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The Friday Review: September Reflections

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Andrew Gormley sculpture on top of Blackwells Art shop in Broad Street, Oxford.

Today is the first day of meteorological autumn, and it feels like it out here in Darkest Norfolk, where the nights have suddenly become chilly, and the elderberries are hanging in heavy, bloody bunches in the hedgerows.  It marks the end of a summer we have barely experienced, and not just because of the weather, which has, frankly, been ruddy awful here.

At this time of year I am inclined to be reflective, and this year all the more so, since at the end of the month I will turn 50, an age at one time I seriously never thought I would reach.  The same day will be the first anniversary of my mother-in-law’s death, after a long struggle with dementia.  There’s a lot to think about, as you can imagine.

This summer, I haven’t been very present on this blog for many reasons.  We’ve been in the process of clearing out mother-in-law’s house, ready for its new owners to move in, which has been a long and arduous project, requiring a great deal of travelling, complicated emotions and memories, and an uncountable number of visits to the city dump and various charity shops.  I won’t bore you with the details except to say that two old ladies living in a large three bedroomed house for 28 years can accumulate A LOT of STUFF.

In the midst of juggling estate agents and solicitors, my husband was called in for a routine hernia repair operation, which went well, but immobilised him for a period.

Then, inconveniently in the middle of his recovery, I went down with what was subsequently diagnosed as Menieres disease, a condition of the middle ear which causes tinnitus, pain, hearing loss, debilitating balance problems and bouts of vertigo.

Anybody who thinks vertigo is just being scared of heights needs to be corrected.  It is when the balance mechanism in your inner ear goes haywire and your brain can’t orientate you in three-dimensional space.  The result is like having your head in a washing machine.  Vomit-inducing.  Try having a bout of that regularly for six weeks, and I think you’ll know why I haven’t been writing much.  Thanks, however, to the wonders of modern medication, I am now able to function like a normal human being again, an unbelievable relief.  I have even got my hearing and ability not to walk into large pieces of furniture back!  The fear that I might never hear again, that I might lose my balance permanently, has also faded.  Which is nice. And my husband is fully recovered, so that’s nice too.

My doctor told me she didn’t like the term ‘disease’ when she diagnosed me with Menieres.  She said it didn’t accurately describe the condition.  For me it described it perfectly.  The dis-ease within my skin.  The sense of being unbalanced, literally and metaphorically, as I negotiate this transitional phase of my life.  The stripping back of the extraneous.  There was no energy for anything unnecessary.  No energy spare for anything other than the basic functions of life.  Standing up.  Lying down.  Walking.  Eating. Sleeping.  Seeing.  And most demandingly of all, hearing.

It is amazing how, when life is cut back to the bone like that, when things you take for granted suddenly become unstable, lots of things simply are no longer worth the effort, and some are even intolerable.

I am no longer inclined to take any shit.  I am no longer inclined to care what other people think.  I am no longer willing to tolerate a victim mentality, either in myself or others.  I am no longer willing to do anything but be grateful for every minute of every day.

Yes, Menieres changed me.

The last year has been spent in the aftermath of Alzheimers, midwifing my husband through his grief, and coping with my own mother’s diagnosis with the same disease, an event which rocked my world off its hinges completely.  The trauma of caring for someone with that horrible affliction cannot be underestimated.  I am still dogged by the memory of my normally affectionate and amiable mother-in-law screaming down the phone at me that I was a thief and a liar, and in league with a secret government organisation that was trying to kill her.  Such memories are not easily processed.  By the end of this month, the house in which she spent her final years will be moving into new hands, and we will no longer have to face the feelings of dread driving into the village, which came from our weekend visits to care for her, not knowing what fresh dramas awaited us.  Not having to drive up that road any more will help, I think.

Alzheimers changed me.

This time last year, another life changed radically too.  My niece Phoebe was diagnosed with cancer, a rare and most serious kind that caused catastrophic blood clotting so desperate that her leg had to be amputated.  Her courage in learning to walk again, facing many surgical procedures, and now conventional chemotherapy after the months of oral chemo she has already been through, continues to astound me.  I’m sure she wouldn’t say she was being especially brave.  She is 32 with a lovely husband and two little children to live for.  She just wants her life back.  To me she is an inspiration.

Cancer has changed me too.

