God's Study. A glimpse, through a painting, into where God does all his admin. No religions needed, just a sense of humour.

This week, we are doing art.  

During the last few months, I have been busy. Not with things that further my career and catapult me into stardom, but with pottering about rearranging my house, painting my garden furniture blue, cooking, sitting on the sofa and dreaming of shortbread, making lists and trying to remember what I used to do. I found motivation difficult, there does not seem to be much point in painting.  Oh, what the heck, I say.  Can't be bothered.

What's it all for? I ask myself.  There is no exhibition possible and no one will know if I paint a master piece or not, and I don't have much inspiration, so I'll leave the studio till later, pour myself another cup of tea and find more FBI Files on YouTube to watch.

And then, I thought, I miss my studio.  It is so full of the sights and smells of oil paints, there are so many pieces of wood primed and ready to use, the heater works, I have a comfy chair and I love the organised disorder in there.  So I went and spent an afternoon chilling back in the studio, with the rain falling outside, a scented candle mixing with the smell of oil paints and turps, and I had a great time.  I found the series of God's Life paintings I had done for my dad, had a look, remembered how much fun they were to create, and decided to write about them today.  

A while ago I painted an idea I had had for a long time.  Called "God's Study", it showed the study where God works, the idea being that he pops out for ten minutes and we all get a quick glimpse of the room.  There is so much scope to make this really amusing, with God's in tray and out tray, reference books on the desk, bills, letters, articles and leaflets advertising courses and events he may like to attend.  This first God's Study sold quite quickly, and my father asked me to do him another but to add references to his own life to all the stuff on God's desk.  Fine, I said and this became the first in series of paintings of the rooms God uses but has just left for a moment or two.  We see what his rooms look like, and all the references to his life and times.  I ended up creating a God's Study, God's Bathroom, God's Garden, God's Kitchen and a God's Schoolroom.  The study, the kitchen and the schoolroom paintings have references to my dad's life, as the paintings were his idea, and for him to keep.  Between us, despite his dementia, we had so much fun creating these.  The God we refer to in the God's Life series is the Christian God of Dad's Anglican church; he was a very devout and religious man, with a quirky and wonderful sense of humour.  Today, we are going to look at the very first of these paintings.  

God's Study

God's Study, painted for my father.  First reference to his own life is the clock hands 
at five to eleven.  This refers to his television programme in the eighties called
Five To Eleven, where famous guests read wonderful poetry. 

God has just popped out for ten minutes, and we get a look at how he works.  There is much for him to sort out on his desk.  Painted in acrylic on canvas, I have used my own office in the studio as a template.  I will take you through the details in the painting - it will help to have some knowledge of the Christian Bible, a book that my father loved very much.  

I read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, and began to use this grid here.  It seems that God uses it too, the idea being to remember not to just do the urgent important things, but to do non urgent important stuff too.  God has some notes here, about not panicking, and hoovering Heaven.  Below is the book of the week, a reference to my father's great love of Dad's Army, the iconic, heart warming and wonderfully hopeless comedy series made for television and first shown in 1968.  It tells of the adventures of a band of elderly and rather eccentric British men during the second world war, as they take their duties as the Home Guard very seriously.  The book of the week here is "We're Doomed, how Dad's Army captured the zeitgeist".  "We're Doomed!" was a catch phrase of one of the characters making up the Army, a pessimistic, fatalistic character called Fraser, an elderly, tall, lugubrious Scot. Captain Mainwaring, pronounced Mannering, was the pompous, loveable, infuriatingly humourless and well meaning leader of the Dad's Army. 

I have signed the painting with my name on an envelope on the desk.  Next to the envelope is a book called Absent Fathers, is it enough to be there in Spirit?  The son of God, Jesus, was born to an unmarried virgin called Mary. God sent an angel to tell Mary that this would happen, and that Mary would marry the man she was already betrothed to, called Joseph.  And so, pregnant via the Holy Spirit, not through the normal channels, carrying the actual Son of God, Mary - a virgin - gives birth to Jesus who is raised by Joseph, his step father.  His real father is God.  The book title here is a pun on this situation.  Maybe God feels a bit guilty for not being around physically, though of course, being God, he was always around in Spirit. 

There is a leaflet advertising a course for deities, who are said to not only be divine, but a manifestation of Light.  This course is a take on the kind of courses we humans offer, only it is for God and poses a bit of a conundrum.  The course is called "Follow the Light - what if you ARE the light? Courses on Divine Problems"  Under the advert is a letter from Mother Teresa, a newly canonised saint in the Catholic Church, and someone with whom Dad worked when she was alive and he was head of religious broadcasting at the BBC. 

In God's in tray are three lists of prayers to be answered.  They fall into the categories of  For Answering, For Smiting, and For Miracles.  And of course, in the picture above, God had his tea in a mug with Boss written on it.

God has gone through the prayer list for today, and those who he can answer with advice, or guidance, or a bit of good fortune will come under the Answering list.  

Those who are cheeky, or asking for bad things, won't get a nice answer, they will be smitten, which is a way to say they will get a smack from God.

The miracles are reserved for those who have requested something very special and are probably special themselves.  These lucky supplicants will have the best outcome of all.

Here, on a shelf under the computer keyboard, is a game that God may like to play when he has some down time.  Called Spot the Atheist, it is a family game to be played with his own family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and any of the legion of angels and seraphim and cherabim rushing about in Heaven.  The tag lines on the box - Is it me?  Is it you?  Him? Her? - give us an idea that it is no easy thing to spot an atheist.  God, being a deity, knows he exists.  An atheist does not believe in any religion or divine idea, and therefore is the absolute opposite of God. This may be a fun game for God to play, because from his point of view, the atheists will have a bit of a surprise when they die and find out there is something out there.  Maybe he will get the game out for them to play, and watch them laugh at the obvious wrongness of the very idea that there isn't a God, amused to be remembering their own foolishness.  

Oh I had fun with this bit.  Here is a newspaper God was reading, with big shock headlines.  Fifth horse joins the apocalypse, it says.  The final book of the New Testament in the Bible is called the Book of Revelations.  In it, the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride over the end of times as punishments from God.  Here, in this article, a fifth horse is added to ease the workload.  A rota system of four on one off will make the whole business of being a punishment from God more efficient and less tiring.

On the next page is another shock that the Lamb of God has grown up, and is now a sheep.  The sheep says, "Sorry."

Jesus, the son of God, was also known as the Lamb of God.  A sacrificial lamb had to be unblemished and pure, and so Jesus, being also unblemished and pure, took on the symbolic title of the Lamb of God, and without sin.  In this newspaper article, the lamb of God is a separate entity and has, unfortunately grown up and is now a sheep.  This could get confusing.

