Last night
Twice today i was told how brave I am to be moving like this, on my own to a place i don't know (yet). For me the real bravery was coming here in the first place, when I didn't have a reason to carry on, when it seemed that the world had ended for me. That was real bravery – grieving and healing; being brave enough to really feel the pain, not run away from it or suppress it until it festered. To be moving to a new city with all that i have learnt under my belt doesn't feel brave, it just feels like freedom. I can leave this guilded cage at last and steer my boat in a new direction. I feel grateful to have lived in this little flat, grateful for the walls that sheltered me and the door i could lock.
Thank you, Flat 3, for carrying me to shore. You've been a good flat and a safe home. Thank you for everything.
So when I next sit at this page I will be in Bath; my broadband will be reconnected and I'll have (hopefully) unpacked everything, worked out where the heck the post office and nearest cash point are and cooked myself a few meals in my new kitchen. I'll be preparing for my workshops (more on that here) and it goes without saying that there will be a new pomegranate wall in the world. Thank you for all the comments you've left me on the last few posts… they mean a lot to me, they really do.
Okay, so i guess this is it.
Here i go…
one…
Two…
THREE………
JUMP!
The long walk home
I've drunk too much coffee today but this verging-on-hysterical feeling i have in my chest hasn't got anything to do with caffeine. I said goodbye to my hairdresser this afternoon after sitting in the chair for a couple of hours having a new cut and colour in preparation for the new life; i said goodbye to my therapist yesterday and that was a very emotional goodbye filled with so much gratitude; i said goodbye to the man who sells me my newspapers and the friendly man who always serves me in the post office; tomorrow i'll walk down to the beach and say goodbye to the ocean… for now at least. Each day my emotions are becoming more and more magnified; with so much still to do i know there will be a massive come-down when i'm finally in the new place and suddenly have no more urgency, but i'm hoping the shock won't be too bad and that i'll adjust quickly. One thing i do know is that i'm moving for such positive reasons compared to the last move, and i can't help but reflect on that each day and feel proud of how far i've come – that's helping to temper the doubts and fears that keep threatening to run away with me.
Wrap Up Africa
It was during my trip to Seattle in 2006 that i rekindled my love for photography- in fact, that week away was the beginning of something important for me, a time of friendship and healing, but also of seeing the world with new eyes, of venturing out of the darkness of grief and daring to step into the sunlight again. It was the first tentative step on the path i am now striding along.
It was Letha who opened her home to us all and who proved to be a dazzling hostess, and it was that same gorgeous woman who moved with her doctor husband and son to Uganda last year. As i pack my boxes and arrange for my phone line to be transferred, i'm in awe of how Letha managed to pack their entire life and move to another continent – Africa, no less! But she did, and now she's making a difference to the lives of the people she meets, as only she could.
Wrap Up Africa is the organisation she founded, collaborating with the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala. From their website (beautifully designed by Denise): "We recruit from among the caregivers of the cancer patients at [the UCI] and we teach tailoring skills to those who are interested. After completing a training program, they become eligible to purchase skirt material from us. With the material, the newly trained tailors make beautiful wrap skirts in our sewing room at the UCI. We buy the finished skirt back, and the tailors make a profit that is, for many, the equivalent of two months income. The finished skirts are then imported to the US for sale. 100% of the profits are channeled back to the UCI's supportive programs via our non-profit partners."
The skirts are gorgeous, the idea is practical and powerful and the results will be long-term and empowering – I'm so proud of my friend! Please go and read the whole story at the website, Wrap Up Africa. The skirts can be bought online in the Wrap Up Africa Etsy store.
Countdown
You remember those cartoons where the main character was strapped on the front of a runaway train racing at 100 mph and about to go into a long dark tunnel, and clearly they were going to SPLAT against the side of the mountain? That's how i'm feeling right now… and yet, strangely, in the midst of the chaos is a quiet spot of calm.
I know i am doing the right thing.