Through all this I have written, even if somewhat intermittently.  I have written in my journal, doggedly trying to stay sane through its ink-stained pages.  I have scribbled many writing practice sessions.  I have reflected and plotted in my writing notebook.  I have rediscovered myself after the blinding snowstorm of caring for my mother-in-law, and managed to cling onto myself in the subsequent whirlwinds of Menieres and family problems.  Through writing, I have remembered who I am, and then discovered I am more than I thought I ever could be.

And that is where I am now.

Changed.

I am not sure this chrysalis phase is over yet.  There is plenty more change to be negotiated, not least my own mother’s decline.

But just now, things are stable. Optimistic.  Grounded.  And, thank goodness, not spinning!

So I begin September, my birthday month, hopeful, and in the process of transition.  A transition that I hope to share with you, dear reader.

Thank you for sticking with me.

Happy Creating,

EF

Reading Reboot Part 2: The ‘How To’ Bit

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Some books here are waiting to be read.

In my last post about reading, I left you at the point of the story where I had resolved to start reading fiction again, but was at something of a loss as to how to re-establish the habit.

This is the good part.  The bit where I tell you what I did, so that you can do it too:

Choose a regular time of day

One of the tips I came across in starting my reading reboot was the idea that in establishing any habit, it helps to have a trigger, a specific time of day, perhaps, which you come to associate with that particular activity. I thought about my mother, who always sat down at 10.30am for a cup of coffee and the Telegraph crossword, and after her lunch at 12noon, she always had half an hour or so special ‘me time’ for reading.  It’s a routine she didn’t deviate from for more than 40 years, and in that time she must have read hundreds of books.

Most people read at night.  I find that helpful as, like many ME patients, I have a tendency to insomnia, so reading at bedtime helps me to wind down.  (NEVER read on your phone, tablet or laptop, however, since the LED display has been proven disrupt the melatonin levels in your brain, making you more awake, rather than less.

You can find the scientific proof, if you are sceptical, here.

Choose a time of day that you can set aside 15-30 minutes of pure reading time, in your lunch hour, on the bus, whenever that most suits your lifestyle, and do it every day.

Block out a chunk of time

I find I really enjoy getting totally immersed in a book, and often, if its one I’m completely absorbed in, I like a big chunk of time to really get to grips.  Sunday afternoons are great for this, but I don’t have kids, so this may not work for you.  Evenings are great, especially when your partner goes for a night out with their mates.  I make an occasion of it, indulgently laying in good chocolate, lighting candles, and maybe even playing soft music in the background.

Grab a moment

I always carry a book with me.  I hate to be bored, and any time of the day when I am on my own, perhaps waiting in a queue, on public transport, or grabbing lunch at a coffee shop, is perfect for packing in the next chapter.

Make a list

When I was at college, and, we were given reading lists.  A series of texts to wade through.  Doing my diploma, I wrote my reading list on a slip of card which I used as a book mark.  I drew a line through every book I finished on the list, and went on to the next one.  Every time I opened my book, I was presented with tangible evidence of what I had achieved, which spurred me on to read more.

This time around I generated my own list.  I happened to have a shelf full of books that I had bought but that remained unread.  You know, the ones you get when there is a ‘buy one- get one free’ on summer holiday books in Waterstones, and you read one when you are away, and the rest get forgotten.  I made a list of all the unread books I had lying around, and started on them.

Another way you could do it is to visit a bookshop with a notebook and wander round, noting down the books you fancy reading, the ones that attract and intrigue you.

Perhaps you’d like to read on a theme.  There are books which will help you with this, like ‘The Novel Cure’.

Many books on writing contain lists of recommended novels that you could work your way through – there is a fantastic one in Francine Prose’s wonderful ‘Reading Like a Writer’. (This is a book you really need to read, by the way.)

Or you could just wander around your local library, pick out a few novels from their displays, or ask a librarian or bookseller for their recommendations.  And charity shops are great for plucking out a few juicy reads at affordable prices to add to your stash.

Once you have your list, don’t forget to tick off each book as you finish it.  I like to score a line right through each title.  It gives me huge satisfaction, and gets me revved up for more.

Stay Faithful – Read to the end

I’m such a butterfly.  I have a very short attention span and I’m well-known for getting bored with a book a couple of chapters in, putting it down ‘for the moment’ and never finishing it.  I’ll end up with about 17 books on the go, and often have to restart books because I’ve forgotten the story so far.

