Butterflies
Yesterday I gave a month’s notice on my flat – I am now officially moving, and, unsurprisingly, it’s all I can think about. On the 12th I’ll be heading back to Bath/Bristol to find a new home; before and after then I have several photo shoots booked, photos to edit, i need to pack (for real, not just clearing out), book a man with a van, and generally disentangle myself from this town. There are parts of the coast i want to visit with my Holga before i go, and a can of pomegranate red paint I want to buy, in readiness for the nesting. I found myself lingering over interior design magazines last night; the 70s sideboard i’m inheriting from my mother is going to look great with a mishmash of framed photos and artwork hanging above it.
Every night i dream about the move, and it is always a complete disaster. He’s been making guest appearances in many of the dreams; i don’t feel guilty about moving forward with my life, but i am hyper-aware of how significant it all is. And in a way, i’d rather it wasn’t significant at all – i’d rather just pack up my diaries and cameras and get on a bus and pitch up a tent down the road. I’d rather slope out under the cover of darkness and send postcards home when i get the chance. If i’m completely honest, i’d rather be moving to a place where i know a few souls already, but you know what? That’s not what’s happening and i am trusting that all is well, that all is unfolding as it should.
I trust myself, and that is the most important thing, i think. I trust myself to make the right choices, even when they scare the crap out of me.
Ghosts {inspiration #2}
1. Untitled, 2. 335/365 so she took off her shoes and had a little nap…, 3. valley, 4. love
I’m swimming in my memories this weekend. Photographs, diaries, music, shopping lists and menus scribbled on the backs of envelopes that reveal so much more than you’d imagine they could. I open a drawer to sort through bills and bank statements only to find a framed photo of him, one i’d tucked away months back when I had my one and only gentleman caller stay the night. Finding the photo pulls me back from the future and makes me sit quietly for a while. I leave the house to buy groceries, and cross paths with the first man i ever saw naked. We recognise each other and it is a strange and uncomfortable moment; as i continue walking down the street i marvel at how the ghosts are everywhere in this town and feel more resolved than ever to move and change and step forwards, to let go of the deadweight that’s anchored me – the weight of the past.
You must be my lucky star
It began with Madonna. Her first two albums penned the music DNA in my soul – Lucky Star! Holiday! Like A Virgin! By album number three I had moved on; I would listen to the radio on a Sunday night – a soul show, can’t remember the DJ now – and record all the songs onto a cassette tape, trying not to tape any of the DJ’s waffle at the end of each song. This ritual soon evolved into making mixtapes from my favourite LPs, the soul of Anita Baker and Alexander O’Neal gradually upgraded to Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson (ha!), then Soul II Soul, before I turned goth and got into The Damned (this was a brief but melancholic phase, swiftly followed by a Joni Mitchell renaissance that continues to this day in my love of folk music).
Rave and acid house, and all that came with that in the early 90s, was, I now realise, to be hugely influential on my future musical tastes. From those soulful beginnings it was ambient and dance music that set me alight, thanks to The Orb, The Happy Mondays, The Beloved, Jesus Jones, The Shamen, The Prodigy and 808 State.
My sister and I were talking about the differences in our musical tastes the other day – how those couple of years between us in age meant that I got into the rave scene and she in turn was pulled towards the indie music scene. We share all our music, and while there are plenty of gems we both adore, I’ll still send her CDs of “dance-y crap” while she in turn sends me “miserable slitty-wrist shit”. Oh, how we laugh :-) I think my musical tastes can be summed up thus: ambient-folk-dance-funk-indie-Mozart-Bach-Gorecki. A bit of everything, then (I own one Spice Girls song, but I don’t like to talk about that too much).
