Even the fiercest wave can carry you home if you learn to trust its pull.
Grief comes in waves
not gentle tides,
but deep-water surges
that pull at the roots.
You can stand against it,
or let it take you
both are exhausting,
both leave you changed.
Grief is what we view,
based on what we can’t see anymore.
A tidal wave of loss.
There is also the grief you can see,
touching a different depth,
the kind that
requires another enduring perspective.
One that is received , with
or without permission.
Like waves laying upon a quiet beach,
the weight of water
is the weight of memory,
pressing against the chest
until every breath
is a choice.
When it recedes,
you find the shore altered
lines drawn where none were before,
stones rearranged,
driftwood marking where the tide reached last.
You learn to read those signs,
to know how far the waves can come
before they break you again.
And maybe,
just maybe,
you begin to trust
that even in the pull,
something is carrying you home.
~Kerri-Elizabeth~
Every wave changes the shoreline and every change leaves a map. This series moves with the water and the wind, through the quiet ache and the slow return. The next current rises tomorrow, and its direction is still unknown.
Sometimes the hardest part of the storm is realizing the calm was never the end.
The calm came like an unearned mercy ,the kind that makes you believe the worst is behind you. The air felt lighter, almost sweet. For a moment, you let yourself imagine the storm had passed, that the tearing down was finished.
But calm can be a trickster.
It can be the still breath before the second wall arrives ,heavier, sharper, and carrying what the first did not take.
When it came, I felt it in the walls of my chest before I saw it in the sky. Words moved like wind through the spaces between people, lifting dust where nothing had been swept clean. The force was not in thunder, but in the way it pressed against the heart, testing where the cracks had deepened.
After, the ground was littered with what the storm had made visible…..broken beams of trust, shattered fragments of understanding, pieces of history scattered and unclaimed. I walked through it all barefoot for days, writing and feeling the sharp edges, deciding which wounds I was willing to tend to, and which would be left to weather on their own, for now anyways.
There is a strange kind of clarity in the second wall, maybe I didn’t see more before it, like I did this one. The first takes what it can reach. The second shows you what’s truly anchored and what only looked strong until the wind shifted.
And once you know the difference, you cannot unknow it.
The work is more of becoming, again, unraveling years already healed and placed away as wisdom show up to shake you and see how strong your foundation, really is.
~Kerri-Elizabeth~
This is one step in a series that moves through storms both seen and unseen, each one reshaping the landscape in ways that cannot be undone. The next tide is already building, and what it leaves or takes will tell the next part of the story.
The calm at the center is never the end, only the breath before the breaking.
The eye of the storm
is a dangerous kindness
a pause that lets you believe
the worst has passed.
But brisk breezes always comes,
and when it does,
you learn the shape of your own shelter,
the sound of your own voice
calling yourself home.
After it breaks,
you walk barefoot through the wreckage,
feeling for the edges of what’s still whole.
Not everything scattered
was worth keeping.
Not everything left standing
is meant to stay.
Sometimes survival
is not about rebuilding
it’s about learning
how to breathe
in the spaces
the wind has cleared.
~Kerri-Elizabeth-
The storms we survive are not just weather they are mirrors, showing us what cannot be moved, and what we can no longer carry. This series walks those paths, one day at a time, through the shifting light after the eye has passed. The next part waits just beyond the next gust.
Some stand on the shore, torn between the pull of two tides, afraid to lose sight of either horizon.
There are places where the heart feels pulled in opposite directions , a delicate thread stretched between two shores, never sure which way the wind will blow.
Sometimes it is not the storm itself that wears you down, but the weight of holding both the anchor and the sail. One hand clings to the dock, the other reaches for open water, and you are left wondering which will give first.
To love people who stand on different sides is to live in a constant negotiation with yourself ,how to hold loyalty without losing truth, how to be faithful to more than one compass at a time. Those who live there often believe they are keeping the peace, yet they walk on a bridge that sways over a chasm neither side wishes to see.
But bridges creak under the strain. And when the wind shifts, the boards remind you that you cannot belong to both shores without feeling the splinters.