The Golden Smartie is a reference to a system my father set up when he was a teacher in Liverpool, before he joined the BBC, where he taught Latin and English to boys at an independent school.  Always eccentric and very academic, Dad was given boys that were considered difficult.  He devised a weekly reward system, where on a Friday, the boy who had done best for the week was given a golden smartie.  It became wildly popular and successful, and I believe there were silver and bronze smarties too.

Behind the golden smartie is a Father's Day card, simply saying Best Dad and showing two figures in Biblical robes and beards, and both with haloes around their heads.  In Christian art, the halo is a circle of light around someone's head, to signify that they are holy.  These two are God and Jesus, God obviously being the Best Dad for Father's Day.

The Ethical Angel Bureau advertises itself here. A small deposit secures an angel, so best get onto them now.  This is a pun on secretarial agencies of the past, where a small deposit would mean the agency would send someone either temporarily or permanently, to help with the office workload.  A definition of the word "ethics" is a philosophical discipline concerned with what it morally right and wrong, good and bad.  Angels, those divine beings that do only good and live in Heaven, would have to be ethical and so this bureau has used some clever marketing in their name.  

Below this is a receipt for God to pay, for £9.99 for the polishing of the Pearly Gates.  The Pearly Gates are at the entrance to Heaven. Now they are polished, and at a very good price too.  Perhaps an Ethical Angel did it.

Three reference files here.  Martyrs, Heretics and Nutters.  

Christian history is full of Martyrs - those who died horribly for their faith, Heretics who reject the doctrine of the church or faith of the time and Nutters, who are possibly mad and have strange beliefs.  

There will always be a huge number of martyrs, heretics and nutters, God will need some guidance on how to deal with them all.

Some more books to help with the business of being God.

Virgin Births - a practical approach.  I mentioned before that Mary the mother of Jesus was a virgin and yet became pregnant and had Jesus.  This is an article of faith, very strong in the Catholic faith.  The whole idea is very difficult to get our human heads around, so this book offers a practical approach to something that is not actually practical at all.  

Smiting and Plague - a thoughtful approach.  In the first book of the Bible, the Old Testament, God sometimes shows his displeasure by using severe punishments.  A word often used in the Old Testament is "smite", to hit hard with the hand or a stick or an object in the hand.  Plagues are sent by God too, to punish disobedient tribes and nations.  This is another paradox, in that God has a book on how to do this thoughtfully.  In the Old Testament, smiting and plagues were products of rage and anger, and not likely to be too thoughtful.  This is as unlikely as a Virgin Birth.

Resurrection - a hygienic approach is the final book here.  Jesus was executed by crucifixion, but had promised to come back in three days.  This he did, and it is called the Resurrection.  It is a hugely joyful and hopeful story that is celebrated by Christians on Easter Day.  The hygienic approach is necessary because having been executed and buried for three days, any coming back could be a bit smelly.  Obviously, Jesus wasn't smelly, God had read this book.

And finally, on the wall on God's study, is the Pope of the Moment award.  The Pope is the leader on earth of the Catholic church.  He lives in the Vatican in Rome and is responsible for all the Catholics wherever they are in the world.  Pius was a popular name for a pope, there were twelve over the centuries.  Pius sounds like the word Pious, which means devoutly following a religion. 

I did jury service with a lovely nun once, who denounced much of what the lawyers were saying as pious twaddle, meaning they were talking pretentious nonsense.  I was struck by how wonderful it would be to have a pope called Pious Twaddle, and she, being a humorous and wonderful old nun, agreed.  So, with huge apologies and respect to all Catholics, here he is and what is more, he is Pope of the Moment.

Another talk for God to go to, is the How Did I Get Here event.  God is said to be without beginning and without end, and so this could be a difficult question for him when awake in the early hours of the morning.  In this lecture, on Thursday at 8pm, he will get to explore Divine Consciousness - in other words, his own consciousness.  

Phew!  Thank you for getting this far.  God is due back into his study any minute now, so we will leave it there.  I had so much fun painting this, with my lovely old Dad.  He died in June, and all of the God's Life paintings have come back to my studio. If you are up for it, I will do God's Schoolroom next. See you in two weeks and I hope you either get an answer or a miracle for your prayers, and avoid the smiting. 

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Total acts of grace from the dying. Gifts from the end of life.

"Winnie." I painted this for the A Graceful Death exhibition, portraits and words from the end of life.  Here, the carer on the right is training the carer on the left to sit with Winnie, who is dying

There are, sometimes, magic moments during the dying of someone you care for.  We hear of people very near to death talking to invisible beings, telling them to wait, they are just getting ready.  There are reports of people seeing family and friends long dead, coming to visit them, and it all seems perfectly normal.  Over the last few years, I have begun to notice small but significant acts of grace during the dying of someone with whom I am, or have become, close.  I call them acts of grace but I want to call them acts of love, even though there is no proof at all that they were.  These small gifts have given me immense joy, and sometimes, I have been affected by the power of them for a long time afterwards.  Even now, recalling them, I feel my spirits lift.  Here are three of these moments of grace, these glimpses into something beyond time.

Dominic and the angels.

I painted Dom for the A Graceful Death
Exhibition. Shown here with his boule
of chemotherapy drugs that he had to carry
with him

I sat with my youngest brother all night, the day before he died.  Father Dominic, my brother, was a Catholic priest.  In his early fifties, the youngest of four of us, it seemed the natural order of things was being upended, and that he was leaving us far too soon. 

I woke in the early hours one morning, on my bed in his hospice room, remembering this deep dark time in the middle of the night had been the most difficult for Dom.  He had spoken of the difficulties the night had brought him when we talked before he arrived at the hospice.  So I went in my pyjamas to sit beside him. There was only a small light in the corner of the room, outside it was dark and silent and I prepared myself for a long wait with him.  Taking Dominic's hand in mine, I sat and watched him sleep.  He had drifted into that deep state of unconsciousness that precedes death, and I did not know where he really was.  Suddenly, I felt the room fill with joy.  I felt something change in the atmosphere around me, and I thought - there are angels here. I felt intense love, almost tangible, but invisible, swirling in the air around us and I looked around to see where this extraordinary joy was coming from.  It felt like someone was pumping pure love into the room through the air conditioning, but I knew that made no sense, and I could not work out where it was coming from.  And then, I looked at Dom and knew that he was doing this.  It is you, Dom, I said.  You are doing this!  And as the light began to change outside, and the angels, if that was what it was, were fading, Dominic took my hand in his and kissed it.  Dominic died hours later just after midday, when I had left the room for a few minutes.  But he had let me know his angels, and allowed me into his love. 

Margaret and her smile.

