The Silent Pole may already be Here...

Whenever I write a blog, I am wrapped up in a blanket and surrounded by cushions.  This week I am on my bed upstairs.  The studio is too cold and the sofa still has my wee London friend on it, so I am on my bed.

Aha.  Fluff, blankets, cushions, hot colours and a bowl of  food.  We know who lives here. 

The house is still full of people.  I have my four lodgers and Giant Boy; all the bedrooms and spare corners of the house are rented out, and my tiny friend Fatema from London, who is living in the sitting room on my sofa, will be leaving on Monday.  By then, her life will be back on track.  Monday morning, I will tidy up, because the next person, an old friend of the house, may be returning.  He will be, if he turns up, living on Fatema's sofa for the next however long he is here.  We call him the Silent Pole, and he has been staying with us in Bognor on and off for years.  This very quiet and private Polish man likes to work all day, all night, as a graphic designer, and to be as uncomplicated as possible.  Once here, no one ever sees him again.  The microwave pings in the middle of the night, the Silent Pole has come out from under the sofa where he lives, and is heating a single sausage for his dinner.  He travels light, and stays here till suddenly, one day, he has to go.  And off he goes, with his laptop under his arm, his single back pack on his shoulders, in the same clothes he arrived in, and a cheery wave goodbye. He arrives under his own steam, with just a small bag, and a strangely complicated love life somewhere else, and settles into whatever corner he is given until, one day, he has to go, and goes.  We are all very fond of him here, his manners are impeccable and I like how independent he is.  I will make sure everything is ready in case he arrives when I am not looking. The microwave will ping in the early hours one morning, and I will know that Ah. The Silent Pole is here.  He has arrived.  He is eating his one microwaved sausage.  All is well.

It has been a very good week.  I have met some very inspiring people at the Dying Matters Awareness Week launch, and am following them up.  A Graceful Death is being talked about more now, and I am glad that I am no longer painting for it.  It means I can concentrate on setting it up in as many places as possible, and organising all sorts of events, workshops, talks, discussions on the end of life, to compliment the paintings.  The films by Eileen Rafferty, Neill Blume and the music by Lizzie Hornby are absolutely wonderful.  They enhance the exhibition and show how the creative response is so important to deeply felt, deeply feared and often avoided feelings around death and dying.  I am meeting with Dying Matters next week to see how they can help AGD over the Awareness Week.

Team AGD Brighton has been formally organised.  They are, apart from me,

• Nigel Spencer, Palliative Care Nurse Practicioner and Hypnotherapist
• Revd Cannon Peter Wells, Lead Chaplain BSUH NHS Trust and psychosexual therapist
• Rachel Reed-George, Lecturer in Palliative Care

Helpers also include Jackie Keogh, who has helped AGD so much.  If you remember, Jackie had her head shaved to raise money for AGD in September.  She has been treated, successfully, for breast cancer and shaved her hair for us before the chemo got it.  Jackie is affectionately known as Fluffbucket, no one knows why.  We love her whatever she is called.

The dates for the next big AGD are 20 to 23 May, at St Peter's Church, Preston Park, Brighton.  Team AGD will be sorting out the event and you will all be the first to hear once we know what the agenda will be.

The True Fairy 2 materialised in the studio this week.  I wanted her to be all black, but black just didn't work.  It was too dead and dull a colour.  And so, this Fairy has paynes grey and the deepest and darkest of midnight blues to make her what she should be.  Here she is -

The True Fairy 2 is a bit blurry, but you get the idea.  She is painted on canvas so she won't fall off the wall.  The True Fairy 1 was heavy and can bounce, this one is light and can waft off on a Summer breeze.  

I am going to do a True Fairy 3 next, in all white.  I just love these Fairies, probably because it is all about me.  I reckon I'm ever so interesting, and long to explore myself more.  I will probably never tire of it, and by the time I die, landfill sites will be straining under the weight of True Fairies because that Artist, you know, the self obsessed one, who lived in Bognor, wouldn't bloody stop painting them.  But they are good for me.  I keep painting each fairy over and over again, until the right image is looking back at me.  The right face, the right pose, and the right colours.  I like the words on this one too, and see myself adding words to more of them as they appear.  As I get older and older, and more and more forgetful, the writing will probably say things like Eh?  What?  Where did I put my dentures? Who?  Those ones will probably go for a fortune, as I will no longer be able to interact with other people, and no one will be able to tell whether I am doollally or profound.  Some of my later Fairies may even have my shopping list on them.  (Eggs, butter, milk, Frosties).

Giant Boy has been teaching Wee Fats to box.  (Fatema has been living on my sofa this week, remember?) Wee Fats is loving it.  Fats needs to work off her frustrations with life, and has been known to stamp her feet and shout.  Boxing, it seems, is the answer.  Let me show you Fats and Giant Boy, and you can decide who has the advantage.

Fatema and Giant Boy.  Like when Rocky fought the huge Russian fellow

Yes, this is what I mean.  Fats is, of course, much prettier than Rocky and we don't have pictures of Lenin on the wall as inspiration.

