We open on Tuesday. What's that? You are bringing your entire household? Oh good.

Tuesday begins the A Graceful Death exhibition.

I know, the A Graceful Death exhibition opens in a couple of days.  What's that?  You are coming?  And bringing your whole street with you?  Oh well done.  And your extended family too!  How wonderful.  You are all welcome.  The exhibition is challenging, and truthful.  It is about what it means to die, and it is good to come and meet all the people I have painted through their written word and their painted images.  It is an exhibition about love, life and how normal we, and the dying, are. What better way to ask what dying is like than to ask the dying themselves?

Many thanks to Rhona Reedie for designing this poster and all the graphics for the exhibition

We have a full schedule of events, the programme is below.  We cover Planning for Dying, Supporting the Dying, Communicating with the Dying and Working with the Dying.  Our speakers are all experienced professionals working with the dying, and are wonderful and informative speakers.  Each will speak for a while, and then we will open the conversation and debate to the rest of us.  It will be fascinating listening to who says what.

I hope to meet you there.  Come and see the paintings, talk to me and the team, write in our book of memories, listen to our speakers, debate with our speakers and take part in the whole event.  (There will be cake, there always is.)

I am extremely grateful to all the participants who have given time out of their busy worlds to take part in our panels.  Here is an event you may be interested in, though all the events will be excellent, Thursday evening 6 pm - 8 pm we are holding an Early Evening Salon on the Art of Dying, Ars Moriendi - see below

On Wednesday, Nigel Spencer will be holding a Dementia Friends session, and on Friday evening I will be talking with my old friend Mandy Preece, about Working with the Dying.  To end the exhibition, after Mandy and I have had our session, the Revd Canon Peter Wells will sum up with thoughts and some gentle, insightful words.

The Opening Event, however, will be on Tuesday from 6 pm to 8 pm. I am delighted that Glynn Jones, Chair to the Brighton and Hove Hospitals and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, will speak and open the exhibition.  We will also, if they come, be filmed by a South Korean documentary film crew who will be making a three part documentary about end of life matters to be shown in South Korea.  They are filming many many different people and events, A Graceful Death is just one of many.  But I am very grateful and happy to take part in any way that is helpful. I am also trying not to hope for a tour of South Korea, but that is natural.  I would think that.

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What is happening right now?

I am wearing denim, if that is what you mean.  Very chic for a 53 year old Mum.  I am tired but happy.  I am on my sofa, thinking that if only I was hungry I would eat something, but I am not and it doesn't seem fair.  I have to say I have had my supper, so I am not suffering, not really, but if I had left a chink of space, I could have spent some time deciding on pudding.  Oh well.  I think this is just procrastinating.  For the exhibition next week, all that could have been done, has been done.  It will be put up on the Monday and I have the help of my daughter Fancy Girl, and a local artist and friend Vicky Hulatt.  Thank you a million times to both of you, by the way. Tomorrow is a day of laminating all that I see, with my new laminator, given to me by the illustrious Mrs Pemberton who is really Olivia Fane.  She writes under her maiden name and came by yesterday with exciting news.  (And a laminator and some funds for AGD.  God Bless you Olivia!).  Olivia, clever, challenging, wicked, funny and so un-politically correct but oh so right in every way, independent, eccentric Olivia, will be on Woman's Hour this Monday talking about her new book "The Conversations, 66 Reasons to Start Talking".  Listen in, Radio 4 from 10 am onwards.  Olivia says she will be on at 10.30.  She will be talking about her conversation on Nagging.  Very good.  She is very entertaining.  

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow, then, I will pack up all my paintings, all the words, all the bits and pieces, laminating everything as I go.  I will buy some essentials for the exhibition, like sellotape, name badges, black marker pens and flowers.  I will assemble everything eventually, and pack up in my studio, transporting all to the car, in a Zen frame of mind, so that I am living in the present and not concerning myself about the future (which is about the amount of stuff still to do).  That is my intention.  I will probably do a bit of everything all at once in reality, and tumble somehow into the car, having sellotaped the laminator to my elbow and then I will have a Chinese takeaway and go to bed early.  

Bit of extra news

Now I am going to have some tea.  I have found some space and I shall fill it with some PG Tips.  See you all next week.   

Me and Steve having a moment of quiet before an exhibition last year.

