April has been a good month & I don't usually do this but today I went looking for autumn.

Things are definitely changing in an autumnal way.
The signs are the usual ones.

​The sunset tonight was almost directly west, we’ve harvested feijoa & pumpkins, the leeks are ready & the tomatoes are ending, the days are noticeably shorter, the sun rises later, the late afternoon & nights are cooler, the angle of the sun is now low enough that the light reaches right to the back of the room & we’ve had the 1st snowfall on the mountain.

In autumn, the harakeke seed pods are empty of seed & almost threadbare, the rengarenga still hold seed but that may be only because of the cobwebs, the corokia has beautiful little yellow berries, the seed heads on the hebe are chaff & the Tawa has new growth.

In our native forest, which is evergreen, the changes are less obvious - in fact some of them, like the new growth on the Tawa seem incongruous & I’ve realised I have been overlooking many.

Every morning the grass is quite wet underfoot but the sun is consistently shining & the winds are minimal.

Inside my head every thought I have, no matter how complex or simple, is easily articulated & makes perfect sense.
I have became aware of an inability to hold a coherent conversation with anyone & I find I have trouble explaining things clearly. 

Even though you could quite easily fob that off as nonsense, I have been spending time thinking seriously about what happens to humans when our language & ability to communicate is compromised.

I can still communicate in conversation, just not as well as I used to & my vocabulary has definitely reduced since I stopped leaving home to go to work.

Why is that ?
Isolation I guess & not needing to explain things - definitely. 
I don't miss my old job(s) but I do miss the conversations.
Practise (or should that be practice !?!) or rather lack thereof . . . yep, absolutely.

So I have decided to do something about my loss of words.

In November last year (2017) I enrolled in 27 days of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner & it was fabulous.
Laurie's method in this online course returned poetry to me.
I hadn't realised just how much I had missed hearing poetry read aloud.
I sat down every day for 27 days & played with words.
The words in my head scribbled down in the order that they appear & as fast as they come by the pencil in my hand onto a page in a kid's cheap scrapbook I bought in the supermarket.
Just like that !  
Without punctuation or grammar correction. 
​
Initially just a practice to practise, the wild writing has become equal parts cathartic & therapeutic.
It is possible for me to work things out by writing from my stream of conscious.

Wild writing has also carried me back to books.

I got out of the habit of going to the library. (That would be because I basically didn't leave the house for 2 years.) 
Recently I walked into the library & the first book I saw was a book of poetry titled  'Alzheimer's & a Spoon'  by NZ poet Liz Breslin, which I took as a sign.
​Here, in one book, is a poetic rhetoric of everything I've been thinking about.

From here it's been easy to find my way back to books.
Books to lend from the library, books to borrow from friends, books to buy.
It's a different dialogue this one between book author & reader.
I've missed it & I'm glad it's back.

I've set myself a challenge for 2018 which is to practise wild writing once a week.
I've made a journal especially for the practice & assigned a day to sit, set my timer & do it.
I've recently bought 2 new books which I love.
​One lets me know I'm not alone in the world & the other has been integral in getting my creative groove back &, for that, I am grateful.

I think a lot about language & communication.
Loss of language leads to loss of culture.
Loss of culture leads to loss of identity. 
Inability to converse leads to isolation & loneliness.

Not all language is verbal. Not all language is written.
​I'm choosing to articulate & start conversations through artworks these days but I'm glad to have words back.

Words are such beautiful playful things; individual letters lined up together to make words lined up together to make sentences lined up together to articulate thoughts, facilitate discussion, evoke emotions & create connections.

Words : lost without them

Ordinarily my 1st blog post of the month is a recap of what I’ve done in the previous month, especially things relating to my year long exploration of botanicals & I really look forward to writing it.

​Ordinarily I would tap out a few wise words & upload pretty photos & push publish but honestly I’m using the demise of my iMac (cue sobbing) as my excuse for not doing so.

I like this word ‘ordinarily’ I think it’s old fashioned & quaint.

I also like honesty 😏