One of the best descriptions of rocks I have ever come across is Adam Nicolson writing that they are ‘monuments’1 to their own history, that they reveal the story of what it has been to live and die, the ‘evidence of a self-mending world’.2

Limestone by the ocean, weathered down to calcium, absorbed by crustaceans to harden their shells. Volcanic rock that withstood a world of only ash and smoke. Lines of granite and mineral pressed together, pressure that creates crystal, shorelines that wear down dimples at every tide. The world is a remarkably resilient thing. It’s amazing to look around and see the record of everything that’s come before you.

Sometimes change feels slow, but you must remember that it’s always happening - only sometimes in more secret, silent ways.

There is a question often asked, sometimes upfront, sometimes only in mind, of what it means to be remembered after death. Asked to celebrities in interviews, to loved ones around the dinner table, spoken in the wind when you’re all alone - what do you want to have left in the world? What do you want to be remembered by? What is the outline of all of your days?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of amorphous things, saying ‘I want to be remembered as great. I want to be remembered as kind. I want to be remembered by the face of my children, by the words I wrote, by memories I have left in others minds.’ It is easy to imagine life as something to be completed and remembered only in action. But if the true purpose of life is to live, then what is left behind remains only in subtle ways. All the ways in which your continued existence weighed upon and affected the environment around you, the places in which you slept and ate and wandered.

When you die, all that will be left behind is the atomic mass of all the your days, the molecular mulch of carbon and hydrogen and whatever else. You will be remembered by the cornflower you planted that returns every spring, the indent of rock that you wore down every so slightly where you lay to watch the ocean, remembered by the compost in the garden, the minerals of your life in the soil of the earth.

You will also, I hope, be remembered as kind, and great, and gorgeous, but perhaps only for so long. But the world will never forget. Will not forget the imprint of your life, the stones you carried and moved, and all the ways you shaped the world around you.

Everything, in some way, is only memory. Life is always new and yet it still moves in circles, creating and destroying itself to create more life and restore all that will continue to live.

All of life is a shrine to itself, adopting and abandoning feeling as it goes, but remembering itself all the same. Everything becomes nourishment. Everything lasts forever somehow.

When I am by the ocean it is easier to forget ego. It becomes easier to remember your life as a continuation to all that is already happening and all that will continue to happen after you.

I keep two lucky stones by my bed. One is a smooth grey oval with a line of mineral running round in an unbroken circle, it reminds me of promise, and hope. The other is more rough and has a hole right through the centre, it reminds me of change, and of movement.

Both of them remind me that I will be remembered - life repeating itself over and over, a great history of things.

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And as the recent way of the world is increasingly turbulent, and full of upending and unearthing movements of violences, it can become impossibly easy to disconnect from what is right, an easy to feel that hope is elsewhere.

But remarkable things are happening, in every small opening of the day, in every silence and between every breath. And as the hot press of anger beats down, goodness is birthed. And when hate is overturned, only love remains.

Resilience is a permanent residence of life.

See it in the birds laying eggs twice over because the magpie won the first time, see it in the plants contorting themselves to find the sun, the pigeons that shift about on one leg at the train station platform, the Palestinian people running a marathon for the first time in two years, young voices winning in positions of action and power.

I never usually write about real things that are happening in the world, and instead only ever write my own internal world, but urgency is prompting conversation in important ways, and the thing about hope is that it’s not a solitary movement, but a joint recognition that life is preserved and that change will turn us right again.

As I sit here on my own, I am thinking about how lucky I feel. For the breakfast in front of me on the table, for new dresses to wear while drinking wine, books to read in the sunshine, best friends to tell secrets to, a new robins nest to watch in the garden. And as I think of all this I put it against those that cannot say the same. I think of those with no food to share and enjoy, those who have lost friends, who no longer have spaces to wander in all because their life has been overturned by hate and conflict and sadness.

Being grateful is profoundly important because it reminds you what is good, and in turn you are reminded of everything that is worth fighting for.

Endless tea in a perfect teapot, holding hands with your friends on a cold walk home, holding loved ones, eating blueberries in the morning, working hard because the future feels alive.