I have found recently that I do have to resist this temptation.  If another title attracts me when I’m half way through my current novel, I now make myself plough on, with the reward of the new one in my sights.  My intention is to use my voracious butterfly instinct to flit onwards as a means to spur me on to completion.  I won’t let myself open the next title until I’ve finished the first.  Sometimes I hate it, but it always feels so great when I get to the end of a book that I don’t care.

Don’t be afraid to dump it

On the other hand … yes, I am about to contradict myself.  Sometimes there is a book that you start, and no matter how much you try, you just can’t get on with it.  Something, or everything, about it grates.

For years, people had been telling me to read ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen.  It has been sitting on my shelf, staring at me balefully in reproach.  I’ve tried.  God knows, I’ve tried.  So many times.  But I just can’t like this book, and I just can’t read it.  So I have given myself permission to let it go.  I’m never going to finish it, so what is the point in keeping it.  It made its path to the charity shop, along with Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’, another book that made me want to spit bullets, and that I have tried to read half a dozen times without success.

Sometimes, it is best to know when you are beaten, and retreat gracefully.  Life is too short to waste precious reading time on books you downright hate.

Give up the Telly (At least some of the time)

Where am I going to get all this time, you may be asking?  I discovered, when I began to really get back into reading, that I had been watching a whole lot of television.  Reruns of old detective shows, documentaries I had seen before, pap that was not feeding my soul or my Muse.  It was just filling my time.  I discovered it was far more fun to switch off the gogglebox and dive into a book.  The pictures were better in my imagination, for starters!

Yes, I know it sounds impossible, but think about it.  How long do you spend staring at the TV or getting lost on the internet, looking that things that really are not exciting or entertaining you, but just occupying your eyeballs.  Just think how much more fun a good book could be.

Commitment not Discipline

Your reading list is NOT another stick to beat yourself with, another SHOULD to add to your already bulging list.  If you don’t get chance to read today, don’t tell yourself you lack discipline.  Frankly I think discipline is an evil word, used to oppress, manipulate and shame people everywhere.  Its not down to having enough discipline.  Its actually down to whether you want to do something enough or not.  And if you really want to do it, you will. So what if you didn’t have chance to read today because the baby was running a temperature, or the boiler broke down?  Commit to reading tomorrow.  Reading is for your pleasure, after all.

Congratulate Yourself

I have a list of ‘Books Read in 2017’ in my bullet journal.  When I finish a book, I write it down on my list there, as well as scoring it out on my bookmark.  It is a way of congratulating myself.  When I get to the end of the year, and look back at my list, I know I will be so proud of how much I’ve achieved, because I’ll have a concrete record of it.

There’s another thing I do.  Maybe its not so sensible, but when I finish a book, I like to treat myself.  I’ll take myself to the local café for a nice cake.  Buy myself a new lipstick or nail varnish.  A new notebook or a nice pen.  Nothing too big.  Just a little treat to say ‘well done.’  Because, let’s face it, you put a lot of hours and concentration into finishing a 300-page novel.  You deserve a pat on the back!

 

Of course, volume is not everything.  At the moment I am re-establishing the habit of reading, and the issue of what I read, and how it impacts on my writing is something for the future.  I may go back to keeping a reading notebook, as I have in previous years.  No doubt there will be future posts on the subject.  But in the meantime, I hope that something here will help you to get back into the habit of reading, if you have dropped out of it, and if not, that you can discover something new to enhance your enjoyment.

Happy Reading – and Creating,

Love EF

Shattered Glass

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InstagramCapture snowy sky

Its Monday, and I would usually write a blog post today about Inspiration.

I would like to write you something sparkling.  Something that will give your creative wings a thermal on which to soar.  Something that is glitter and unicorns and rainbows.  Something to make your heart sing and your pen skitter across the page, leaving a trail of light.

But I have nothing to give you.

I have no light to offer you.  No light in my heart.  My soul is drained, empty and echoing.  I am in the middle of a sandstorm of hormones the like of which I have never experienced in my life before.  I now understand why women in the 19th century were incarcerated in insane asylums for the symptoms of severe Premenstrual Syndrome, Perimenopause and Menopause.  I am blind and deaf, walking in the dark, knowing only this:

THIS ISN’T ME.

THIS ISN’T WHO I AM.

THIS ISN’T WHAT I AM FEELING.

I feel like a marionette, a puppet whose strings are being pulled by someone else, a someone who has not told me the rules of the game they are playing with my heart and soul.  Pieces of me are shattering off.  I am a cracked mirror.

People are telling me that I have to let go, that I must allow myself to feel, so that this rage, this hate, this pain, this self-destruction, will pass.

