“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn ” (Anne Frank). This quote means a lot to me. It represents all that writing gives to me. When I write, my problems disappear. It gives to me solace and peace. It allows my past traumas to dissipate. That is the beauty of using writing as a mechanism to move on.
As I am writing this, by the ocean on the south coast, visiting my twin sister, vape in one hand, coffee by my side, and my trusty keyboard.
The last two editions of my column have focused on change and loss. Now I have nothing to focus on but to write
about Moving On in this series. The losses, as I wrote before, that we endure in life are necessary in order to grow.
An example is the British rapper Bugsy Malone who nearly died after a road accident. He fought to save his body and mind. And moving forward, with a lot of determination, he hung on by a thread.
Equally, Eminem came through with Not Afraid, moving from addiction into recovery. He had two options, and he took the difficult but inspiring path.
Like Bugsy Malone, in his album b. Inspired gives out the call and the challenge: If I can make it, so can you. The losses we incur in life are a necessary hurdle, that we have to face the pain for from these breaks, we hurt, sometimes adamantly so, but we must patiently wait for these obstacles in order to move forward. Some don’t make it, death, overdoses, suicide. I have seen some terrible losses in my time and all I have been able to do is pick myself up, grieve, and keep moving on.
Seasons here and music converge. The wind and seagulls, contrast against the deafening sound of silence. As
I write this with the background song of the sea, Silence and noise collide, As spring is threatened by summer. Summer threatened by autumn. Then the dreaded time for me. Winter. The seasons circulate, time changes. But it is Winter that besieges me.
Moving on, who knows the answer to that indeterminate question “where do you see yourself in 5 years time”. For me I struggle to tell you where I see myself in 5 days time. Even 5 hours is a conundrum. All I know is that I live in the present, the past and future are both pertinent to learn from. But too much focus will take away from the now. Collicia song, Addiction, shows someone fighting for their life and showing pure resilience in the hell that addicts sometime have to walk through. Bugsy Malone refusing to die in his hospital bed. The eternal fight to move forward, the instinctive fight for life. Moving on up now! (Primal scream) as I am, Staring through my rearview mirror.
The truth in Moving forward, in my eyes comes from Akala, ‘Find No Enemy’.“The only way we can ever change anything is to look in the mirror and find no enemy. The only way we can ever change anything is to look in the mirror and find no enemy. (Akala )” it speaks volumes and moves us forwards. The profundity in such simplicity is, to me, where the path to freedom lies.
Kate Taylor