I have also my Jesus on the Tubes to do, last week there was a Half Price Double the Love Jesus on the Tube offer for Valentines.  (There is still time if you want one, I need my orders in before 27 January.)  They will start on Monday.  Plus a painting of one of my lodgers who is having herself done for her Grandson. And all the while, quietly, when no one is looking, the Silent Pole will come through the letter box like mist, and the only way we will know he is here is the gentle displacement of air before the front door closes, and the lonely ping of the microwave in the night.    

Back in the Studio with the True Fairy and a Plan

The True Fairy 1 is here, she flew into the studio and took shape and now will be taking her place in the house.  I have to find a way to fixing her to the wall properly, as she has been a bit temperamental so far.  She fell off the wall outside the kitchen this week, so I consider her strong and heavy, and take it as a sign that her character extends even to the wood she is painted on.  Strong, heavy and can bounce.

The True Fairy 1 is here

This week I am writing from my studio, wrapped in an enormous woollen blanket of the softest and warmest raspberry pink from Dublin, and a posh scented candle burning in the corner.  The True Fairy 2, three quarters completed, is on the easel next to me, and in my office, a certain order reigns.  The most important thing in the office, apart from the order that I have created at last, is the Plan that is sitting on my desk.  I made a plan.  My plan is flexible, and expansive, and good, and mine.  Outside, the sky is low, bleak and grey and the cold is biting.  My studio is warm, and silent, and kind.  I like it here.  This morning I queued from 6am in the dark and cold in the car to do a car boot sale. Oh goodness, we didn't set up till 8.30.  At 8.30 on the dot the temperature plummeted, the wind picked up, and everyone groaned.  As soon as the cars began to park and unload, the sky turned dark and no one could see properly what they were doing.  Perhaps that is why I sold a shed load of pieces of wood, old pots, place mats, plastic piping, off cuts, off casts, gravel, and wood shavings.  No one could see properly, it all looked very special and mysterious in the gloom.  No, I didn't sell gravel and wood shavings.  But I did sell my coat, so that was a bit of a surprise.  So no wonder I like my warm, silent and kind studio.

Which is just as well!  I have another lodger moving in today, who nearly couldn't because yesterday when he was due, he had no money. What a good lodger for me to have.  He says he has some today and can he move in at 3pm.  Yes, I said, and the whole household is waiting for him in case he loses it again in the next half hour and has to cancel for the second time.

A dear old friend from London arrived on the doorstep too, needing to stay and think things over.  She lost her job on Friday afternoon and by Friday teatime she was living in my sitting room.  That is why I am not on my sofa, I am in the studio, and thinking it a jolly good move.  So the warm, silent and kind studio is the place I shall come to as my house has filled up with people who need to live there.  Giant Boy seems unperturbed, he likes to greet new people by standing silently squashed in the door frame which is too small for him if he stands up straight, to prove how tall he is.  If they still want to live here with him lurking in door frames, I let them.  As I write, my niece has just messaged to say she is coming, and my other son, the one who was Angry Boy and now is not, who is Changing Boy, is also on his way here.  If this turns out to be a very long blog you know I am avoiding them all.  (I can't come and feed you all, I am on only page 25).

I told you last week about the need to stop, and now I am going to tell you about the need to start again.  There was no great moment of clarity, there was no sudden twitching of the limbs and shooting out of the door to rush about, but there was a decision that now is the time to move on.  I simply decided to stop resting and start moving again.  Having made the decision, I had to take tiny steps; having disconnected with my work for six weeks, I didn't know where to begin.  So that is when I made my plan.  My plan is full of spaces, as that is precisely why I had to stop before Christmas - no spaces.  Just the urge to do more and the fear that I was never good enough.  Oh well, six weeks out of the loop has given me some insight into that.  We can always do more, but if we are busting a gut already, we lose our perspective and go pop.  And as for not being good enough, well, it's great to improve, which is about positive expansion of mind, body and soul, not about neurotic navel gazing, which is fear based.  So, the plan now, for me, says amongst other things - At the end of the day, go and read your book.  And it says - At least 2 days a week are dedicated - dedicated I say - to painting fairies. Here, for both yours and my benefit, are the plans.  I will start with a special offer which you will love.  I need requests in by the 27th of this month to have them done by 14 February.

Special Offer that you will love.

Jesus on the Tube Valentine Offer.  Half the Price Double the Love.

The original Jesus on the Tube painting

Jesus on the Tube, by is a painting with a life of its own.  The original was painted 20 years ago, and has since then travelled the globe promoting discussions about Jesus in our world and how we relate to him and each other.  It has been used as a teaching aide by the BBC, Alpha International, RE Today and is used for teaching children RE in the National Curriculum. 

I paint portraits of families and friends with Jesus, at a station of choice, and consider this a wonderful example of Jesus moving amongst us.  Even Rowan Williams, when he was Archbishop of Canterbury, had one painted of him and his family.

 And so, linking Jesus, Valentine and Love -

Half the Price Double the Love Jesus on the Tube Valentine offer. Jesus is the embodiment of love, Valentine’s Day celebrates love, and so I offer you your own personal Jesus, on a Tube Train, at a station of your choice, with you and/or your friends and family, for half the normal price. 

Cecil and family on the tube with Jesus

Normal Jesus on the Tube prices start at £800, yours will be £400. Price includes framing and P&P.