I loved Margaret.  I had been asked to support her for her final journey, neither of us knowing whether I would be needed for the whole of it.  As it turned out, I did stay, and Margaret in her nineties and I in my fifties then, became great friends.  She was a modest, shy, intelligent lady.  She had taught maths and music, before marrying into the church and becoming a vicar's wife and later, a mother.  Margaret was tiny.  She spoke with a strong Northern accent, and I visited her every week until near the end, when I found a way to be with her every second day.  She had no visitors but her excellent son and his wife, and me. I loved being with her, and she loved being with me.  We would tell each other we were so lucky to have met.  

Later, as Margaret drifted into the last stage of disconnection from the world, I would sit with her and keep her company.  One Sunday I had a compulsion to go and see her.  I ought not, I thought, she isn't expecting me.  But I found myself in my car driving to the home where she lived.  I really ought not, I thought as I let myself in and climbed the stairs to her room.  She lay in the bed in her little room, the sides up now, and breathed heavily and noisily.  I wondered why I had needed to come, but I sat down anyway and told her I was here, and that all was well.

Nothing happened, so after a while I prepared to leave.  Saying goodbye, I stopped at the door and I do not know what made me go back to see her again.  Leaning over the sides of  her bed to say a proper goodbye, her tiny head with white hair on the pillow, mouth open, and breath coming noisily and sharp from her throat, I told her that she was my dearest friend.  And then, Margaret opened her eyes, and looking into mine gave me the most beautiful smile that I have ever seen.  The smile filled me with joy, with love, and with utter astonishment.  It seemed to radiate light and I remember laughing and saying out loud that all was fine, it is all OK now, I know she is fine and I am so so so happy!  I was so happy.  I was elated.  It was the most wonderful gift.  I laughed all the rest of that day, and into the next.  The next day she died, and when I went to see her for the last time, I put fresh lavender on her pillow and thanked her, still laughing for joy.  Her final gift of grace had been to show me a glimpse of Heaven in a smile that shone with light and love. 

Anne and the look.

I painted this of Anne last year, requested by my cousin
Jemima, before Anne became ill.  Since this photo was taken,
I have painted forget-me-not flowers in Anne's hands.

A few days ago, my Aunt Anne died.  The last of my mother's sisters to go, it is the end of an era.  Anne, her sisters Maureen (my mother), and Kit, looked more and more like each other as they grew older.  Anne had begun to look so like my mother that I took huge comfort from it, and though they were very different in character, my mother and Kit and Anne shared such a history.  My Aunt Anne was precious to us all, the youngest of the sisters, they had had four brothers and now, after Anne's death, there are only two brothers left.  Five of the seven siblings have gone.

I visited my aunt twice during her final weeks.  She was lovingly cared for by two of her own six children, and wanted for nothing. I did not know Anne as well as I had known my mother and Kit.  I wanted to know something of the real person before she died, and so I went to see her and my cousins Maddy and Min.  I sat alone with Anne for a little while on the second visit, talking about her life, longing to know her more and understanding that perhaps, I could not.  There was a silence, Anne was looking down at her hands resting in front of her as she lay propped up in her bed.  Then she looked up and into my eyes and the power of the look was like an electric charge.  For a few seconds she shared something so deep and profound, so wonderful and so personal, that my only thought was that she was seeing me.  She was seeing my soul, she was completely and utterly seeing me.  I felt understood, affirmed, reassured.  So instead of my understanding Anne before she died, Anne understood me. It left me full of peace and awe, and I knew it was her goodbye.  There was nothing more for me to do, no more visits needed, Anne had seen into my soul, and had send me away with love.  She died a week or so later.  

What does it all mean?

This, I do not know.  The experiences are simply that, experiences and leave no physical proof behind that they occurred.  Because they happened to me and no one else - except the dying person who then died and cannot be asked about it - there is only my word for it. I am speaking of my own experiences, setting them in context and describing the effect they had on me.

Here is where they become meaningful.  These experiences were not expected.  They were surrounded by powerful feelings of love and connection that did not come from me.  If I am able to create these experiences myself, I am a very lucky person and wish I knew how I did it.  In the moment of each one of the above accounts I was, for a short while, beyond myself.  It was like a light exploding in my mind and heart, there was connection beyond my five senses and there was an understanding of it being absolutely, and perfectly, for me.  I did not understand these experiences so much as feel them and know them.  I knew what they were as they happened. My response to each was joy, tears, gratitude, laughter.  I did not question them, worry about them, analyse them, or dismiss them.  Each experience was so wonderful, I left knowing everything was perfect.  With two of them, Margaret and Anne, I did not need to go back to see them again.  They were on their way and did not need me, and made it clear that what they were doing, where they were going, was far beyond me and my small offerings here.  I was given a glimpse of perfect love and perfect understanding, and allowed to go on my way.  They then went on their way, and died.  I like to think they were surrounded constantly by the love, connection and joy that they allowed me to experience in the teeniest of ways in a microcosm of a second, and that that is what is awaiting us all. 

With thanks to my dear friend Claire for the Angels Gather Here sign.

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Heaven is laughing

Fred has done a bunk.

Sometimes, life is so blinking difficult.  We feel so alone, and God, the Divine, Spirit or whoever you pray to (the late and much loved Rabbi Lionel Blue named his God "Fred") is nowhere in sight.  God has done a bunk, has better things to do, doesn't like you anyway, and you have ended up alone and lost.  What did you expect?  You are you, and as such, you are rubbish.

When we are down, it is hard to ask for help.  The further we slide into sadness, difficulty, or madness (perhaps), the harder it is to connect with other people.  Especially other people who seem to be doing just fine.  Everything we do not like about ourselves gets magnified until we think that is all other people can see.  In all our encounters we look for confirmation of our worthlessness, and we find it.  We find that confirmation, and because we are sliding downwards and feel this low, we absolutely believe that the confirmation is right.  

It is said that love is the answer, that we must all love each other.  They say that the real test is to love the unloveable, but when we are really down, we feel we are the unloveable.  What they don't say is that the unloveable find it almost impossible to accept love anyway.  When life is so blinking hard and everything is so dreadful, accepting love makes us feel deeply vulnerable and we reject it, sometimes with knobs on.  It makes us angry.  It makes us worse because, I suppose, it highlights the feelings of loss and lack we have.  And, often, we don't trust it.  "What are you up to?" We think.  "What's in it for you?"  and I suppose, we act from a place that says, "I am so bad that it's only a matter of time before you see that.  I had better reject you now so that I do not have to face even more pain of rejection later."

What is love anyway?  Is it the romantic thing that is sold to us as the answer and the goal of our lives?  Is it the perfect bonding of parents for their children?  Is it loyal and undying acts of selflessness for a friend?  Is self love about having more chocolate and having more bubble baths? In times of distress the very idea of love takes on a two dimensional aspect, as if it is at least a fraud, and at most, completely out of our league.  So it can get lost.  These notions of romantic love, family love, friendship love seem oversimplified and impossible, nothing we can count on and who would love us anyway?  Whatever that means.  Love of course is a more beautiful thing than that.  It is both more magnificent and more subtle than we can imagine, it is also more simple and much more accepting.  But when we are feeling this bad, we absolutely do not love ourselves and from our feelings of worthlessness and isolation comes a rejection of love from others.  

