A friend shared this poem with me and I wanted very much to share it with you. I have read that it is about a father teaching his daughter how to swim – but it feels as though it is about so much more as well. Perhaps this will be particularly poignant if you have a daughter; if you are a daughter; or if you are aching to be the daughter of someone who is trying to teach you to keep your head above water in life, rather than sinking under its weight. Someone who is gently guiding you and buoying you up, until such time as that ability has grown inside you, light as air.

I’m a terrible swimmer and I can’t tread water for more than a couple of minutes before tiring; but I know how to float. It’s a question of remembering to lie back and lie still; remembering to look upwards; remembering to open my arms up in a wide embrace; and remembering the voice of one who tells me I am safe and I am held. And that even in fear and absence – especially in fear and absence – I am held. I hope you enjoy these beautiful words…