Loosening.

Breaking free doesn’t have to be big or bold or brave or impressive. It can be small, unassuming, quiet and calm and still be far reaching in impact. Being honest with yourself enough to be honest with other people is a kind of breaking free that’s surprisingly hard to do. Rules are fine when they’re there for reasons based in common sense. But sometimes they are just self-created, unnecessarily limiting mind-chatter. It is freeing to know the difference.

Look up look out.

I’m such an old fuddy duddy when it comes to technology. But I do think I’m justified in my worry that society is becoming sadder, more anxious, more needy for stuff and ‘things’,  and probably over-stimulated digitally.. (Innuendo lovers, make what you will of the last part of that sentence.)  These handy, hand-sized micro-universes cocoon us in nothing but unhealthy comparison, unreal connection, and while we’re about it, terrible posture and yet we’re completely and utterly hypnotised by them.  Personally, my phone is new but still in the cost-me-a-tenner, techno-saurus-rex variety. It can just about text and ring. It’s simple and lovely and it doesn’t stop me looking out of the window. Or (hells-bells) engaging with actual humans in my vicinity. Plus I seem to be able to hurl it on the floor almost daily and it doesn’t break. That’s not just a phone, that’s a friend.

Home poem. Hoem?

I hope some day I’ll have a home

And plush white sheets and memory foam.

And peace of mind and chunky socks

And blankets in a blanket box.

White walls, paintings, wooden floor.

A large and friendly red front door.

Lots of colour, stripes and dots

Homegrown herbs in mismatched pots.

But apart from stuff and chairs and things

And all the usual furnishings

I need a place where I can grow

And breathe and rest and ebb and flow.

Maybe it’s not a place to find.

It’s something in one’s heart and mind.

And things and socks do help of course

But they alone are not the source.

 

I suppose it is a balancing act.

A meeting of two truths in fact.

Some solid bricks and a lack of doubt.

The Truth within and the truth without.

New Year’s Peeve.

Here are my rules for New Year.

Don’t make resolutions.  Carry on as normal. The end.  Well done everyone.

Oh alright.  If you must…  I’ll give you just one.  Pay Attention More.

I’ll break that down.

1) Try to notice and appreciate – not only when things are outstandingly brilliant – anyone can notice that – but when things are reasonably OK too. For example ‘Oh look I made a piece of toast and I didn’t burn it.’ Or..   ‘Oh look I’m alive still.   So whatever this is..  it’s not over yet’.   ‘Clearly I am no genius but I can draw a recognisable badger.’ ‘I walked into a room full of people today and lo,  my pants stayed up.’  The really basic things.  Notice and appreciate.

2) Maybe once in a while..  if you are having the best day and everything is amazing and you really are grateful..   try just being grateful privately and take the time to feel how it feels.  This one could be a radical one for some..  so..  deep breath:-  Maybe don’t go straight to your preferred social network to make a public report.  Would you phone up everyone in your address book to say: ‘Hi, I’m just ringing to tell you how amazing my family are. They’re really are just super.  Especially my husband.  I’m so lucky.  OK, bye.’   No of course you wouldn’t.

3) Pledge (if it means that much to you to pledge and resolve) to remember to breathe and be still once in a while. Preferably at those times when inevitably things just won’t stick right or fit in the hole or line up perfectly no matter what you do.  Allow things to be as they are and minimise frustration and anger with yourself and/or THE WORLD.

I think that’s enough frankly.  Paying attention to what is actually there, without judgement,  isn’t easy.

Of course there’s value in trying to improve yourself.. your fitness and your general attitude.  Of course there is.  But January the sodding 1st isn’t the one and only time to do it.  Don’t fall for it. You can’t radically change personality overnight with only the aid of new sweatbands and a painful fitness regime for which your own body (ie. the one you’re in right NOW) is neither designed nor ready.

You are who you are.  Be that.  On days when you feel able to.. celebrate it.  But mostly..  just be alright.  And notice how alright you are.  Saddle up 2015..  you’re going to be a long and deeply fascinating year.  Oh look – a glass of champagne!

Dickifulty.

Money Mania.

I am a person who disproportionately worries about money.  In fact I’d go as far as to say that I have a creature living in my head (let’s call her Sandra) who incessantly craps on about how much money I haven’t got.  I have learned to live with her and even ignore her on occasion… but she’s always there; always ranting and raving about the price of everything and doing her utmost to convince me that if I spend any more money (even if it’s on… mascara) I will end up in debt up to my eyebrows and soon after that..  probably go to prison or the workhouse or die.

You might think that sort of tosh would be easy to ignore..  particularly as it’s 2014 and a lot of what she says is rather Dickensian in feel.   Nevertheless I am affected by her and I’m ashamed to admit I sometimes allow her to stop me from living.

I am a lot better than I used to be, simply by becoming aware of her in a deliberately conscious way which does make her quiet down and retreat to a dark corner.   Presumably to play with her abacus…

I try to really hear people who speak sensibly about money.   People who say helpful things like: “It is not a realistic view of the future that you will never work again.”   People who say: “Is this a lot of money, really?” and “Are you OK today for money?”.   People who root me back in the present.  Sandra lives only for the future; she is never present and she neatly avoids the facts for the facts would expose her as the liar and scaremonger she undoubtedly is.