Fortuna Family on the tube with Jesus

The first 5 people who contact me before Monday 27 January will be successful. Have photos ready, and choose your Jesus and Station, and contact me asap. 

Email me on antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com and be one of the first five.

Size of actual painting is 5”x 5”, the frame will add a good few inches.  Painted from photographs in acrylic on paper.

Website –www.antoniarolls.co.uk  Love! It works!

A Graceful Death News

• AGD will be coming to Southampton for the day, taking part in "A Dead Good Day Out" on the 10 May in St Andrews Church and Hall, Avenue Road.  My dear friend and Soul Midwife Mandy Preece will also be taking part in this day.
• St Peter's Church in Preston, Brighton will be the venue for AGD during Dying Matters Awareness Week, 20 to 24 May 2014.  We will be showing portraits of people facing the end of life, with conversations between me and the AGD portrait sitters, filmed by Eileen Rafferty, our AGD photographer and film maker. There will be talks, discussions, workshops on matters to do with death and dying and our reaction to it, and how we can face it in our families and our own lives. Sound Therapist Sarah Weller who is a great success at all our events, will also be giving one of her much acclaimed sound workshops.  We are also hoping to have the composer Lizzie Hornby playing the music she created for A Graceful Death in concert, on the piano. Lizzie's work is haunting and joyful and beautiful. Well worth coming to hear her play.
• I am meeting a journalist tomorrow who is interested in covering this St Peter's Preston Park AGD event.  We are meeting in the evening after I have attended the ... 
• Dying Matters Awareness Week Launch Event in London, called You Only Die Once.  I am hoping to write a small piece for the Dying Matters blog on AGD in Brighton, I will let you know when it is done.
• Swansea in October/November.  AGD is planning to go to join Soul Midwife and nurse Keira Jones and her husband musician Jim Fox in Swansea, for an event covering more end of life matters.  This event will be full of creativity and music, and Keira will talk of her amazing work with the dying as a companion and loving presence.  Story teller Jade Parsonage Buck, another Soul Midwife, will, we hope, be coming to take part. 
• Life Boards are back! If you think you would like to come, book yourself in.  First one is this Tuesday 14 January, 9.45am to 1pm. Next one is on Saturday 1 Feb from midday to 3pm here. Workshops are 3 hours long, all materials provided.  Here in my house or I can travel to you to do a workshop.  £30 per person.No more than 4 people per session.  Email me on antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com.                                                                                                            "Excellent after loss, a life event, or if you just want to see how you are feeling.  Excellent too after a change in your life, or if you are needing some time to think.  The Life Board Workshops help you to connect with how you are feeling now.
  Life Board Workshops are run in small, friendly groups.  Come and discover more about yourself using colour, words, images, all manner of materials, create a Life Board that reflects back to you more than you imagine. At the end of the workshop, we will discuss what it says, and you will take your Life Board home with you to remind you of how special you are."

Life board full of feathers and fun and complexity

Life board with wisdom on one side, beauty on the other.

• A NEW DEPARTURE  FOR AGD.  Can you help?  I am developing a new way of working with the dying, using painting, writing, recording etc, and I am looking for someone who is facing the end of life to work with me while developing the idea.  I need someone who is interested in expressing themselves and using creativity to do so.  An unusual request, and an important one. Can you help?  Do you know anyone - or are you the person to help?   Please message me on antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com to talk it over.

And finally.  I feel the time has come for a cup of tea.  I shall wade back into the house, my four lodgers, two sons, one niece, and one friend will have found a way to feed themselves, and I shall feign artistic distraction and go to bed early.  I have an early start tomorrow, off to London for the Dying Matters thing and the journalist, with Changing Boy and Distracted Family Friend in the car for the ride, at 6.30am.  I shall leave you with the face of the first True Fairy painting.  I like her, and she would have no problem having her tea and feigning artistic distraction.  I shall go now and do the same.

The face of the True Fairy 1 looking at you like she knows something.  Well, she does know something.  I wonder what it is.

Sleeping With One's Soul, Taking Time Off

Thank you to Gail Martin Stevens, my friend and help, for sending me this

It has been a few weeks since I have written a blog, and you may wonder if I became so concerned about the ageing process (the last blog was about ageing http://antoniarollsartistextraordinaire.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/on-noticing-that-one-is-ageing.html ) that I took time off to recover in a local nursing home.  I took time off, yes, but spent it here in Bognor.  Today I am back though I suspect I am only half way through my time off, and that, time off, is what I want to talk about today.

After taking AGD to Bridport, I began to wind down.  By the beginning of December I was having to admit to myself that I had stopped functioning and that I needed everything to stop. I simply could not think straight.  The little spring of creativity that bubbles away dried up completely, the excitement about the future left me, and everything turned a shade or two darker.  It was not simply that I was tired, it was that I was spent.  I had allowed myself to become wrung dry, and there was nothing left to work with.  The light went out.