Apple Pie, Driving a South Korean TV Company to the Wrong House, and AGD

I bought an apple pie and some custard recently, and no one has eaten it.  It is in the fridge looking at me every time I open it, and I am sure I saw my name on it.  As it has been a long and intense few days, I am going to eat both the apple pie and the custard.  It is a well known remedy for tiredness after long and intensive days, it is scientifically proven to make one happy, jolly and full of sunshine.  It is in the oven now, and already I feel better.

Yesterday

Yesterday, A Graceful Death exhibition went to the Dead Good Day Out, a Festival of End of Life Events (sounds like crazy wilful dying on the spot, and cheering people as they leap off high rise buildings, but it wasn't).  It was held in Southampton, and was a most creative and interesting event full of activities around death beliefs and customs from other cultures, and from our own. I met, amongst others, green burial directors, children's hospice nurses, memorial artists, death mask makers, and a ukulele band. So many things to see, so many different and interesting people to talk to, it was a wonderful event.  It is very easy for me to swan around when I do these kind of things, and not spend as much time as I should within AGD listening to people.  There is always so much colour and activity going on elsewhere, I think it won't matter if I just disappear and meet this exciting person here, chat to that fascinating person there, and if anyone wants me, they will come back.  Or wait.

Setting up for the Dead Good Day Out, the stalls and participants getting ready for the moment the doors opened

But twice yesterday I was pulled up short and reminded that it is often the person who is hard to communicate with, who is not easy to want to stay and listen to, who needs time the most.  A lady came to speak to me who seemed to not be able to finish a sentence without starting another.  It was hard to follow her, and though she was wanting to talk, I couldn't work out what she was trying to say.  I wanted to move away; I am ashamed to say I thought she was taking me away from other people.  I did move away, but she joined me again when I was talking to another man.  This happened again and during that second conversation, my lady mentioned that she was interested in painting, and was interested in painting her son who had died when he was a teenager. I understood then why she had found it hard to speak to me, she was working up to mentioning her son, and I had not noticed that she needed some careful listening.  Having mentioned her son, and as I understood that she had a huge burden to bear, she became distressed, apologised, and left.  And I thought how brave she was.  She did not give up, she said what she was going to say, and though she did not stay to talk of it any more, I hope that having said it, she will find a way to get out his photographs, and to paint his portrait.  Oh dear, my poor lady, I am sorry I didn't understand when I should have.

The second lesson in giving time and not judging, was with an older lady who I found rather disconcerting.  I can't say why, there was something about the way she seemed to stare, and to wait a bit too long before speaking.  I wondered if she was a little eccentric. She had short dyed black hair, and white eyebrows, which I kept wondering if she knew looked odd, or whether she didn't care.  She wafted over and away, gazing at me and looking as if she was about to say something, and then moving off again.  Later that evening, most people had left, the event was over, and we were all packing up and away.  I was taking paintings down, putting them away, being very busy, longing to get home and have a cup of tea and some silence.  One person was left, my little lady with black hair and white eyebrows.  And she was still looking at the paintings and reading the stories.  I don't remember how we began to talk, but she was very taken with a new addition to the exhibition, about someone who had died young.  I had displayed an email from the parents of this little girl, which had moved her.  I gave her the email, and she began to cry.  Oh my funny little lady.  Her friend had committed suicide recently and she was unable to find a way to talk to the mother of her friend.  "What should I say?"  she said, "she won't reply to me, and I was so close to my friend.  I think the mother is too distraught to talk to me, but I want to talk to her."  The email from the parents of the little girl had spoken of the need to love yourself, and it was this that she wanted to tell her friend's mother.  Here it was again.  The moment someone chooses to say what is so hard to say. It isn't always when I am sitting and giving my full attention.  This time it was not only when I was distracted by packing up, but I had dismissed her as simply eccentric with nothing to say.  I stopped what I was doing then, as I understood that this was the moment for her, and listened to a deeply grieving person.  She left after a short while, with the email I had written out for the exhibition, and I continued to pack up feeling subdued and sad.

Interim report 

I have just had apple pie and custard.  My strength didn't quite return after one helping, so I have had another and yes, the scientists are right.  I feel a bit better.  I have had the foresight to give the rest to Giant Boy and my older son, Interesting Boy, so I am in no danger of going overboard and eating apple pie and custard till it comes out of my ears and defeats the purpose of cheering one up, instead sending one to A&E with pie and custard poisoning.

