find a way…

to not be scared

to address what i feel in the moment rather than let it build up

to make time for what is important to me

to let go of what is not

to know that it’s okay if i don’t always do my best

because good-enough will be good enough for today

to listen to my body when it’s speaking to me

to let people know when i might need their help

to let people know when i need to retreat for a while

to start the project, the one i have been dreaming of

to take my courage in my hands and ASK

to use the inspiration and create a new way of seeing

to place my two feet on the path, rather than one foot here and one foot there

to trust that love will find me again

to trust that i will be ready to welcome it

to truly see the good things

to know that the bad things carry a message within them

to know, in my heart, that this too will pass

to let it go, to let it go, to let it go

to remember that I have survived much worse, and flourished

to hide when i need to, and show my face when i feel ready

[ * inspired by Marta]

Colourful glazed bowels by Diana Fayt

"As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong …" Julia Butterfly Hill (via Kerstin)

It’s funny really. You weather the biggest storm of your life and expect that the rest is going to be a breeze. And of course it isn’t. I think that a part of me thought that I’d got all my bad luck out of the way in one hit, and that from then on it was going to be really easy.

Sometimes it feels like the last three years have been one long exercise in picking myself up off the floor, and that I’d get so far only to then crumple again. I don’t know whether it’s my predisposition to depression, fucked up hormones, the many things that aren’t working in my life or my body adjusting to the Pill (it’s all of it, I know) but if you can imagine a 35-year-old, 5’ 8”, blonde English woman lying face down on the floor of her apartment with an enormous boulder strapped to her back, squeezing the life out of her, then THAT is how I’m feeling. Not that I would ever be melodramatic about it.

You know when you’re in the thick of it, doing the self-pity dance and, I don’t know – bashing yourself over the head with a rolling pin? It’s in those moments that i forget the things that can lift me up out of the muck.  It’s time to try.

Five good things:

1. The new Weepies album, Hideaway. I’ve been listening to the four previewed songs on their Myspace page non-stop for the last two hours, and I’m falling deeper in love with every harmony Deb & Steve make. If I had any sort of musical ability (which clearly I don’t) this is the music I would make – this could quite possibly be the highlight of my year so far. Music helps me so much – their music heals too. (edited to add: I've just discovered this beautiful song. God, i love music.)

2. Today is my 2-year blog anniversary. If it wasn’t for this blog I would never have flown to Seattle or Los Angeles, or met so many wonderful women I now call friends. I would never have found my reason to rekindle my love for writing or poetry or photography. And I would never have had so much support from all of you. So thank you so much for joining me on this journey.

3. The work of San Francisco-based artist Diana Fayt – investing in one of her amazingly detailed platters is top of my list for 2008.

Blue pears & the bird, 18" platter by Diana Fayt

Bowls by Diana Fayt

4. Twitter. An absolutely pointless thing, perhaps, but this micro blogging site is keeping me amused when I can’t manage to do much else. It’s quite zen, really.

5. Polaroids. Polaroids. Polaroids.

1. evening, 2. Untitled, 3. Lovers dream., 4. yellowblouse&seahorse

Flickr is such an amazing resource for inspiration, i find myself losing hours and hours as i look at others' work and click click click myself into photographic oblivion.  Recently i've been so drawn to photographs of light, specifically light through windows. You can't take a photograph without light – whenever i take pictures, the same words are rolling around my head: where's the light? what's the light doing? Have i got enough light? Light wraps itself around the thing i'm photographing, whether it's a person, a flower or – as i was this morning – the new day breaking over the sea, the sun rising higher after an unexpected flurry of snow fall. Even the night sky has sequins of light woven through it.

Edited to add: I found this completely mesmerising this evening.

Lunastrella camera print by John W Golden

I’m always looking for new things to make my eyes happy, and seem to exist in a permanent state of hunger for those new things. And photographs and art and books and films just aren’t enough… I’m hungry for ideas and connections and coincidences and epiphanies too. I’m thinking about subtly changing the direction of this blog, now that the constant ruminations on grief and loss have given way, at last, to creativity and  inspirations. And maybe not writing about grief makes this a less interesting blog to read, but as this started out as a personal blog, i guess it can only reflect what’s on my mind. (What’s on my mind right now is: should I invest in a second-hand Hasselblad?)

I’d been flirting with the idea of deleting this blog and just lurking around the blogosphere in an invisible cape… but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. So as my blogging has been rather half-hearted recently, I think it’s time to make a few changes. Every so often I’d like to share some of the artists, photographers and websites that inspire me.  I like the idea of having a place to tie all the strands together (which I’ve started doing here too) – maybe sharing more about what’s around me, rather than what’s inside me, though that will be woven in too, inevitably. There’s been stuff happening this year that i didn’t want to blog about, but that meant I didn’t blog at all, and I missed it – missed the sharing and connecting. So while the offline stuff takes care of itself, I want to get cosy in my online space again…

I like to sit and watch by Brandi Strickland

Voyage by Robin Danely

Honeysuckle Dream part one by Helene Lacelle

Paper airplanes by Betsy Walton

Yeah whatever by Dollface Design