On spiralling into winter and my own inaction!

And the cold grows and the night slopes in earlier and the air smells earthy with rotting leaves and woodsmoke and rings with gunshot and rooksong...

I love this time of year, the slow turn inward, spiralling down, reflecting and reckoning over what has come before and the first tiny seeds of ideas for future germination. I love the bright cold mornings where the frost sings and sparkles on the brown fields and the first spikes of winter wheat poking through the earth. I love the crisp, pale sunshine in the afternoon, tinting all the thick low cloud with yellow and faintest pink, the silhouettes of trees against a hazy western horizon. And I love turning east again, the strange sensation of heading into the dark with the golden light behind me. I love walking in from the cold and the smells of woodspice and cooking. I love coming home to casseroles and stews - slow-cooked, hearty, heart-warming food that nourishes body and soul. I love the yeasty freshness of just-cooked bread, the earthy heartiness of lentils and roots for soup, apples turning to froth and stickiness as they slowly bake. I love my snuggly jumper in the long evenings.I love hot water bottles and extra blankets and their ability to facilitate my sleeping naked...

I've been mindful today of my needing to be a more active participant in shaping this new future I have chosen. We moved and were caught in the early struggles to settle - physically and emotionally... We found this place to live and I was involved in painting and cleaning and sorting and unpacking (which, admittedly, remains and unfinished task)... I worked hard to try and maintain a sense of rootedness and security for FB through all of it and we have played and walked and talked and sung and read and baked and drawn and glued and cut... But all of a sudden I feel I'm coasting, lazily. Just riding along without thinking, without asking myself what it is I want now, what I need now, how I want to continue shaping my world... I loose myself too easily - in others, in the computer, in lists of meaningless things to do, in my sense of responsibility, in all this newness - part of my coming here was to remember myself, not forget again!! I want to follow the earth's slowing, let all the dead stuff fall away to rot into the ground, and know that the re-growth is up to me. If I want more time to be creative, then it is up to me to make time. If I want to feel healthy, I need to do those things that I know facilitate that. If I want to change the ways some of my relationships work, I need to put attention and energy into that...

But then I am aware that it's too easy to fall into berating myself my failings and that becoming yet another excuse for not getting my shit together! It's been a hard time, with so much happening, so much to take in and adjust to. I am - we are - in a process of change, and it can't be rushed, only embraced, and mostly I think I've been fairly good at embracing. There are active steps I have taken since coming here, particularly in terms of gently altering some of the ways I operate within some of my relationships - truth is that there are bits of me that wish I could retreat from the anger, conflict and discomfort that induces! But I've done that - I've made some changes, taken my destiny into my own hands. So I'm not completely shirking!

And with a view to continuing to do so, here's what happened, all in the course of the last week:

* I have, finally, bought a new (second hand) freezer, which will be delivered tomorrow and will allow me to cook and store food. I'm trying really hard not to have a go at myself for taking so long to do this when I know it'll make such a difference...

* I have, finally, bought a bookcase, also being delivered tomorrow, so that I can unpack the boxes of books that have been sitting around since I moved in.

* I have begun listing some things I've been carrying around without using for far too long on ebay - if they don't sell, they can go to freecycle or charity shops.

* I have had some incredibly difficult and painful discussions with my ex partner that have been filled with pain and anger on both sides, but I have been completely honest and feel good in my heart for being true to myself and my child.

* I have acknowledged openly my overwhelming desire for more children.

* I have got a job interview on Monday (for which I also have a presentation to write - for a part time job! - and about which I am terrified, which may well be the root of much of this post...)

* I have booked a bed and breakfast for next weekend - something I've been avoiding because I didn't want to think about it - FB will be staying with my ex partner - my b&b will be nearby and will give me the opportunity to relax, do some knitting, work on an essay that is long overdue for my antenatal teacher training, read, sleep, take showers, and know that I am closeby for FB should he need me, but also make the most of a peaceful time alone.

I'm taking deep breaths, trying hard to stay present, and stepping forward...