Today

A team of camera men and a producer from Korea Educational Broadcasting System came today with their translator, to film AGD in the studio, to do an interview with me and to interview Claire Rudland, one of the sitters from the exhibition, who is an absolutely wonderful speaker about the journey through fear, pain and illness towards death, the dying process, except that she did not die.  She recovered.  And since then, she has lived every moment, good and bad, with a view to making every day count.

Claire talking to the interviewer, who was fascinated with her story.  Claire was cold and wrapped herself in the Studio Spotty Blanket.

Despite getting back really late last night, and despite having to undergo bonding moments with Giant Boy over the Eurovision, I got up very early this morning.  I had to clean the house, make a bathtub load of soup (for the Koreans), and unpack the car of AGD paintings, leaving them casually catching the light and looking intriguing in the studio so that the South Koreans would gasp as they walked in through the studio door and say in Korean, Blimey O'Reilly, we are glad we came.

And so, the whole of today has been given over to having Korean camera men filming the studio in the studio, outside the studio in the garden, through the studio windows; filming interviews in the studio, filming me getting into my car, filming in the car seat next to me going off to collect Claire, filming me getting out and taking them to the wrong flat, filming me not knowing where the hell my friend lived, filming me phoning her and getting them to the correct place in the end, filming Claire and I saying hello, and then getting in the car to film me driving us to my house, and our conversation.  "You've changed your hair!" "Why yes, I have!  Do you like it?" "Oh yes.  Lighter at the front" and so on.  I wondered whether we were meant to be profound and whether they will dub a philosophical conversation over our journey home.  Claire was a real hit, she moved the team to tears talking about the mystery of life and death.  She was, she is, so articulate and clever.

When all the filming was over we had a late lunch of soup and bread and bananas and chocolate and crisps.  That's all I had in the house.  Both Giant Boy and Interesting Boy joined us, and we had a party.  It was a relief to relax with the South Korean team and find out about them and their lives and world.  They are filming the opening night of A Graceful Death in Brighton on 20 May, so I will happily see them again.  We all liked them very much.

The Korean Producer in the studio with a drawing of Claire I did, trembling with nerves, for the camera, in case I made her look like a telly tubby and South Korea would think I was a fraud.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I shall lie around peeling grapes.

AGD set up ready yesterday, and the artist in a dress that looks as if she wants you to do target practice on it.  

Don't forget, A Graceful Death Exhibition next in Brighton 

20 - 23 May 10am to 10pm 

St Peter's Church, Preston Park (next to Preston Manor) Brighton BN1 6SD

Facilitated discussions 

Wed 21 "Planning Dying" 2 - 4 pm  

Dementia Information 6 - 7 pm

Thurs 22 "Supporting the Dying" 2 - 4 pm

Ars Moriendi, early evening salon on the art of dying 6 - 8 pm

Fri 23  "Communicating with the Dying" 2 - 4 pm

"Working with the Dying" 6 - 8 pm

Closing thoughts to end the exhibition 8.30 pm.

Entrance free, donations accepted.

Email me on antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com for more information

Pooped on the Sofa. And a Moment of Peace.

This sunny Sunday afternoon I am, quite suddenly, alone.  I dare not breathe in case it ends, and I hear someone else in my house.  I can feel the air itself whoop for joy, I can feel the house expand, and most of all, I can breathe.  It has been busy.  My house has been like Paddy's market.  From last weekend, we had a count down to yesterday, when my lodger in the annex moved out giving a subliminal signal to all the other lodgers to move rooms, taking with them all their worldly belongings, to set up home in a different part of the house.  My annex lodger had been here well over a year.  Within seconds of announcing he was leaving to go back home to Sri Lanka, the lady who lives in one of the rooms upstairs had announced that she was having the annex.  The lady in one of the other rooms bagged her room and the new Polish man decided to move into the second lady's room.  A room, the smallest room in the house, ended up being vacant.  Into this moves a lady who lived here before a year ago, who wants to come back.  Fine, I said.  All is well.  Let the action, at ten in the morning on Saturday, begin.