So God, the Divine, Spirit, Fred does not listen to us nor answer our prayers.  We may keep praying, but we expect nothing.  So we see nothing.  We may turn our back on all that stuff, we may simply stop trying.  We may have thought it all guff to begin with and are perversely satisfied that we were right - there was no magic god-thing anyway.  It is down to us.  And look where we are - we could do with a bit of a divine hand to help us - but there isn't one, never was one, and it is time to accept we are on our own.  Just us.  Just you.  Get used to it. 

I was in a frighteningly dark place many years ago.  I was a single mother of three young children, vastly overweight and without work, anxious and full of self disgust.  I had dismissed the god-idea because there was no evidence it existed in my life.  If there was one, a god thing, I would not be feeling this lonely and hopeless. The god thing would have looked after me and stopped all this awfulness.  It was hard to get through each day, to keep my children going, to cope.  I felt as if I were wading through thick darkness and that the darkness was closing over my head.  And then, one afternoon I picked up a book and noticed a small piece of paper drop to the floor.  Picking up the paper, I read the following 

Let nothing disturb thee, 

nothing affright thee

All things are passing;

God never changeth;

Patient endurance

Attaineth to all things;

Who God possesseth

In nothing is wanting;

God alone sufficeth.

I read "Let nothing disturb thee", and "nothing affright thee" and felt a deep moment of recognition.  Something happened in my chest.  I was afraid and disturbed.  I felt an opening in the darkness and I thought - perhaps, just perhaps, this was written just for me.  I couldn't believe these words, they shouted themselves into my mind, and made me stop.  I understood the rest of the prayer, but kept locking onto the not letting myself be disturbed or affrighted.  It was a moment of absolute revelation, but, only a teeny tiny one.  I did not have choirs of angels and beams of light. I had the touch of a loving divine finger on my forehead which enabled me to let those words in.  Over the next few days I read, "All things are passing", and felt the same deep recognition.  All things are passing, and this pain will pass.  It will pass!  Then, I read and understood, "Patient endurance attaineth to all things", and thought, Oh! If all things are passing, and I do not need to be so frightened and disturbed, I can patiently endure this and it will pass.  For some reason, I understood that I could endure this, and I could do something about it.  I was not alone and I did not have to stay still in this darkness.  I could move.  

"God never changeth" spoke to me next.  I didn't analyse it, nor have any deep thoughts about it, but I know I was comforted by the not changing.  Over the next few years, I kept this prayer with me, reading it when I was more than usually troubled, to see what line would speak to me.  I began to have faith that I would read whatever I needed to know for that moment from the prayer on this scrap of paper. It took a long while too, to find out that the prayer was from Teresa of Avila, a Spanish nun and mystic in the mid fifteen hundreds. It took a long while because I wasn't very interested in who wrote it or where it came from, I just wanted to read the words. 

Though I would say that finding this prayer changed my life, it was not a change that anyone else could see.  It didn't change my life so that suddenly I had answers and was happy.  It was simply one of the moments in which my life moved and shifted, and I had a small personal miracle shown to me.  I had, I still have, many moments like this and I would suggest that you do too.  The thing is, we often do not see them and if we do see them, we tend to dismiss them.  This moment of grace when I found the prayer gave me insight that I was not alone, that things could be different, and that I would have to make this change happen. How I made changes was up to me but at least now, I understood that I could at least try. 

Heaven is laughing.

There is an image that comes to me sometimes when I feel either that prayer does not work, or that I am cross because all I want (to love and be loved) is not blinking working.  I hate everyone and no one likes me.  It's all a mess.  Then, I get an image of what it is like in the place I will call heaven, somewhere in another spiritual dimension probably way up in the sky, high above the clouds.  That is where I was told heaven was when I was a child, and I still find myself going to that image.  So up in  this heaven I see a host of figures, all made of light and all in human form, moving together in a constant flow laughing out loud.  The sound of their laughter is glorious and fills the whole of heaven, joyful and spontaneous as if they had all just heard the best joke ever.  The figures in heaven have faces with deep laughter lines as I watch them laugh with joyful abandon.  Why are you all laughing?  I ask.  (Sometimes petulantly). The answer I get is that they are laughing with pure love and delight for me. I delight them and whatever is happening down here in my life, it does not change their laughter one bit.  What if I am deeply sad and everything is collapsing around me?  I ask. They answer - we laugh because we know you will be OK.  There is more to your life than your sorrow and hardship.  We see this and though we know you do not see it at the moment, it does not matter to us because we cannot get over how precious you are to us.  We are laughing more than ever when you are down, because of our absolute love for you, for all of you, and joy in all your existence, and maybe, one day, the sound of our laughter will reach you in some way, and you will know we are filled with this unending joy in your - and you reading this - your existence.  Oh, they say as the light shifts and changes around them, we love you so much.  You make us laugh with joy!

And then I think, maybe Fred, or God, or whoever or whatever we call it, did not do a bunk.  Life down here can be hard, is hard, but it is not that our god-idea or god figure scarpered when the going got tough for us, it's just that we needed to experience this darkness in our lives - but this darkness is not all.  When we do feel the finger of god on our forehead, and hear the faint sound of heaven laughing just for us because we are so uniquely and gloriously precious, the power of this experience will mean more to us than anything we can imagine.  It will give us courage to go on because, if the whole of heaven is laughing with utter delight in us, why not? 

 

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All I wanted was to be fabulous. That's all.

Me aged three

It is all I ever wanted from life.  From the earliest days, I understood that I was a fairy.  Being a fairy was not something I aspired to.  I was one.  I, Antonia Rolls, aged about three, was just like Tinkerbell. You could not tell us apart.  There was something so right about being a fairy, with a fairy's right to wear anything that glittered and do whatever she wanted.  My aunt had some spare material from a dress she had made for herself, a deep turquoise nylon with silver glitter threaded through it.  I wrapped myself in this and at five years old, I knew I was magnificent.   I drew pictures of fairies with wings and tutus on all my books, on the walls of my bedroom and wherever I could get away with it.  It was my world.  I believed in the magic, the beauty, and the wonder of fairies; no wonder I decided to be one.  If, of course, I did decide.  At the time, I had no doubt that I had been born one. 

The real thing

At my primary school, I discovered rival fairies.  A gang of girls decided that only those born in 1959 or 1961 were fairies.  When I said, "But I was born in 1960 and I am the real actual thing," they laughed and told me that the fairy queen, who they all knew very well and was a friend of theirs, said otherwise.  And she should know, they added spitefully. If I wanted to, I could ask her to agree that I was a real fairy.  She lived, the rival fairy gang said, in a tree outside the sports hut.  Go and ask her, they said.

