Anatomy of a project

I get so much satisfaction working with textiles, it’s an activity that absorbs me completely and that I enjoy so much – taking something from conception to completion and solving all the problems of design and material and construction along the way, and the opportunity to learn new techniques, to refine old ones and to get a better understanding of how different textiles handle under different circumstances and in different combinations fascinates me.

I’ve spend a good part of this month working a tiny patchwork in my spare time – it’s just under A4 size but I’m very pleased with the outcome and don’t begrudge the time it’s taken. Sometimes it’s nice to take a time out from working for other people and to do something for myself.

I started with a sketch of what I wanted to do – a combination of square, wild goose and hexagon patches and drew it up properly measured out.

 

 

I had a lot of pieces of blue and complementary colours from a patchwork piece I did from children’s clothes a couple of years ago. (Yes, I am the most dreadful magpie when it comes to hoarding fabric). I cut out and pinned the measured paper pieces to the fabric. Each piece of paper was numbered and had an arrow to show right way up . . .

 

This was necessary because when I get to this stage – all the little pieces cut out – I would otherwise have no idea where they all went!!

Once I got to this stage, the next task was to baste all the pieces onto a backing fabric – in this case a remnant of light cotton from a set of curtains. I make this difficult for myself because I like to preserve the detail of the original garment if I can, so pretty hems and buttonholes and pockets have to be incorporated rather than chopped out.  And so the patchwork starts to take shape – I am too impatient to take the path of virtue and baste everything before I put it together – I like to see it all come together as I’m working through. Regardless of method, I am happy with how the different elements work together and the textures and colours of the fabric:

When I’d completed the patchwork itself, I framed it in strips of old white linen salvaged from an antique napkin that was on the verge of disintegration and backed the whole thing onto a page made from old calico curtain lining – ivory, though in retrospect I think white would have looked better – hemmed in chevron stitch.

And then, because I can’t leave well enough, I played with some lettering and did a combination of different techniques to put my mark on it!

 

M – embroidered satin stitch, lettering comes from a Calligraphy Source book I adore.

A – beaded letter – the beads were salvaged from an old junk-shop necklace – very pretty blue glass but with lilac inners . . .

G – not terribly clear, but the piece of lace suggested the letter so I appliqued it in place with very tiny stab stitches so they don’t show at all!

 

The ‘P’ is a yo-yo, with the tail just a gathered oval in the same fabric

I – an small strip of vintage beaded trim that came out of my gran’s sewing box . . .

E – embroidered, shaded satin stitch, tho I didn’t change colour . . .

S – used buttons to form the letter shape, all from stash.

 

 

 

 

L – stem stitch embroidery

A – I love this little piece of pleating. *Such* a fiddle to do, but I’m really pleased with how it came out.

U – simple back stitch embroidery, punctuated with French knots at each end.

N – two shirred strips from a piece of cotton voile out of stash

D – a cute ruffle from a piece of salvaged muslin and another yo-yo from a thicker piece of linen with a lilac check.

R – stuffed applique, the denim is leftover from one of the dresses I’d used in the patchwork

The ‘Y’ I am probably least happiest with. I used an offcut of a nasty amethyst polyester satin to make a double row of flounces (I’d bought it to make Honey a princess dressing-up outfit). It didn’t cut well. I wanted a nice pinked edge, but the fabric snagged in the shears and fluffed it more than I would have liked, and because it was so small the flounces didn’t quite stand up the way I wanted them to. Ah well, we live and learn, tho I think that adding the beading redeems it, and it still looks sweet and in character with the rest of the lettering.

And – ta-daaaaa – here’s the finished article. I’m happy with that – it rather neatly conveys a picture of what I’m about and what I do - what do you think?

Cucumbers don’t need condoms

and other waste-related grumblings.

One of the targets our family has set itself is to reduce our landfill waste by 50% this year.

That’s pretty tricky, because we did a major waste reduction last year (cutting 50%, from 2 refuse sacks a week down to 1) and I think we’ve therefore taken all the quick wins.

Everything we can recycle, we do – we’re lucky that we’ve got an excellent local site just down the road that takes paper, cardboard, alu, cans, plastic bags and P1/P2 bottles, and we looked very hard at how we could reduce what we generate – the ‘reduce’ part of the 3 R’s of environmentalism.