I can’t.

Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?  Just allow yourself to be angry.  Just punch a few pillows and it will all be better.

It won’t.

There will never be enough pillows to punch. The only way to satisfy this rage would be to rip the head off the world.

(And I am too exhausted to do that.  Night after night of racing thoughts, heart palpitations and hot flushes have seen to that.  I can barely lift my hand up to hold a toothbrush, never mind thump a pillow.)

There will never be enough tears, so I cannot cry even one.

And I must go on like this, day after day, night after night, until my hormones reach their pinnacle and my body collapses into blood.  Only then (I hope), will I become myself again.

I hope.  Most vociferously.

The line between who I am, and who my hormones make me, is frightening me very deeply.  I understand how easy it would be for a woman with postpartum depression to kill the baby she loves most in all the world.  For a girl with premenstrual psychosis to knife a beloved parent. I am not a person who would hurt others, but I can see how easy it would be, because I can see how my hormones are making me into someone I am not, right now.  It begs the question:

Who am I, really?

Our hormones make us who we are, but what if they are out of balance?  I don’t know.  When I bleed, I will remember who I am. Until then, I am the human equivalent of a honey badger.

Thats not a nice thing to be.

But let me tell you this.

This distance between sanity and insanity is the width of a pen nib.

When I write, the pain is eased.  Writing heals.  So while I rage, I will write.  While my hormones slice my heart into slinnocks, I will write.  While I writhe with the stampede of fear and despair, I will write.  When I have nothing else to give, I will still write.  It may not be unicorns and rainbows, but it is Truth.

So for today, if I had to offer you a piece of inspiration, it would be this:

WRITE YOUR TRUTH

(Even if it isn’t very pretty.)

Thank you for listening,

EF

Inspiration Monday: My Own Little Patch of Earth.

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Roses in my own garden.

Roses in my own garden.

One of the things I want to be doing this year, as part of my quest for EASE , is to try and reduce the amount of pain I experience on a daily basis.  And after quite a lot of trial and error, I have discovered that the kind of pain I have at the moment is actually EASEd by movement.

I’m concluding that a main source may actually be the slow atrophy of my muscles over the last 17 years of ME/CFS.  If you are too exhausted to move, your muscles degrade.  Its a major issue for anyone with this illness.  When I had influenza a couple of years ago, my daily yoga practise went by the wayside, and since then, apart from sporadic efforts at walking, I’ve been able to do very little.  I hadn’t realised how much the yoga had been helping back then until I developed back problems, because all my core muscles have wasted so much.  My body can’t hold itself up properly  anymore.  With shooting pains in my legs and hips as well, I’m having to face the fact that if I don’t haul myself off the sofa at least a little bit once a day, I am doomed to a painful existence.*  And that’s not what I want.

But how to find something that motivates me to get off my bum without wrecking the delicate energy balance I’ve had to cultivate in order to function?

The answer came to me this morning:

Just look out of the window, Rebecca.

We have a nice, good-sized, south-facing garden that we have really done very little with since the first year we moved in.  This autumn, it efectively got abandoned as a result of ongoing ill-health and wrinkly-wrangling commitments.

Which is a shame, because I made a lovely garden in the house where we lived before.  It gave me a great deal of joy and healing, and is one of the things that the new owners still treasure.  But when we moved here, I just didn’t connect with the garden in the same way.

Gardening gives me the opportunity to get out in the fresh air, get my fingers in the soil, and soak up all that good prana, even though I don’t like getting mucky, if I’m honest!  It is enormously satisfying when you have finished to be able to sit back, and look at the work you have done.  It is tangible evidence of your efforts.  You can do a little at a time, and stop when you have had enough.  Even a brief walk around outside, picking up a few stray leaves, or doing a bit of dead-heading can make someone in my situation feel so much better.  A little bit of movement in the fresh air gets the blood going and the muscles moving, however gently.

And you get pretty flowers into the bargain.

Its a no-brainer really.

This afternoon, I’ve been out there, raking up leaves.  I didn’t do much.  Just enough to allow me to connect with the muscles in my arms, back and legs.  Just enough to feel the blood in my veins.  Just enough to get my cheeks pink in the nippy air, and the smell of wet earth in my nostrils.    Now I’m inside, I can look out at what I’ve achieved.  The garden is still a tip, overall, but I can see the newly flowering primroses in the bed by the gate.  They were covered with big oak leaves like tanned hands before.  Now they are winking at me, little creamy-yellow faces in the twilight.  Hope that Spring will come.