All my lunch breaks for many weeks were spent standing under the sparse little tree outside the games hut waiting for Esmerelda to show herself to prove that I was a fairy.  My rival fairies checked in on me often, laughing unkindly, and I was too small to understand what they were doing.  Eventually, my mother asked me what was happening. I had become more and more withdrawn and unhappy and although the rival fairies had made me take this thing called a vow, which meant I could never, ever tell anyone, I did eventually tell my mother.  She was so lovely to me as I cried, and went to the school with me the next morning.  At lunch time, the rival gang came to find me, to tell me that Esmeralda had got it all wrong, and that I was a fairy after all.  They were very nice to me and I thought it was because my superior fairy-ness had won out.  Of course, now I know my mother had gone to the school to see all the gang, in the presence of the head teacher, a very fierce little nun called Sister Zita, and read them the riot act. 

All my life I have wanted to be fabulous.  This fabulousness was never a sassy, practical, hard nosed

The Cyrenians on a very good day

thing, it did not include money, power and fame.  It was, when I look back on it, about expression.  It was about the wonderful internal world that had made me believe that I was a fairy, about the belief that there was always more to life than meets the eye.  There was something else, beyond all the conventional stuff, and I thought other people knew it too.  I was always surprised when no one else could see it.  I had friends throughout my school years, lovely friends, but I had a reputation of being very arty and very odd.  I wasn't odd, I was just different.  And it amazed me that other people did not see things in the way that I did.  I was arty though.  I discovered second hand shops while in sixth form, when I was fifteen and sixteen which opened up a whole new way of dressing in odd old cast offs and hand me downs, for next to nothing.  I thought I looked wonderful but, of course, wearing a man's old torn silk dressing gown as a dress with feathers in my hair at a respectable convent boarding school did not go down well.  At university later, in the wilds of Aberdeen in Scotland, I no longer thought I was a fairy but my need to express myself through clothes went into extravagant overdrive.  My friends and I discovered the old Cyrenians thrift shops.   The Cyrenians are a charity in Aberdeen helping homelessness, but back in the late nineteen seventies and early eighties, when charity shops were less fashionable and much more like a jumble sale, we would buy all our clothes and shoes from there, whatever we bought smelling old and bedraggled, and proudly wear them.  Our lodgings did not have bathrooms, and only outside loos, so we were not terribly clean to begin with.  These dreadful old clothes we loved so much looked as if they had been removed from down and outs on the streets, and sold on for a bit of cash. I, personally, thought I looked absolutely wonderful.  Not many others agreed.  I had bright pink beehive hair too, just the thing for Aberdeen in the early nineteen eighties.  Word went round the university that I was a witch, and I lived in a bicycle shed. Whatever I was, I was smelly, oddly dressed and totally oblivious.

 

Not a fairy so much as a 
witch living in a bicycle
shed

But!  I still saw life as magical.  I did not drink, smoke or take drugs.  I drank tea, ate cakes, and discovered whole foods.  I became a vegetarian.  And I painted, drew and created - I even covered the walls in my lodgings with drawings and paintings.  I think I had trouble with boundaries.  

Being married, being divorced, raising children on my own, trying to work out this world in which I did not feel I belonged, followed.  Always, I painted.  Throughout all of the difficult middle years, whatever clothes I wore, however I did my hair, I painted pictures.  It was what grounded me.  For a long time, in my middle years, the struggle to keep going clouded the magic in the world, and kept me under a dark spell. It is enough to say that we all got through, and that the world does not stop just because we struggle.  There were many bright moments, but those difficult years taught me my most valuable lessons.  I did not feel fabulous at all then, I lost my way and lost my heart. But some of my best art work was created in those years.  Somehow, the fabulousness was still there, but hiding in a different form for when I was ready to see it.  Perhaps it needed to step aside while I learned hard lessons about life, and myself, and who I thought I was.

So where is all this fabulousness now?  How have I come to terms with it, and has my wish, so far, come true?  

All I wanted, was to be was fabulous.  I did not want to do fabulous, though of course that would be very nice.  I am fabulous.  So are you, if you believe it.  This kind of fabulous is about us, what we think of ourselves and what we allow ourselves to believe.  There has been a long middle section of my life between being born a fairy and now, when I am telling you I am fabulous, and in that middle section, I learned that the world can be a harsh critic, a hard task master and an unforgiving teacher.  I learned that I cannot wait for affirmation from anyone else to give me the right and the courage to go on.  Time and time again, the little light that I lit in my heart in order to be fabulous would be snuffed out by events, other people, and most importantly, my failure to protect it.  I ended up feeling very invisible and sad indeed.  I longed for other people to define me as wonderful, and to see that the magic was still there.  I did not understand that other people have very little interest in my magic, in my little light.  They are all learning how to deal with their own magic and little lights.  

Probably all of you reading this blog

And so now, when more than two thirds of my life is over, I can have a proper look at this question of being fabulous.  It is not dependant on my looks, which is a relief.  That is good, I don't have to be young and slim with a winning flirty smile.  It is not about my fame, because I haven't got any.  My fabulousness does not go up and down on a sliding scale depending on how many people tell me they love me, either in person or in social media likes, or I would be permanently trying to buy my followers on Instagram or Facebook, and forcing everyone else in real life to tell me they love me, so I can sleep at nights.  All of that is fickle, unreliable and at the mercy of whim.  No.  When I think of being fabulous now, I think of how I have come through, come up trumps, am still alive, and am surrounded by friends I admire and family I treasure.  I feel free.  I feel the magic is here, all around me and that I am a part of it.  So much has happened, I do not have to go through those lessons any more, I am older, wiser and still here.  And there is so much more life to come.  I am fabulous.  I do care, but not very much.  Not like I used to.  I care about kindness, love, friendship, quality of time spent with people, truth and focus.   At last, I like myself and I like who I am.   

If I say I am fabulous, I jolly well am.  And so, I think, are you. 

Fabulous. 

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Today is my wedding anniversary

Mr and Mrs Bedford

Today is my wedding anniversary.  Four years ago today, I married Mr Bedford in a hospital side room, and became Mrs Bedford.  It was a hot, sunny day, all our families crowded into the hospital room in their best clothes and though there was much light and joy, it was also the saddest day.  The groom, Mr Bedford, had six weeks and one day left to live.  We knew he did not have long, but none of us really thought it would be so soon; we must have guessed deep inside though, because of the haste in which we arranged the wedding.  The side room in the hospital was transformed with balloons, an afternoon tea with bone china and dainty cakes, and bunting.  The tiny room had to double up as a registry office and party venue and so I made my vows to dear Mr Bedford with my eye on a lavish cream tea just feet away. It is common knowledge that I love cream teas.  That is why his family, my new in laws, provided it.  