Everything in life is political because it exists. Everything exists because of something else, in place of something else, in spite of something else. There is meaning and context in everything. And there is much power in the brand of clothing you wear, and in the country of origin of the dates you consume, in the words you produce and exchange.

It’s important not to feel so disheartened that you stop loving your life. Love really is an act of resistance. Love your life so much because you know what’s at stake, and because that makes you care.

Keep talking because it makes a change . Keep talking because love will have to win, and that alone makes it worthwhile.

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Return again over and over because it makes a home. Like the ferns flattened in the forest where a moose has laid to rest for the night. Like the tunnels shaped into the undergrowth of the brambles made by the badgers as they walk every evening down to the waters edge.

Change is the truest and most necessary force of life, which also makes it the most stable, and the most still.

Make something new of yourself because you know who you are. Go out and be alive because you’ll return again in the morning to have a cup of tea at the table. Remember that you can be something different, over and over, because you’ll always be the same somehow, in the same body, with the same heart - and that’s what makes the change important.

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I often wonder about the centre of the universe - a bright yellow sun, a cup of tea at 4pm.

Today my walk home was especially gorgeous, even more so than usual. My orange was especially sweet and the wind was cool but had the promise of spring, rattling with a kind of newness both open and true.

Some days you can go hours with a solid stone rumbling around inside you, and then come 5pm you’re thinking only of good things, and you realise that everything has boiled down into a kind of sweetness.

Sometimes I think it’s hard to be alive, but then I remember that it’s also incredibly easy. Like having the best day you’ve ever had, or eating an unusually delicious orange, or wearing pink boots and listening to a great song over and over.

I always used to say that I preferred myself when I was on my own because it made me kinder. The thing with kindness is that it’s the easiest thing to let go of in the face of meanness but it’s the most import thing to uphold. Now I am braver than before, and now I work to be kind the way one works to be mean, and now the gap between who I am and who I wish to be is shrinking.

I was thinking of this on my walk home, as the day softened at the edges and it felt absurdly easy just to be alive. I became overcome with an awareness that without notice, I had become a version of myself that makes me feel proud.

Still I wonder about forever. About who I would be if I had eternity, or who I would be if I had only this day and the next. Once I’ve imagined that self I like to adopt it as sincerely as possible because I think it’s one of the truest. Imagine the dream and become it, imagine the kindest and bravest version of yourself and then find you are already trying.

The centre of the universe is warm cake and custard. It’s the robin in the garden plucking worms from the soil, it’s finding a new song, or finding a newfound feeling of safety and warmth. It’s whatever brings you joy.

Perhaps the centre of the universe should mean nothing to me. Perhaps I should forget forever and think only of this moment and the next.

I guess everywhere you turn is forward. Be a migratory bird! everywhere you go makes sense! be brave and nothing else!

I have been reading Alain De Botton’s Religion for Atheists and thinking about the way secularisation has shaped the world, absolving the wrongdoings of organised religions all whilst taking with it community and the dedication to practicing gratitude and appreciation for the world around.

I have written before about how, as an atheist, I am often frustrated at how many times people assume I am religious because of the way I see or talk about the world, and how I instead believe in the physical happening of the world as remarkable in and of itself - that there is inherent meaning and beauty in the act of being alive and watching life happen around you. In the foxes in the undergrowth, in the beetle running across my hand, the red kite shrieking in the sky, cup of tea in my hand, eating cake in the garden.

Alain de Botton said something remarkable about the things we have lost because of atheism, how it has manufactured stronger egos and worked down our openness to community amongst strangers, weekly celebrations, rereading texts over and over again, pinning yourself beneath something so as to maintain focus about the way your life is shaped and where you sit amongst the great systems of life.

With no God to listen to, how do you maintain what your heart looks like? With no soundboard and no guide there is nowhere to turn but yourself, an often fickle and ridiculous thing, although beautiful at the same time. But I believe one truth about atheism is that gods are being made everywhere, amongst every mundane ritual that is prescribed along the day.