So, for example:

• We were already using cloth nappies rather than disposable ones, which would have been a really easy change to make, if we hadn’t already gone that road with Honey some 8 years ago.
• We switched from having carton milk to having milk deliveries. That has saved us so many plastic bottles, it’s just not true, and of course there’s an added benefit, because we are a) contributing to our local economy by using a local business (admittedly a franchise of Dairy Crest, but they do still have their own beef farm, actually backing onto our garden) and b) the glass bottles are taken back and reused.
• We stopped going to the supermarket, and switched instead to a combination of a local organic veg box scheme, a local farm shop for meat and dairy, and the co-op for dried goods. That saved us so much in packaging because we are buying so little pre-processed food. This year, we’re hoping to get much more in the way of home-grown vegetables so that the veg box is more a supplement than a staple, but the waste from that is minimal – the boxes go back for re-use, and obviously what’s left of the veg after they’ve been prepared is compostible. When we first considered the move, we were concerned that it would work out substantially more expensive to buy local/organic than it was to buy supermarket, but it’s actually worked out the other way – we’ve saved money and eaten far, far more healthily than we would otherwise.
• We refuse plastic bags wherever we go, always taking our own with us.
• We got separate bins everywhere, and taught the kids what is and is not recyclable, so even bathroom rubbish gets sorted at source.
• We switched cleaning to eco-friendly/natural products – sodium bicarbonate and borax come in cardboard boxes rather than plastic bottles, vinegar comes in glass bottles as do the aromatherapy oils I use for fragrancing and disinfecting, and of course we have far less products to generate waste in the first place. Ecover washing powder comes in 10kg paperbags, and we thought it better to get the big 5l fabric conditioner and have 1 big bottle that lasts for ages rather than lots of smaller ones. We still debate if we need the fabric conditioner at all.

Which brings us to this year. We were rather blithe about the target, given how relatively easy it was to reduce the waste last year. We’re starting to realise that it’s going to be much harder to achieve the same reduction this year, and have had to take a good long look at what we are throwing out. Broadly, it falls into 3 categories:

1. Food waste that cannot be composted
2. Plastic waste that cannot be recycled (i.e. not P1/P2)
3. umm, “clinical” waste (i.e. from the bathroom.)

1- Food waste that cannot be composted. Some of that can be addressed – for example, when I’m throwing food in the bin that the children have had on their plates but not eaten. Once it’s contaminated by saliva, it turns into germ soup. If I give them less to start with, and they can come back for more, then that reduces some of the waste. Bellaboo and I already do a nice line in lunchtime leftovers (bolognese sauce seems to taste better given a day to mature ) and I freeze a fair amount where there’s enough for small meals when we’re not all together for whatever reason. That could increase, and where I’m regularly getting leftovers, I can cut the amount I prep and cook and solve the problem at source. But there will always be things like the chicken carcass that went in this evening – boiled down for stock and stripped of all meat, and just a pile of bones and other revoltings, it’s still a bulky item. I don’t see how we’ll avoid that, and there are other things along the same lines that will always end up in the bin. I guess it’s just a question of addressing what we can and monitoring the rest.

2- Plastic waste that’s not P1/P2. This is mainly HDPE. We have relatively little of it, and what there is comes from (surprisingly) the veg box, as they’ll use the poly trays for tomatoes etc AND they deliver cucumbers encased in plastic condoms. I have no idea why that’s necessary. They could easily use compostible cardboard trays for the fruit/veg, and there’s no earthly reason why a cucumber needs its little condom. They’ve got pretty tough exteriors, and most people I know cut it off anyway before they eat them – they can be washed, in any case, and peppers, courgettes and other fruits & veg with similar skins are not treated in the same way. I have written to them to ask why, and whether they can change. Will be interesting to see if/when we get a response. The other big source of plastic is the farm. They vacuum pack all the meat and cheese, and I asked them about it today and was surprised when she told me that the plastic was recyclable in with other plastic bags. I will have to check this out, but if that’s the case, then I’ll be washing it out and dropping it in next time. The other big culprit on the plastic front hits us at birthdays and christmas, when my repeated requests for not-plastic encased/formed presents get ignored and we suddenly have a mountain of plastic packaging which is entirely non-recyclable and has to go to landfill. Drives me bananas. Maybe this year, I’ll get the message across . .  . .