It was like the starting line in the Disney film "Cars," with revving engines and wheelies in the air.  The first lady from upstairs, who does not like to wait for anything she wants, was more or less camped out at first light in the kitchen of the main house, from where one enters the annex.  I had said to her to let annex man leave first before she moved in, but such was her determination, I wasn't sure that she was going to be able.  "He is sensitive," I told her,"let him leave before you bring your new kettle, microwave, toaster, bed, wardrobe and bubble bath collection into his space."  And so, ever helpful, Lady 1 camped out in the kitchen here, her nose squashed against the glass panes of the annex door, and tried to find things to do until the annex lodger left to catch his plane.  Lady 2, who was the opposite, came in from night duty on the day of the big move, and fell asleep at the kitchen  table.  We were all curious about how she was going to move the stuff from her big room, so much stuff that you couldn't open her door, across the landing to Lady 1's old room.  We also wondered how she would then get it all through the door and manage to get in herself.  Amongst ourselves, we expected that she would sleep through the whole move.  She did wake up though, and move everything but quite a lot of it is still in boxes on the landing.  I took a car load of things she didn't want to the tip, and we all believe her when she says she can actually get in to her new room over the top of all the bags and boxes and bin liners full of clothes.

Polish man had to wait for everyone else to move first.  Unconcerned, capable and with a serious face, he cleaned not only his own room out from top to bottom (ready for the lady who used to live here to come back in), he cleaned Lady 2's room for her.  Now, all the lodgers are finding new lives in different parts of the house, and reinventing themselves to suit their upgraded status.

I on the other hand, am spent.  For a while, it was like four refugees moving their households across my landing to and fro, up and down stairs, with piles of unwanted furniture and bedding growing in the garden as old things were discarded to make way for the new.  As landlady, I am sorry but I went out.  I came back when I thought it was all done, and so it was.  I have taken all the old junk piled up in the garden to the dump, I have cleaned up the trails of debris and I have even changed my sheets.  Peace is nearly reigning, as everyone gets used to their new bit of the house.

As I sat down to write this afternoon I heard the front door close, and realised with a surge of joy, that everyone had finally gone out and that quite suddenly, I was alone in the house.  The joy of it took me by surprise.  Today, I have been up since dawn helping out at a fun event on the Bognor seafront, and yesterday, I spent the afternoon with a friend helping her with her Open Studios.  Last week, apart from having the new A Graceful Death exhibitions in Southampton and Brighton to arrange, apart from talking to a Friends of Sussex Hospices Ladies Luncheon Club about AGD, I cleared out half of the garage and took it to the tip.  Then I tidied up what was left so that if I really wanted to, and had no scruples, I could rent out the garage as an abundantly over furnished living space with no windows, so tidy and neat it is. I also began my new painting, a commissioned double portrait of an older couple sitting in their garden.  So today, the day after my house was turned upside down by much heaving and pushing and pulling of beds and televisions and suitcases, by hoovering and cleaning with supermarket own brand squirty cleaning stuffs and hot soapy water, I feel like I have been run over by a truck and it is all that I can do to make myself a huge lunch and eat it alone and gleeful on the sofa.

But!  I had better get myself back in the upright position.  Any minute now, my Polish lady who used to live here is coming back.  Her knock on the door will mean that this unexpected time of peace and quiet has ended, and I will have to get off the sofa and rejoin my household.  I will decide then whether or not to bustle about again, having benefited from this afternoon of unexpected peace and quiet or whether to give up and go to bed.  I think I will go to bed.  I will talk to everyone again tomorrow.

In the kitchen yesterday watching all the comings and goings with nervous eating of a corn on the cob. Taken by Giant Boy and told to smile and act natural.

Art, End of Life Conversations, and Rain.

It is good that it is still raining outside, it makes me concentrate.  When I have paintings to do that require silence and peace, I listen to YouTube tapes of 10 hours of falling rain, on my headphones.  I can work in the sunshine, yes, but that is a whole different set of feelings.  Nice ones, of course, but today it is raining and today I am at one with the rain.  In a healthy kind of way.  And inside, on the sofa, with a pot of tea.

A Graceful Death News

I will be joining the "Dead Good Day Out" event in Southampton on the 10 May.  It is a wonderful community affair, full of workshops, talks, discussions and fun things to do.  AGD will be there, and I will talk for a few minutes on what I do during the day.  Come and see us all, it will be a really dead good day out.

