. It does fade. It does end.The first time my heart broke, I was 13, turning 14. I had loved a certain boy for 4 years now. Everyone knew it. I tried to hide it, but something like that, well, you can't hide it. most people will tell you that a 13 year old is not really "in love". These people are wrong. I continued on loving this boy, who became a young man, and is now a man - i loved him for 7 years in total. Since the first day I saw him as a 10 year old girl. My heart broke when I was 13, because, he gave his heart to someone I thought was my best friend. Someone who knew how I felt about him. It was never meant to be - I know. But believe me, it broke. And it didn't stop hurting. not for a very long time. And yet, there was one thing that soothed the pain. A set of scriptures my parents gave me for my 12th birthday. A King James Bible, and a Book of Mormon (which has seen so much use that the gold lettering has been rubbed clean off the spine). I slept with them beside me every night - literally, beside me. Like a soft-toy I could reach out and feel through the sheets and blankets when I woke up in the middle of the night and felt more tears catching in the back of my nose and throat. Thick, and overwhelming in every sense of the word and nothing was fair.

i still have that scripture set. It sits above my piano.
I firmly believe that the presence of these books, and all they have seen me through, emanates comfort. They are living. They are my source of peace. Where is my Solace - here.

Over the years, I have acquired items, tokens, trinkets and totems that have seen me through the darkest pains and aches. treasures that have made horrible days and worse nights bearable. I continue to surround myself with these things. They are like best friends - they have been there for me, and been through things with me, and promise to never leave me. I have always treated them as my best friends - with respect, love, and attention. I used to take considerable comfort in music - and piano. These things have lost none of their importance in my life - although, I have admittedly neglected piano. I still play, what i can remember, when I can. I haven't been able to learn anything new since I was 17, and that first nightmare entered my life.

In fact, I remember when that episode finally ended. It wasn't painful. Just sad. I couldn't understand why at that time. But I had left, and I came back to my parents house, and I spent all night, drinking peppermint tea after peppermint tea and playing a game that has always made me feel better. A game that had seen me through sickness, depression, loneliness. And countless all-nighters full of tears - all this long before that night. It sounds stupid, I know, it's "just a game". But it wasn't. It was an anchor, a light, a hope. And that night, after I left him, i played until the sun came up, and I knew everything was ok again. The night was over, the nightmare was over, and dawn had broken. I knew I was going to be alright. I was happy.

"No matter how dark the night, morning always comes; and our journey begins anew"

I still hang onto those words, some 6 years since I first heard them.

These things were all a part of me. They made me ok. But there was a gap, a fracture, a broken shard that was neverrecovered. And then there was Xanthe. Suddenly, the oblivion was filled; a piece I had been searching for, dark matter I never knew existed or ever could but there it was. I had been found. And in our home, the memory of that divine discovery, that destiny, that hope, that love, that beginning - that is forever remembered; our icons, our beacons - the red and green.

The first date Xanthe and I ever had, we saw them. We were sitting in his car. It was midnight. We were overlookingLighthouse Beach from the lighthouse lookout in Ballina. Drinking Coke. Eating Oreo McFlurries. laughing. Not kissing.not yet. It was pouring rain; heavy drops dappling over the metal car roof - drizzling lazily down the windscreen, as we could barely make out the white-wash from the stormy waves below. And then we saw them - the wall beacons. At the end of north wall stood a green warning beacon. At the end of south wall, a red beacon. They flashed - intermittently.red, then green. Then red, then green, then red. As we watched, we began whispering it out loud.

"red. green. red. green. red. green. red. green."


Our very first kiss followed shortly after.


These battery powered lights now sit at each end of the brick wall behind our fireplace. We turn them on, purposely, to flash red, and green, intermittently. They remind us. They remind me. They bring love into our home, and home back into our love.

they are all we are, and so little of what We are.





The days go on and on here. Even though they are short. The sun rises late and sets early.
But I mean, we go on and on here.

The sun may set early, but we never set.

Home is where the heart is. Home is where the Soul is. Home is where you HEAL. Home is where you hope.
Home is HOME.


fill it with everything that is you. Everything you need. Everything you hold on to.

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