I told her yesterday that I was feeling the need for some ROCK, some noisy powerful music to help me get my arse in gear, and, just like magic, this morning i received her latest CDs: half of Led Zeppelin’s back catalogue (yeah!) and a disc entitled Susie’s School of Rock, with everything from Rage Against the Machine and Foo Fighters to Faith No More and Muse. {you really do rock, sister… I love you millions}
All of this is to say that music heals me, music comforts and uplifts me. When my head is so full of chatter and scorn, plugging myself into music will drown out the doubting voice. I look back on the blackest periods of the recent past and I see how silent those times were, how I forgot how to help myself with the things that work. These days I’m listening to music non-stop, as I navigate all that I have to do to start writing the next chapter of this story. The anxiety is building and I’m having to pull all my energy inside me so I don’t lose my focus.
So, every single day I thank the universe for eyes that see, ears that hear and for iTunes and iPods, true mixtape heaven. I’ve uploaded some new musical Prozac for you here – what music plays in your soul? Tell me some hot recommendations.
Pieces of me?
1. Susannah, 2. Italian Coffee Makers, 3. bsg, 4. pomegranate (5), 5. pierce brosnan, 6. Sparkling Water, 7. Early spring at San Francisco Bay ????? – ????!?, 8. Eton Mess, 9. photographer’s quarters, 10. Entropy ? Memory . Creativity ², 11. Thoughtful Moment in B&W, 12. unraveling
Meg and Denise have done it, and you know I’ve been itching to do it too, so here it is, the Flickr meme. My favourite bit, apart from all the scrumptious red and moody introspection, is that the acronym for my grammar school is also Battlestar Galactica’s :-)
If you want to play too, type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr search. Using only the first page, choose your favorite image, then copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows). Leave a comment if you play, so i can have a peek.
The questions:
1. What is your first name? (Susannah)
2. What is your favorite food? (Italian)
3. What high school did you attend? (BSG)
4. What is your favorite color? (pomegranate)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Pierce Brosnan)
6. Favorite drink? (sparkling water)
7. Dream vacation? (San Francisco)
8. Favorite dessert? (Eton Mess)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (photographer)
10. What do you love most in life? (creativity)
11. One word to describe you. (thoughtful)
12. Your Flickr name. (Unravelling)
Public service announcement
If at any point this weekend you feel the blues descend, you might want to try the following: download this song onto your iPod/MP3 player of choice, plug it into your ears, turning up the volume to LOUD. Don your sunglasses and head out into the world. Walk yourself to the nearest vendor of icecreams and buy one (i recommend a mint Cornetto); proceed to eat your icecream while jigging and bopping along the street, ignoring any strange looks you receive from passers-by. Repeat as necessary.
I guarantee you will feel at least 85% better. If the blues are chronic, you might want to get the big guns out: this song should be available on prescription.
Bird by bird, photo by photo
‘A photograph is not only an image, an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stencilled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.’
~ Susan Sontag
I’d love to tell you what’s happening today but I don’t know as my head, heart and memories are floating around in 1995. The flat clearing continues, and with it comes boxes of photos and journals and the ephemera of my life. You know how it is, when you start going through a box of memories – you’re transported straight back there, feeling the heartache and hopes again as if it was yesterday. 1995 was the year I finished my photography diploma after three years of intense self-scrutiny and artistic flights of fancy. That was also the year I moved to London, leaving this town for the first time. Another completed circle.
I read musings in my old journals of how one day I’ll look back at the photographs and be in a different place, how they’ll tell the story of my life then – and here I am at the One Day, wanting to reach out a hand of friendship to the girl in the pictures. I struggled so hard with who I was; I couldn’t have known what it would take to find the real me, so many years later. And so I shot hundreds of rolls of film, shedding my clothes* to find myself, thinking the truth lay on my bare skin rather than inside. I see a 22-year-old showing her vulnerability; my self-portraits would look very different now.
So as I examine the past one photo at a time, I burn through the emotions that come up and am reminded that this is the way to see life – one photo at a time. When looking through the viewfinder to compose a shot, you only see what is in that little box. Your peripheral vision is disabled; your focus is refined. This feels like living in the moment – don’t worry about the past or the future, look at what is in front of you, right now. Life is a symphony of moments strung together like a paper chain.