Preparing for the A Graceful Death at St Peter's Church, Preston Park, Brighton is taking up much time.  I have the help of a supportive and hard working team, and I could not do it without them.  For this exhibition, we are hosting facilitated discussions from 2pm to 4pm on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the exhibition.  The topics covered will be Planning for Dying, Supporting the Dying, and Communicating with the Dying.  It is so important for us to engage with each other, to be aware of how much information, support and interest there is for end of life issues.  The Dying Matters message for this Dying Matters Awareness Week is you only die once.  Not only do we have to be prepared for our own deaths, but we must be prepared for other people to die.  Our family, our friends, even strangers.  We can make a difference to other people at the end of life not by coming in and changing everything.  Most dying people have medical care, have family, have friends around them.  We can do much by simply acknowledging what is happening, by listening, by being honest and by not running away.  It is surprising how many of us need to learn to do this and to not run away.  It is with huge pleasure that we, the AGD Brighton Team, can offer informative, interesting and helpful facilitated discussions within the exhibition.  Please go to this link to see the full programme

www.agracefuldeath.co.uk

Thanks to Graphic Artist Extraordinaire Rhona Reedie for this poster below.  

Have you a South Korean documentary tv company coming to film AGD in Brighton?

Why yes!  How did you know?  I am talking to a South Korean documentary television company about filming the exhibition during Dying Matters Awareness Week.  I think this is excellent, and am looking forward to meeting them.  The name of the programme is Docuprime, and it is for the Educational Broadcasting System in South Korea.  

And,

I have written a guest blog for the Dying Matters Coalition, and hope that it will be available soon on their website.  I will let you all know when it comes up by linking to it from this blog and having a party on my sofa.  Dying Matters is a hugely successful and informative, no nonsense website with all the information and advice you could possibly want for end of life matters.  It is part of the National Council of Palliative Care, and is an excellent place to find out all things and every thing about death and dying.  You can see their website here

http://dyingmatters.org/

Progress for our new project "Conversations about end of life, finding time to think in our busy world"

This community based informal and friendly discussion project, begun by Gail Martin Stevens (who runs a family run funeral service in Lancashire) and me, is finding real interest.  I went up to Mossley in Lancashire to do our first one with Gail, and was impressed at how people needed, and wanted, to talk about end of life.  We are hosting a session in June here in Bognor.  The 7 May session has had to be postponed, and because A Graceful Death is taking over May entirely, we are planning a gentle June Conversations. 

Community Organisers, a local charity that helps local communities support and engage with each other, is helping with our Conversations project.  Fourfold Visions, a community arts organisation is also on board, and I am finding that other organisations have had the same idea as Gail and me, and are very interested in promoting the Conversations project.  Good, I say.  And thanks.  In June, then, Gail and I will host a Conversations here in Bognor.  We aim to take these Conversations to wherever they can be taken.  It is an uncomplicated, affirmative and vitally important discussion that we all need to be able to have.  More on this as I organise it.

Gail's family run funeral company is featured here in an earlier blog, have a read, she is wonderful!

- http://antoniarollsartistextraordinaire.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/a-funeral-company-caring-for-living.html

What else, Antonia?

What else indeed!  I am really looking forward to speaking at the Friends of Sussex Hospices Ladies Luncheon Club on Wednesday.  The Ladies Luncheon Club is full of ladies who work very hard indeed to support and fund raise for local hospices.  I am very happy to be asked to talk, and very happy to meet them.  I thank the Chair for Friends of Sussex Hospices, Kathy Gore, for this opportunity.  Kathy has tirelessly supported the A Graceful Death exhibition, from the very first exhibition in my house here in Bognor in 2009.  Thank you Kathy.

Is there any more?

That is quite a lot, matey.  I am talking to Alan about going away to a remote Scottish Island in June, we both like the idea of being far away for a couple of days.  I do have a portrait to paint this month, a double portrait of a couple, and I have a Kitchen Fairy to do too.  This, painting, is where I plug in my earphones and listen to hours and hours of rain falling and cars swishing by in the far, far distance, on You Tube.  So back we come, full circle.  I began the blog with the sound of falling rain, and I will end it with falling rain.  It is all very romantic (from inside).  I will end it now with you plugged into the sounds below for the next ten hours, and please don't thank me, it is my pleasure.  Until next week, fare well.

Early on a Rainy Easter Day, News from the Artist Extraordinaire.

It is quiet this morning, and raining.  Giant Boy went to his Grandmothers yesterday, the lodgers are at work or asleep, and I am wrapped up on the sofa with tea, at 7.00 am.  It is Easter Day.  It's blinking early. God dammit.