Mr Bedford and I had been together for over eight years.  We thought often about getting married, but never quite got round to it, we somehow managed to evade the seriousness of it.  Of course, we knew we would end up married but every time we tried to think about it, one or other of us decided we needed more time.  Life was full enough as it was, without weddings to think of.  I would have been his third wife, and he would have been my second husband.  We had done it all before, it did not seem terribly urgent.  And, of course, we used to argue like mad.  Are we right for each other? we would think after we had disagreed about the millionth thing that day.  Is this the right person for me?  But there was a bond of deep friendship that could not be overlooked.  Our arguments were always resolved, mostly because Mr Bedford had the courage to address difficulties and insist we talk them over.  I liked to flounce and sulk, which was water off a duck's back to Mr B.  Tell me how you are feeling, he would say, and I learned that it was safe to do so.  Tell me the truth, said Mr Bedford, and I found that he respected my opinion, and took me seriously if I told him whatever truth I had, even if it was hard to hear.  Mr B was a proper grown up.  No amount of pretending I was fine when I was not would fool him.  I learned that it was safe to speak my truth, and that of all people in the world, Mr B would respect it. Even if he did not like it, he would respect it, as long as it was the truth. 

 We were exact opposites to each other, we were so very different that when we could not agree on something, it was like talking to someone from another planet.  But when we were in harmony, due to our deep underlying friendship, we were unstoppable.  He was a detail man.  He liked to read the small print, and he was forensic in his thinking and analysis. He needed to be, he wrote serious case reviews on some dreadful child abuse cases, and his detective skills, his interview techniques, and his ability to research, remember and apply the law was astonishing.  I on the other hand, am a fairy.  I live in a world of imagination, creativity and instinct. I made plans as I went along, I took risks and did not care about rules.  I was extroverted, he was introverted. I looked up at the sky, marvelling at the clouds and space, and he looked down, fascinated by the detail of the stones and pebbles on the path ahead.  We would take each other by the hand and show each other our worlds.  Look!  he would say, at this fascinating detail here on this path, look at all the millions of things to study.  I would point up to the sky.  Look! I would say, at all the space up here, the stars and the clouds, look at all the magic.  

When Mr Bedford became ill, he was stoic.  He had been an NHS man for most of his career, he managed hospitals, he was a trouble shooter when things went wrong, he became a specialist in managing super bugs in hospitals, and spent time trying to improve waiting times in A and E departments all over the country.  But when his health began to deteriorate, no one picked up the symptoms.  It's your heart!  They said, and in fact, it was stage four cancer.  It was picked up in hospital almost by accident.  Mr Bedford, the NHS man, did not fight.  He took his diagnosis on the chin, so to speak, and began to put his affairs in order.  Part of this was to propose to me.  

The tennis champ, refusing to give in.

We went on a tennis holiday just after he knew he had cancer, or rather, I joined him on his tennis holiday because he was beginning to struggle with his energy.  As a dedicated tennis player, he needed to be on the court, as one of the team, and to not give in.  His colleagues cheered him on every time he got up to play, and he displayed his iron will in not letting the exhaustion stop him.  He was a star, they all loved him.  But back in the hotel room, his face grey with the effort, his legs giving way, he lay down and slept where no one could see the toll it was taking.  But he would not give up.  I loved him very much on that holiday.  He was so brave.  He did not complain once.

Alan had cancer.  By the time it was discovered, it was too late.  He tried chemo but it made him so ill that they would not continue.  His decline was very fast. Then, on the 18th of August 2016, from his hospital bed on the ward attached to drips and lines and tubes, after a gruelling operation that did not entirely work, he proposed.  Marry me, he said.  Of course!  I said, and we burst out laughing together, all our differences forgotten and the giddy joy of having finally agreed to get married making us giggle and hold hands.  It is the only time I saw Mr B looking bashful.  

The bashful Mr B.  Engaged at last. 

Alan's delightful family took over from here. Somehow, they made a side room in the hospital into a paradise of colours and festivities.  They organised the whole thing, while I rushed off to arrange the fastest appointment I could with the registry office.  We arranged to be married in three days time.  August the 22, at the hospital.  Yes, the registrar said, we have done urgent weddings at the bedside before, we will be there and all will be well.  I found wedding rings, but had to buy a chain for Alan's ring as his hands and fingers were so large, nothing would fit and we could not wait to order a special wedding ring.  So, he wore his wedding ring on a chain around his neck.  On the day he died, I took it from his neck and wore it myself for months.  We both knew I would do that.

The wedding tea

Oh, on the day, on our wedding day, Alan's brother David got him dressed in the ward with the curtains around the bed.  Everyone on this and the surrounding wards knew he was getting married, it was almost heartbreaking.  They were so happy for him.  Alan wanted to wear a smart shirt and trousers.  Control and dignity were important to him. He wanted to walk into the room, but could barely stand, and so had to accept a wheelchair.  His iron will could no longer keep his body in check.  I tried to wheel him into the wedding room, thinking it would make a brilliant entrance, but I couldn't control the chair.  I kept wheeling him off at right angles into the wall. This annoyed him and we nearly had one of our arguments, but I could not deny that it wasn't very dignified to have him wheeled in backwards with plaster all over his smart clothes.  He asked for me to get a nurse, he didn't want us lurching into the room like drunks, and so a nurse wheeled him in gracefully and everyone cheered.  After we said our vows, he could not keep himself upright in the chair, and was wheeled back to his bed, a married man, while we all stayed and had the cream tea. Mr Bedford found it hard to keep his head raised and his eyes open when we said our vows.  "Look at me!" I said to him, "I will not marry a man who cannot look at me!" and so he did.  He gave one of his little private smiles, and I knew he loved it. 

Later, when everyone had gone home, and I had dropped guests off at the station to get their trains, I went back to his bedside, where I spent the rest of the afternoon in my best dress sitting beside my new husband as he lay motionless and exhausted, holding his hand.  The sun was shining, the balloons and bunting were removed and my new wonderful in laws quietly took everything away so that I did not have to.  I was deeply happy that day, I had married my Mr B, I was Mrs B, and I had gained his family, his most excellent family, as mine too.  I had in laws to boast about, I had a husband to love and to be proud of, and I had a job to do.  The job, we both knew, was to see him out of this life, and to go with him as far as I could, with his brother David and his son Chris.  But that was not today, that was not on the agenda on the 22 August 2016.  That day was my wedding day.  

Six weeks and one day later, on the 23 October 2016, his brother, his son and I held him as he died.  Mr Alan Bedford and I, Mrs Antonia Bedford, had had six weeks and one day of a perfect marriage.

Happy Anniversary Mr B.  Love from Mrs B. 

The wedding afternoon, holding my new husband's hand.

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You're going to die.

