Days of Gratitude - Autscape, Friendship, And Finding Freedom In A Cemetery

I am posting this on August 25th.  Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday.  She died a few days after reaching her 70th birthday.  Facebook keeps giving me memories to share each day and most of them have been status updates about the events leading up to my mother's death.  Every day I am given the option to share some painful circumstance.  I haven't been sharing.

The morning after my mother died I had to return from Sussex to Newcastle, leaving my brother to deal with everything for a while.  On returning to Newcastle I attended the appointment at which I was officially diagnosed as being transgender.  It's tempting to wish that my mother had lived to see that day and the two years that have passed since then.  But no amount of wishing would make it a reality.  After that appointment I returned to Sussex.  I wrote the address for my mother's funeral and reading it was a privilege - and quite a challenge to not fall apart at certain points in it.  I posted the address in a post on this blog and it also appears here, the final ever post on my mother's blog which she lovingly wrote nearly every day for quite a few years and filled with family and friends and many photos.

That all happened two years ago.  This is now.  And these are five days of memories for this month, to add to the memories Facebook keeps on recommending I share with the world again.


18^th August


Grateful for Autscape. A lot could be said about that.

Grateful though to spend much of the afternoon not at Autscape!

Amanda and I walked into Settle, relaxed together, ate ice cream and then walked a little by the river.

We found a great rock to sit on in the middle of the river and I even had a free thirty seconds for stone stacking, reminding me that I want to take myself off for a quiet day doing it.

19^th August


There is much I will miss. Much to think about too.

But I am grateful that tonight I will sleep in my bed.

Farewell Autscape for another year. Tomorrow I have to attempt to think about food again.

Grateful too that this time round only a week will go by before I see Amanda again - for a Christian festival!

20^th August


Being looked after when arriving at the meditation group in a state. Sitting alone in silence helped and then good people and lunch.

Grateful for the people who set up that group and for the way the enterprise will be expanding very soon. There will be a meditation centre in the city centre and there are great plans for the future.
Also grateful to look out of the window.

21^st August

Grateful for missing the bus home after the Sunday Assembly social and going a different route back to the Metro that turned out to be interesting even though totally an incorrect route.

This led on to becoming sidetracked in a cemetery I have been meaning to visit almost since we moved here.

Also very grateful that a year ago today I met a very wonderful woman. I couldn't be more grateful than I am.

22^nd August


Grateful that one year ago tonight I danced, played and sang barefoot in a big thunderstorm.

She had encouraged me to do so. She didn't accept my refusal.

A year on and we have a most marvellous and undefined relationship centred on a stunning magic friendship.