And yes, my arms are wibbly from the effort, and I feel like I might need a lie down, but I also feel refreshed and loosened up.  I have done something creative, something to nurture myself and the earth on which I live.  That feels nice.

Maybe I’ll get some plant catalogues and start planning what bedding I’ll put in in the spring.  Maybe I’ll work out what I can do with that disastrous centre bed that just isn’t working.  Maybe I’ll work out a humane way to get rid of the moles.  Maybe I’ll get some winter pansies to put in the hanging basket by the front door.  Maybe my peony will flower this year.

With a garden, anything could happen.

Happy Creating,

EF

*I feel like I need to add that this current pain is different from the pain I experience as part of my ME/CFS symptoms.  Its different in character and location.  It can be relieved by movement, which my ME pain cannot.  That is why I conclude that its caused by muscle wastage, and not as a result of the disease itself.  Exercise has been touted as a cure for ME, but its not.  It can only help with the associated muscle loss.  If you are experiencing serious pain yourself, I feel I should encourage you strongly to see a doctor or medical professional before you commence any kind of activity which might exacerbate the problem.  Don’t make yourself worse!

Inspiration Monday: The Fun of Childhood or My Quilting Adventure

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lotties stockingLately I’ve been rediscovering sewing. In a fit of madness, I offered to make a Christmas stocking for my dear guide daughter, Lottie. I bought some of that lovely fabric, where the stocking is printed on the surface, and all you have to do is cut it out and sew it together. So far, so simple. But then I had the bright idea that it would look lovely quilted. I had some batting and calico at home, so that could be had free. Why not?

I haven’t quilted properly in years. To be really honest, I haven’t done proper quilting since the winter after my dad died in 1982, when my mother and I made a quilt for my bed. We sat through the winter evenings with the quilt over our laps, sewing together. It was one of the most profound and loving ways we found to survive our grief.

pink quilt

Pink Quilt made by my mother and I, Winter 1982-3.

I still have that quilt. We have voyaged through life together, through college, university, adversity and marriage, my quilt and me. Now it sits, pride of place on the futon in my study, ready to wrap around me when I’m reading on a chilly afternoon. It is a bit threadbare now, the cheap cotton we used almost see-through. But it still gets used on our bed on cold nights, and I’ll occasionally patch it up if it develops a hole.

For me, quilting is an emotionally important skill.

Pride of place on the futon in my study, ready for snuggling duty.

Pride of place on the futon in my study, ready for snuggling duty.

It is not really hard, just running stitch. You just have to make sure you get your needle through all three layers on each upstroke and downstroke. Of course, you can make it more complicated than that, but I don’t.

I’m really enjoying my simple running stitch work on this stocking. I’ve finally finished the first side, the one with Father Christmas’s sleigh. There were lots of fiddly bits on that one, and I began to realise the wisdom of a lady I once saw demonstrating Durham quilting at a quilt exhibition. (For more about exquisite Durham quilting, try here.)  She was using a frame to hold the fabric layers taut while she worked. You have to with Durham quilting because it is incredibly detailed. I always fancied doing it, but it was one of those crafts that I got all the books from the library about, but never had the guts to have a go.

When I was a kid, not having the guts would never have occurred to me. If I didn’t have a book or a pencil in my hand, I had a needle. I made all kinds of things, but mainly dolls clothes. As I got older, a branched out into making historical costumes. Tudor and Elizabethan ones particularly. I spent hours researching the historically accurate way of dressing, the different layers required. I dressed my Sindy dolls in bead-encrusted gowns, each bead sewn on with my own hand. I even made ruffs!

I loved doing the tiny stitches. I still do, it turns out. That’s why I’m now addicted to quilting again. I’m so pleased with my little stocking. Its so satisfying to see the work develop. I had forgotten that simple running stitch could be so enjoyable. And I know that Lottie will enjoy her stocking when she gets it, and in years to come, I hope that she will regard it as an heirloom, just as I do the pink quilt I made with my mother when I was a teenager.

What crafts did you used to enjoy when you were a child? Did you love pottery, felt crafts, beading? Did you make things with matchsticks or balsa wood? Did you put together plastic models, or build go-karts?

The run up to Christmas is a great time to remember those simple activities you used to enjoy as a kid, and maybe have another go. Maybe, like me, you can rediscover a new outlet for your creativity. Because, let me tell you, when I’m finished with this stocking, I’m going to try some Durham quilting. Nothing is going to stop me this time!