I was expecting the flat hunt to be a nightmare in all honesty, and despite all my visualisations of my perfect flat, my initial calls to local estate agents was looking bleak – not much property available in the area i wanted, not the right time to move, blah blah blah. The first morning i sat with laptop and phone and made the calls and booked a few appointments. In the other room, my sister was doing the same – and it was she who found the One, quite by chance, shouting through to me 'have you called this number yet?'
I'd been saying to friends that i thought it would be the fifth or sixth flat i viewed – an arbitary number, but what my gut was telling me. The flat was the third we viewed and when i went back in the evening for a second viewing i paid the money and signed on the line – it was the sixth viewing of the day. After the first look around we'd driven through town searching for coffee, and i sat in the passenger seat wringing my hands: 'I think that might be the right flat but i need a sign!' Just then we drove past a shop that caught my eye, with antique lace and mirrors in the window, objects that wouldn't look out of of place in my current home. I pointed it out to Abby, who turned to me with big eyes: 'It's called Susannah!" she said, and there was my sign, quite literally.
The next day i went back to the shop and met Susannah, a glamorous and slightly eccentric woman in her late fifties, who dresses like a grande dame from another era, replete with strings of rhinestones and pearls around her neck, a messy up-do and maroon lipstick. I think its safe to say that i've fallen in love with her shop, a treasure trove full of antique fabrics, lavender pillows, parasols and vintage trinkets, all dripping with faded bohemian glamour.
I returned home at the end of the week only to discover that my computer had died while i was away; luckily i had just about backed up everything as i knew this was coming, but still, a week without a computer was a week of HELL, my friends. Unable to do work, with clients waiting, i was distraught. i'm typing this post on my shiny new computer with its shiny new ways of being – my old mac dying was the worst timing possible, but it's making me chuckle how i'm moving to Bath with every cupboard cleaned out, including my electronic cupboards. Every single part of my life here is being dismantled, and god, it feels so good, so cleansing, so completely and utterly right.
So i move on the 30th… in eight days. EIGHT days. I'd better get on with some packing then.
A new life
{One of my favourites from a shoot this week, first seen here}
Gosh, has it really been a week since I last came to this page? It's probably just as well as I currently have only one topic I could possibly talk about. Next week the Great Flat Hunt begins (and hopefully ends a few days later), then I will have just two weeks before the move. The clearing continues – I spent an afternoon sorting through fifteen years of photographs, which was so incredibly cathartic I recommend it to all. My favourites are in albums; the negatives are safely dated and stored; the rest will be burnt on a bonfire. So freeing! As was taking out all my diaries from the last five years (20 large Moleskine notebooks) and numbering them in order before boxing them away. I dipped in and out, and meandered along memory lane for a while, revisiting friends and lost loves, listening to myself whisper secrets and longing. You read the map of your life backwards and suddenly it begins to make sense; you see the patterns and connections, and the tiny seeds you planted years before that you're beginning to harvest now. Now i just need a map that reads forwards. If only.
Onwards, planting seeds as I go.
Rain and Johnny Utah
1. Selina Lake – Window, 2. big blossoms, 3. via Living Etc., 4. Art grouping
It’s been raining all day
A Starbucks has opened one minute from my front door; it’s taken all my energy not to go there today after spending two hours there yesterday and meeting a friend there tomorrow
I’ve spent the day editing photos, clearing out my kitchen cupboards (turns out there is such a thing as too much vintage crockery) and listening to Point Break in the background (the perfect film for rainy weather)
As I get more nervous about the move, i also get more excited about the prospect of nesting in a new space
I don’t have much budget for decorating, but i do have lots of ideas; thankfully, ideas are free
Here are some of them
1. Untitled, 2. Open storage via Living Etc, 3. more inspiration, 4. plate wall
Imagine
Love Your Self print, available in my Etsy store
Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.
Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.
Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.
Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.
Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.
Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body's rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.
Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.
Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.
Imagine yourself as this woman.
~ Patricia Lynn Reilly, from Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself: Embracing Your Wholeness & Wisdom