Some older zombies 

I know this.  You know this.  We all suspect it, but we don't let it in if we can help it, and quite right.  Once we experience a death we see that life is finite.  How can we stop living, we ask? How on earth can we accept such a thing?  And yet, no matter what we think, say or do, at some point, we will, as my mother used to say, push off.  

Life takes on more meaning once we accept it will end.  It is a strange old journey, life.  Every time we think we have it sussed, something happens and we realise there is more to learn, more to experience, more to do.  Life keeps throwing us curved balls, but we have to keep going.  In amongst the curved balls are times of real happiness too, like when we love someone who loves us back, or when our children are born, or when things go well for us and we can pay our bills or perhaps when our achievements are all that we hoped for.  We plod on, but whatever life we have, and choose, death is the final state.  Death puts life into perspective.  Once we get over the shock that it is real, we can get a grip on our lives and make those decisions, do those things, be that person that we have been putting off.  Our lives are in our hands.  How will we live?  Who will we be?  

No one ever said life was easy. But it is amazing.  It is up to us to make it work, and take risks.  We may not end up with the thing we wished for, but the journey we took to get there will have been a whole lesson in itself.  Realising that we have only so much time can focus us brilliantly on how we are actually living.  It has a way of forcing the issue. I argued with and had a huge dislike of my husband Alan's political views.  It seems that I was locked into being right at all costs and unable to concede an inch.  I understood, after he died and it was too late to tell him, that I did not have to agree with him.  It was not so much that I disliked his politics, it was that I could not be wrong.  As part of my missing him after his death I made myself look at his views, remember what he said, and recall how he behaved in his life.  I also remember his saying that he was once as rigid and uncompromising as me, and that he understood what I felt.  I hated that at the time, but it makes sense now.  He was a lot older than me, and had the gift of being able to change his mind if the arguments were good enough.  The risk for me here was humility.  My husband would never have laughed at me if I had listened to him and changed my mind a bit.  He would have admired me.

Risks.

Probably don't take this risk

We can't avoid risk, things could always go pear shaped, that nice safe job that we took because it didn't ask much of us and stretched out over the years in secure and peaceful anonymity may suddenly tell us we need training in bomb disposal and single armed combat.  That wasn't what we signed up for!  We all know about the risks of being rejected, disliked, got rid of, abandoned, shown up, humiliated, shamed and so on. To some degree, these are present both in the tiniest of things, like making a phone call, to large things, like being shown up in public.  But there is also the risk of things going well.  We may take a risk and succeed with happiness, success, belonging, achievement.  We may fear going to the doctor when we know something is wrong.  When we do take the risk of being told we are in a bad way and we have only months left to live, quite the opposite happens and we not only have a clean bill of health but we marry the doctor.  

I think, as with all things, it all comes back to how well we know ourselves, how much we like ourselves, and how much of our power we have given away.  If I am afraid, my fear is likely to dictate how I act and react.  That may feel like survival.  Everything feels risky and a challenge.  If I decide to take a risk first, and then I feel fear, like working for an exam, an audition, an interview, my fear is part of the process but not the instigator of it.  If I know myself well, if I am self aware, I may make informed choices and understand risks to myself, my work, my surroundings a bit more - I may be able to pick myself up if it does not work out, and not give up completely.  At the moment, I am seeing such huge aversion to risk, real or perceived, that I wonder if we have all lost the plot. 

What are you afraid of?

My friend is a long term cancer survivor, a palliative care nurse, and over sixty.  Over the past few months she has faced hostility for going to work, and returning home.  She is

•  vulnerable because of her cancer long ago, and the complications that are part of her life now    
• working with people who are going to die in the hospice, some of whom are old 
• old herself.

The hostility she has been dealing with is so strangely illogical and so unreasonable that it has left her sad.  The main concern is that by going to work she meets people who are not only elderly, but moribund.  By being outside in the air too, which is so buzzing with a single virus, she is perceived to be carrying with her this single virus that will kill not only her (which she asked for, she shouldn't have gone out), but all the neighbours and those in her village.  She should know better than to put them all at risk by leaving her house to carry on supporting the dying, and herself an elderly cancer survivor too.  The people who are angry with her are safe, well, solvent, and locked into a paranoid self concern.  My friend knows herself well, is unlikely to put herself or anyone else in danger, and does not make unwise decisions where health is concerned.  Over forty years a nurse, she has worked out what is practical and what is not.  She has carried on working and has probably helped some of their relatives and friends die with a friendly hand holding theirs, because not only are they not allowed in to visit, but they darn well wouldn't have gone anyway.  Too dangerous.  Every person for themselves. 

She had dealt with this with grace and courage.  She has begun to ask people what they are afraid of.  It is her belief that they are all afraid of death.

At the moment, I wonder if death is our number one fear.  Our fear of being ill right now is not just about having to rest for a day or two, it is about death.  It is the certainty of death.  We have linked the virus to our own death, and it is coming to get us.  We do not know much about it but we know an awful lot about the risk it poses to us, to our families, and to the whole world.  We know that the risk is too big to manage, and that we are encouraged to be terrified of each other, ourselves, and all known surfaces. 

Our deepest fears of survival are triggered.  I wonder if we are acting from our lizard brain, the oldest part of our brains that governs such things as survival, being territorial, hunger, thirst and habits.  I think our need to survive this one virus has frightened us into a complicit isolation where our safety is so threatened, we have forgotten who we are. I do not blame anyone, the narrative we have is very frightening, and would challenge the most easy going person.  But somehow, underneath it all, is, I think, a fear of death.  As someone I know says, we have lost perspective, we are all OK and we will survive.  And as someone else I know noticed, most people are more afraid of what others think of them if they do not join in the public dance around not getting the virus, than actually getting ill.  I met with a friend a while ago who was delighted to meet me but not where anyone else could see.  No, she said, she wasn't in the least concerned about getting ill, she just did not want anyone to see her and judge her.  So perhaps it is not all about the fear of death, it is about the fear of social disapproval too.  Heavy stuff. 

We are all going to die.

That was quick

When my friend has enough answers to her question, "What are you so afraid of, " I will publish them.  It will be good to see what people say, it will help me understand why we are so lost in our fear. 

Until we do die, we are very much alive.  I looked online to find an alternative view to the narrative on the pandemic, and could not find anything beyond the fact that all those who question it are Brexiteers and climate change deniers.  That made me feel a bit misunderstood.  And so I am back to my main thought.  We are all going to die.  If that is so, and I believe that it is, I am going to take a risk and get on with my life.   I do not see you as a threat.  I do not believe that if you pass me by on the street, in a shop, on a bus, that either of us will fall to our knees and pass away (unless we get shot, or have a heart attack). I am not going to wash my shopping bag if it touches yours, or put my shopping on a sterile mat for a few days before unpacking it.  I will shake your hand if you offer it.  I will hug you if you want it.  When you are fearful and alone, I will come and visit if you ask me.  What are we afraid of?  I am certainly not afraid of you unless you want to hit me over the head.  In our day to day lives, I am not afraid of you, and I am not afraid of this virus.  I am taking the risk and celebrating life. 