Happy Creating,

EF

Losing myself amongst the ‘Woolves’

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Virginia Woolf as a young woman. I keep a copy of this portrait on my desk.

Virginia Woolf as a young woman. I keep a copy of this portrait on my desk.

So I spent Monday in London, escorted by my wonderful fangrrrl niece Amelia, at the ‘Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision’ exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.  And it was wonderful.

We saw innumerable portraits and photographs, but I think the personal papers were the most moving.  There were pages from her diary describing the bombing of Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Tavistock Square home in October 1940, the original manuscript of ‘A Room of One’s Own’, love letters from Leonard written before their marriage,  and most moving of all, the little note she left for him when she set out to drown herself in the River Ouse in 1941.

One of the things that particularly struck me was that Woolf bound all her own notebooks and manuscripts, having taken bookbinding lessons in her teenage years as some kind of therapy for her mental illness.  The result was that she could make the perfect notebook for her own needs – which is, for a stationery addict like me, absolute nirvana.  Her books are big, too, slightly larger than A4, leaving plenty of space for her to explore her ideas.

Another interesting detail for me was that the page from her diary about the bombing had no crossings out on it at all.  My diary is a veritable Somme of scribblings-out, but she wrote a stream of consciousness with a self-assurance that seems absolute.  She had no doubts about what she was trying to convey.

The original copies of her books, published by the Hogarth Press, which she ran with her husband, still with their book jackets designed by her sister Vanessa Bell, look crisp and radical even now.  Amelia (a bookseller) and I both commented on the fact that the many editions of the novels for sale in the gallery shop had an assortment of different covers, none of which were so attractive, expressive, and frankly Modern-looking, as the originals.

Woolf is my writing hero for so many reasons.  She battled mental and physical illness, misogyny, and childhood sexual abuse to become one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, reinventing the novel form in a way that would be emulated and built upon in succeeding decades.  She was self-educated, too, and could read Greek and Latin, despite the fact that her parents refused to send her to school as they did her brothers, a fact she railed against.

She is often criticised for being classist and racist, but I would argue that she was a product of her time, and it is to her credit that she did so much to counteract the snobbery and distrust of the working classes, which she inherited from her social millieu, through her political work.

Virginia Woolf was a great writer and feminist, a patron of the visual and applied arts, and a creative giant,  as well as a truly great human being who overcame enormous adversity to achieve what she did.  If you cannot get on with her novels, I wouldn’t judge you, but I urge you to dip into her enlightening and often witty diaries for inspiration on how to live a creative life despite so many difficulties.

Happy Creating,

EF

Life – A Work in Progress

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Saxlingham Summer Blues: Partially finished, hand stitched quilt made by me. Each square is 4x4cm.

Saxlingham Summer Blues: Partially finished, hand stitched quilt made by me. Each square is 4x4cm.

One weekend, I found myself doing some major revisiting.  Old issues, old passions.  Let me explain:

I was having a clear out, and I opened a box to find a large stash of fat quarters.  Patchwork and quilting enthusiasts amongst you will know what I’m talking about.  Fabric shops sell specialist, high quality cotton patchwork fabrics in small amounts, as well as by the metre – by the quarter yard or metre, in fact, or, in the trade, ‘fat quarters’. (Don’t ask me why ‘fat’ ones, I have no idea.)  They are much cheaper and allow you to build up a big selection of colours and designs for patchwork projects with a lower investment, because you usually need fairly small quantities for such projects.  Every quilter will have such a treasured stash.

I haven’t done any patchwork in quite a large number of years, and I don’t see myself doing any again for a while, if at all, so I decided to hand my stash on to someone who would use it.  Going through the wads of cloth reminded me of the time in my life when quilting was my main creative outlet, of the colours and patterns I was into then, of William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites, of earthy reds and browns, and sage greens.

I’m a different person now.

I’m all grey and blue and white and Modernism these days.

It is not that these old perferences have dated.  Its just that I have moved on.

Later that same weekend, I found myself discussing an old trauma with dear friends, something that happened long ago, but that is an underlying influence on my life even now.  I have processed so much of the pain and damage of it that it has become part of the landscape of my life, as much as the tree outside my gate, and like that tree, I acknowledge its structuring presence, but I rather take it for granted, and essentially ignore it unless it specifically comes up.