Happy Easter to you all!  Big hugs.  Now, down to the blog and here is all you need to know about where to come in May.  A Graceful Death is showing twice in May, in Southampton and in Brighton.  It would be lovely to see you there, and lovely to meet those of you who read this account that I have not yet met.

A Graceful Death is coming here for one day

A Dead Good Day Out is a fun day, a day for the family and a day to enjoy taking part in workshops and activities around death and dying (sounds sinister but it is not) and if you want to, to go deeper and find out more about coping with what dying means.  For example, my dear Soul Midwife friend Mandy Preece, will be joining Hospice Nurse Jenny Cane, from 4.15 to 5 pm to help with emotional and practical tips for when someone close is dying.  And for the more light hearted, there will be a ukulele band.  From 1.00 - 1.30 the Southampton Ukulele Jam will be singing "Fine Songs for a Good Life Lived and if need be a Fine Funeral".  

A Graceful Death is showing in the Church itself, on the altar, and will be easy to find.  It will be a full, jolly, interesting, creative day out for everyone.  I am looking forward to it.

A Graceful Death in Preston Park, Brighton.

Thank you to Rhona Reedie for designing this invitation.

The exhibition will open on Tuesday 20 May at 10am.  It will be open from 10am to 10pm daily, in order that all of you who have to get to us from work, can do so. To see the programme of speakers and events, please go to the newly updated AGD blog here, where I will update information for this exhibition 

 - http://agracefuldeath.blogspot.co.uk/

We are part of not only Dying Matters Awareness Week, but part of the Brighton Fringe Festival too.  I am really happy to have the support of the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, and thank them for their help.  This month, I will be writing a guest blog for the Dying Matters Coalition, about A Graceful Death, and hope that it will bring more visitors to take part in this event.  I like the idea that AGD is an umbrella, under which all people can come and discuss, share, remember, think of and educate on all matters to do with the end of life.  You must come too, and take part with us.  Write me a poem, tell me what you think, tell me about you.  Look at the paintings, read the stories, listen to the interviews by Eileen Rafferty, the film by Neill Blume, experience the wonderful music composed by Lizzie Hornby, read the poetry written by members of the public who were moved to do so, write your own poems, put a prayer or intention into the blue bowl of blessed water given to the exhibition by a wonderful lady.  Come and listen to the speakers, take part, for example, in the evening event on Thursday - (see the link to the A Graceful Death blogspot above for full programme details) -

An early Evening Salon on The Art of Dying - Ars Moriendi.

Contributors: Dr Muna AlJawad, Consultant in Elderly Medicine, BSUH,  Medical Students at BSMS, Rev Robert Eastern, Chaplain to Brighton College, And You!

What else, Antonia?

Well.  Dunno really.  I feel so very busy at the moment, that I revert to moron when asked what else I am doing.  I am writing a lot, for Dying Matters guest blog, for the online magazine e-hospice, for a new online magazine called Day By Day, and lots of Facebook updates.  

Paintings - well!  I have just done a God's Study, a light hearted snapshot of God's study as he pops out for ten minutes, leaving all his reading material and papers on the desk.  I have done a couple of these, and adapted them to the person who commissions it, for example, in this painting there is reference to Dad's Army.  The person for whom this is painted is a Dad's Army fan, and wanted it included. The clock is at five minutes to eleven, a reference to the television programme, Five to Eleven, on poetry and prose, that he produced back in the 1980s.

God's Study, always room for more stuff.  Not being delivered till next week, I may add more nonsense to it...

I have a portrait to do, and a Kitchen Fairy, and some decorated stones for Gail Martin Stevens who runs the Elizabeth Way Funeral Services oop North.  But God is good, time is but a man made construct, and I will have them all done.  

Finally

Date and Time - May 7th.  Here, in Bognor Regis.  2pm to 4pm. Free.

Event - "Conversations about End of Life, finding time to think in our busy worlds".  With Gail Martin Stevens of Elizabeth Way Funeral Services, we are hosting informal conversations with tea and cake, to begin this important discussion - what do you think about dying?  What happens if someone close to you dies?  Have you ever thought about it?  A safe, easy, jolly, serious, laid back, informal, whatever you want session with me and Gail, thinking about end of life matters, within our busy world and lives.

Place - No 18 Waterloo Square, Bognor Regis.  A community led venue, specialising in youth advice and help.  Also home to community arts organisation Fourfold Vision, who are supporting these end of life conversations in the community.

