Real life

has days where you open the matchbox upside down,
everyone in the carpark is driving against the arrows except you,
the rain starts after you lock your hat in the car,
days when bed all day sounds like a good option,
days when the phone rings all the while you’re finding your door-key, and stops just as you get in.

Real life, then, has days where just as you step outside, God’s fingers spill light through the clouds, and the first bumblebee of the year does a fly-by and that’s real, too. It’s got surprises and unexpectedness and maybes, buts and plenty of ifs in it. Real life has lessons, oh, yes, lessons, and gold and fake gold, and more lessons. It’s got bruises and kisses and friends who call up out of the blue three years later, leaving you thinking Life is good, Life is good. Real life has farts in it. I’m sorry but it has. And sometimes people who are very respectable in the outside world will wipe their nose with their sleeve. That’s real life too. I used to feel, as a teenager, that I couldn’t wait for my life to start – my real life, that is. I didn’t know I was in it. Didn’t know then that that was it. That was my chance to be 13, 14, 15. When did I start to claim that life? It happened gradually. Dawned on me. This is it. This is my life. I’d just better live it, grab it, be glad of it, glean the gold from it. This is real. This is Life.


More Sunday Scribblings Here ... And yes, I know it's Saturday. But they're flexible. It is the weekend!