Finding new rituals

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I know I promised the next blog post would be my supersonic awesome mapping of how to get discovered as an artist..

What can I say. I got distracted along the way. Blame Downton Abbey. So, this instead..

I dont think its in my nature to only ever write about art and how I get around to making things. I’m a compulsive journal keeper, always have been. Possibly not in a healthy way. I’ve kept diaries since my Nan bought me a 5 year diary when I was ten, and a brand new ink pen, dead exciting in 1977. Actually, I bought myself another 5 year diary last year, and that was just exciting in 2018, we move in circles and cycles.

Anyhow, I will leave the diary story for another day. The point is that I write. About anything and everything, and I feel just as compelled to record small sparks of joy on this blog too (thanks Marie, we are all sparking, and if we are not, then at least we have neat sock drawers. You are a saint)

So today’s sharing is this – my evening ritual. As an aside, before you judge me, I need to say that I have done my time with hard-work parenting evenings. I’ve done years and years of homework, making vegetables fun by putting hula hoops on top (didn’t work and has set me up for years of ridicule from my now grown up kids).

I’ve done squabbling, kick boxing preteens in a 2 meter square of kitchen, I’ve done ‘its not my turn to wash up’, and I’ve cried through ‘but mum I told you I needed a full scale paper mache model of [insert project of deep joy here] by tomorrow.

I’ve done de-nitting, plaiting and latterly dyeing blue of lots of hair. I’ve done ‘please just give me wine or put me to bed, and you lot be the grown ups’. I’ve done, and I’m done.

Another aside: they grew up, they left home, I cried a lot, and I would still chew off my left arm for just one more evening as described above. I would.

But this is a new time. And it goes like this. Around about 5, I head off to my beautiful little bathroom under the eaves. If its summer, it is filled with diamond sparkles of light, and a cool breeze. If its winter, its filled with candles. Either way, its filled with essential oils like rose, geranium, eucalyptus, rosemary, and fluffy towels, and books. It’s a quiet sanctuary, and I take with me either herb tea, or a whiskey mac, depending on how I’m rolling.

Then supper. I eat what I want, when I want. I’ve never gotten used to only cooking for one, so I have 3 portions left that go in the freezer. Yay for me. Next its off to the sofa, with stitching or crochet or knitting, and more candlelight, and the complete joy of watching exactly what I want.

Whether that is Downton Abbey reruns, the L Word, a fab Scandi noir (check out Walter Presents ‘Greyzone’) or Call the Midwife – I’m there, stretched out with the cat, a hotwater bottle and my own evening ahead of me, without interruption.

Oh hello happiness. You devil. Come to mama.

The joy of doing my own thing, being in my own nest, answerable to no one, without apology or explanation.

This does mean that I may have become some weird latter day Miss Haversham. I may be found a decade from now, still on my sofa clutching my hot water bottle, just bones and cobwebs and the closing credits of Downton running. Whatever. I’m happy. Sort of.

There are a brave few who still try to shoe-horn me out of my isolated splendour, of an evening. I salute you. Thank you for not writing me off completely.

I’m not sure of the point of this, other than to say, this is me, this is what I love. A piece of what I love in any case, as there are many things. It has bugger all to do with art, but everything to do with a 50 year old artist coming to terms with living on her own, finding the new shape of that, loving what is, and trying to make beautiful the parts that are often hard and loving those bits anyway. It’s all just pieces of life..