And when it came up, it raised with it new issues.  I realised I would have to revisit my past, and look at old hurts with new eyes.  As I do so, I realise that I am a different person now, that I have come a long way.  On our journey through life, we bump up against some issues repeatedly, and its easy to get frustrated when this happens over and over again.

Life is not a circle

Bad, hand drawn graphic of how I’m trying to explain this…

Our lives are not circles in which we come up against the same old stuff every time.  Each time we encounter them, we are further along in our healing process.  Life is like a spiral.  Each time we encounter our pain, we can see it through a new perspective.  It re-emerges for a reason, because more healing is needed, more work must be done.

Another bad, hand drawn graphic to illustrate how we encounter triggers as a spiral on our life journey

Another bad, hand drawn graphic to illustrate how we encounter triggers as a spiral on our life journey

It took me a long time to understand that I was not a bad person because my tastes changed over time.  There is nothing wrong with leaving old interests behind and developing new ones.

Going back over old hurts doesn’t make me a bad person either.  When there are new things I need to explore about them, it is okay to do that.  Writing helps.  I am now able to engage with my old wounds through my writing.  Last time I did so, the result was one of my most popular stories, ‘The Case of the Cuddle’.  Now I find myself finally working with commitment on its long-anticipated sequel.

I wasn’t ready to do it before.  I did not have the impetus.  Now I need to speak the truth that its plot entails.  If I cannot do it in my own life, then I can do it through my story worlds.  I thought I had left the ‘CuddleVerse’ irrevocably behind.  I thought I was healed.  Now I understand, that healing, just like creativity, is a process.

I can’t tell you when the final installment will be ready to read.  I can’t even tell you if it is the final installment.  I may still have more healing to do.  Like the half-finished patchwork in the picture above, it has sat in a digital drawer for two years, waiting for me to be ready to handle it.

Some things we leave behind, and some things we need to come back to, time and again.

And that is part of Life – The Process.

Happy Creating,

EF

 

Inspiration Monday: GalGael

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GalGael carving ef

GalGael carver – I am mortified to think that I never got this lovely man’s name. But my talk with him will linger in my memory always.

Now, you’ve heard me banging on before, probably ad nauseum, about how CREATIVITY HEALS.

Now here is the proof.

GalGael is a charity which teaches people in difficulty ancient skills such as carving, boat-building, spinning and weaving, and by doing so, gives them a chance of a new start in life.

“We provide a space that serves as something of a safe harbour for those whose lives have been battered by storms such as worklessness, depression or addiction. “

So says their website, and I have seen the proof.

GalGael is supported by the whisky distillery Lagavulin on Islay, where we recently had our holiday, and I met some of the craftsmen and women they have trained there.  Producing beautiful carvings in the ancient styles of the Norse and Celtic races whose cultures come together in native Scottish arts, these men and women are making gorgeous, tactile and useful works of art, working with natural materials, getting in touch with their national cultural history, and and crafting new lives for themselves in the process.  Lagavulin supplies old wood from nolonger wanted casks, which GalGael make into covetable furniture and home goods.  Each item has its own charm and idiosyncracies, both from the craftsman who made it, and from the varied history of the wood itself.

I had the privilege of chatting at great length with one of GalGael’s fine representatives (pictured above), himself a survivor of the worst storms of life.  As we talked about the Celtic and Norse myths that lay behind his carving, and the pleasure of making something with one’s own hands, I learnt a lot about the personal story of this proud man, nolonger bowed by his suffering.  He attributed his renewed joy in life and self-respect to what he had learnt at GalGael, and I felt honoured and touched to have met him.

Handmade Scots artifacts reproduced by the craftsmen and women of GalGael.

Handmade Scots artifacts reproduced by the craftsmen and women of GalGael.

GalGael is living proof that creativity saves lives.   I’ve been through a few storms myself, and have learnt through practise that it really works, but nothing brought it home to me like seeing these wonderful people talking so enthusiastically about their work and how it had helped them survive the worst that life can fling.

If you are going through a storm yourself right now, I encourage you to have faith in some act of creation that you can undertake.  Make something, however simple.  It doesn’t matter if its not any good in your eyes.  We all have to start somewhere.  Try.  Practise.  Lose yourself in the flow of making.  In the Charm of Making.  And it will heal you.

You can learn more about the wonderful work this charity does through their website, where you can also buy their goods and make donations.  And you can get more inspiration for your own work from their creativity and their hope.