I took time off, and stopped.  I say that as if it was a decision, but actually, it just happened.  The nature of being wrung dry is that you stop making decisions, you just are.  You sit there stripped to the basics, and let everything pass over your head.  Coming to a stand still over work is quite something.  It isn't as if my life was segmented neatly so that if I stopped work, the family part would just continue, the social part would carry on and the other bits and pieces would function quite merrily because all the parts were nicely separate and autonomous.  The work section of my life, and I wonder if you are like this, covered every little part of every little bit of my time.  I lived my work, and into that slotted all other things.  All other things became relevant to what I was doing, they didn't stand alone, anything that was floating about independently was vigourously lassoed back into the great work thing.  And so coming to a stand still, where I simply could not do anything at all any more, meant that all sorts of other bits and pieces came to a stop too.

And so.  Time off.  How do you feel about it?  Does it make you shudder?  Do you long for it?  Do you think you can do it, or do you think it is too difficult to manage.  Have you already done it, and did it work?  Lord, what a paradox.  It is a tiny thing to do.  And yet it is too big to contemplate.  Before I took time off, it was far too difficult to fit it in, it got in the way, it scared me, and it was detrimental.  In theory, it's a great idea, all the best people advocate it.  Yes, I said to myself, they can say that, they don't have to struggle as much as I do.  And time off for them is about making a choice with lots of backup to keep things ticking over. If I stop, then everything will cease, and I will disappear, and I will never, ever, be in control again, everyone will forget me, the whole caravan will move on without me and so time off is actually dangerous.

But, one day I just ceased to do anything and that was that.  Simple.  Which is, I suspect, is how many of us find the value of Time Off.  Our little minds, bodies and souls lie down one afternoon and go to sleep.  Too much!  They say, you pushed us too hard.  Now you follow us and lie down and sleep.  One day, we cannot and will not tell you when, we will all wake up and start again in unison.  And you think to yourself, yes.  I will follow you, because I can't remember how to work, I can't remember what I was supposed to be doing.  I don't remember anything any more.

I realise now that I did not disappear. How amazing!  I am still here, and all the things that I could do before, I can do still.  Just not at the moment.  Oh we fear the stopping of the hamster wheel we are on, we think that if it does stop, if we fall off, that it is only a problem.  It is more desirable to be on that hamster wheel than off it.  We are on it because we have convinced ourselves that we are indispensable, and though we may be very important, somehow, life will go on even if we have to stop and it doesn't mean that we cease to exist or lose our value.  It is funny, but life does go on, with or without us.  I am beginning to see that I have feared silence, space and stopping as a vacuum, and therefore hostile, and I have only contemplated it as something to be planned, put in its place, controlled, with a time limit and taking notes all the time I am sitting down and taking my time off in case I miss something.  Ha.

A wonderfully sentimental photo of me to make my point.  Which is....?

It has taken at least a month for me to feel something of the silence around me and enjoy it a bit. I am aware now, when I was unaware before, that I am in a state of transition.  All I have to do is sit with it and see it through.  All!  It is extremely hard.  I am aware that this nothing is something I have feared and avoided for ever, and yet, it is not as bad now as it was.  The main thing is, that I am still here and despite the emptiness and everything being a few shades darker, I am quite relieved to be out of the loop.  I am, I understand, very weary.  Sleeping with my wise old soul, and mind, is secretly, a relief.

In the meantime, life has been continuing, as it does, and I am noticing things.  First, that my Angry Boy is changing and is seeking my company.  He is almost, a little, imperceptibly, coming back.  And so, second, I am grateful to the point of tears, that this is happening.  Thirdly, I have become the weight I always wanted to be and it was not hard.  Fourth, a sense that the work I have been doing is completed.  The next stage is taking a vague shape in my mind, and that perhaps my mind, my soul, is so much wiser than I will ever be, to stop me when I needed to stop, and let me prepare.  Fifth, I have painted two True Fairies, and Eileen says they are good and Giant Boy says they are rubbish.  But I have painted them because I felt like it and they are, actually, just right.  And finally, for now, being in this place of total emptiness and passivity, is important because if I am to be of any use, I have to know how this feels.  I have to experience the nothing, because how can I understand anyone else, if I haven't felt like nothing and still continued to live and not disappear?

And so.  Back to now.  In essence, I am always the same.  I found a photo of me aged about one year old that embodies that essence.  It is about having always been the true fairy, and keeping an eye on the sandwiches.  I leave you with this because at the end of the day, this is what my soul looks like.

The essence of the True Fairy lives on.  In my soul I am always looking for sandwiches.

On Noticing that one is Ageing.

Eileen is with me this weekend.  She is sitting next to me on the other sofa, with her laptop, and between us are two trays of tea.  One for her and one for me.  The house is empty.  Giant Boy is with my cousin and his family, a long long way away in Oxford.  Fancy Girl has gone to Australia with her boyfriend, even further away than Oxford,  and my other son, Angry Boy who seems not to be so angry any more, is somewhere and still alive.

My lodgers, all of them, work at night (no, not like that) and are peacefully asleep during the day.  My newest lodger is passed out on her bed with the door open and is snoring peacefully.  She came back from her night duty at 8am and having got into her comfy pyjamas, put on a load of washing.  Only a half hour cycle, she said, I will wait till I put it all out to dry before I go to sleep.  And now, hours after the half hour cycle has finished, my lodger has still not moved from her room;  she lies on her bed where she fell, in her Eyore pyjamas, and from the open door comes the steady sound of deep snoring.  

