This is something I’ve been yearning to share for over two years.

I hope those of you who’ve been following the Writer’s Diary will understand.

It’s something I’m proud of and which still moves me.

Whilst I was writing the first draft of A Writer’s Diary, partly during the early lockdowns, one entry in particular came straight out as a little piece that I felt would have a wider life. I had a suspicion people would like it. Partly because it’s gentle and optimistic. I’ve read it aloud a few times, and realised while doing so that it was a sort of benediction.

A benediction especially upon writers, during and after their struggles.

I hope you’ll take it as such.

That original entry ended up as Juli 24.

I tell you,
I don’t know why but some days, like today, the air just feels friendly.
            Even gravity helps you.

A while later, in 2021, during another lockdown, I was contacted by my friend Chantal Acda who sings and plays solo, and with Bill Frisell and others, and with the Belgian band Isbells.

Two of the band (Gaëtan Vandewoude and Wouter Dewitt) had written a gorgeous song, ‘What You Give Is What You Get,’ and were looking for some words to go along with/on top of a stop-motion video they were planning to make.

I thought of the diary entry, and rewrote it as a poem.

That became Juli 30.

Rather than just send the text, I decided I’d make a small video to show everyone how it might work — with timings.

I downloaded an image from a NASA website, because I knew their stuff was free to use.

The photograph is called ‘Mammatus Clouds over Nabraska’.

The spiralling clouds, also, seemed to chime with the song and the poem. Same palette, somehow.

Using PowerPoint, I animated where and when the words appeared on top of the image — pressing the space bar to move on to the next line.

When I sent the video to Chantal, she said it made her cry and ‘it’s just more than beautiful’. The band loved it, too. But it’s taken this long while for the song to be released. (Thanks to Chantal and the band for inviting me to collaborate.)

That’s why I haven’t been able to share it with you before now.

And so here it is.

‘Today I can say everything.
And today you can say everything.’