Saturday, June 30, 2012

What a difference a week makes (or does it)?


Well not quite but a number of things have enabled me to gain some equilibrium – or is that a sense of proportion/perspective. The external hard disc wasn’t beyond repair so I haven’t lost over 4000 images – but it has given me pause for thought. Probably ought to sort them out a bit and the really important images need to be saved in 2 places and/or up in the ether so if it happens again it won’t feel quite so catastrophic.

The weather on Thursday was something else and it has left a lot of debris on the streets. It fascinates me that in the village streams reappear and you can get a sense of the waterways that used to exist around here and how they must have shaped the fields and valleys. The area known as The Plantation in the village is the site of one of the old pits and its slag heaps and after the deluge some frailties have really shown – great chunks have disappeared from the footpaths and water is still draining down the hill towards Rowlands Gill.

Have got half my marking done and have been surprised at how disciplined I have been in knuckling down and getting on with it. It is funny how I can do that but when it comes to doing things for myself I hesitate and procrastinate.

Listened to Start the Week on Radio 4 Monday (what other day could it be on - heard it twice ) and have bought books being talked about on the show. Also Helen Dunmore read her poem The Malarkey which won The National Poetry Competition in 2010 – made me cry as it sums up so much loss and regret in one wonderful image. I loved it when she talked about the difference between writing novels and poetry and also how she captures images and stores them for later. It was good to hear it and I have realised that is what I do and that I need to give myself permission to be the poet/artist that I AM not anybody else’s idea of what I ought to be. I like putting visual images with poetry and did so when I first started writing etc 7 years ago but I have been struggling to find my medium – a lot of my early stuff was instinctive and done when Lizzie was younger so we would be doing painting together. That was when I was less worried about what it might look like and just got into it – got into the flow of enjoyment and creation. I wasn’t bothered about whether anyone else would like it or “get” what I was creating. As soon as you factor in a critical audience it suppresses all your creative juices.

Just writing those sentences has given me insight as to what I need to do and I just play around with art and words. I hear myself saying that to others and also in some of my coaching conversations BUT I am not sure I as good as I should be at hearing my own advice – ironic that.
Other news is that the job I thought of applying for it’s not really my thing and I am not going to study clinical skills and nurse prescribing to change direction in my career trajectory. That would take me further away from the creative and artistic work I want to do and facilitate with others. As I was told the other week I need to let go of the nursing and that is the tricky bit. If anyone has any advice or direction for me with that particular conundrum, then I would be grateful. Letting go of something I started 33 years ago is not very easy.

Not sure what this all means but the more I give myself time to think about it and also write my way into thinking about it the more I can begin to see the wood for the trees.

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