There is peace in my house.  I am thinking about what to eat when I am next hungry, and am satisfied that whatever it is, I have all the relevant ingredients in the kitchen, and all is good.  It is nice to be old enough to have anticipated all my needs. 

I am thinking about ageing these days.

Me aged 40, taken by Eileen. I was a lot less wrinkly, a lot less sorted, and with my own hair colour.  

Eileen and I talked about it last night, she is thinking about it too.  I am 53 now, and though my inner life is constant and astonishing, my outer journey seems to have caught up with me.  I look in the mirror and see someone who really is 53.  I always thought I just looked like me, and worried only as to whether I was fat or thin.  Now I look at my skin and see it has aged and is puckered and falls in little wrinkles in places all over my body.  My neck has become looser and the skin is wrinkled.  My hands look like my mother's used to, bony and wrinkled.  It is not a question of fat or thin now, it is a question of fat or thin and older. Whatever my weight is, my body is still older.  Whatever I look like with my clothes on, without them, I am showing my age.  If I don't dye my hair, I am grey.  Goodness me, I say to myself, who is this lady in the mirror?  I know it is me because the eyes are looking at me as they have always done, but I am beginning to doubt the rest of the evidence.  I don't remember my chin changing shape like that, I don't remember my eyelashes becoming smaller, I don't remember all those lines showing up when my face is in repose.  I used to see lines only when I laughed, or frowned, or changed my expression.  Now I am looking at lines, deep lines, from my nose to my mouth, around my eyes, at the corners of my mouth, when I am not doing anything at all.  The face and body I have now is changing and taking me by surprise.

I have recently lost a lot of weight.  At last, I thought, I am the size I want to be.  Yum.  And with clothes on, I am just tickety boo.  But do we ever get to be the person we think we should be?  I have never really liked myself without clothes.  Even in the past when I was very thin and in my early forties, I saw deep imperfections.  I saw a body that was really quite unlovable, a body that didn't match up to the clothed version, a body to keep hidden in case anyone else saw it and was horrified.  How sad, I think now, to have been so wrong.  How sad, and what a waste. It shows much about my state of mind at that time, and I am sorry for that vulnerable, mistaken person with such a distorted idea of her worth.  Now, ten years and much experience later, I have again lost weight and achieved a good body shape, and this time I appreciate it but, my skin has changed.  I have varicose veins.  My stomach is completely shapeless after having had three such large children (Giant Boy was nearly 11lb, the other two were 9lb and 9lb 1oz).  There are no muscles there at all, it has always been a deflated balloon, but now it is even more obvious (to me) because the skin has become thinner and more marked.  And so, I am happy with my size, but concerned about the inevitable and obvious signs of age, and feel that you can never win.

Eileen was saying that women become less noticeable as they get older.  More invisible, was what she actually said.  How do I feel about that?  I feel sad.  On the other hand, what do I need to be noticed for?  It is much more important for me to be taken seriously as an Artist Extraordinaire than to have someone size me up with a gleam in their eye.  I don't want to be be invisible, I don't want to be too old to be attractive, and I don't want to be passed over.  I suspect that my feelings of attractiveness are changing too, and the fact that my body is becoming, quite naturally, the body of an older woman, has made me think of time, of what time I have left, of who I am and what I want.  Oh do we ever know who we are and what we want!  We do, we get an idea of both from time to time, but life is fluid and unexpected, and what worked for us once, may not work for us later.  Who we are and what we want develops, changes, moves on and does not stay static.  I am now, at 53, happy with my shape, and quite happy to stay this way.  But, I am aware that I am changing fast.  What was just a theory, the theory of ageing, is now a reality.  I will never go back to being younger.  Being this shape and older is good but the attention I receive is different.  I do not need nor want the same attentions as a younger woman, but I do want to be appreciated.  Eileen and I agreed that we want to be respected, and listened to.  I suspect that my best work is yet to come, which is a relief.  It's nice to think that as I grow old and start to become a prune, my work may become more and more interesting.

So here we are, Eileen and I, on our sofas, our combined ages are 106.  I look over at her and think she looks just the same as she ever does, and I am not asking her if she looks over at me and thinks the same thing in case she says No.  You are a wrinkled old bat, but you are very nice.  We will stop to have our lunch and then because we are old and wise we will go into the studio and Eileen will continue to edit her new film, and I will paint the first of the True Fairies that I have been working on.  No messing around for us.  Time is ticking, we have work to do.  I may be doing mine in smaller trousers (stretchy ones, they have to go over my varicose veins) and Eileen may look as she did to me when I met her at nineteen, but age is a funny old business, and it either spurs you on to do wonders, or it depresses you into doing nothing.

Me, thirteen years later, aged 53, taken by Alan who is twelve years older than me and doesn't make half the fuss.

And just to give it all some perspective

My mother.  At 83, she is beautiful and funny and old.  A good role model, and you can see where I get the tea thing from.