I have no texts to return to in the evening but I do labour over my skincare, taking the time to smooth my hands over the face, and as I look into the mirror I consider the day. Lying in bed I write down three things I have been grateful for, sometimes grand but often ordinary; the sun warm on my face during my morning commute, cinnamon cake, a hug from my mum. It reminds me how I have never needed anything other than my life, which is a great privilege, but also reminds me how I feel about the world and my ambitions. In the morning I brew my cup of tea for two minutes, I eat yogurt and honey, frozen blueberries and banana, I dance in the kitchen, I sing a song - I do all this till all I can remember is love, I do it till I can’t remember anything else. The habitual joys of the day are in a way a religion, a devotion to your one and only life. Taking care, taking time, making promises to yourself in secret and silent ways, open, honest, true.

Remember goodness in the morning because it makes you kinder. Remember nourishment as you eat because it makes you grateful. Watch the birds and remember hunger, watch the water and remember change. There is always something important happening, you must only pay attention.

There is so much of everything. So many books to read, so many different teas to drink and films to watch. Perhaps one of the best things you can do for yourself is to return often to the things that you love. Not only because they make you happy, or that they make you laugh, but because it reinforces that although we are always changing and morphing into something new, devoting yourself to something you already know re-establishes your place in the world.

Last summer a beetle ran around and around my hand and I couldn’t stop thinking about how small and yet endless its world had felt in that moment. From my pinkie and back round to my thumb, it travelled such a small distance so many times that the world became large.

Be grateful for the small hand you run around as well as the large world you inhabit. There is much to learn in all the things that build up your day.

“Is there really any need, we wonder, to carve out a moment of gratitude in honour of a sunset or an apricot? Are there not loftier goals towards which we might be aiming?” (Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists)

The secular world has abandoned giving thanks as a cornerstone of the day. But you must only take the time to remember the great joys of your life in order to be thankful.

Today I am grateful for warm frothy coffee, Blood Orange’s newest album, jigsaw puzzles and the first feeling of spring.

“We should strive to adopt the acute perspective of those who believe in paradise, even as we live out our own lives abiding by the fundamental atheistic precept that this is the one world we will ever know.” (Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists)

God is at the dinner table in the shape of a sudoku book. I am returning to myself every hour by making a cup of tea, and I am thinking of life and feeling lucky. A journal is a bible because it tells the story closest to your heart, but mostly because it is all about reflection. I am writing a new proverb and all it talks about was my walk down the quarry to watch the heron by the water. I am thinking of the best day of my life and realising I am already living it. I am thinking of paradise and realising it is already here, with me.

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It wasn’t the disruptive kind, and I remained committed to everything I love, and diligent to my routines. And then one morning last week, as I was washing my face, smoothing my fingertips under my eyes and down below my chin, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and suddenly realised that this feeling had shifted, slipped out from beneath me, and was replaced instead by a kind of newfound lightness.

It made me think about how much promise lies in the act of committing to yourself and the things you love, the classic idea of keeping afloat and then realising one day the wind has picked up and you are once again forward.

Every day I write down three things I am grateful for, these are sometimes grand, but they are often ordinary. My life is a great joy and a great privilege, but aside from any grandeur or excitement, the things that keep me alive are those that are stable and beautiful because I get to see them and feel them everyday. A cup of tea at 4pm, dogs on the morning train, a hug from my mum, a laugh with my friends, the light coming through the window. Life is such an easy thing to take for granted. You do not have to believe you are going to die tomorrow just to know what love looks like. Instead, believe it is there and it will show itself.

Starlings murmurating at 4pm, chocolate cake warm in a bowl, the feeling when someone tells you something so honest it almost makes you cry. What if love is the same at every angle, what if it’s okay to return everyday to the things that make you light, and gorgeous, and feeling lucky.

Perhaps devotion is the true lesson. Devotion to living your one beautiful life. Devotion to honesty, and kindness, and gratitude. Perhaps instead of feeling sad every time you finish a cup tea, you remember you can just make a new one, and perhaps it’ll be even better than the one before!

