Something for the weekend

[video] Tina’s SXSW talk about the 11 rules and values she lives by in her professional and personal life

‘Ogooglebar’ and 14 other Swedish words we should incorporate into English immediately

Christopher Walken | Morgan Freeman | Ethan Hawke

3 paths toward a more creative life

[video] The basics of parallel universe hypotheses – woah!

This pin

On writing post-fatherhood — wisdom from Austin

One of my favourite photographers: Francesca Woodman

Baked oatmeal | mango cashew sunshine bites | coconut bread

How to do less and live more — smarts from Kris

Creative breakfasts | artistic food

(this is awesome) How far is it to Mars?

60 tiny love stories to make you smile (via Sarah)

And finally, Unravelling and Photo Meditations start this Monday – come join us!

Happy weekend, everyone! xo

April 5, 2013
- Inspiration
5 Comments

On being a teacher

I honestly didn’t know I had it in me to be a teacher. Teaching is standing in front of a classroom, surely? It’s exams and text books and grading. It’s what people with The Knowledge do and for the longest time I felt I had no knowledge. I had nothing to share. Yet I’m sitting here putting the finishing touches to my newest course — I am so proud of this one, I think it might be my best — and preparing the space for two more of my babies, and it just hit me that I am, in fact, a teacher.

Who knew?

I’ve been doing this running-of-courses thing for four years now (four!) and with every year that passes I get better at doing it. I know how to make an ecourse awesome. I know how to share information in a way that’s inspiring and encouraging. I know how to build online community. I know how to decant my passions into a course format and share them with others in a way that makes sense. And I really love doing it. I love writing and creating and sharing.

I still have wobbly moments when I wonder who am I to be teaching. But then I remind myself that I’m not teaching quantum physics or cake decorating, two subjects that are equally baffling to me :) No, I’m teaching the stuff that I know inside out. I’m also sharing the contents of my heart, I realised, as I wrote deeper into the journalling course.

When I was studying photography at college 20 years ago I had no idea that something called the internet would be invented, and digital cameras, and phones with cameras (how Buck Rogers is that?). When I was working as a journalist I didn’t know my writing skillz would eventually be shared on the internet for all to see (and without an editor, no less!) When I was healing my way through loss I didn’t know that the lessons I was learning, the unravelling I was doing, would be worth sharing with other women years later. On the internet.

It’s funny how things work out.

I honestly don’t take any of this for granted. I sometimes wonder what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t started a blog in 2006. That blog was the beginning of so much — it’s probably just as well I didn’t know that at the time. The other day someone asked me what I did for a living, and I ummed and ahhed as I usually do, because I never know how to explain what I do. But then I smiled and simply said: I write, I take photographs and I teach.

I think it’s time for me to claim the teaching thing. Which I guess makes this my coming out post ;-)

________

The spring sessions of Unravelling and Photo Meditations both start on Monday — I’ll leave registration open till Saturday in case you’d like to join us. Journal Your Life will run again in the summer xo

April 3, 2013
- teaching
26 Comments

THREE

On the phone the other day my sister told me about a conversation she’d had with Noah in the car. She’d told him that she loved him, and he’d looked at her and said, ‘no, Mummy, you love Daddy.’

‘That’s true,’ my sister said, ‘but I love you too. Do you love Mummy?’

‘I love Susie,’ said Noah. ‘Susie loves me as big as the sky.’

Which is what I’d told him the weekend before — several times, in fact — in-between kissing his face, and dancing, and letting him play with my make-up. And playing trains…. and watching Tangled…. and making some cooking.

I keep thinking about this sweet little exchange. I love that Noah thinks about me when I’m not there. I love that I am a part of his small reality. I love that he doesn’t forget me. These are the things that keep me going on the days I want to give up.

And now he is three. He still says ‘fallah’ instead of flower, and we hope he never stops. He says actually all the time, but it’s “atch-a-len”. He likes us to chase him around the kitchen on his scooter — “let’s go quickly fast!” he says. And we try… we try.

Being his auntie has brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined. I remember watching him come into this world. His mummy was so brave in those last hours — in all the hours. I knew that watching my sister give birth would mean something special, but i had no idea that it was Noah she was giving birth to. The funniest, cutest, sweetest little boy who has stolen all our hearts and made this world a better place to live in. I love him more today than I did yesterday, and will love him even more tomorrow.

And now this auntie needs to have a little cry.

I love you, baba. As big as the sky.

TWO | ONE | ZERO