annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Matters
I haven't left the house today, inadvertently rather than deliberately. Not good. I can't even say what I've done or why.
After a massive ponder I remember I finished my dress that I made in sewing group. I did round the neck and one armhole by hand as the machine started to 'eat' the fabric when I started the other armhole which I eventually discovered was because the needle was blunt. There must have been spares with the sewing machine but I couldn't find them so I ordered some and carried on by hand till they came. I don't think this is good - it seems like I can't change course when circumstances change, and there's some truth to that. Oh bloody hell, I didn't know that when I started writing. But I finished the dress and it's OK, but too big. I could wear it with a belt or take it back to sewing group and ask for advice on how to take it in. Or I could eat more pies until it fits.
I also did some photo transfers, following a description I found when I googled. Not quite enough, is it? I wanted to ask questions - I still do. I tried two of the West Pier, making the backgrounds different. I forgot to flip it, so the broken off bit is on the wrong side
and it wasn't as visible as I'd imagined from the photos of the lesson. I fannied around adding bits of tissue to the one on the right and did nothing to the one on the left - I'd painted it blue before I started. But there's an area round both pier prints that's a different colour - like it's still wet, when it isn't. Ah well, I do quite like these although they weren't what I was after at all.
My latest plan, though I can't see how to accomplish it, is to swap rooms. At the moment my art room/workshop/studio whatever it is, is the box room, smallest room in the house. My bedroom is the biggest room upstairs and I only use it to sleep in. It is full of furniture but most of it's shite and needs to go. The art room is just jam packed with stuff:
and that's the real problem - how do I do this? Where do I start? Well I start by tidying up, putting everything away. Then I need to find someone young and strong who'll do it for me. I'd have done it that way round from the start if I'd realised how much I'd use it, but it felt a bit scary - a room to make art in? Me?
After writing about Barb last night, today I've spent quite a lot of time dipping in and out of her blog and our emails. Man. I'd forgotten how real it was - her voice singing off the page. But I went through a succession of losses over those years, of people I loved dying, and I don't think any of them had their due mourning. My heart has been closed to the depth of it because it was all too much. The shit was hitting the fan with both of my daughters. I don't know. Anyway, I'm sitting with Barb for a while now, and not continuing that thread with other important people just now.
The next card I drew asks me to complete these sentences:
- The things that are the most important to me and which really matter are...
- The things I want and need are...
- My current and future hopes and wishes for myself, others, the world are...
Fucking hell. OK. The most important things to me are my kids and my grandson. By miles. GS is fine at the moment, happy with his girlfriend, his job, his flat, his mates, his life. Good. The other two not so much. I don't know about this mothering malarkey. As it wasn't done to me for long enough for me to remember, I'm blundering about in the dark, but I care about them so fucking much. It's all I can do to not be phoning them up all the time - my ideal would be to have them both living round the corner. I don't want to live with them, but I want them right in the thick of my life. People say that's weird and inappropriate, but they can fuck off. I did a course at Uni, Images of Childhood and I can tell you that over different cultures and different times, families have always lived like that until now, the last century and frankly, I don't think this way works for many - the nuclear family, till the kids are grown then they fuck off. Too much. I mean, I'm not oblivious to the different pressures of living on top of loads of people, but at least it acknowledges that it takes more than two adults to raise a family. Losing Sam has made the other two even more precious to me. Maybe too much, who knows.
What else? My friends, my little dog, not those fucking cats, honestly, they could piss off tomorrow and I'd be glad - I'd get a kitten at once. Relationships. But also all the bits I have in place to keep me steady, which I miss when I can't do them. Yoga - I will do yoga in some form till the day I die. If I get the steroid injection and it works, I'll pick up some 'proper' yoga classes - it's health, isn't it, maintaining the best health I can, both mental and physical and they are a pair - you need them both and they affect each other. Acupuncture - hooray, she'll be back from Italy at the weekend and I'll see her on Monday. Living by the sea - I can't imagine ever going inland again, though I'm periodically tempted by the town of Glastonbury.
Creativity - art and writing and crafts, just making things that weren't there before. I love blogging so much. I started in 2005, so it's seventeen years, which is a lot of blog. I love how it shifts in my head, how much, if at all, I'm aware of people reading at any given point. I like the way writing things down lets you clarify your thoughts and very often solves problems - when I started reading through old blogs I was amazed how often I'd start by saying, "I don't know what to do about blah blah blah," then, "Oh yes as I typed those words the answer came to me..." I really enjoyed reading them back, but I stopped just before it all got serious. I was just a mental person wittering on till Sammie's MS turned vicious, and I haven't managed to read that bit back. Just odd entries - the random post button on Diaryland throws some surprises at times.
The things I want and need... well. There we go, that presses all my buttons. So I shall go to bed.
Night night xx
12:29 a.m. - 26.07.22
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