For imma

Last night I had a dream that people were allowed to enter my apartment and take whatever items they wanted. Some of them asked me what I would like to keep for myself, and from my hazy dream-memory, the things I wanted to keep were to do with my family.

I woke up and found myself thinking of this poem:

Home is so Sad

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

–Philip Larkin

But this is, and is not, a sad post. Today is my mother’s birthday, and with the biased confidence of anyone who has grown up loved, I can say she is the best mum in the world. So here’s to her. I miss you and love you lots, imma.