Discover more from Unforeseen, unforsaken

This is a newsletter about the unexpected, the uninvited, and that which you can’t let go of. A way to bring "intimacy and grounding" into your week, according to one reader.

To More

and to tender touch

Allayna Nofs

Aug 28, 2022

I have been sitting on my bed for the last 4 hours painting, sending up silent prayers, hoping I might learn something about myself today

but I have learned nothing except how to gradient a sky at sunset, and how to ruin somebody’s day.

Lately, I am working on learning ~~new~~ lessons. Age-old lessons. Lessons that have been around far longer than I. However, it feels as if I continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. I am stuck in a cycle. I feel destroyed by my environment. By my past. While working through discovery of these lessons I have been using a lot of toilet paper. Shedding a lot of snot.

The problem is, I do not believe I am capable of changing. Of healing. Of getting better. Though that doesn’t mean I can’t do it, or won’t do it. How easy is it to repeat old patterns? How difficult is it to rewrite them? Who has the answer? What makes it easier on us?

This poem I found today helped me with the language for longing I fell into this morning. A feeling of wanting more, in a way that touches me deeply. When I complete this letter, I will write a list in my notebook that will contain what I want more of in my life. More of me, no doubt, but I believe I’m a long way off from achieving that. Maybe more sky. That sounds nice. Romantic.

I think I find solace in a light. A muse, an inspiration. Maybe you do, too. Whatever or whoever makes “each breath better” for you. If you find what you are swimming toward, there is salvation to be found. What you are healing for. I want to say I am swimming toward myself, but that would be a lie. Though, one day I hope to confidently say that my muse is myself. Today is not that day. Betterment, maybe. Change, but not Allayna. Not yet.

Instead, I choose another destination, another muse. One that brightens my days, makes breathing easier, takes my tears, catches my snot. I choose to long for a life up on the shore, one that will rid me of all this swimming, endlessly - struggling. Sounds like a dream today - I know I will never stop needing to unlearn. I have to keep kicking my feet. Keep trying to learn. To change, to grow, to feel safe in my body. To feel my body, to eat, to rest.

I might even write myself a love letter. Some days I find it dreadfully hard to want to place my hands upon my body and squeeze.

Here’s to a better week, for you and for me, one filled with more tender touch.

With love,