3- The rubbish that gets chucked out of the bathroom I don’t think we can do much about. There’s not a huge amount of it (mooncup eliminated most of it), and the only other option I see for it would be to incinerate it when we have bonfires of garden rubbish – obviously excluding t’o-m’s cans of shaving foam/deodorant (I haven’t quite weaned him off aerosol power yet) – but I’m not sure about the environmental implications of doing that, and how much of it counts as hazardous waste. I need to look into it.

We’ll have to see how it goes. Hopefully, it will go well, and just by being a little more mindful of what and how we are both consuming AND disposing, we can hit the target.

Got the fear . . .

I’ve been working my way through Holly Lisle’s How To Think Sideways course, and it is an absolutely cracker. Holly is a legend for doing this, and I’m learning so much, it’s absolutely blowing me away. More’s to the point, it doesn’t feel like work.

Until yesterday, when it got to the point where I had to do some actual writing. Just one scene, but new writing. Not editing, not planning, not character sketches. Writing.

I immediately segued out of the ‘Sere’ novel, because I don’t want to get involved with that just yet, I’m saving it for Nano lunacy (although it is all plotted out and pretty much good to go now, for a seat-of-the-pants writer like me, any way). So I switched instead to a short story I’ve been incubating for a while . . . but of course, I couldn’t just start in on that without using “the technique”. So, I went back a couple of lessons, went through it all again – enormously pleased that it felt pretty intuitive and came back to hand quite easily – until I reached a point this evening when that story, too, is very neatly plotted out and ready to go.

And that’s when I realised I’d got the fear.

I couldn’t actually make myself open up Roughdraft and start typing. Even if it was only an experiment, even if it’s only a first draft bash through to see what shape it will take. I just couldn’t do it.

Horrific! I must write. I need to write, but I’m too scared to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) ~ why? Why now, when I’m better equipped than ever before to produce something of high quality? Why now, when in the past I’ve happily just mainlined words? Why now, when I’ve been able to set my “self” aside and just connect absolutely with the story and stream it direct from subconscious to page?

It’s strange, but I found myself thinking of Bellaboo today in her baby-gymnastics class. Obviously, they’re not doing handsprings or vaults or the like, but they are getting familiar with the equipment, and it does wonders for their confidence. Today, Bellaboo went on the beam for the first time. They put a wedge over it, which doubles it’s width, but it’s full height. She went up quite happily with me holding her waist, and took a few steps. And then she froze. I think she realised that a) she was higher up than mummy and b) it really wasn’t very wide. She stood there a while, holding onto my hands, and I thought she was going to ask to come down . . . but she didn’t, and with a little encouragement she walked all the way to the end and I jumped her down onto the mat. She was so pleased with herself, I swear she grew a couple of inches right there.

I think that’s where I am right now. I’ve taken a good few steps along the beam, and I’ve suddenly realised how high up it is, how far it is to the end, and that there’s not much room for manoevre if I lose my balance.

So, I have the options:

1. give up and get down
2. stay here frozen
3. put the next foot forward regardless and just do it anyway

I believe option 3 is the one I want. So, working on the old adage - ”Bring the body, and the mind will follow” – tomorrow I will put the timer on for 10 minutes and just do it.

Feminist agenda

I wrote an article recently – a short herstory of feminism and speculative fiction – which hopefully is soon to be published in Seven Magazine. The article was inspired by a pair of blog entries, one at Unapologetically Female and another at Girls Read Comics, discussing the portrayal of women in fiction (fiction generally and comics, respectively). This triggered a lengthy discussion over at the Forward Motion writers’ community site about the need (or otherwise) to bear the feminist agenda in mind when writing one’s female characters. The general consensus there was that, broadly, all characters (not just female) should be fully developed, fulfil a role within the narrative but have a credibility and internal integrity that gives them a coherent and believable presence in the readers’ minds/imagination. If those criteria are fulfilled, then one need not concern oneself overly about gender stereotyping or token female characters within the story. And if the female characters (or, at least, the important ones), also happen to be attractive and there is a romance element, then that’s all to the good, because it’s playing to a natural interest – i.e. sex sells, because we are driven (as a species) to procreate, and there’s absolutely nothing at all wrong with that.

I was broadly supportive of that view, and still am, although I did wonder if there was an element of lazy thinking in those sorts of assertions, mostly because I did feel that there is an unhealthy level of obsession with superficiality – appearance over content, sexual availability, over exposure, objectification – of women in mainstream media representation. That prompted me to have a look at my area of interest – genre fiction, or more specifically speculative fiction – science fiction and fantasy – and compare the development of those genres against the development of feminist thinking and look for mismatches, gaps, stereotyping and misrepresentation.  The resulting article is by necessity a very brief overview of what could be a massive thesis topic, but it got me thinking.

