Category: Grief & healing
~ Natasha ~
There's other stuff I was going to write about today but i can't get past my thoughts for Natasha Richardson's family. She and Liam Neeson were one of those Hollywood couples you could genuinely like as their marriage seemed to be solid and they weren't too flashy; perhaps his working-class Irish background grounded her acting dynasty roots. I can think of a few films I've seen her act in, and though she wasn't particularly on my celebrity radar I'm always a little intrigued by English actresses who do well in the States – maybe you hope it'll rub off on you, somehow – the girl done good, as we'd say.
I'm sitting here at my computer on what is turning out to be another gloriously sunny day and i find i am in tears. I've always had a keen ability to empathise, and when something like this happens this goes into overdrive and i'm transported back to my own experience of devastating loss; the numbing shock, like ice water in your veins; the suddenness of it all; the absolute horror of the silent moment when you realise that they are gone, and how you experience this over and over and over again, for days and weeks and months. My heart aches for how her family are feeling right now.
It's common to hear trite comments about how we must hug those we love close to us in the face of such a loss, and yes, that is true and we should do that, but more than ever today i just want to take a gigantic bite out of life and devour it, greedily, messily, completely. If it was my photo on the obituaries page, i'd want the words below it to paint a picture of a life lived to the max, a life that touched others, a life that made a difference.
So today i honour Natasha Richardson; I hope she devoured her life, every thrilling glorious moment of it.
~ Today ~
It was four years ago today that you left this earth; in that single missing heartbeat my whole world changed forever. I never knew how important you were until you were gone; I never knew how important i was until i learned to live again. Your death taught me how to live.
It’s been a blessing having Jeanine here these last few days because as we shared the stories of our lives, and as I told her my tales of you, i was allowed to relive what i felt for you, and discovered i could laugh at your failings and see you for who you really were: flawed, human, just a man, not a god, not the person i had hoisted up on a pedestal for so long. No, you are a man. You were a man. I loved you, and now you’re gone. Moving to Bath I let you go somewhere along the way; I feel intense sadness today, but it is different from the other anniversaries – you are further, i am closer. Everything makes sense to me today – I can’t really explain it, but i know you know too.
I don’t want you to come back now; i’m doing okay on my own, in this new life. But i do miss you so.
This poem is for you.
~ Cluttered simplicity ~
1. Sofie Andersson 2. photo by Mark Lund 3. French Vogue 4. styling by James Leland Day
These photographs feel like my life right now – a blank canvas of possibility that is being filled with rich colours and meaningful objects, thoughtfully arranged. I've been simplifying things – friendships, expectations, demands on my body – and focussing on what's the most important to me. At the moment that involves getting up at seven every day and working hard, cooking meals full of flavour and spice, wearing clothes that wrap around me in layers of colour. It involves me paying my bills on time and feeling glad that I am able to look after myself. Taking pictures that are full of heart.
i spend way too much time on my own, i know this, but i've never been a particularly gregarious person. I like to spend quality one-on-one time with a friend rather than in a group; i like my own company and the more of it i have the more of it i need. At the moment I'm comfortable in my simple single life; I don't know how i'd fit anyone else into it, but maybe i'd figure it out, if the right someone came along.
I've always carried this expectation that life wouldn't work out as i wanted it to – that i didn't deserve it somehow. I guess it's understandable that a period of deep grief could solidify this belief and make it a living reality – that i was so extraordinarily unlucky – but actually, something else has occurred. As i moved out of the grief, and healed layers of the past stretching back decades, i've come to appreciate the simple things, the quiet times and the fallow months. As my days become filled with more meaningful work, I'm starting to believe that good things can happen, and will. And do. That the dreams i carry closest to my heart can be achieved. Today I feel the furthest from my grief that I have ever felt; at the same time it has been a quiet day of reflection, as i count down to the anniversary. It's funny how we can be our strongest and most sensitive self all in the same moment.
~ The sky is not a line of blue ~
Isn't this camera just the sexiest thing you've ever seen? The moment I saw this photo my heart jumped out of my chest. It's no secret that I have bit of a camera fetish – i currently have *heads off to check* 14 cameras, the latest of which arrived yesterday from the United States. Number 15 will be arriving on Friday (help me! it's an addiction and I need an intervention!)
All my life I have been making pictures. I remember the day my infant school teacher explained to me that the sky wasn't a line of blue at the top of the paper, it was blue everywhere. I remember being six and getting frustrated that I couldn't draw Billy Bluehat, and how my teacher patiently drew a dotted outline for me to fill in – I remember marvelling at how clever she was. Every week throughout my grammar school years I would recover my text books with montages of images I'd cut out of magazines, always including my crush of the week, but, more tellingly, they'd be interiors shots, flowers and fashion photos too.
At art college I filled many many sketchbooks, constantly frustrated that I couldn't draw the way I wanted, couldn't create the images I had in my head. And then someone put a Yashica SLR camera in my hands and that was it – I could see. I remember how I took photos of everything and everyone, thinking up fashion stories to shoot with my sister and how I took portraits of my boyfriend and then, inevitably, turned the camera on myself. So many photos of me from back then, mostly nudes, as if my skin could tell me any more than my clothes or environment.
Even in the wilderness years as a fashion editor i kept cuttings from magazines that i collaged into my journals, still plotting and planning the photo shoots I'd occasionally carry out with friends roped in. At one point I had a whole filing cabinet of cuttings – the images were my desserts when I was on a diet of words.
And then the crash and burn in 2005, and the rebuilding, piece by piece, into a new collage of me, undertaken with pictures, words and faith.
I share all of this with you because I've been thinking about how important creativity is in our lives. The making of things, whether it's photographs or paintings, poems or recipes, fruit bowls or blankets, sweaters or songs. You could call it artful living, taking pleasure in how you arrange your mugs on the shelf, how you serve your family dinner each night, where you choose to buy your fruit & veg. There is beauty in everything around us – and by beauty i don't mean the traditional notions of Kate-Moss-designer-interiors perfection. No, I mean the way your daughter keeps her favourite toys by her bed, your lover's toothbrush next to yours and the bowl you keep your grandmother's old pearls in. It's me walking through the snow yesterday, it's you grabbing a coffee with a friend yesterday in your lunch hour, or between lessons at college or before collecting your children from school. The things that bring us pleasure and meaning, the things that have nothing to do with an economic recession or global warming. It's lovely words like gratitude and appreciation and acceptance, states i don't always achieve, but ones i strive for every day nonetheless.
Judging by the emails I've been getting from the beautiful and brave Unravellers who have joined my e-course, we're all ready for some creativity and self-reflection. We're ready to take some time out of our week for us, to look at what we love, where we're going and, most importantly, who we are. Some of the most important healing work i did while i grieved my loss was to take photos of myself again, done to share on this blog; I delurked and others joined me (and it's such a shame i lost the comments when i switched over to Typepad). When i started my blog I initially tried to keep my face and name out of it – i wanted some semblance of privacy so i could share my feelings without censoring them. It was such a vulnerable time, yet the sense of empowerment that developed through sharing with a community was incredible. Now that i'm entering a new stage of sharing with the blogging community – and world at large – i think it's time i delurk even further…
hello, my name is Susannah Conway and I'm a blogger.
ps. There's still plenty of time to sign up to the e-course! Read all about it over here
