SHARE THE LOVE

There’s not a Shakespeare sonnet

Or a Beethoven quartet

That’s easier to like than you

Or harder to forget.

 

You think that sounds extravagant?

I haven’t finished yet-

I like you more than I would like

To have a cigarette.

Giving Up Smoking, Wendy Cope

 

Share the love. Give someone a poem. Give up smoking.

So it’s a new year- this is always a time I wait for…not for anything as much as the writing and art inspiration it gives me. In reality, it’s no different from any other day of a year..except, as I said, in inspiration. I think, it’s a whole new year-imagine the promise! And that immediately opens me up to imagining the promise in so much else that I run away from otherwise.

The pressure is big sometimes to wish for the biggest things, see the most dramatic results, receive the best.

Perhaps it helps if we think of it this way- what do you have in store for this new year rather than what does this new year have in store for you. If you see the new year as newly born, precious and vulnerable, and impressionable; like holding the wrinkled, soft body of a new born child in your arms.

2008 is here and it will forever be remembered by what we do in its lifetime. Like 1945-forever remembered for the horror and pain it saw, impressioned forever by us.

What do you want to imprint of the history of this year?

My friend and flatmate, Maryam, are taking our slow baby steps into the world of cooking. We made noodle soup the day before and cream chicken with mushroom last night. Teach us more. Tell us what you know. Tell us what you learnt from that lasagne you tried to make. Share a favourite recipe.

Share the love.