Ink on my fingers

Time flies

You know, I've got a really big and useful post brewing in my head (and in sketchy note form in Word) but that is not going to be appearing today, as you can see. I can't believe how fast time flies when good, bad and inbetween things are happening in your world. I blog daily in my head - it just never actually appears on the screen. One day I'll find the balance, like I used to, in the good old days of poetry, grief-talk and memes (whatever happened to them?).

In the meantime, if you fancy a peek into my home, there's some photographs and an interview over here on Poppytalk.

To do list*

find a way...

to not be scared

to address what i feel in the moment rather than let it build up

to make time for what is important to me

to let go of what is not

to know that it's okay if i don't always do my best

because good-enough will be good enough for today

to listen to my body when it's speaking to me

to let people know when i might need their help

to let people know when i need to retreat for a while

to start the project, the one i have been dreaming of

to take my courage in my hands and ASK

to use the inspiration and create a new way of seeing

to place my two feet on the path, rather than one foot here and one foot there

to trust that love will find me again

to trust that i will be ready to welcome it

to truly see the good things

to know that the bad things carry a message within them

to know, in my heart, that this too will pass

to let it go, to let it go, to let it go

to remember that I have survived much worse, and flourished

to hide when i need to, and show my face when i feel ready

[ * inspired by Marta]

1. back., 2. hide, 3. Parentes., 4. Untitled

iCraft, the Canadian Etsy

Portobello sky print, now available in my Etsy store

As most of you know, I've been selling my prints on Etsy for a while now, and I'm getting to the stage where I want to expand this endeavour. I haven't drawn the map yet but I'm starting to come up with ideas and plans and destinations which are igniting my interest more than the hormones are (so that's something!). I've just opened a little store on iCraft  - the Canadian Etsy -  and if there's anyone out there who is thinking of doing the same they are offering the initial registration plus a year of listing absolutely free until the 30th April. The site is brand new and so doesn't have anywhere near the number of sellers that Etsy does, but give it a year and who knows. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get in at the beginning and help support this new venture, and if nothing else, the bigger and brighter layout of the stores is a definite improvement on the Etsy format.

The PR version

1. fernanda *, 2. 15//52, 3. nana, 4. 0192

I wanted to add to my last post and say that most of the blogs we/I read are the PR version of the blogger’s life, in that they are a collection of the most interesting bits of their day-to-day lives. There are many of us who talk about the personal and creative challenges that we face, and how we are working to overcome them, but there’s still an awful lot of stuff we keep to ourselves, understandably. I wanted to mention this because i often forget that this is the case when reading others’ blogs. The face you present to the world can often look very appealing when viewed without the context of the rest of your life, the mundane boring stuff that’s only witnessed by you and the four walls around you, the worries that keep you awake at night.

Anyway, slimming down my blog reading has definitely had a positive impact on the mood and tone of my mornings so I’m going to continue to be mindful of what my head ingests. Now I’ve noticed the blogging energy drain I’m starting to see the other ways I hemorrhage energy during the day - i’m trying weekly rather than daily newspaper reading, turning off email during the day (unless I need it for work) and am generally spending less time online.

I’m chipping away at this block and while some days I seem to have the world’s smallest chisel, I'm following the breadcrumbs and finding my way back.

Canine wisdom

There is this cave

in the air behind my body

that nobody is going to touch:

a cloister, a silence

closing around a blossom of fire.

When i stand upright in the wind

my bones turn to dark emeralds.

From The Jewel by James Wright

It’s hard to let go of habits when they’ve become routines that anchor us in our day-to-day lives. Battling with depression as I am, a lot of time is spent examining - why is something happening, what can do I do to mend it, will that ever change, should I let go of this or embrace that other thing - I feel like a dog chasing its tail, albeit in slow motion.

I’ve reached a point where I feel too stretched, where I feel I should be commenting on blogs and replying to emails in a timely fashion and returning phone calls and texts and Facebook messages; where I feel I should be giving out my energy to those who want it, when in actual fact I don’t have enough even for myself. And all of this is served with a side order of guilt, and, I now realize, shame too - the shame that I’m not on top of things, that my life is not running as it should be.

There are a lot of shoulds in that last paragraph, I know. There are a lot in my head too. This bout of introspection has been biting at my heels for a while and it was only a matter of time before I had to let it come in.

I’m feeling the need to detoxify my life and cast out the behaviours that no longer serve me. This morning I woke at 7am, something haven’t done in a long time (proper rest being so elusive right now) and as I sat with my tea in the golden light of early morning, I actually felt quite calm. Two hours later and I was back to feeling utterly shit, and what had triggered the change in feeling was my morning routine of checking email and blogs. As soon as I let the outside world in, my energy dropped and the tortured thinking restarted, and i can’t believe I haven’t noticed this before.