There are moments when you hope for a stand, not a battle, but a quiet, unwavering refusal to join what is wrong, even if it comes dressed in silk and lace. It is the unseen courage you long for, the voice that says, I see the harm in this, and I will not step into it.
When that voice is silent, you feel it in your bones. You watch the gatherings where absence has been engineered, the empty chairs where history once sat. You stand at the edge of the celebration and feel the chill of being placed in the shadows, while strangers are handed the front row.
It is a strange ache, to grieve what is still alive. To watch laughter carry a song that once belonged to your deepest mourning, and realize it is being danced upon without you.
And yet, even in that ache, you may still plant flowers along the invisible fence , sun-warm petals and soft-leafed roses , as both gift and boundary. A way of saying, I see you, I love you, and here is where the water meets the land. Even if the gesture is misunderstood, even if it is whispered against, you know the truth of your own hands and the soil they tended.
Somewhere inside, you know that the journey back to one another is not entirely yours to navigate. Sometimes you cannot swim against both tides. Sometimes you have to anchor to your own truth, and let the currents choose what washes back to shore.
~Kerri-Elizabeth~
But tides never rest for long. Tomorrow, we enter “After the Eye” , where the stillness is a trick of light, and the storm, patient as a predator, waits just beyond the horizon.
Some stand on the shore, torn between the pull of two tides, afraid to lose sight of either horizon.
Between the Currents
The heart
can be moored to two shores at once
each tide whispering, stay,
each wind urging, go.
It is a quiet war,
standing where loyalties divide,
where the bridge beneath your feet
sways with every choice.
but of faces,
A hurricane passes through
not of weather,
words,
and silences.
It tears away the soft things,
flings petals into the dark,
strips truth bare
until it stands trembling in the open air.
When the winds settle,
you walk among what remains
the stones still rooted,
the flowers that refused to bow,
the empty chairs
where once there was warmth.
And you wonder
not how to rebuild,
but whether the house you knew
was ever truly standing.
Some storms
are not meant to be outrun.
They are meant to be sat with,
until the ache becomes a compass,
until the waves return
what was meant to remain.
~Kerri-Elizabeth~
This is part of an unfolding journey through storms that test our footing and winds that strip us bare. Each piece in this series is a step through the wreckage, into the quiet after, where perspective begins to take root. Tomorrow, the tide shifts again and what it carries will not be what it left behind.
“Some storms arrive without thunder , only the rustle of silk and the weight of unspoken things .”
Beneath the vows and music’s sway,
something slithered,
soft as lace against the grass.
Whispers curled like smoke
from mouths that had never tasted the truth,
passing from palm to palm
until the story grew legs
and ran in circles beneath the tent.
Eyes met with a knowing
that knew nothing at all.
Confidence stitched from secondhand threads,
woven by those
who never thought to ask
where the fabric came from.
Nature has always known this dance ,
coyotes cry into the dark,
summoning the pack without question,
rivers deliver branches
to strangers downstream,
the ocean shifts her voice
without leaving her shore.
And we, standing on the edge,
felt the tide beneath the satin.
I let it move.
I did not throw my stone to quicken the waves.
For I have learned
that reaction sinks faster than truth
and truth always swims.
It comes ashore in its own time,
dripping with the weight of what was hidden,
ready to dry in the sunlight.
~Kerri-Elizabeth~
This piece is part of a new unfolding — a series where poetry becomes the lantern for a path lined with shadow and light. Over the coming months, fragments will surface, like shells along a tide, carrying both the ache and the healing of a story still writing itself. Some truths will arrive quietly, some will roar, and each will ask the reader to walk slowly, to see what is revealed when the water recedes.
“Not every wall is built of stone. Some are stitched in silence.”
Through the green veil of hedges,
laughter spills like champagne,
music drifts over water dressed in light,
and satin skirts sweep across the grass
as if the earth beneath them
has never trembled.
It looks like joy from a distance.
It always does.