There is a restaurant I quite often go to (let’s call it Wigglewaggers) and for some reason Sandra has no power there at all. It is her kryptonite.  I can only conclude that, while she may never be satisfied no matter what I earn,  our shared love of a grilled dumpling can at least shut her up for a while.

Yule Tied

Well that says it all really doesn’t it?  You’d have to be some sort of Zen mistress or master not to be sucked into the vortex of mass-yule-related-panic swirling so very persuasively around out there throughout the month of December.  Either that or a hermit.  Or unconscious.  Or blissfully dead perhaps…

And the result is that you feel shadowed,  in all that you do,  by a low-level but insistent feeling of failure.  Always chasing the next moment,  the next thing that MUST BE DONE.  And never quite managing to do the things or see the people that you really want in the teeny tiny time-frame before you.  And joylessness abounds.

Of course the secret to finding the joy in it,  as with all things,  is giving full attention to the moment you are in.  But Common Sense loses its voice at Christmas.  And off we gallop with the others..  like a bunch of startled wildebeest.  Reducing each moment to ‘a means to an end’.

There is a turning point I think.  Just a few days before,  roundabout now.. when people begin to breathe again and suddenly remember it’s about togetherness and being nice.  If only we could manage that a bit sooner.  But can I follow my own advice in December?  Can I marzipan.

Good luck everyone.  I wish you all a merry,  hilarious,  incandescent and joy-FULL Christmas.

Oh,  and the other little secret worth remembering is that none of it matters.  Not really.  We all know what matters.

Don’t we?

Replenishment

Two hours and two pretty mediocre ideas smearing about sulkily on my sketchpad,  looking like they don’t know much and that’s a fact.

Forty-five minutes and a brisk walk outside..  Three far better ideas dancing in the door.

Was it the oxygen?  The exercise?  The sun bouncing off the buildings,  zapping the brain with colour and texture?  The noise of the outside world drowning out stale,  repetitive brain-eddies?  Yes.  Probably all of that.  It’s such an obvious,  simple thing but so easily forgotten when you’re stuck in a creative crevasse.

When in a hole..  go for a stroll. *Slaps own forehead incredulously*.

Lost.

Self employment means always being responsible for finding the next job;  the next contact;  the next foothold..  the next potential..  SOMETHING to hopefully take you to the next (ruddy) pay-slip.

And it seems to me that the best way of doing that is to lob a load of feelers out in a lot of different directions.  Some of them in quite scary,  unknown directions..  Especially if you aim to grow,  expand,  stretch yourself and create a wider ‘lobbing’ ground for the future.

With this method.. one of three things can happen.  Number one: nothing at all. Very disconcerting indeed..  but that usually means something is still coming back..  it’s just taking its sweet old time.  Number two:  you land something straight away..  happy dancing ensues.  Far more likely though,  is scenario number three:  things sort of half happen.  Not quite formed;  neither positive nor completely negative..  hanging in the ether like spectres of possible futures unrealised.  Some of these partially-formed-maybes may only be maybes because they fall into the scary skill-stretching category..  and the only thing stopping you from grabbing the foothold..  is yourself.  Other things manifest as partially-formed-maybes because somebody else needs to make a move and there is nothing whatever you can do but wait for that decision to come.  And while hanging in this limbo,  of course,  you aren’t really free to launch on any of your other potential partially-formed-maybes.  So you are effectively..  a little lost.  Inert.

We are told that waiting for things to happen is not a very good way to make things happen.  And I would agree with that.  But I think that there is a justifiable waiting period just after the lobbing and doing and hurling bit;   when things are only just beginning to come back to you..  which they often do,  rather unhelpfully, in clumps.  And in a bit of a fog.  At this point I would say – stay lost for a wee while longer.  When the right ‘thing’ manifests.. you’ll know what to do and where to go.  You’ll just feel it.

Displacement Activity.

Now,  I’m sure we’re all familiar with procrastination.  I am referring here to your basic amateur level,  never-do-now-what-can-be-done-after-this-mars-bar procrastinating.  However..  there is also such a thing as Pro-procastination.  Which is a much bigger commitment.  It is not for kids.  It requires an alarming capacity for self distraction and a natural and vigorous propensity towards cleaning stuff that may or may not be dirty.

It might sound like time-wasting and in a way it is.  However in the land of freelance precariousness and self-motivated Everything..  I am beginning to consider it an essential part of what I do.  Stay with me.

What a displacement activity gives you,  however pointless it might be in the grand scheme,  is some quiet time for your brain.  It’s just another way of having a rest from your own detrimental thought processes.

Waiting to hear from my agent about a job I’ve auditioned for would sometimes be excruciating if I didn’t find something literally mindless to do for a few hours.  Or a day at the drawing board when ideas just refuse to flow,  pro-procrastination comes into its own and goes some way at least to getting me over my artistic hump.

It’s fine as long as you keep it in check.  If your spice rack is alphabetical..  You’ve possibly gone too far.