A Poem for Autumn

A Poem for Autumn 

Always the most magic of seasons is she

That begins to wipe clean the earth again.

With air consciously breathed and falling leaves;

It is not death, merely renewal.

Preparation for a period of want.

A cleansing, a harvest, a bonfire blazing.

As a child I sharpened new pencils inhaling their scent,

As the year begun in September as autumn hit 

And it still buzzes like new for me,
In these orange months.

Summer may have rendered us dozy,

Satiated with leisure and loving;
A lackadaisical life.

But September chills our bones and heats our souls,

And we throw ourselves into it again. 
With purpose.

It's a new term after all and we can begin.

Living with the leaves, grasping for their colour,

Just as we shirked from bright brilliance in summer behind shades.

What do you really want?

We harvest and we store.

We frighten at Halloween, the extreme.

And we burn, burn, burn,

And light up our sky for Guy.

Autumn is a pleasure, a warning, a human quest for...

I like things moving is all.

And we keep ourselves busy.

Enthralled. Till fall has finally fallen,

And we are left to live as ice-cold gluttons for one month, 

Eating and drinking and fucking till new year.

After, we disappear from behind our eyes for a while,

Barren land, bodies stooped, curmudgeonly;

Until spring dances her pretty feet across our path.

Cigarettes I've Smoked and Loved

It is probably too early to write this blog post as I am only 94 hours in and I have been ill for half of those days and its still a novelty. But here it is, my eulogy to my smoking self.

I have smoked since I was 16. I am now 29. For 11 of those 13 years, I would classify myself as a heavy smoker and by that I mean unless I was sick or badly hungover, I would get through at least ten a day (forty on day boozing sessions with follow-up evenings). None of this "only five nicked from someone else on a Friday night" for me. I was committed.

And I bloody love it if I'm being honest; a fact which has most definitely stopped me from trying to give up before. I have never once tried to quit or felt the inclination to and I didn't even care really. My attitude was sort of "that's great you want to - I don't - therefore leave me alone."

And then I started practising meditation and yoga just under a year-or-so ago and I started to crawl a bit with what smoking was - really what it was. A habit. A dirty habit that was killing me and was weak. It was killing my breath, which as anyone who has ever done yoga will tell you is your life source and the source of all life.

I started to wonder. I looked at my skin closer and noticed the greyness after a heavy smoking session. I'm 30 next year... Do I really want to be a 30-year-old-smoker? That always seemed so pathetic to me... it's not so sexy post-30.

And then I thought about my favourite cigarettes and I wavered...

Here they are for your information:

10: After the gym cigarette. Yes I mean it - I always feel I deserve it more.

9: With good Italian coffee in a street-side cafe in the crisp, dry London autumn.

8: After a large meal... or between main and pudding, excusing yourself from the table for a five minute "breather".

7: Driving... with the music really loud.

6: Post-coital (a habit picked up at university when my boyfriend at the time used to smoke in bed - hideous).

5: On a brief break from work during the day - a cigarette and a striding walk is guaranteed to calm me down when I want to kill a client or colleague.

4: On holiday - especially on the beach, but mostly in all those European countries who love smokers.

3: With the first wine of an evening.

2: The "smirting" cigarettes with a boy I fancy outside a bar, or meeting a boy I fancy through our collective need for a smoke outside anywhere. I may have to swear off dating smokers...

1: Cigarette or five or ten with my best friends, wine and plentttyyy of conversation. I will miss these ones the most (but may concentrate on the conversation even better if I am not worried about which of the others has stolen my lighter that I desperately need to light my next cigarette.)

Writing this has made me want to rethink again. All those lovely cigarettes.

However in reality this confirms to me even more how I must give up as I hate the idea of being such a slave to a habit. Also I have told A LOT of people in order that their jibes fuel my steely reserve and competition.

My last cigarette was on September 13th 2015, I hope that I will never have another and that if I slip up and do have one, or two, or a pack, I do not jump off the waggon totally and stay comitted to the resolve to quit. I do feel better already by at least wanting to quit. I feel better that I actually believe now that it isn't cool or arty or fashionably outsider to smoke... it's not. I want to succeed and I hope I'm strong enough.

Wish me luck and don't ask me to bum a cigarette.

PS: Anyone have any tips on staying off the fags, please tweet me @wordyloveslots.

PSS: I do not judge anyone else for their desire to smoke or not smoke. Thank you.

I Was Too Busy Falling in Love in August to Blog... Ti Amo Italia

  

This is not a travelogue or an account of a holiday, it is a love letter and I haven’t written many of those.

I didn’t realise it would happen like this. I thought only romantics fell in love with you. Carb-sluts, middle-aged divorced women, those who fall in amore all the time like I would like to, perfectly turned out men - gay and straight, people who pick Romeo and Juliet as their favourite Shakespeare play. 

I’d been to Florence before twelve years ago and two years ago, and she had already flirted with my mind and my spirit. But I was there both times with my greatest friends in the world and I could be anywhere with them and soar with laughter and a satisfied soul. So I think I ignored it a little. I ignored the feeling walking the streets gave me, the calmness and yet awe I felt in the presence of the great religious architecture. My affinity in the worship of coffee.

And then I went back there and slowly it crept up on me.