Happy Creating,

EF

 

When to Share

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about timing.  Specifically, the timing involved in releasing our artistic work into the world.  This may arise from the fact that after nearly two years I am still wrestling with the second part of ‘Three Weddings and an Explosion’, one of my johnlock stories.

My natural writing process is to write a story and then let it sit for a while.  There’s no set time limit in my head.  I just like to let it ‘cook’ for a bit.  Then I can go back to it, and edit with a fresh eye.  By then, I feel so much less attached.  I can pick out most of the typos, and identify the things that really don’t work about the original piece.  Letting your work sit allows space for objectivity.  It’s easier to ‘kill your darlings’ as they say – to cut or change the scenes you are really proud of, but that simply don’t work in their current context.

(That is why my recent series of ‘Friday Quick Fics’ has been such a challenge – they are invariably stories I have knocked off the day before and not allowed to rest, but published immediately instead.  That is a real challenge to my writing confidence, and let me tell you, it takes guts!)

I’m also a huge believer in the idea that our writing helps us explore our own psychodramas.  My story, ‘The Case of the Cuddle’ allowed me to revisit a time when I was starting to deal with a traumatic experience, and much of the reactions of Sherlock in that story are actually my own.  Writing that story allowed me not only to come to terms with the original experience, but also with memories of the distressing period during which I processed it.  It helped profoundly with my own healing.

My stories continue to represent what is going on in my subconscious as well as my conscious mind.  I wrote a very long MPREG story while a close friend was pregnant two years ago, work that enabled me to begin to come to come to terms with my own childlessness.  And only the other day, when I came home from visiting my mother for a few days, I sat down and, in a single sitting, wrote a 2600 word story about Sherlock’s relationship with Mrs Hudson.  After I had finished, I looked it over and thought: ‘Oh, yeah, Mother issues.’

So now perhaps you are sitting there thinking ‘I’d really like to read that MPREG story, why haven’t I seen it?’

The answer is that I am not ready to share it yet.

Perhaps the emotional odyssey of my not being a mother is not over.  Perhaps the issue for me is still too raw.  Or perhaps I am just not artistically satisfied with what I have done.  Either way, I am not yet comfortable with releasing that story into the wild.

The other day I was reading something written by Leonie Dawson about being spiritually ready to share one’s art.  About how she made the decision to put her paintings up for sale only when she felt that they had done their work in her own life.  She made a conscious choice to follow her own instinct about when she was ready to sell.

This is something that is really hard to do.  It takes confidence in your own artistic decisions and your spiritual connection to yourself.  But if you can do it, if you can hold out despite all those voices of readers, hungry for more (which means you are doing your job right, by the way), or buyers wanting your paintings for their own walls, you will open an artistic integrity in your work.  You will know when a piece is ready to leave home.  And you will be happy to let it go, knowing it will go on to do its healing in someone else’s life.

And art is healing, believe me.

When I unleashed ‘The Case of the Cuddle’ on the world, I had a number of emails from readers, saying how it had helped them with their own healing.  The story helped me, and now it continues to do the same for others.  Which, to me, is what art of any kind is for.

Part of the skill of being an artist of any kind, in any medium, is knowing when the time is right to release your work to others.  To know when you are ready to let go.  It is not just about being satisfied that something is finished, or about perfectionism.  (That is a whole ‘nother story!)  It is about being emotionally and spiritually ready too.

Letting go too soon, whether it is because the work is not yet finished to your own standards, or because it is still to raw and personal for you, can be a nightmare, as I discovered this summer when I published a story I loved but was not happy with.  It caused me untold grief.  I learnt my lesson.  The work wasn’t cooked.  It was not ready to leave me.  And I was not ready to leave it.

Try to trust where you are in your artistic life.  Take time to ask yourself whether this is the right time for your work to leave home and begin its new life in the hearts and minds of others.  Maybe you will never be ready to do that – there are plenty of artists if all kinds whose work is never seen in their lifetime.

That’s okay.

Learn to trust the reasons why you release your work in the way you do – or choose not to.  Maybe you choose your timing for purely practical reasons – taking into account such considerations as when you are struggling with a large parallel workload, or major life upheavals such as moving house.  At such times, it may simply not be feasible to expect to present work to the public.  Or maybe the work is too close to raw emotions.  Maybe you just aren’t ready.  Maybe it just isn’t cooked yet.  Trust that.  Sit with it.  When the time is right, you will know.

Happy Creating,

EF