29 November Anniversary, and Much Mud.

Today is Steve's anniversary.  He died on the 29 November 2007 at 10am, and so I went to Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve to do something to mark the moment.  I mean this in a most healthy way, I was not meaning to go to the estuary and lie down in tears wearing my best wedding frock and let the tide wash over me.  I wanted to celebrate and remember, and feel good about our time together.

The landscape that most holds the memory of Steve for me.

I cycled to Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve a few days ago, only to find that it is the most beautiful place on earth.  I left the bike chained securely to a flimsy and unsafe old footpath sign, hoping that any bicycle thief would find it too difficult to cycle off with my bike dragging along behind it a weather beaten sign with a wooden finger pointing up into the sky saying This Way. Enjoy Yourselves.  This landscape above reminds me of Steve, it is the kind of place in which I imagine his spirit is happiest. Steve loved the sea, he loved boats and he loved silence.  Sometimes I thought he was only on loan to us, his place was far, far away from the bustle and noise of life.  One night, I caught him looking up into thousands of stars in the night sky, as he stood in his garden looking over the hills and fields, and I was struck with the knowledge that he was on loan here.  His place was amongst the stars. I had the same feeling when I saw him in places like this, with the ebb and flow of the tides, the birds flying overhead and only the silence and power of nature.  

Me and Steve, on loan to us for a while.

This morning, I put into my bag two bright tulips from a bunch that dear Alan had given me, some stones from the garden, some pieces of paper and a pen, and some matches. Leaving the bike chained again to the old battered wooden sign at the Harbour, I walked along the mud and sand banks, trying to keep to the path, through the puddles as the tide was out, until I found a piece of the estuary in which I could create a little ceremony for us.  I wanted to be ready at 10am, the time that he died. And so, at five minutes to ten, in a little spot amongst the sand and pools of water, I sat on a bit of grass and wrote on the paper, wishing him a happy anniversary, and thanked him for everything.  I wrote a good few notes and letters to him, with thoughts and news of my life, and hopes for the future.  I told that I loved him, and I asked him to keep looking after me.  As the wind was blowing fiercely off the sea, burning the letters wasn't possible, and so I left a circle of stones with the two red and white tulips in the centre as a memorial to us, and went off looking for somewhere to build a little cairn and burn the letters.

I found a space eventually in some overhanging branches at the side of the estuary.  It was lovely inside, like a mermaid's cave, with bits of seaweed hanging off the shrubbery around me.  In my little cave of branches, I sat on the sandy floor and built the cairn with the stones and rocks around me, and I burnt the letters, one by one, warming my cold hands by the tiny fire.  A robin red breast joined me from nowhere, and hopped from branch to branch only inches from my head, watching me and the fire with tiny beady eyes.  I spoke to it gently, telling it things about Steve, and explaining what I was doing.  It wasn't afraid of me, and stayed on a branch listening intently with its little head on one side.  We watched the fire die down, the robin and I, for a long time, in mutual companionship.  When eventually I decided to go, the robin had gone. I had not seen nor heard it fly away, it was just gone.

The tide was coming in as I walked back.  Without knowing the landmarks and not recognising where the path was, I found myself walking in the wrong bit of the estuary, into the sand and mud, and wham.  Over I go, my boots stuck in the sand, sinking fast and I sprawling in the mud making a right old mess of my coat, hat, gloves, tights, face, hair and nice white jumper.  Righting myself somehow and pulling out my boots in my stockinged feet, and realising that if I spent more than a half second at a time in the mud I would sink and join Steve amongst the stars, I waddled as best I could over clumps of seaweed that would be safer to stand on,  and arrived back eventually to the bank.  I looked like a creature from the black lagoon.  I had weeds in my hair, thick mud coating me, my clothes, my face, and up my nose.   I put my boots back on, displacing the mud inside with my feet, and squelched back to my bike.  I was wet, a few stone heavier with the mud, and very very cold.  This is all because of you, Steve, I thought.  I hope you're satisfied.  Last time I get sentimental on your anniversary, I felt like saying.  Next year, I shall have a cream tea in a comfy hotel and think of you there.  

Me coming out of the mud.  Not really, but similar.  

I rode home in style.  Today is the first day for my new lodger in the house, I wanted her to feel at home and safe on day one, and so I hoped she would be out when I arrived.  Of course she wasn't.  She was standing by the door.  When I said that I had fallen in the water and mud at Pagham Harbour, I could see that she thought that I was one of those odd posh arty types you read about.  "I do it all the time!" I could have said, picking seaweed from my teeth, "I like to jump into the quicksands at the estuary when I feel low, it always makes me feel better!  Gives one perspective!" and she would not have been surprised.

I am feeling better this week.  We have only one day left of November, and it is common knowledge that December will be my month.  It will all be lovely again.  November has been ghastly, and so obviously if November ends, it will end the ghastliness too.  Simples.  I am consolidating my 2013 by not making any intentional decisions until day one of 2014.  I am sitting back and waiting.  I am waiting to see what happens.  Instead of me going out to get things and do stuff, I am waiting for stuff and things to come to me.  Nice stuff and things, in December only nice things happen.  I am chilling, chillaxing, watching, thinking, pondering, and taking notes.  Life is too short, I read, to be always on the go.  Fine, I say, I shall be on the stop.  I am in transition.  I am in a limbo.  I am filling the empty vessel that is me, with time off and lots of nothing.  Actually, decisions will be made, they will happen when I am not looking and I will be pleasantly surprised that I have made them while thinking of something completely different.

