5. If only to draw in sunlight 🌻

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1

19/09/17 - 07/10/17

I’ve been sitting in front of research papers for a good half hour thinking about doing work and the sun streaming through my dormitory window seems to be cheering me on. It says it will feed my skin and drying braids so long as I keep feeding my spirit. This is God. I recognize His voice. He says that this warmth is just for me. That I may forget how cold the bed has felt without my darling beside me. That I may forget that I’ve been away from home for so long. If not forget then brave it through. It seems as good a time as any to be pacified to sleep amidst cocoa scented candles and replete with honey and lemon tea but today, facing the day star, I am a sunflower. Today I choose to overcome this autumn dullness. I choose to fill myself with cherished memories and not the weight of absence. I will photosynthesize new life into the world to inspire others to keep breathing,

My reflection has not looked this healthy in a while. I have not gone bare-faced since the air has become cold, my dark skin was no longer vivid despite the shea butter and coconut oil and my coils have not yet been set free since the passing of summer. My darling and I have not seen eye to eye in a while. The distance continues to stretch itself and my bed stays cold despite my hot water bottle and heater. On some evenings, I play his favorite tunes to remind myself of the early days when he was here and we still shied around each other, afraid to admit how much we wanted the other to be ours. And now I am his, but so unsure of how to show it to him.

Every couple on the sidewalk is a bittersweet fragrance; I love their love but do not love how my love is so out of reach these days, no matter how many times I sketch his face from the memories of my palms because somehow… somehow, I always seem to forget a detail from his eyes or from his lips that I’ve so often kissed.

I’m trying not to forget my blessing. I’m trying not to forget that even though my darling and I are not faultless, and though we have hurt each other enough these days, loving him is still the most natural feeling that I have. And though he is not here, my God is always present, always faultless.

I have been neglecting my God this season. Anxieties of the heart have mounted atop the British dullness ever since. I have felt incapable of love and being loved; incapable of success; incapable of acceptance, if only for myself.

But smiling through tears must mean, surely, that we are thawing under the vigorous sun. It must mean, surely, that the new is blooming, even in the threshold of winter, we are made new again in God.

I only pray that I may know of patience, for my beloved, my loved ones and I; renewal is more difficult than growth and it would be a shame to become weary of my blessings. And if I should find myself resenting the cold and the rain, and regret and strain, there is only to remember that God’s sun continues to exist behind the clouds waiting for an opening in my heart.

The air remains cold with the sun overhead and my lips remain human and cracked, but I am healthier today. I have a counter stocked with a bounty of imported avocados and mangos, a reminder that in every space and mindset, there is still color and nutrition, and I think this is what being homed in God is like. But it also reminds me that I cannot give the best of me in and out of every season, but the best of God continues working to bring back the softness of my lips and glow of my skin.

These are things I feel to tell my beloved, my loved ones, and if only myself. Especially on the days we spend sleeping through the sunlight, waiting for the darkness. But today, I will apply shea butter and coconut oil to this winter parched skin and be made new again, and I will smile a smile of renewal because today the new begins blooming again. 🌻