Come and chat, eat, discuss, ask questions, tell us your story, think, contribute, or stay silent the whole way through and run like blazes when it's over.  Whatever you like. All are welcome, disabled access. Email me for more details antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com

Post script 

It is Easter Day.  Happy Easter to all of you.  I love you all.  Mwah.  I'm going to my mum's later to eat chocolates.

What Makes Your World Go Round?

What makes the world go around?  Indeed. I am not concerned with the science of it, I am asking about what keeps us going.  What keeps you going?  Big time?  What makes you say Ah!  I can do this!  I can get through!  What makes your world go around?

It depends on your starting point, I suppose.  Does your world need to be kept going round?  The assumption there is that it is not going round, or not going around enough, or the effort of keeping it going by yourself is too hard.  Or that your world has stopped turning completely.

It is also possible that your world is spinning quite fabulously, and when you get a moment, you think Yes!  I am in a good place, and x is the thing that is keeping my world turning, or y is the reason all is so good.  And, you may say to your friends, this x and y are universal, these are the things that keep everyone's world turning.  At times like these, it is wonderful to have the answer, and it is wonderful to understand how things are going so well, and the x and y make so much sense, and they are right.  It is true, it is very true, they are the things that are keeping your world going round, right now.

When something stops your world from turning quite so well, that is when your x and y no longer work.  For the moment.  It is possible that they are very good, and in time, they will work again.  When your world, for some reason, slows down, stops turning, or turns too fast, the very fact that you are in a difficult place means that the things that you thought were keeping your world turning, that x and y, have temporarily stopped working.

Here is what I think.  When your world is not going round, when it stops, and it becomes clear that things are wrong, when we are faced with things we would rather not face, when we are surprised by something unpleasant, so much so that we say that our world is no longer going round, one of our first reactions is to feel fear.  We didn't know this thing, these things, could happen.  We didn't see it coming, or we did see it coming, and it is worse than we imagined.  Our safety has gone.  We feel diminished.  Before our world was slowed down, we had substance, we were part of a good plan and we were players in that good plan of our lives.  When our world is no longer going round, we feel we are of no substance at all, and no longer in control, we realise that we are just a speck of dust, we revolve around the world, it does not revolve around us.  We are so small. And this is where we have to relearn.  What will make our world go around again?  When we feel our world has stopped, what do we do?  What do you do?  Do you remember?  Did you have a strategy for recovery, or did you react, like most of us do, into the fear and make things worse?  Did you lay down and say, it's all downhill from now, I cannot cope nor change anything, it is all over?  How did you manage?  Have you managed?

I have spoken to a couple of people about this subject this week.  It seems that the thing that makes the world start turning well again, is a decision.  A decision not to be consumed by the reasons one's world stopped turning. "I decided," said one lady, "that it would do me no good to carry on being so consumed by my distress.  I had to make a decision to stop.  My reactions to these events was harming myself and my children, I was not making anything any better.  It was hard and counter intuitive, but I made a decision to move on." The events in her life could not be changed, and the people concerned would not be affected by her distress, she had to do something about it herself in order to make her own world work again.  To be blunt, no one else particularly cared.  But she did it, and she talks about it now with a smile.

 The second person I spoke to about this was a man who is facing the reality of his cancer, his treatment, and his limits.  He told me that he has forced himself to sit with his fear. "I am frightened all the time," he says. "But I can cope with it if I sit and accept it, if I let myself look into my fear.  I can get through the day," he says, "because I am not just my fear, my fear is just a part of me, and I have not lost the other parts of me."  His decision was to face the thing that was threatening to overtake his life, in order to keep living with all the other things that were good but obliterated by the panic. "I made a decision," he said, "and today, I am OK".

When I am having a good time, all is going well, I will tell you that what makes my world go round is love, tea, cake, friends, lists, plans and being nice.

When I am faced with bad stuff, and I have thought about this recently, I will tell you that what makes my world go round, is me.  It is up to me.  Helped by friends, and kindness, helped by time and thinking things through, the main ingredient of my life going well, is me.

Perhaps then, what makes your world go around, truly, is you.  All the other things that help to make your world go round are still there, and are of great value, but they cannot do the job for you.  I will leave you with the image, light hearted but possibly relevant, of the Kick Ass Angel.  We all need a bit of her.

Kick Ass Angel is no slouch.  Painted by me for me, when I needed her.

A Sunday Off With Intent.

Introduction

This is how my day began.