Happy in my blanket in the kitchen gazing at the iPhone as Giant Boy plays me some of his French Rap music and I am reminded that I do not know what is going on and need more time.

To end now, on a happy note, I am going out with Alan tonight to the poshest of dinners at Amberley Castle.  We are dressing up, having bubble baths and putting perfume behind our ears (mostly me doing that) and ending the month of November in style.  From Shrek yesterday to Elizabeth Taylor today.  Roll on December.

On My Soul Calling an Experience for my Good.

We call to ourselves experiences that we wish to have for our growth.  Some say that there is no coincidence, there is only that which we create for ourselves.  We don't know on a conscious level much of which we cause to happen for our own growth, but deep inside, somewhere under all the cobwebs and the layers of self doubt and worry, our little souls shine like supernovas longing for the chance to experience all that will make them grow, and shine brighter, and cause us to move on and up in our worlds.

The experiences that we cause for ourselves are often difficult to understand.  Why would our deeply buried souls require unpleasant things to use for their growth?  How could our weeny little supernovas attract badness for our benefit, and how are we to understand and use these experiences so that we become wise instead of plotting revenge and ways to have the last word?  Don't know, is the answer.

I called to my soul, over the last few months, an experience that I cannot regret but I do not understand.  It is over now, though my heart hurts and my soul is trying to calm me, telling me that it is all for the best.  One day it will be clear, says my soul, that this was important and I learned much from it.  I would rather not, I say to my soul, life was going so well before you needed this experience.  Ah, says my soul, what have you got from it already?

I have got a glimpse of the power of love and life.  I took a risk, I did what Brene Brown calls daring greatly, and I agreed to go to places which were so seductive and wonderful, and at the same time, filled with danger and harm.  I accepted all of that, and followed my heart and soul into the arena, where I have done battle, and come away bloodied, sad and wise.  But while I have been trying to keep myself safe during this time in the arena, in order to carry on from day to day, the door that was closed into my creativity, opened.  See, says my soul, I sent you something to work with when this experience tuned sour.  Use this, all of this, this powerful emotion, this seemingly random madness, this deeply felt confusion, and make it work for you.  This is what I can do for you, and you will be better for it.  

Now, I am consumed with feelings.  I have not listened to music for many years, not wanting to have to address anything that would shake my resolve to be calm, to get on, to be safe.  Now, I am lost in music, lost in feelings, lost in feeling unsafe.  I want to feel my chest hurt, and I want to pour into it all the music that I can, I want to experience the feelings of loss, and power, and love, and misunderstanding, I want to feel the whole darn lot.  I want to write poetry, and create things that make others gasp and say, "Lord!  What turmoil!  How I feel it too!"  I want to dance outside in the mist in a nice dress, and have someone film it so that the result is so full of meaning that everyone that watches it says "Aaaah.  Mysteries, and life, and boy she must be lost in something big, and blow me down, but I am lost in something big too now ".  

A still from the film I have not made yet, and this is not me, obviously, but it is as mysterious and full of  unknowable feelings as one could wish for.  It is a photo of my troubled older son who has been locked in his own turmoil away from me, for however long it takes for him to come through and come back.  So having his photo as a still for a film not made, about his mother's turmoil, seems fine.  

The day that I closed the door on the experience was the day that the true fairy painting decided to be painted.  It was wonderful.  The wood on which she is being painted was primed, the paints were all ready, I knew she was wanting to come. I started to try and find her by painting her.  She changes and evolves each time I go back to her on the easel, she moves on, and manifests a different mood.  I am intrigued as to who I will find when I have finished painting her for that moment.  The true fairy will tell me that I am fine, and that I did the best I could.  She will tell me that she is from inside me, she is me, she will always be me.  For this, I am very grateful and as the dust settles, and time passes, I am beginning to rest a little and feel that I am safe again.  Sad, but safe.   And now I have the gift of the painting of the true fairy.  She could not manifest before, but she is in league with my soul, and has agreed that now is the time to make an appearance.  It was necessary, she says as I am painting her, you couldn't see me before.   I am here because you needed to find your feelings again, and you needed to come out of yourself, and want to make a film about you dancing in the mist in a sparkling dress to music, you needed to want to find a way to make me real so I could come and see you.

The true fairy aged one.  Fey, delicate, and proud.

The next experience my soul, shining brighter than ever before, is calling to it, is one of love and kindness.  When in the arena this time, and daring greatly again, I will dance with garlands of flowers in my hair, holding the hands of those who love me best.  

Planning a Me Centred December

I am back on the sofa, but not my usual one.  The other one.

My sitting room has two sofas, one by the window, and one by the door.  I usually sit by the window, but Fancy Girl is here for the week, doing last minute stuff for University, and she is sitting on my usual sofa by the window, in the sunshine.  I am sitting on the other sofa, and feeling very comfortable, and very gracious, allowing my usual spot to be taken by my daughter.  Her needs are greater than mine, I say to myself, but what I really mean is, she was there first and has occupied it.

