Francesca Bossert's Blog, page 18

WHAT’S ON YOUR LIST?

I sat in the sunshine this morning with some coloured crayons and block of drawing paper and made my list of what I would like more of and what I would like less of in 2025! I don’t think I’ve used coloured crayons (pastels) since circa 1980… I’ve signed up for a drawing course with Wendy MacNaughton on Substack, because it’s good to do more and more creative things, and I used to draw a lot when I was younger (I didn’t write “young”!). It was fun to sit in the sunshine and doodle and think about what I’d like more of this year. I almost wrote “weight” in the Less section, but abstained because, I can’t control everything because of the medication I have to take.

Maybe you’d like to do this too? Apart from being fun to play with colour and attempt to draw bougainvillea around the page, it was an interesting exercise, and not as obvious as it seems. I had to think about it a little. I’ll probably come up with many other things and make more specific lists…And who know, I might start drawing and even painting again! Illustrating my own poems would be fun….!!

Funny detail: I’d forgotten the satisfactory feel of using a good eraser!! Omg! Bliss…

Tell me about your list! Come on! It’s not like making NY resolutions, it’s just listening and paying attention.

Lots of love

Cesca xx

ALL THE WAY

 

The sea called this morning,

Hello, it said,

Can you come over,

Just for a little while.

I promise I won’t keep you,

I’ll be gentle,

Make you smile.

If you come,

You can choose,

Whether to paddle or

To go all the way.

Take it or leave it,

It said, parting the morning mist

With a gentle sigh.

 

So I went, alone,

On this first day

Of this brand-new year,

And the sea winked at me,

Irresistible in

January blue,

As I pottered down the beach path,

Arranged my towel in the damp gold sand

And wriggled into my New Year me.

 

My choice was made.

 

I went all the way.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

HAPPY NEW WEIRD!

(Me to be added inside later. Dress by Victoria at La Galeria Elefante, Ibiza)

How odd

To picture myself

This time last year,

Holding myself together

For everyone

While feeling altogether

Where the fuck have I gone?

 

How amusing (sort of)

To imagine

My poor brain

Firing flares into the darkness,

Hoping someone might

Reconnect it with the

Huge unresponsive lump

Lolling dejectedly beneath it,

Almost

As though

I’d been

A teeny bit

Decapitated!

 

How wild

To imagine

Me and my happy (new) brain

Swanning

Into a party wearing a

HOT PINK SILK VELVET DRESS

Tonight,

Silver shoes,

Shiny hair,

Shiny eyes,

Red lips,

With

Not a single loose screw anywhere!

 

Ya think?!

 

Happy New Year!

HURRAY!

 

Buy me a glass of CHAMPAGNE!

 

 

STARLIGHT

Photograph by Olivia Bossert at www.oliviabossert.com

She’s up there, I know.

Giggling and getting up to mischief

With rascals and cheeky bums

She’s met hanging out on the bright side of the moon,

Swinging on stars and moonbeams,

Drinking Moonshine, of course.

She bakes brownies laced with Moonshrooms,

Hitchhikes around the galaxy dressed

Like Barbarella’s wilder, shinier sister,

The guest star of all the best parties.

 

Her name wasn’t Lola,

But she certainly was a showgirl!

She’s become the talk of Angeltown,

Where everyone calls her

Starlight.

 

Like my writing? Buy me a coffee. Leave me a tip!

 

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A SAD AMOEBA

(can you spot the sad one?)

 

I get it, I do,

All the gabble of the Gung-Ho

About loving the body we were blessed with.

 

I believe in being kilo oblivious.

 

I would not exchange my brand-new happy, healthy and volumptuous (a word I claim to have invented decades ago, by the way) self, for my days as a skinny, sick, miserable, lolling amoeba.

Although on wonky days there might still be a little lolling.

Especially if I’ve Superwomaned myself, smile-first, through socially exhausting activities the previous evening.

 

Nevertheless,

I do dream of one day reclaiming my Spring-Summer 2024 wardrobe,

Returning to my regular size. Because there’s a lot of cool stuff in there.

 

(Incidentally, which little fucker thought it would be hilarious to coat my legs in sponge-pudding?)

 However, even if it’s been ever so taxing to have to invest in Autumn-Winter 24-25,

I LOVE LOVE LOVE being able to do things again!

Like, you know, eat food, and walk.

 

And rediscovering decent sleep has been OMFG joyous!

 

So, hallelujah for the medicine that got me here,

And for the doctors that finally prescribed the right stuff.

 

Because this time last year,

I sat on the sofa like a sad, sick, skinny amoeba.

 

Which moron wouldn’t choose investing in Autumn-Winter 24-25 over that?

 

(Help me buy another bigger pair of jeans!)

Available on all the Amazons!

SUPER SPECIAL VERY WOO-WOO END OF YEAR WEATHER FORECAST

 

Dazzling showers of kindness and compliments whizzing your way as 2024 dances into 2025.

 

Open your heart, let sunshine and enchantment flood your chest.

 

Apparently, there will even be a bright pink, effervescent glow. That’s probably the medicine. Kind of like in Superman, but pink instead of green, and inside us.

(Yes, it’s very woo-woo, I know. It’s due to the current depth of the doo-doo.)