It is going to be one of those days, one of those Sundays, where with the best will in the world, nothing happens and that is the whole point.  I had treated myself to a morning in bed this morning, with some tea and my laptop on which to watch One Born Every Minute, when in comes Giant Boy.  It is always lovely to see Giant Boy, but 10 am is very early, and my first thought is, how do I get out of this?  He, bless his heart, is not one to enter quietly and get on with some reading.  He isn't one to come in and sit passively on the bed and wait till I notice him.  He came in wet, from the shower, all 6' 6" of him, with only a small towel on, and lay full length across my bed, beaming at me.  This was the least disturbing of the videos he took with my phone. 

These days Giant Boy is inspired.  Inspired by MMA, Mixed Martial Arts, and being a kind of home loving fellow, his new moves are practised with mind boggling results on his mother.  He sees me coming to give him a hug as an attack, he tells me.  Very often I end up in a headlock or hugging him with my arms and legs immobilised so that I can't get away without tapping three times on his arm.  Fine, I say, it's all youthful enthusiasm, I can handle it, but usually I am on my feet, dressed, and able to assert myself if I need to.  You can understand and forgive then, that after the joy of seeing him this morning, my first thought was Where are my escape routes.

Middle Bit

Ready for our first Conversations with Gail and Tami. Gail's funeral top hat sits in the middle, which we didn't use in the end, we all couldn't stop talking long enough, so we left it as an enigmatic decoration in the middle of the floor.

This time last week, I was getting ready to go up to do the first of the Conversations about End of Life within our Busy World, with Gail Martin Stevens and Tami Peel from Elizabeth Way Funeral Service up in Mossley, Lancashire.  We had done what thinking we needed to do together, and had realised that we needed to see how it went, and take our cues from whoever came along.  We had a plan, Plan A, in which we worked out what we would do, but we were happy to revert to Plan B, working together to go with the flow.  Gail provided tea and cakes, and the Seraphina Centre http://seraphinacentre.wordpress.com/ hosted us.  Our first session was attended by some very experienced and articulate ladies, all of whom knew of Gail and all of whom made this session memorable and inspiring.  Of course as soon as they started to arrive, plan A went out of the window, and we reverted to plan B, which is really what we expected to do all along.  We realised at the end of our two hours, how fast the time goes and how much we need to talk these things over.  One of our ladies is a cancer sufferer, and made good observations from her perspective.  One lady is a carer, and talked of how her colleagues avoid going in to work with people who are called "terminals", and one lady lost her son last year, and has set up a charity to help those with mental health issues - her son suffered from bi-polar.  

I will now host a similar session here in Bognor, and Gail will travel down to join me to do it.  Our plan is to do more sessions. Our vision is not to train anyone, but to lead conversations.  We aim to do nothing more than guide people to do what they already know, and to help to think more clearly about end of life issues.  If you think Gail and I can do one in your area, let me know.  

Post Conclusion Build Up

Today, I must admit, I am off.  Off work, off cooking, off with the fairies.  I have discovered perfect joy in watching re runs of One Born Every Minute, all the more wonderful because it is no longer anything to do with me - I have found that going up to bed is the whole point of the day, and I have realised that my boys, of 17 and 20, won't die if I don't make them food.  They will complain, they will try and look like the cat with the big eyes in Shrek, they will then make the food and make the kitchen look like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but they won't die, and I can still go to bed.  I like this.  I have found that if I cannot think two clear thoughts, it is not a problem, because today, I don't have to.  All I have to do, is think about how to make myself happy every ten minutes, and then do it.  Eileen is with me this weekend, and she agrees.  We are both supporting each other in doing nothing and both happy to fill up any gaps in our psyche with eating pasta and veggie bakes.  

Powerful Conclusion.

I love my old Dad, he is witty, academic, clever and has funny eyes.  When I was a little girl, I was very proud of my Dad's funny eyes, I thought that he was the best because you never knew who he was looking at, and that seemed to me, very advanced.  Dad has had a few strokes and now had memory problems.  He is still very amusing and witty about it, and knows that he doesn't remember on occasion, for example, my name but I always had a special bond with him.  In this photo, he is giving expression to how I feel today, and as we look very similar, you really have no real proof that this isn't me giving expression to how Dad feels.  Rock on, Dad, tell them how it is.

The Aged P with whom I relate in so many ways.  His expression here is how my soul feels.  Thanks Dad.  Rock on.