Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary, huzzah…we wil be celebrating by…erm crawling into Christmas eve, praying we are all staying well and maybe a family swim. (Boy do we know how to be wild!)

I was showing my eldest some of the wedding pictures and the song I walked into. She was asking me ‘mummy when you are older, how do you find someone to marry? Like how did you get Daddy to marry you?’ I tried not to be offended by the implication that I had to persuade her dad to marry me- and calmly pointed out that we agreed to get married of our own accord! It’s always good to remind her of the importance of consent and autonomy!

Anyway, as I listened again to this song, I felt like it was a bit of a letter to lots of people I know this winter. This winter is slow and hard for so many that I love. There is a lot of sickness and grief.

So here it is:

They say that things just cannot grow, beneath the winter snow, Or so I have been told. They say we’re buried far, just like a distant star, that I cannot hold. Is love alive?

I feel like those words best describe this winter, that space, that feels so vast and inpenetrable.

And yet, when I have been swimming-when I am struggling to breathe whether due to the cold or the weight of life-there is also a thiness to it all. The vastness is both lonely and yet so clearly speaks to me of something more than.

This world is bigger-the vastness is actually intimate. The grey sky and clear water-they merge and become home and seemed to remind me that love is found in all these places.

That is the light breaking through the darkness, that is the season of hope as well as hibernation that winter brings.

So tomorrow I will listen to this song and celebrate my marriage but I will also be singing it as an affirmation to those around me. Love is alive. even in pain and loss, love is alive