* my workshops don’t require nudity, just in case anyone was wondering! :-)
Throwing away receipts
So, yes, I’m moving to Bath. This will my eighteenth move since I first left home aged 17 – I think this is why it simultaneously fills me with dread that I have to pack up everything I own again, yet also excites my OCD/perfectionist tendencies that I have another opportunity to clear out everything I don’t need. For the last two days I have been doing just that, and with every pile of magazines I recycle, every book I box up and every piece of clothing I list on Ebay, I know I am letting go of the ballast that has kept me here when I could have floated away. When I clear out I am ruthless – an item has to hold sentimental value of almost religious significance for me to keep it. I have fantasies of moving to Bath with just a few things held in a handkerchief, but alas, that’s not going to happen.
When I lived in London I didn’t own much furniture, but now I have a flat full of the stuff. I look around me and wonder how I’ll do this, which is why I rolled up my sleeves yesterday afternoon and began with a little box of papers and receipts.
Even though I’m moving to a city where I don’t know anyone, this feels like such an exciting and significant move forward. Last time I moved house the man I loved had been dead a month and I was still in shock. I honestly don’t know how I did it, but I do know that it was with the love of my family that I got through it. I don’t remember much about that time – I do remember a very sad trip to Ikea in north London to buy myself a bed, when I hadn’t eaten in a week and was strung out on wine and endless tears; it’s incredible what you can do when you have no choice – so god knows how I packed that flat and repainted the walls. How I said goodbye.
It is now time to let that distraught girl rest; it is time to move forward, shedding that skin once and for all. And I HAVE moved on, I’ve moved miles and leagues and fathoms, but the last letting go must take place. I was never supposed to stay in this town for so long, but three years have passed and this rootless existence is no longer working. It comforts me to know that I will take all my furniture with me, that I can recreate a pomegranate wall and hang my mirrors and photos and drink hot chocolate on my 50s sofa. I can remake my nest wherever I land because I have found my true home inside me….. (I’ve just typed that last sentence and am marvelling at how true and wise it is, while also smiling because I know there’s gonna be some MAJOR freaking out before this is all done. :-)
There’s a lot to let go off before I move, which I guess is why I start with the easy things, the papers and old clothes that have gathered dust. Letting go of the past will take more elbow grease. I’ll also be finishing my work with my therapist, and that will be a very emotional goodbye.
So, this time next month I will be in Bath looking for a flat. By the first week of September I will be living there. And that’s when my workshops will begin – a photography course entitled Unravelling: Ways of Seeing Your Self. More on that soon!
Right now I am…
… listening to Paul Weller (i’d forgotten how ace he is)
… excited by the meeting I’ve just had with my web designer friend
… wanting a cigarette so bad, but i WILL NOT cave in, not after seven weeks of smoke-free living
… wanting to write a blog post about my moving plans, but needing to get ready for the gym
… still thinking about the nightmare I had last night
… bemused by the fact that my subconscious has gone into overdrive now that I’m moving
… excited about the workshops I will be teaching in Bristol
… wanting to tell you about that – maybe tomorrow
… glad the sun has come out
… scared to change my life
… excited to change my life
… breathing deeply
‘If we work each moment to practice kindness, patience and persistence – doing so in grateful remembrance that each breath we take is a gift – here’s what we’ll find: the power of being present in this way ensures that each of our “tomorrows” dawns with more Light than was seen this day.’ ~ Guy Finley, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living
Five good things on a Wednesday
“Think not of how, Susannah, whether in terms of logistics, people, or inspiration, but of the end results you dream of. The end, in thought, combined with action, in its general direction, will always create the necessary circumstances, serendipities, epiphanies, ideas, and discoveries necessary to bring about the desired manifestation. The hard part is done for you. Your part is the easy part: Think and let go. Knock on every door and turn over every stone. Do not insist upon the path, but upon the overall change you wish to experience, and never take no for an answer.
You can do this. You’ve been doing it all your life.” Notes from the Universe
1. Bath, every inch of it
2. The Go Find
3. My new baby: a second-hand SX-70
4. This beautiful song (accompanying such a sensual video clip, oh my!)
5. This book
Bonus: Wimbledon. Go Murray!