I have never considered myself a feminist, and would have said that by-and-large the feminist movements of the beginning of the 20th century and the 1960’s/70’s had pretty much achieved everything they set out to achieve, and that there was little else for a feminist agenda to address. But when I started looking at the issues that are considered under the third wave of feminism, a kind of alarm bell went off in my head.

Issues of reproductive rights, sexual harassment or equal opportunities have never been a concern to me. I have always been in control of my reproductive functions, and have never felt oppressed by a lack of control or interference by others in what I can or cannot do. I’ve never been sexually harrassed, and don’t know of anyone who has, though I intellectually know it still exists and is still a problem, I don’t see it as something that any employer or organisation really tolerates these days, though I’m prepared to be proved wrong on that. And regarding equal opportunities – my own experience suggests to me that at least in the larger blue-chip companies, the balance has swung in favour of women when compared to men in terms of flexibility and work-life balance opportunities. When I worked in industry, I never felt that my gender affected the assessments made of my performance (mind you, it could just be that I never noticed – I do tend to miss out on those sorts of minor social details, but I can tell you I never felt hard done by) and even after having children held a position one step down from board level in terms of responsibility, authority and reporting lines on both full-time and part-time basis, at a time when a male counterpart’s request for a part-time position would have been career suicide. The option to go higher was always there, and it was my own choice not to pursue it and to take myself out of the formal employment situation altogether a couple of years ago, rather than being forced out in any way shape or form. I guess what I’m trying to say is that in terms of equal opportunity and gender stereotyping/expectations in education and employment terms, I have never felt limited or restricted. Maybe my perception is incorrect, and I have been exceptional or fortunate, but, as they say, perception is reality.

However, when I look at some of the other issues addressed by third wave feminism, I felt a massive surge of identification and a realisation that I am not alone in feeling that this is wrong. What I am talking about is the media’s  unhealthy standards for women – the glamourisation of eating disorders and the promotion of impossible and unhealthy body shapes, the portrayal of women as sexual objects wholly subservient to men’s desires (as evidenced in the rising tide of lads’ mags) and an increasing trend towards anti-intellectualism.

When I think about these topics, I look around me with fresh eyes, and I can see that the feminist agenda has some valid points to make, AND that these are in line with how I feel and think about a lot of different issues.

I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the way women are portrayed in lads’ mags, and the layer of a thin veneer sex-positivity and a hint of a cynical reverse manipulation of male weakness has never entirely convinced me that this is not exploitative, and that these arguments are just a big scam to try to justify what is essentially a perpetuation of male dominance. Although there are a smattering of female-orientated titles selling similar images of the male physique, they have not even come close to achieving the prominence and circulation of Zoo/Nuts/Loaded and their ilk – these titles are inescapable, and I seriously worry about the effect they will have on my daughters, who are bombarded with these images in every corner-shop, bus-stop, train-station, newsagent, etc we frequent. I just don’t think that sexual availability is a good response to women’s liberation from restrictive societal norms, although again this is maybe just me trapped in my repressed/oppressed gender state.

Then again, when I think of the portrayals of women in mainstream media. Those who are celebrated are not those who have achieved great things in academic, literary, political or scientific fields. They are the ones who are the richest, thinnest, best dressed, married to the most famous, and they are by turn idolised (lauded to an impossible degree, set an impossible standard to maintain) and villified (when they slip from those impossible standards by demonstrating their humanity and fallibility).  They are women who can be manipulated into positions where they help to create and maintain the illusion of this ‘perfect woman’ who has everything and can do everything, but actually does nothing for herself and just projects an image of perfection that matches to a male ideal, and this impossible ideal in turn fuels an orgy of emulation amongst the women who consume these images and are brought to believe that this is what they should aspire to be. It makes me sick, and so strongly ties in with the third element – the anti-intellectualism – the drive towards vapid stupidity, the idea that to have any sort of talent or principle or disciplined thought or knowledge and understanding of the world is somehow undesirable.

