Tethered

Some places lift your eyes in the acknowledgement of salvation, special places that soothe the soul, help connect you to better.

Back to the hotel after a wander in the Wonder.
More working through the book edits.
****

Raised to believe you're worthless, an educational system that led you to expect you wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't. Opportunities that never came knocking because of where you were born, who your parents were. All the people who looked the other way.
Just enough resilience to believe you could fly, remembered distant words of love the spell to lift your head, fill your wings.

I've an odd relationship with praise. 
I'm well aware I appear the picture of confidence, assured and composed- it goes with the job. And in many an extreme situation I'm extremely confidant.
But those days of youth stay with you, scars on the cracks that let the darkness in. I've learnt to ignore the opinions of those I dont respect or trust; but every so often someone I both trust and respect will say something nice and I'm lost for a whiles.
Many of the edits are punctuation and expectation; I can't get excited about it, oh so often I don't even see it. But. In the margins S has written his own comments and I'm floored by some of them "you're playing with something that borders on genius", "I've read this twice and I'm still moved to tears", "you use words beautifully"

There's no measure to be won in the wistful dreaming of what might have been, but every so often I wonder about the teachers who never said any of those words, who never understood their foundational role should have been encouragement rather than labelling.
I've walked a long way from there to here, but still, I'd like to think maybe my Mum sees this - even if only through the memory of her that lives in me. I think she'd be smiling.