Obviously I’m not saying that reading blogs makes you depressed - there are many I follow to find inspiration and information, especially those focusing on photography, design and art. But there are some feeds in my Bloglines list that bring me down, and it’s not because they are depressing or read like emotional p0rnography - quite often it’s the opposite. Sometimes reading about someone’s happy life or amazing luck or sensational creative business will push a button in me and make me feel bad. And really - who needs that, when I already have so many other effective ways to beat myself up? I remember another blogger wrote about this last year (I can’t remember who) and she talked about how NOT reading those energy-draining blogs would a) be a good idea but also b) made her feel guilty because she’d been reading about those bloggers' lives/stories for a long time. I think blogging is an amazing thing, but I also acknowledge that it has a downside attached to it too, where feelings of guilt, inadequacy, envy and competitiveness can mingle with the inspiration and camaraderie. And i know i am most susceptible to those bad feelings when I am at a low ebb, so perhaps just as I am mindful of what I put into my body maybe it’s time to become more mindful of what I put into my head too.

Today I’m going to listen to the wisdom of this current black dog and spring clean my Bloglines list - not to surround myself with cotton wool, but simply as an exercise in letting go of unhelpful masochistic behaviour (UMB)...I reckon it’s time to start thinking about what other UMB I can set free.

Five good things:

1. a new Muxtape, and my prints for sale in this month's Poppytalk handmade market.

2. Lunch consisting of toasted rye bread topped with mashed haricot beans, artichoke hearts, sliced red onion and basil-infused olive oil

3. Going to aqua aerobics tonight with a girlfriend.

4. Asking a stranger if he would let me take his portrait, and him saying yes - the beginning of a new fine art photography project

5. Selling old clothes on Ebay to put money in the Hasselblad kitty and making much more than I thought I would.

Musical prozac

Colourful glazed bowels by Diana Fayt

"As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong ..." Julia Butterfly Hill (via Kerstin)

It’s funny really. You weather the biggest storm of your life and expect that the rest is going to be a breeze. And of course it isn’t. I think that a part of me thought that I’d got all my bad luck out of the way in one hit, and that from then on it was going to be really easy.

Sometimes it feels like the last three years have been one long exercise in picking myself up off the floor, and that I’d get so far only to then crumple again. I don’t know whether it’s my predisposition to depression, fucked up hormones, the many things that aren’t working in my life or my body adjusting to the Pill (it’s all of it, I know) but if you can imagine a 35-year-old, 5’ 8”, blonde English woman lying face down on the floor of her apartment with an enormous boulder strapped to her back, squeezing the life out of her, then THAT is how I’m feeling. Not that I would ever be melodramatic about it.

You know when you’re in the thick of it, doing the self-pity dance and, I don’t know - bashing yourself over the head with a rolling pin? It’s in those moments that i forget the things that can lift me up out of the muck.  It’s time to try.

Five good things:

1. The new Weepies album, Hideaway. I’ve been listening to the four previewed songs on their Myspace page non-stop for the last two hours, and I’m falling deeper in love with every harmony Deb & Steve make. If I had any sort of musical ability (which clearly I don’t) this is the music I would make - this could quite possibly be the highlight of my year so far. Music helps me so much - their music heals too. (edited to add: I've just discovered this beautiful song. God, i love music.)

2. Today is my 2-year blog anniversary. If it wasn’t for this blog I would never have flown to Seattle or Los Angeles, or met so many wonderful women I now call friends. I would never have found my reason to rekindle my love for writing or poetry or photography. And I would never have had so much support from all of you. So thank you so much for joining me on this journey.

3. The work of San Francisco-based artist Diana Fayt - investing in one of her amazingly detailed platters is top of my list for 2008.

Blue pears & the bird, 18" platter by Diana Fayt

Bowls by Diana Fayt

4. Twitter. An absolutely pointless thing, perhaps, but this micro blogging site is keeping me amused when I can’t manage to do much else. It’s quite zen, really.

5. Polaroids. Polaroids. Polaroids.

What goes up

There are days when my ambitions are too big for the smallness of my life right now. There are days when I want to take an axe to the walls I have built around me and start again. There are days when all i need is a kind word, and all i hear is static. There are days when my head is not my friend, when my heart is not my ally and when my soul is nowhere to be found. There are days when it is all too much for me, and I want to go home.

And there are those days when it is all i can do to make a cup of tea, brush my hair and do my best not to make things worse.

Today is one of those days.

Seeing the light

1. evening, 2. Untitled, 3. Lovers dream., 4. yellowblouse&seahorse

Flickr is such an amazing resource for inspiration, i find myself losing hours and hours as i look at others' work and click click click myself into photographic oblivion.  Recently i've been so drawn to photographs of light, specifically light through windows. You can't take a photograph without light - whenever i take pictures, the same words are rolling around my head: where's the light? what's the light doing? Have i got enough light? Light wraps itself around the thing i'm photographing, whether it's a person, a flower or - as i was this morning - the new day breaking over the sea, the sun rising higher after an unexpected flurry of snow fall. Even the night sky has sequins of light woven through it.

