Gratitude

Last week I dropped my netbook on the floor. Afterwards it made an annoying beeping sound as if it were on a countdown to its own self-destruction. As I’ve now discovered, it had already destroyed itself, and every unsaved document on its unrepairable hard-drive was locked and lost within its broken components. Most of these documents were poetry related: finished poems, drafts of poems, quickly jotted ideas, and new poems that were still trying to find their form and direction. Stupidly, I had forgotten to back these documents up, and with one bump on the floor three years had been forgotten.

Poetry last week didn’t offer the taste of satisfaction that it usually evokes on the taste buds. Instead it was salty from the tears that caught my lips, bitter from anger at my own negligence…

But then, on Monday, something happened to wipe these unpleasant tastes from my taste buds, to remind me that some lost documents wasn’t the end of the world. And you, dear reader, played your part in helping this realisation to surface. As I unpacked boxes of food and toiletries from our Blackpool Foodbank collection, I was overwhelmed by your generosity and kindness. In just over a week we (as a poetry group) managed to fill almost four cardboard boxes with an array of items for those who are struggling and in need.

All the food collected by the Dead Good Poets

The salty, bitter taste was replaced by something as warm as cinnamon and as beautiful as snow tumbling in the headlights at night. I was filled with gratitude, because one solitary blog post had spoken to many people, because we’d made a difference to our community and given something back, because I’d asked and so many of you were willing to help. So to all of you, I would like to personally say thank you for your beautiful generosity (which I’m sure will mean the world to a few families this Christmas – and which certainly made my week a better one).

May each of your Christmases be filled with the same love you’ve shown.

Lara