The media make much of the ‘dumbing down’ of the education system, but I see nothing in the mainstream that counters this. For example, when I go to the co-op, I look at the media titles on offer. There is a wide selection of the vile lads mags (as mentioned above), then there is an equally large swathe of “women’s” titles.  These are equally vile. The “celebrity gossip” magazines that idolise the fake perfection of staged fulfilment, the “tv quick” magazines that are full of the lowest-common-denominator soap misery stories (seriously. why do people watch these misery vehicles? the acting is dismal, the plot-lines are predictable and unremittingly melodramatic or tedious, and they perpetuate misery as a common state) and the “style” magazines are purely geared at triggering consumption, fuelling negative body perceptions (why you need to lose weight fast) AND perpetuating the idea that a man is a necessary part of self-actualisation (want to improve your orgasm? how to marry a man when you’re forty. Both of these are actual headlines I saw). I honestly don’t see that these have changed all that much since . . . . ever . . . . and this is what a lot of women never go beyond. There are no political magazines, no fiction magazines, no science or other interest magazines (excluding football, motors and fishing) to stimulate interest or imagination. And then you get things like the Kaiser Chiefs’ new song Never Miss a Beat in which the idea “it’s cool to know nothing” is articulated.

And that seems symptomatic of the apathy pervading popular culture – anything that smacks of thought or discipline or intellectual activity is profoundly distrusted, because ignorance is bliss?

I don’t think so. 

Does that make me a feminist?

I’m not sure. I don’t subscribe to the strident “all men are rapists” feminism of the 60’s – some of my best friends are men – and have never thought I would identify with the agenda, always thought that we were in a post-feminist era when issues of gender were largely irrelevant.

 Now?

I would identify myself with some of the issues. I would say that I have serious issues with media representation of women – I always have, but always thought it was just me – but that other areas impinge less.  Certainly, in terms of my writing, I have a different perspective on my female characters and I will be more conscious of feminist issues in future writing. But in terms of activism? I’m not sure. Maybe I am a feminist, but it’s with a small ‘f’ – as in, something I believe is the right way to go, rather than a big ‘F’, as in something that defines my consciousness.

Proper preparation

I’ve cleared the decks, and got back to work on Holly Lisle’s ‘How To Think Sideways’ course again this evening – I’m about 3 lessons behind, so I need to get caught up and back on track.

It is very peculiar. I have the ‘Sere’ project as my test-project for the course, and whilst I’m getting progressively more and more excited about writing the story, my confidence in my ability to actually deliver it is diminishing.

I think a huge part of that reason is the amount of planning and preparation that’s going in up front on it. I totally understand why it needs to be done, and some of the technical aspects and angles and elements that have been brought in have been absolutely revelatory. But I’ve always been a basic seat-of-my-pants writer, plunging into a novel with minimal outlining and pre-planning, and then just bashed the words out until I reach the end, so all this thinking and planning up front is very alien.

I’m going to stick with it. I think I can see that there will be benefits at the end – not least of which is much less work in the edits and reworks necessary. The major downside of my seat-of-the-pants approach is that every novel I’ve written needs rewriting afterwards to put all the plot twists and holes and  diversions into their rightful place (often in the cut file) to get somewhere approaching coherent.

But that doesn’t stop me having a little panic as I look at the neat little pile of pristine index cards (well, OK, so they’re home-made slips out the recycling box, because I couldn’t make myself be that profligate with new paper) waiting for me to start outlining . . . . do I really have to do all that?!?!!?!?!?!? Looks like hard work to me, but then I guess it’ll pay off when it comes to writing, and I don’t have to sit staring into space, wondering where the heck the next line is coming from. (I surely hope so).

In the meantime, I have in the back of my mind the knowledge that I need to start work on editing ‘Serpent’, and I’m wondering if this technique might work there, because I’m more or less certain that I’ve got a couple of massive holes somewhere, and I know as well I’m going to have to do some major reworks on the more – ahem – intimate scenes between the two main characters, because at the moment that stuff would land it in the adult section as ‘erotica’. My mother would be horrified. Still, I take it as a good sign that I’m actually looking forward to getting stuck into it, and that I feel excited about attacking a big writing project again.

I haven’t felt that way for a while, which is why I’ve been tinkering around the edges of my back catalogue of short stories for the last six months. Now, I feel like I’m in the right mindset and that I’ve laid in the proper groundwork, and also, importantly, that I’ve changed, matured and improved as a writer as a result of the work I’ve done on that back catalogue and with the focus on learning new methods and looking at my work (and others) with a sharply critical eye. I just hope that translates into a good performance, come the hour.