I have come home from Bridport.  The exhibition is unpacked, sorted, and repacked.  The studio has been hoovered, and I have put a fluffy cushion on a chair there so I can sit and be ready for inspiration. All the jobs that have to be done have been done, and now I am sitting on the wrong sofa in my sitting room, with the sunshine coming in through the window, smiling brightly and feeling faintly out of my depth.

There is no time for the studio at the moment.  There is a surge of lodgers moving out, and new ones moving in.  Giant Boy is thinking about driving lessons.  Fancy Girl is doing her last minute Uni work and I have no real space to think.  I have returned from AGD in Bridport, with all the work and effort, all the rewards and engagements there, to Bognor where a different kind of world awaits me.  A world where, amongst other things to do with hoovering and washing and wiping with antiseptic wet wipes, a blind needs repairing, the laundry needs doing, Giant Boy requires some proper food and the garden needs help.  And so, sublime to the ridiculous.  The sublime is where I am working through the A Graceful Death exhibition and project, reaching people, asking questions, understanding things, sitting with the dying, with the bereaved, with the curious, being brave.  The ridiculous is dirty dishes being added to a clean dishwasher, piles of laundry, lots of bills to pay and wilted flowers in old water on the kitchen table.

November has been a difficult, exciting and rather confusing month.  And so, I have decided to take control.  I will make December into a caring, gentle, Antonia centred event.  December will be my month of space, of wilfully following my nose, of only sitting next to people who agree with and are very nice to me.  There will be space, a whole 4' at least, between me and any of my children, my family, my friends or other human beings who are in the same room as me.  I have a piece of  wood in the studio that is 4' long, I will hold it out in front of me, so I can keep all my dealings with other people at a safe distance.  I won't engage with anyone who is not at the end of my stick.  "No,"  I will say, "you are too close.  Let me poke you with my stick to a safe distance, and only then shall I deal with your communications."  There will be space between me and the studio, between me and the cooker, between me and answering the phone.  During December, I will wander aimlessly and happily around.  My favourite sentence will be, "Sorry, can't hear you," and my distance stick will make sure only the most dedicated keep going until I decide to hear them.

Fancy Girl on the wrong sofa, the right one for her, and still the mammoth last minute University assignment continues. My sofa, the right one for me and the wrong one for her, is free now and I am one step closer to a me-centred December

So now, I am sitting in a silent room, alone, with some scented candles and some roses.  One of my lodgers moved out today, and I have occupied her bedroom.  It will be a month till someone else moves in, and so, I have selected some deep pink blankets, some fresh sheets, some smelly candles and some roses from downstairs, and I have moved in.  It is a bare room, which is what I want.  It is really lovely in here, and I feel I may stay here until December.  Fancy Girl is sleeping in my room with me, and though I adore every little hair on her head, I need some space or I may kill someone.  Earlier on I did get onto the right sofa in my sitting room, Fancy Girl moved all her stuff onto the wrong sofa, which did not seem wrong to her, and we were very happy.  That was a small victory, leading to the gentle but swift occupying of the spare room as the lodger was leaving.  "Out of my way," I was thinking, "this is all mine now."  And so it is.  I am very happy in here, with the bare minimum of things and all my nice cushions and blankets.

My Decisions.

• I shall do nothing until January.
• Or February
• Fancy Girl and her boyfriend are off to Australia in December, leaving me use of their flat.  I will go there to write.
• I won't tell anyone about this
• I may change my name in December and speak with a Welsh accent.
• I may get a disguise for December.  I think a Fireman's uniform is a good one. If someone stops me and says, "Oh thank goodness! A fireman! I have a fire for you to put out,"  I will say to them, "I have a raging fire in my soul, which I need to address, and until that fire in my soul is under control, I cannot put out the fire in your wheelie bin."
• I don't have to come out of this bedroom until five minutes before the next lodger arrives in mid December. 
• Garlic sandwiches are fine.  It's not my problem.

I have been rushing ahead full tilt, feeling, as one does, invincible and rather unstoppable. "Pile on the events!" I said to everyone, "the more the merrier!"  I felt robust and inspired, and imagined that it was easy to put on as many AGD events as I wanted, to continue to work with people at the end of life and run the family, deal with the lodgers, try to lose weight, and do the hoovering.  It is absolutely possible to do those things, but not all the time.  No, not all the time.  If you decide to be a human dynamo with no down time built in, sooner or later all the springs and wheels and cogs will start to fly off and everything will grind to a bit of a halt.  I have lost count of the times my friends have told me of this.  I cannot imagine the amount of times I have reminded someone else of this, but do I listen to myself?  Or anyone else?  Do I hell.  And so, my cogs and wheels have pinged off into space, and I have had to stop.  Like the Duracell bunny who's battery has run out, but with more cogs and wheels.

To end this small and intimate blog, I will tell you that a) I have lost over a stone and a half.  I look the bees knees and will probably go mad now buying smaller clothes and wearing them at half hour intervals.  b) I'm fine really.  c)  Both Giant Boy and Fancy Girl have followed me up here with their dinners and are sitting very close to me on the bed asking me if I want to be left alone.  Sigh.

A snack to keep me going while I plan my Me Friendly Month of December,