I am celebrating my birthday this year with a reggae disco in my garden. I will be dancing to 
the Jolly Boys here, the oldest reggae band in the world. 

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On not conforming, being creative and needing a platform.

Being creative and needing a platform. And not conforming because I booked this theatre slot before I had written the show.  Doing it all backwards.  

A few years ago I narrowed down my whole personality to three points.  They are

• I do not conform
• I am creative
• I need a platform.

Everything about myself is covered by these three explanations.  I was delighted at the time to have discovered my own formula.  What is more, I liked the formula.  I still do like it, and am going to add another that has come to my attention in the last year or so.  A number four.  Here is it is -

• I am a teeny bit rebellious.

I do not conform.

From an early age, having been born a fairy, I was at loggerheads with convention.  It was as if I had an inbuilt alternative agenda which made me look at the world with surprise.  There were rules, and there was a right way of doing things but, they were so obviously not applicable to me that I was

Me as a fairy.  

constantly astonished when I was told off.  Growing up, I was attracted only to the wild, naughty children.  I myself wasn't really one of them, I just thought they had a better way of looking at things and so I tagged along.  I liked how they challenged the rules and seemed to do what they wanted.  Many of them had very difficult home lives, and I did not. I had a lovely family in a nice big house where our dad used to read Dickens to us and Mum made lamb stew with pearl barley from scratch, and we had it in special blue plates inherited from lovely Irish aunts.  I knew many of the naughty children were responding to family difficulties, and sometimes I wished I had a nice alcoholic mum, or a dad in prison or something that would give me a reason to be naughty.  As it was, I simply drifted to the bad kids like a puppy, and thought they were all wonderful.  They all thought I was a hippy.

I always knew I was an artist.  In order to live as an artist, I had to stick to my guns and simply ignore the opposition.  There was plenty of opposition.  Getting a proper job and earning a living was the goal and I was encouraged to think of ways my art could be channelled into something practical and conventional.  I had a go at that from time to time, but it took the light out of me and never worked.  I am an artist and I have to follow a different path, one that allows me to step off it and experience life from outside.  Of course this freedom also enabled me to make appalling decisions and make a complete pig's ear of my life but, I survived.  And now, it is all worth while.  I am an artist, I am an artist extraordinaire, and I still have no intention of conforming.  (But I am very nice and well behaved, you don't always know I am not conforming until later when you think about it.)

I am creative

Being creative is not enough.  We need to express it.  People who either say they are not creative or who are ignoring their creativity fear that it is a messy business.  They fear it means getting covered in mess, in paints, in feathers, staying up all night chasing the muse, and dressing badly.  It is a challenge, a problem, and causes upheaval. It is about going outside our comfort zone. Once we understand that creativity is just about expressing ourselves, the pressure is off.  It does not have to be anything we don't want it to be, but it does need us to stop judging it, and just play.  And actually, it is quite safe to play and get a bit messy.

I am creative.  It isn't just about painting, or writing, though those are excellent ways of expressing myself.  It is about enjoying colour, putting lights and little statues in my garden, it is about wearing pink and matching it with pink earrings and lipstick.  It is about sitting and making sure everything in my line of sight is beautiful, it is about cooking all the things left over in the fridge, and tying my recently late father's shoe to his grandfather clock in my house, as a memorial to him.   

My creativity does not always wait for inspiration.  Sometimes, I let ideas work themselves out for a while but as it is me who will use them, I am proactive and at some point start work and enter into the unknown, the creative process, whether ready or not.  My creativity does not sit outside me, and I wait for it to show up so I can try and use it.  It lives inside me, it is me, and so I have access to it day and night.  It does not have to be perfect, it rarely is anything like perfect, but it will do.  I know I can use it and it's very nice to be such friends with it.  I will just add here that it gets better with practice.  I have to work for the finished product, it doesn't just happen as if I have no part in it.  I work very hard for my results, and that is part of the process.  If it goes well, then creativity and I have done well.  If it doesn't go well, it does not matter.  I will try something else, and have a cup of tea.

I need a platform

I do need a platform.  Oh I absolutely do.  What is the point, I say, of me painting and writing and thinking the way I do without you all knowing about it.  I am not a shy and retiring artist, I like to launch my stuff into the world and wait for you all to tell me how wonderful it all is.  Of course, that is not a given, you may hate what I do and wish me to get a proper job and a sense of propriety.  It does not stop me writing, painting and making videos though.  Here I go, lobbing You Tube videos at you, inviting you to exhibitions, writing books and blogs and, of course, creating daily Instagram and Facebook stories of my life.  

Speaking at an end of life conference.
Sounds like none of us left the
building after the conference, doesn't it?  

The platform I seek though is not simply about my work being seen and read.  That would be nice but, I am motivated by a great deal more than that.  How do we look at, articulate and explore difficult things?  There are times when we need to be challenged, inspired, comforted, entertained, reminded, or encouraged. I use my creativity to explore how we deal with death and dying and recently, how we cope with addiction; those are my difficult things.  I explore and share my experiences and I need, use and have platforms to reach as many people as I can.  I am compelled to do this, and to keep the things I talk about and paint authentic and truthful.  Using platforms to put my work out into the world is a good way of keeping myself in check.  There is nothing more sobering than the opinions of all the people out there who have access to what I do.  The platform I seek is a relationship with everyone who comes across my work and who may resonate with the experiences and stories I use.  It is not a "me and you" thing, it is a "we and us" thing.

A teeny bit of rebellion

This has evolved as I get older.  I have noticed other older people simply not doing things they don't believe in.  My Irish grandmother, a small lady, would wear my very tall grandfather's huge overcoat when coming back from a visit from Ireland to the UK.  She would stuff the pockets with ham, whiskey, sausages and beer and clink her way through customs with some of her seven children.  Just before customs she would clip one of the children around the ear and the resulting chaos would mean she would get past customs without being checked.  Another time, when my boys were about six and nine, my mother smuggled them into France on a pilgrimage bus bound for Lourdes.  She hadn't time to get them passports.  Leave it to me, she said.  The arch bishop was on that bus, and mother shoved my boys behind him as he walked past customs, saying that they were with the bishop.  They got in.  The bishop had no idea he led two little boys into France illegally on his way to a holy pilgrimage to Lourdes, where Saint Bernadette saw and spoke to the Virgin Mary.  

And now I am on my way to the same kind of behaviour.  I can't give you examples because I will possibly get into trouble, but in each case I believe common sense and humanity has triumphed over silly rules and face saving protocol.  There.  That's a bit of rebellion for the common good, but I have yet to smuggle legs of lamb and children across borders.  

Not my actual grandmother but same approach to life.

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