Rejections & submissions update

A little flurry in the new year.

Just because I needed cheering up, In Skin rejected by Interzone (damn, really thought it had a chance there), and Shadows rejected by Pedestal.

Onwards!

New round of submissions:

- In Skin submitted to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine

- Another Today submitted to MsLexia

- Shadows submitted to Tin House

Hope springs eternal, and all that. Funny how it all starts to stack up – when I got the form reject from Pedestal, I had no idea what story I had there! Thank goodness for the Duotrope/spreadsheet combo, so easily tracked down. I’m surprised how quickly things are starting to build up – admittedly with only one sale to show for it, but I’ve made 30 submissions since I started the programme back in September, which is averaging over 1 every 2 weeks, but it’s not all new inventory – I’ve only got a stock of 9 stories on the rounds at the moment. I’ve got plans to up the ante on that . . . 

. . . but I must finish this article on Feminism and SF tonight, and I must get caught up on my Think Sideways course work.

Best get cracking, then!

Definition of gutted

A very good friend of mine has been trying to get pregnant for some time now, so we were absolutely thrilled when she told us before Christmas that she was seven weeks gone and due in July ‘09.

We have all been holding our breath, waiting for the scan and the magic twelve weeks to come around, as she’s miscarried several times before so our celebrations were a bit muted. We all forgot why pregnant women get scanned at 12 weeks, only thinking what a lovely opportunity to get a first sight of the teeny baby, a new life waiting to make its presence felt, a promise of so much joy to come.

Of course, 12 week scans have nothing to do with happiness tourism, and everything to do with analysis of medical risk, as we have found out to our cost. She had her scan last week, and the results came back 1:5 chance of Downs and 1:2 chance of Edwards/Patau . . . we were all devastated, but clung onto the hope that it might be a misdiagnosis, and once she’d had the CVS tests it would all be OK.

Sadly, not. The test results have come back and confirmed that the baby has Edwards Syndrome.

It’s a total bastard of a genetic defect, so severe that only 95% of babies make it to term, of those, 50% die before they are 2 months old, only 5-10% of the remainder make it through their first year, and, of those, only 1% will survive beyond their 10th birthdays.

People say they are ‘gutted’ without really thinking what it means. Let me remind you. It means to disembowel, to destroy the interior of something, to remove all vital or essential parts.

Progress report

Ah, well. In the flush of the first week, it’s of course been all positive!

I haven’t really got cracking on the writing/editing front yet, as I’ve got a little bit of  a backlog to catch up on, but I’m into the routine of writing a piece for submission every other week, which has meant that this weekend has been set aside for working on the new article idea – influence of feminism on spec fiction, an area of endless fascination, and as much because I was interesting in having a structured explore of the subject than anything else. Interesting how the roots are entwined between the genre and the movement, and what I think is fascinating is that the genre, despite (largely false) stereotypes & perceptions, is actually more open to a feminist agenda than mainstream fiction, which tends to largely reinforce the anti-intellectual perception of woman as a subservient doll to men . . . .  at the risk of sounding rather strident, which I’m not. But there you go – working on this article has been useful in forcing me to be a little more coherent about my own views on the subject, and although I wouldn’t define myself as a feminist by any stretch of the imagination (neither in women’s lib terms nor in modern-post-modern-feminist terms) I guess I do, ultimately, share a lot of common ground with the movement.

In other areas – I’ve been working on a sample patchwork which is done, I’ve bordered it with strips off an old linen napkin that was falling apart (and the remnants have triggered a further idea), and now I’m using it as a test bed for different types of embellishment experiments. It’s huge fun, though I’ll have to set it aside as I need to get to work on a couple of refashioning commissions.

On the personal front, I’ve lost a whole pound . . . wheeeeee . . . . though it’s probably gone back on as – normally activities apart – I’ve not done any proper exercise since Tuesday. Not sure how I’m going to squeeze that into my routine, given that we’re back into the full routine as of tomorrow. We’ll see . . . 

We were out in the garden today, so nice to get a bit of fresh air and sunshine, though the afternoon turned seriously cold again. The leaves are pretty much raked up, though I’ve still left behind some of the dead growth because I think, for example, the umbelliferous dead heads of the fennel and its cousins look so pretty in the frost . . . 

