Illumination

The calm after the storm.

Dear one,

It’s Sunday night and my mind is a live wire in need of earthing. I sit before my window and watch as fork lightning fractures the sky. The dark of the night fades into a deep shade of lavender and I am spellbound by it all as always. There is little I love more than a storm. Despite sometimes leaving a trail of chaos in their wake for me they also seem to restore a sense of calm.

Strangely enough I rarely feel calm before a storm. It’s as though my body picks up on the charge of it somehow, the anticipation is almost too much to bear. When I hear the rumble of thunder, I don’t feel fearful, I feel exhilarated.

In a storm I am born again.

I am shown things about myself that I would ordinarily turn a blind eye to. Like how my heart is still a fool for love, quickening for a man I have tried long and hard to harden it against. Or how I am somehow failing and succeeding at the same time, in so many ways. How at once it matters more than anything and not at all.

Looking a little closer, in this otherworldly light I can see myself clearly.

All the cracks that are usually imperceptible become chasms. I wonder how I, how any of us, make it through a day let alone a lifetime after all the ways the world has torn us apart. Perhaps there is a brokenness about us all, but like Frankenstein’s monster we are pieced together and galvanised by the electricity of this life.

I’d wager that all of us feel grotesque at times but in refusing to abandon ourselves, even in our ugliest moments, we learn to find beauty in them all. The peace that comes from such a degree of self-understanding is unparalleled. Next time you find yourself in the aftermath of a storm I hope you’ll feel it too.

With Love,

Laura x