 

Preserve, sprinkle with imaginary glitter, and serve generously in the form of words to fellow travellers as you journey into the New Year and beyond.

 

Kindness perplexes evil, perplexity turns to curiosity, curiosity becomes knowledge, and knowledge should - eventually - turn into wtf were we thinking. Yeah, it’s going to be a bit of a shlep. Faced with a poker-faced unresponsiveness, attempt to override with tickle tactics.

 

Where there’s goodwill, there’s a good way. Or another way.

 

Anyway…

 

We got this, as they say in America.

 

Hopefully, at some point, it’ll all come out in the wash.

 

Happy New Year!

(although chances are you’ll see me again before then!)

 

Please consider adding a little money to my tipping jar!

 

 

SITTING DUCK

Photo by Anastacia Dvi on Unsplash

Shrug it off, they always tell you, as though one nonchalant shoulder-yoopla could launch a negative comment into the atmosphere, scattering it like a sneeze so it never ventures anywhere near your cerebral cortex again.With a niggle burning like a hot ember in the centre of my chest, I watch the ducks by the pond beyond my garden. Swim, waddle, flap, fly.Wouldn't it be nice to drench the niggle, waddle on out, have a quick, satisfying flap, then fly off into the sky like the proudest arrow, never to give a quack again?Quack quackQUACK.

Like my writing? Care to contribute to my tipping jar? The sound of a little ka-ching would truly warm my sensitive little heart.

PRELOVED WITH TAPE DECK

He drives people now,

In a car preloved for decades.

And people comment

- Giggle-smile-shrug -

On the car’s shabby-sheen,

Absence of cup-holders

And how amusing to see a tape deck.

Not that they mind, they insist,

Sitting back swilling good wine in

Places with Michelin Stars.

We always give him a little extra

Poor chap-it-must-be-tough-pass-the-olives-please.

 

He drives people now,

In a car preloved for decades

And tells me

In perfect English

Of his life

Before the war,

Before the long terrifying dash to freedom,

Before the borders closed.

 

He drives people now,

In a car preloved for decades.

Chewed fingers on the wheel,

Anxiety-choked

Yet smooth-navigating foreign traffic,

He tells me of years at university,

Of studies abroad,

Of his job as an engineer,

Of his apartment with sweeping views,

Of weekends in his house in the country,

Of evenings in restaurants with friends

Sitting back swilling fine wine.

 

He drives me now,

In a car preloved for decades.

And I say – gabbling maybe? -

That I really wish I had a tape for his tape deck.

 

Are you feeling a little tipsy? Click on the image and make me happy.

 

LES MAUVAISES LANGUES

She’s a little eccentric, don’t you find?

I hear she’s into Double Entendres,

Even Malopropisms!

 

Yes, you heard that right.

Kinky old clever clogs!

 

Oh, and she definitely overshares,

Writing

 

Funny

Sad

Stuff

On the socials.

 

Have you seen her lately?

Seems there’s a new book in the works,

But poetry, this time.

 

Hmmm…

 

Rumour has it her English teacher said she was a writer.

But that was about fifty years ago.

 

Surely kiddie talent wears off.

 

I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we.

Nice seeing you, Gertrude.

(Sue! I just saw Gertrude in the pharmacy. Haemorrhoids, from what I overheard. Well, she did always eat far too much spicy food. And you should see what the daft cat has done to her hair! Bleached it to within an inch of its life. What she was thinking is beyond me!)

 

 

LAST CHRISTMAS

Me, happy, earlier today. Merry Christmas! The pool was only 9 degrees!!!

 

 

Twas the night before Christmas, just one year ago,

I sat plonked on the sofa feeling less than gung-ho.

I said cheese with my family because mamas just do,

Yet the effort of smiling made my blueness more blue.

 

My joy had gone missing, yet I dug deep within

For some slithers of rejoicing to serve warm to my kin.

Naturally, I felt guilty for being such a sad soul;

Me, with so many great riches; I mean what an asshole!

 

Worry felled me that evening, I was right on the brink,

So, I fired up my laptop and emailed my shrink.

I spilled my sad beans, my whole sorrowful me,

And held it together until January.

 

When I finally sat down with that patient young man,

Crying snot-spattered tears on his old grey divan,

He asked me some questions, as I sobbed and hiccupped

Then prescribed some new medicine that bucked me right up.

 

Those pills made me sleepy, at least for a while,

But whenever I awoke I could muster some smiles.

Week by week I felt better, my head finally cleared,

Other things were still wonky, my intestines still weird.

 

Then poetry happened, just like that, randomly!

Poems poured out of me, both rhyming and free.

I wrote about frogs, about birds, about poo,

I wrote about Trump, about love, and my youth.

 

Now a whole year has passed and I’m like my old self,

I’m happy and silly and mentally well!

More than three-hundred poems now have popped from my head,

I even write them at night when I’m lying in bed.

 

So, if you feel sad, anxious, lost and forlorn,

Please try to get help; know that you’re not alone.

The wires in our brains can get all muddled up

Causing rubbish-filled thoughts to get stuck in our nut.

 

It’s not right to be feeling like steaming dog-do,

But professional people help us muddle through.

And if someone you know seems particularly depressed

Just be kind and encouraging!

 

Thank you,

God Bless!