Places we love

(in response to Places We Love, a poem by Ivan V. Lalic)

A symphony of gurgles, a circle of bellies all playing a tune. Perhaps they can lead us to the places we love?

Gut instinct, feeling the pull in our bellies, the hunger, the assimilation of emotions, of ideas, people & places.

When i think of the places I love I immediately think of music. Because

when I listen to music or make music it’s not so much another language but

a place I am in & if the collection of sounds in this place are arranged in a

successful enough pattern then perhaps you, the listener will arrive at this

place too...Although, of course this place is totally subjective, the invitation

& the trigger are shared : like opening French windows onto a garden full of

animated life, a catalogue of delights for the senses to feast on, a table to sit

at, some time to satiate the hunger, to settle the belly down, to soothe & to

nourish - always with the circling hope that we might return again to the places we love - however long it’s been since the last time you came to visit.

"We haven't done this in a while," he said. She was climbing the tree.

"Let me jump into your arms, Daddy!"

I haven't heard her say 'Daddy' in a while. We've been Mum and Dad for about 3 years now.

I thought, "Don't let her jump. She's too big now. Your back! Your back!"

She didn't jump in the end. She stood up on the branch and the ground looked too far away. She got scared. She doesn't trust him to catch her anymore. This is what happens: children grow up, start making their own decisions and decide their parents don't know best after all. Still, enjoy the ride, right?

So the park is a place I love...

The beach...

I can't think of any place dear to me. I have no country, no home, I'm blank. I moved too many times to care. So the places I love are within myself, within relationships and time...

Trying to make sense of this but I am confusing myself. I feel detached. Detached. Detached. Numb. A place that I love does not exist today. Pretty grim. Need to shake it off.

This door leads to the lazy river. The sun is warming, time is slow and you and me are entangled into one person. My legs are your arm and my shoulders your ankles. And I love you. I can stay here with you. Let's go back to that place soon.

Places. Placing. I like to place things. I spend a lot of time placing things, sometimes re-placing them – in my cluttered flat, my cluttered mind. Our flat is especially cluttered at the moment, not with more things than usual but with their concentration in the one place. Our lounge now also houses our bedroom, as we wait for the walls to dry out, for our landlord to deliver on his repeated promise to redecorate the bedroom. Somehow we have built a spacious nest in the lounge, in the midst of the cluttered edges, a soft malleable expanse of duvet and beanbag. Gone are the chairs, dismantled, the table between them, between us, pushed to the edges. We are children again in our den, on the floor, sharing what each is doing, unguarded, at ease. We reach out and casually caress each other. Time is languid, gentle, on our cushioned floor. We are cosy and content. And next door, the space is opened up. The light streams in from the balcony doors. You sprawl on the floor with your paints and pastels, intent on your creations. Your bike rests against the wall by your stack of framed pictures. I have moved some furniture in – a piece of shelving Tony made, a discarded hairdresser’s metal drawer set. My nurtured vision of the pristine, soothing ideal bedroom has morphed into the excitement of a shared art studio. The shelves to stack my clay and tools, the space to contain your spray and scratch, my coil and mould. How has it come to this?