But I have learned
that some celebrations are sewn
with hidden thread,
pulled tight by unseen hands.
There is a way shadows move through a crowd
quiet weaving,
like scales brushing against silk,
never noticed by the ones
who clap the loudest.
We stand in the space
between knowing and speaking,
on our side of the wall,
watching the choreography unfold
without a single step meant for us.
The air feels heavy
with unsaid things,
but the sun still lays its gold
across the water,
reminding me
there is always light
beyond the tangle of branches.
Some stories take years to write.
Some are already written and only need the light to find them.
This one has been threading itself through many summers, people and places.
And writing unravels pain
~Kerri-Elizabeth~
This post marks the beginning of a new series—a weaving of poetry, story, and healing that will slowly unfold in the months ahead. Each piece will carry both the rawness of truth and the light of perspective, inviting you to walk with me through shadows and sunrises, uncovering what has been hidden, holding space for what has been lost, and discovering the quiet strength that rises in the telling. This is the start of an unraveling, one thread at a time.
“When you stop resisting what you feel, the storm becomes part of the sky.”
This day carries two worlds.
One is quiet, a field wrapped in ferns and trees, where the grass breathes beneath my feet and small wildflowers bow in the breeze. The air holds no hurry, only the slow turning of the sun across the sky. It is a place away from the hum of preparation, away from voices, away from the invisible weight that gathers in the presence of too many expectations.
The other world waits at the lake. There, the water glistens like it is holding its breath, catching light in sharp silver fragments. The sound of laughter drifts across the surface, tangled with movement and unspoken tension. It is close enough to touch, yet far enough that I can step away, returning to the stillness where silence settles like a friend beside me.
Between these two worlds, something significant unfolds. A gathering large enough to stir deep currents, filled with people whose histories are intertwined with mine, some bound by love, others by fracture. There are unspoken allegiances here, silent decisions to stand beside one person by turning away from another. There are those whose eyes meet mine with warmth, and others who cannot look at me at all. Words are not always spoken, yet judgments travel in the tilt of a chin, the pause in a greeting, the space someone leaves between us as they pass.
It is a peculiar vantage point — to be so close I could reach out and touch the edges of it, yet far enough to choose not to step inside. From here I can see the weaving of loyalties and the severing of ties. I can watch the way people navigate the discomfort of proximity, the way some drift toward neutrality while others seem easily pulled by the tide of someone else’s version of the truth.
What might have once been painful has become, in its own way, a blessing. Distance has given me a clearer view of human nature — of how quickly stories can take root, how easily one can become a stranger in a place they once belonged. It has shown me the cost of bending to keep the peace, and the rare beauty of standing still while the world decides where it wishes to place you.
Last night, as we sat talking, we saw what we thought was a distant light. But it was the moon, full and magnificent, pouring its glow through the trees. Its brilliance turned the night into a silver dream, so bright it felt as though it was speaking directly to us.
And what I love most is that my husband is walking his own path through this day, just as I am. We give each other the freedom to feel without asking for explanations. No one tells the other how to stand, how to think, how to carry the weight of this moment. We trust that however the other needs to be is enough. No conditions. No corrections. Just the grace of allowing.
Allowing has become my quiet revolution. If I want cookies for breakfast, I will. If I want to plant flowers with dirt under my nails, I will. If I want to wander in circles or sit perfectly still, I will. If I want to cry until my chest aches, I will. I am learning that feelings are not fires to be put out. They are rivers to be followed, their currents sometimes wild, sometimes slow, but always moving me toward a wider sea.
When I allow myself to feel, the anxiety loosens sooner. The urge to resist fades. Even the ache softens because it is no longer trapped. And sometimes, in the middle of it all, I find beauty I would have missed if I had tried to control the moment. The way the moon’s light slips between branches, the way a fish breaks the surface of the lake, the way the air feels before rain.
So today, I am here. In both worlds. In all my colors. Moving as I need to move. Breathing as I need to breathe. And in the allowing, I find a freedom I have waited my whole life to meet.
SONSHINE FOR YOU 