The other day I went down to the quarry near my house right before the sun went down, my favourite time to go because everything returns and I’m reminded of the way love always comes to. That night I had written my diligent list of three as I do most nights. An owl darting above my head, silent and strong, a red fox shrieking by the edge of the woodland, the geese above my head in sincere formation and then ducking down to the water, safe for the night. Sometimes all you need to do is watch the world settle at nightfall and remember the history of things.

These events repeat every night regardless of if I watch them or not. It’s why the world keeps turning, and why that small ecosystem of living things is stable in its constant turning, through days and seasons and years.

Every remarkable living system is a lesson that tells you about the nature of beautiful things. That it is ordinary to float in and out of your own life like the goslings above the water when they are still grey and almost see-through in morning fogs.

These past few days I have felt more like myself every morning. I am returning again to the middle of myself.

Soon I will go to bed and I will think about the day, and I will complete my rituals. Herbal tea, lavender, good books. Today I am grateful for fresh sheets, bright light shining through at 2pm, robins in the garden.

There’s always that small spot in the middle of you, tiny hollow, something vague but full of promise, something waiting to become. Giving in, breaking open, through every good and bad day my heart has remained the same. Life is sustained everywhere.

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I’m not religious, I don’t believe in anything other than love and little luck - I suppose instead of belief it’s a kind of trust, it’s knowing. The blackbird hunts and I think about hunger, the spider spins a web and I think about home, the reeds by the water shake and I think about rhythm - there’s a light shining and it’s coming from the middle of my heart.

One of the things I find annoying about social media is that when I post about this beautiful and gorgeous world, some loser has to comment “how can you see all this and not believe that God is real”. I find it astounding that some people cannot feel the weight of gratitude or appreciation without tying it to someone else's laws. This is a real world, and I don’t have to believe that someone created it just for it to be remarkable. And I do believe that religion can be an incredibly powerful and beautiful thing, it can teach love and it can teach gratitude, but it does not create these things, they are there for anyone to inhabit.

When I think about gratitude, I think about the ocean, smooth, blue, and wild. I think about my mum putting blueberries in my yoghurt in the shape of a heart, of the stone in my pocket, white ragged beauty, purple mussel shells bruising on the shore, good books, and tea. There is not a universe where you are anyone other than yourself, that is a wonderful thing.

You do not need an ulterior way of thinking to uncover everything that is true and that is gorgeous, but there is already inherent meaning and grace and charm in things that are alive and that exist. The scientific and natural happening of things is a type of poetry more beautiful than any other, and the shriek of the red kite circling, or the robin twittering, does not have to be telling you a message to be telling you of something wonderful.

There are many beautiful ways to live, but what if all you were meant to do is be alive?

What if there is no other paradise, what if there is no more bliss to find, what if it is already here, with you, and instead you insist on letting it pass you by?

At the moment I am brutally aware of the way my dog, my best friend, is beginning to falter as she grows older and more sick. I am holding her in my arms in the garden in the sun, and she is closing her eyes and pressing her face next to mine, opening herself to the warmth and enjoying her life. It is beautifully saddening to be so aware of all the joys and all the love that could soon, at any time, end.

And I am reading books about art, and the planet, and animals, and all the way people think. And I begin to wonder about all the things that have felt important to people, important enough to write about, important enough to love. Nature is a beautiful thing because no words are spoken but all life is understood. Like watching starlings murmurate, hearing the sounds their wings make, hundreds of beats in a kind of soft but solid rhythm. Or watching the moth flit around the moon, unaware that it’s the lamp in my bedroom, and then settle tiredly amongst the dust of the windowsill. My dog dancing with me in the kitchen, barking and jumping around my feet. My dog curled in my lap with her nose tucked beneath her paws. My dog in the garden in the sunshine, loving her life because she is warm and life is beautiful.

I can see all the places that love takes shape, and I can already feel the footholds loosening when the time comes. But I think love lasts a long while. It’s why memories sit in the middle of your chest in a kind of dull ache, because they are pressing up against your heart.

I wish my dog could live forever, but I don’t think that’s a wish anyone could promise me. So instead I’ll ask for all the love to stay. To recognise it as I sit in the garden with the sun in my face, or on the sofa, or in kitchen, when I’m dancing, or laughing, or thinking about the way things last forever (somehow).