Apart from that, not much done apart from playing with children this weekend. I’ve caught up my current backlog of pictures and images and got them all framed and up on the walls, which has reduced the stash of salvaged frames to a single box. So that’s good. I’ve got the calendars up and running for the year, and my mother-inb-law gave me a fantastic organiser – I don’t use it so much for the diary function, but it has a list-space on each date which seems to be exactly how much I can get done in a day, so it’s become my to-do list! Working a treat so far, tho we’ll see how it goes next week when the pace is upped again.

It’s good to feel so positive at this time of year, to have so much to look forward to. I’m still tremendously excited about the year ahead, and a week into the year I’m on top of the plan and it’s feeling achievable. A key test will be when I start to hit the ‘Serpent’ edits in a week or so (once I’ve caught up on my ‘Think Sideways’ backlog ) – if I can keep on the pace with that, then I know the schedule’s do-able.

Bring it on!

wordpower

I’m a huge fan of Christine Kane’s blog – what she has to say makes so much sense on so many levels, so her “resolution revolution” model seemed an absolutely perfect way to frame my intentions for the year ahead.

She says that “The reason most resolutions don’t work is that they address only one level of your life. The DO level. It’s the DO-HAVE-BE model. “I will DO this thing.” (i.e., Lose weight) “So I can HAVE this other thing” (Self-Esteem) and I can BE this thing. (Confident.)

The average New Year’s Resolution doesn’t address the core of the issue – the “BE” level.

The best order for creating positive changes in your life is the BE-DO-HAVE model. This means you start from the BE level. When you begin changing on the BE level of your life, then the DO level and the HAVE level follow more easily.

When you start only on the DO level, then all the blocks on the BE level will often become the obstacles you can’t overcome.”

She says that if you pick a simple, powerful word and carry it with you for the year, then it will resonate through everything that you do and help bring you into that state of “BEING” from which you will HAVE and DO what you need to maintain it.

There’s a huge list of suggestions over on her blog, or you can come up with some yourself. (Actually, from a writerly perspective, it struck me how much power there is/can be in a word, but that’s a whole other topic).

It’s so simple, and works so well (last year, my word was ‘Survive”, and I did ) as a motivator and as a focus for where your priorities really lie that I am just astounded and inspired. All my targets and goals for the year have come out of the two words I chose for myself for this year:

COMPLETE

This is purely and simply driven out of two areas. The multiple half-finished projects that litter my life – I have so many MS that are unfinished, so many different things I wanted to try, half-started, never completed, picked up and dropped, and they were all cluttering up my mind. By making a decision to ‘complete’, I have reviewed those things and identified a number of projects/schemes/activities that I’ve started and not finished and been through a prioritisation scheme on them. There are a fair number where I’ve purely and simply said – do you know what? I’ve done as much as I want to and learnt as much as I need to about that from that activity, and now it’s finished. Being able to close those things off and finally set them aside is incredibly liberating, and has helped me focus on those things that I want and need to do to help myself feel ‘complete’ – in terms of my writing, my creativity and in terms of my personal development. It is both powerful and liberating.

ENJOY

is my second word. And that’s to remind me that no matter how driven and focussed I am on the things *I* want to do and *I* want to achieve, that to keep my sights fixed firmly on the finishing line is to deprive myself of any number of joys in the present. For example, yesterday I wanted to rush through the housework so I could get to a point where I could sit and have a cuppa tea and play with Bellaboo. But when I was putting a wash on, she appeared, in a huge to-do-ment, needing my attention. Normally, I would have got irritated and frustrated, but by reminding myself of the word ‘enjoy’, the whole situation turned around, and we both had a huge amount of fun as she “helped” by stuffing clothes into the washing machine. If I hadn’t been focussed on that word, then I would have missed out on that opportunity to share the moment with her, and to fully live in it.

When I combine the two together, they, to me, bring in a state of mindfulness, a reminder that the task/activity is worthy in itself, that it is worth making the effort to COMPLETE, so that it is finished and done to the best of my ability, for its own sake, because it has a value and a meaning that goes beyond the mechanics of doing. And to ENJOY that task/activity is to further appreciate it, because then that value and meaning is recognised and understood, given a coherence and pleasure that goes beyond a simple tick-the-box attitude to moving from one point in time to another, helping me to live more fully in the present.

I am so inspired, that I am planning a pair of simple embroideries on old linen that I can hang on the wall to remind me what it is that I am doing this year. I will enjoy completing them.

What are your words?