Edited to add: I found this completely mesmerising this evening.

The rollercoaster

This week I experienced an epiphany of sorts - I found the name for what is wrong with me and I empowered myself with the ways I can tackle it. I took back control where before I felt I had none. And I want to share the short version of the story, in case there’s anyone out there who’s been in my shoes.

I’ve been struggling for quite some time now, taking two steps forward only to then be thrown back ten steps every month. I’ve been trying to understand why, even though I see a therapist every week, have survived and worked through the despairs of grief and am now in the strongest place emotionally I have ever been: why it is that my life is not moving? Why is it that once a month my world falls apart? It’s a testimony to how strong my friendships are that they endure the monthly crazies from me.

I’ve mentioned PMS on this blog before, but I don’t think I’ve really gone into what this has meant for me. The day after ovulation is when it begins - the hormones flood my system like the tide, and I feel myself sliding down, down, into a depression; then the mania begins, the paranoia and destructive thinking, the negativity and despair, culminating in several days of feeling completely out of control (including suicidal thoughts) before the period arrives. And the relief felt on that day is so enormous, that the overwhelming cramps and bleeding are welcomed - it is as if I am reborn. For 14 days I am back in control - I am normal, sometimes even a little high - until the next ovulation. I have been living with only two productive weeks a month, so it’s no wonder my progress has seemed on hold for so long - each month the symptoms have been becoming increasingly debilitating, both mentally and physically (breast swelling and pain, bloating, acne, extreme fatigue, aches). I was beginning to wonder if there was something more sinister wrong with me - PMS just makes you a bit tearful, surely? It got to the stage where the dread of the bad weeks was clouding the good ones.

Doctors looked at me blankly (male) or sympathetically (female) and told me to take more exercise. So as ever in this day and age, I turned to the internet to find my answers. I’m following diets and ways of eating suggested in books and have begun taking a course of vitamins and herbal supplements; I keep a diary of my symptoms and cross my fingers each month. Then, this week, I came across Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. Reading a list of the key PMDD symptoms, I realized I had every single one. Reading case studies written by women suffering with PMDD, I found myself reflected in their words. I had my light bulb moment.

Having a name for this craziness has helped a little. For quite some time I’ve been wondering if perhaps I am just completely CRAP, having come so far yet still unable to launch myself into the life I wanted, but now I see that there is a reason why my world falls apart each month, and why I find it so hard to handle even the smallest of things.

So now I am fighting back.

This week I had an appointment with the hospital to discuss my fibroids (which are apparently unconnected to the PMS), and it was decided that I would start taking the Pill for three months, in a bid to combat my monthly symptoms. While this may not sound like a big deal, it’s been six years since I last took it and I’ve always thought that ingesting even more hormones was rather counter-intuitive, but at this stage, I am ready to try anything. According to the PMDD website one possible treatment is the Pill, specifically the brand I have been prescribed (Yasmin, or YAZ in the US), so i’m feeling encouraged and hope that, taken alongside the vitamins, supplements and lifestyle changes, something is going to shift.

I wanted to share all of this here, on the chance that there might be some sisters out there who can relate to my experiences, and who would appreciate the information and links. I read recently in this book that an unusual trauma, such as a death in the family, can result in hormonal changes in the body, and how regular sex can help to normalise irregular cycles and reduce PMS symptoms (it's all in the pheromones). I also know that there is a history of menstrual problems in my family, so I can see how things haven’t been stacked in my favour - but I hope that is about to change.

Making my eyes happy

Lunastrella camera print by John W Golden

I'm always looking for new things to make my eyes happy, and seem to exist in a permanent state of hunger for those new things. And photographs and art and books and films just aren't enough... I'm hungry for ideas and connections and coincidences and epiphanies too. I'm thinking about subtly changing the direction of this blog, now that the constant ruminations on grief and loss have given way, at last, to creativity and  inspirations. And maybe not writing about grief makes this a less interesting blog to read, but as this started out as a personal blog, i guess it can only reflect what's on my mind. (What's on my mind right now is: should I invest in a second-hand Hasselblad?)

I'd been flirting with the idea of deleting this blog and just lurking around the blogosphere in an invisible cape... but I can't seem to bring myself to do it. So as my blogging has been rather half-hearted recently, I think it's time to make a few changes. Every so often I'd like to share some of the artists, photographers and websites that inspire me.  I like the idea of having a place to tie all the strands together (which I've started doing here too) - maybe sharing more about what's around me, rather than what's inside me, though that will be woven in too, inevitably. There's been stuff happening this year that i didn't want to blog about, but that meant I didn't blog at all, and I missed it - missed the sharing and connecting. So while the offline stuff takes care of itself, I want to get cosy in my online space again...

I like to sit and watch by Brandi Strickland

Voyage by Robin Danely

 

Honeysuckle Dream part one by Helene Lacelle

Paper airplanes by Betsy Walton

Yeah whatever by Dollface Design