4am, Lizzie's birthday and Until Forever

1. At 4am I was awake to see and hear the dawn and felt it was a privilege to be alive. Once again I was reminded that there is potential for joy and humour at any moment and that the best of them are completely unexpected and gracious. The chances of being really intimate with people can sometimes seem so remote. I sat in the garden with a cup of tea thinking about the day and night past and felt full of a gooey warmth inside and realised that the world was a more beautiful place than yesterday. Exhaustion caught up with me and I went back to bed to sleep for a couple of hours.

2. I went off to Manchester to celebrate my niece Lizzie's fourth birthday. When I arrived my family were there to greet me with hugs and kisses and happiness. Lizzie was very excited to be the birthday girl. It was a very happy day, it was the very best of days. I met my nephew Denis for the first time. There was no shyness or reserve and this charming and beautiful little boy hugged me when I arrived as if we had always known each other with an unconditional sweetness that will be with me forever.

3. This was a day that was made immeasurably wonderful by being loved and cared for. Perhaps for the first time ever I felt I was part of my family. Probably that isn't so very remarkable but I spent almost no time with my brother as a child (we lived separately) and I met my sisters I only when we were nearly all adults and full of separate and non-converging lives. In the years since we met our lives have in some ways not been so very kind and opportunities to be together so few and so far apart that I can count and recall the occasions and events with little more than one hand. The last couple of days have been emotionally charged with surprises and turns of direction and understanding that I couldn't have predicted even if I had considered it a possibility. Today's three things are coded with experiences and feelings which are impossible for me to put adequately or meaningfully into words. And I find I feel ridiculously happy and sad all at once. Although I miss the friends and lovers I've lost touch with, respectfully and with great waves of love and passion I'm so grateful to them and those I spend my time with now. Until Forever loved ones.