Trust is a fragile thing

Bad stuff has been happening to a fair few people I care about in the last few days, and it’s taking the shine off what has otherwise been a successful and productive week.

I had a difficult phone call with my mum earlier today. She called and told me about something huge and terrible that’s happening in my brother’s life, and then told me that he had told her about in confidence, so if I spoke to him then I mustn’t let on that I know.

wtf??

I hate that. To tell me something so dreadful that it’s eating me up, not just because of what it is but because I obviously want to let my brother know that I care and wish I could do something to help/support him and can’t is just wrong on so many levels it’s just not true, and I’m so angry with her I’m not sure that right now I can even talk to her. And she’s got previous.

It’s wrong because it’s a betrayal of his confidence – he trusted her, when he told her, that it was between the two of them and would go no further and she’s let him down by telling me (and I’m willing to bet a couple of other people as well) about it when he asked her specifically not to.

It’s wrong because she’s hurt me and there’s nothing I can do to help myself – it’s not the sort of thing I can pretend I don’t know, and there’s no-one I can talk to about it (other than t’o-m) because I *will* respect the fact that she’s asked me not to tell anyone else.

It’s wrong because now I have to lie so she can maintain her position of integrity. A part of me is tempted to sod her and text my brother to tell him I know, she told me, and I’m thinking of him – that would satisfy the part of me that wants to reach out to him and attempt some sort of comfort/acknowledgement for what he must be going through. However, when I think of it from his perspective, I can’t help but feel that to add that knowledge onto the top of what he’s already going through would just give him even more hurt to deal with than he has got already. Plus I’m honest enough to understand that at least a part of such an action would be a revenge on her, which I don’t want to get involved in – not a good look. 

I just hate the deceit. I can’t do it, I get confused and upset by trying, and it seems that by building such a platform of half-lies and half-truths, honesty becomes impossible – I think that all the little white lies she promotes to “protect feelings” and “not to upset”  are poisonous evil little demons that make it impossible to ever be totally open with one another, always to have to be playing these stupid games. For why? The extremely cynical part of me murmurs that it’s a form of affirmation, that she has to be seen to be the knowledge holder, the hub of the family, so that she can feel she is important somehow, that it’s some sort of self-aggrandisement. Is that going too far, or am I just angry? I don’t know, but that I am thinking such thoughts makes me understand how fundamentally what she had done has affected our relationship.

It all round sucks.

And what makes it really, really worse is that I can’t help but feel that if you tell your mother something and ask her NOT to tell anyone else, she ought to be the ONE PERSON in the whole and entire world (other than, maybe, your dad) who would, unreservedly, undoubtedly and completely accept and respect your wishes.

The problem is that, from my perspective, she’s got form on this. She’s done it to me before when I’ve told her things in confidence and she’s told everyone in the family – two examples spring to mind – being diagnosed with Aspergers, and having a miscarriage – because she thinks they ‘ought to know’.  No, they didn’t, and they didn’t need to know, and they had no right to know, unless *I* chose to tell them. It doesn’t make it easier because she’s told them first, it just makes me feel betrayed.

And feeling that way, this is the final nail in the coffin. I don’t trust her – and I don’t see a way I will ever tell her anything important in my life again that I don’t want broadcasting as general knowledge. We probably won’t ever talk about it – I’m fine with a keyboard or a pen, but I couldn’t communicate like this face-to-face.  And that’s something that is incredibly sad for both of us, because it’s a huge loss.

When Honey was born, we went through an amazing period of openness and understanding that we’d never had before and it was an incredible, rare and precious thing. Then intensity of that closeness has faded over time, but this has put an end to it and I’ve realised that as a result there’s a huge chunk of something missing for me. I don’t know that I’ll ever get it back, and it’s made me understand just how fragile a thing trust actually is, how easy it is to shatter, and that once it’s broken it can never be repaired.

I’m thinking of my own children now. They’ve come with a stock of trust in me, and it’s a good stock of trust. It will almost certainly take a few knocks along the way, because I’m not perfect and I will let them down from time to time, mostly because of who/what I am. But this whole episode has given me a big alert, and made me realise that it’s not something I can take for granted or become complacent about.

I need to remember, at all times, that I need to respect their wishes and understand their needs and do what’s right for them in their terms, not mine. (I could apply the same to any other relationship I care about, I guess).

I hope none of them ever feel about me the way I feel about my mother right now.  I’ll do whatever I can to make sure they don’t.