It Doesn’t have to be hard

I sat among white roses and sewed 

When I was a little kid, adults tried to shield me from worrying topics of discussion. They applied techniques:

1: discussing the matter when I was in bed.

2: mouthing significant elements when I was around.

3: suddenly talking in Greek

I know about the first technique because a school friend overheard her parents in conversation about nuclear weapons and loyally fed back to me the following day.  She was very worried, and I have remained worried ever since.

Mouthing significant elements was a thing my Nan did. She died when I was seven. I am now forty four and I can still remember the frustration of having a whole word just mouthed out. A word of course that I was unfamiliar with, a word whose gravity I would not understand.

The third technique was the most frustrating of all, I would be keenly following a conversation about nothing in particular between mum and her sister and the moment it got juicy it went ..Greek.

When I was a kid I wanted to be involved. I wanted to partake in conversations. I wanted to listen and join in. Even if sometimes I was frightened by the discussion. Which I never was because they used those techniques, unless they were talking about ghosts, in which case they seemed to totally forget that there was a kid with an “Overactive Imagination” in the room.

Consequently I try to be open when discussing around my son. It seems kids very much want their opinion to be respected in the adult realm. I can't remember what we were discussing, but it was with great conviction that my boy said,  

“But if you work hard and try it will be Okay?”

There was maybe a minute of silence before my husband and I replied;In unison

“No.”

Working hard has nothing to do with success.

It's a lie that has been sold to us, the devil makes work for idle hands and all that. Working hard simply exhausts you. Working hard is miserable.

I believe it is quite feasible to be happy and successful without working hard. Though you might need to adjust your aspirations a little. Surely it is better to be  happy with who you are and what you have, than to work hard in order to get more stuff.

Yesterday I sat among white roses and sewed, pretty things for my craft show.

https://andyartisand.carbonmade.com/

My husband painted adorable creature cards in the room next door. I had the radio on. I was not working hard. None of it was hard.

Even my real job isn't hard anymore. It used to be. But that story is for another time.

Who told the kid its hard?

Did he stay up late and eavesdrop? Could he read the shapes of silent words? Has my mother been teaching him Greek?

There is no reason why work should be hard.

It just needs to feel good.

In Preparation

I used to get ready for things. I used to get things ready, for example “Joanne is your homework ready for tomorrow?” Mum used to get things ready for us Dad used to get his things ready, his scarf and gloves would be laid on the radiator ready.

The best sort of ready would be getting ready to go out. This would involve a friend, loud music, fags, excessive makeup, the trying on of several outfits, some posing and great hilarity.

Until recently preparation was something you did to food and woodwork. Then people started using phrases like “Fail to Prepare: Prepare to Fail.” Kids started preparing for exams, job applicants for interviews and I found myself in a situation where I had to prepare for lessons. I couldn't even pretend to prepare because my preparation had to be documented in order that I prepare for observation.

I did once try and work on this surface!

At what stage do you actually move on from preparing, planning, getting ready and do the thing? What about the artists muse? Does anyone wake up from a dream, rush to the pen and paper and just write or do we now flick the switch on, boot the computer up and wait while windows prepare the desktop?

Many times I have been caught with an idea. I have allowed it to mature and evolve during my working day; I've caught the bus home with a fully formed idea ready to be spilled onto the page only to have every day preparation get in the way.

Maybe I’m not a real creative. An artist would be oblivious to the pile of the dishes or some dog piddle in the hallway. A writer would understand that everyone in the house hold knows how to make toast and not worry about dinner. They would just do it.

This weekend I was determined to work on my crafting; on flutterjos. So much so that I prepared and Friday nights kitchen was immaculate. Unfortunately the Saturday morning kitchen not so, and I was a little delayed. Never the less I managed to spend most of the day pattern cutting, colour choosing and embroidering.  

I wanted to do more on Sunday, but I needed to prepare for the coming week. As I’m not the only member in the house hold I made a list of chores for all three of us and then set about getting them completed as quickly as possible. I’m not going to bore you with the woes of ironing, washing, hovering and floor cleaning,  but by eight O’clock Sunday evening when I finally sat down with my sewing paraphernalia I was physically shaking. It took a glass of wine before I was calm enough to thread a needle.

So from now on I am going to try and go with my creative side, I’m going to focus on doing the thing rather than preparing to do the thing. I just hope I’m prepared for the challenge.

Which Me?

Writing is a solitary experience; something you do alone when pieces of your mind fall through your finger tips to create a new world, with sights, sounds, smells and feelings that belong to someone else, someone you made up. Sewing is quite different, you craft your creations with your hands and when I do it, I talk to no one. Now the pieces of my mind fall out and have no- where to go, they just waft about me like a mist of questions.

I should hate to be a stay at home mother, yet a part of me longs to live in a cottage by the sea, take walks on the morning beach, grow my own herbs and make a living from selling water colours of beautiful shoes.  I would go crazy if it wasn't for the noise of everyone else to keep my mind in check.

Who then am I? To know ones-self is necessary to emotional growth. How can anything as multi-layered as a person possibly know oneself? How can a writer create a convincing multi-layered character when we are in essence so many layers of contradiction?   Sometimes a character won’t perform unless given the right name. What happens when you change your name? When I married and took my husband’s name I wrote a poem wondering what happened to the other me, where did she go? Then I resurrected her and used her as my writers name. How has she changed over the years? In fact how many versions of me are there? Sometimes I feel like all the Elizabeth’s at the end of Bioshock Infinite, there is the mother me, the crafting me, the writing me, the housekeeper me, the wife, teacher, and the crazy me.

My many archetypes illustrated by AndyArtisand

When I was little I used to stare at my reflection until I had tunnel vision. I would get a feeling of great unease as I became more detached from my reflection and I would wait for her to make the wrong move. Those contradictions have long been the focus of story- telling, Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Bruce Banner and the Hulk even OZ in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

We are far more complex than the good and bad, we are sometimes the painted face of the crying clown (think Tony Hancock). We develop alter egos, (think Ziggy Stardust). We take on stage names until we no longer exist (Judy Garland where did Frances Gum go? And at what stage did she turn into Dorothy Gale?). After forty two years of playing Deirdre Barlow who’s dreams was Anne Kirkbride having, her own or Deirdre’s?

Am I all of Jung’s archetypes at once? Sometimes I have my mother’s face and my father’s manner, other times my mouth is doing that thing my son’s mouth does when demonstrating yo-yo tricks.

Perhaps I change with the phases of the moon. Maybe I need to leave the sewing for a while and go back to chapter nine where through my finger- tips I can think the thoughts of non-existent characters.