I have ambitions to be a great writer. There. I said it. And every single one of those words scares the shit out of me. Where I come from ambition (especially in young women) was celebrated. Because although some of us had big ambitions, maybe a lot of us didn’t; and even if we did, our ambitions were perhaps more relationship focussed than creative. Then I discovered the world of art and literature and for the first time in my…
A return to knitting. I’ve missed it, although I have to admit my commitment has been somewhat erratic over the years. There’s two things I’m very good at: socks and ponchos. The miniature and the giant. Everything else is pot luck really. When our van was broken into, they didn’t just take things of value but also any bags lying around, probably because they were in a rush and mistakenly thought there’d be cash hidden in the bags. One of…
Time is an ocean or a raindrop. One decade gives itself over to another and I think more that our counting of time feels awkward, and almost childish: like a stick drawing of a horse or hummingbird that can only relay the most basic and rudimentary outline. This might be the last time I worry about Xmas or New Year. Each time the winter rolls beneath walking feet I find myself, like so many other women around me these days,…
I‘ve been thinking of the ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ mindset a lot lately, but honestly – I don’t think most women are afraid. Fuck. We give birth, or don’t. Which is equally as brave. We hold communities together, or set out solo across the world. We love so fucking hard for so many people without fear. What holds us back, what keeps us ‘in our place’ is guilt. Guilt that we shouldn’t be: so loud, so large,…
It feels fitting that I’ve just typed these words on the winter solstice. There have been so many synchronicities while writing this book – sections dreamed under the magic of supermoons, wild rivermint conversations, endless west-coast syrupy orange sunsets, and of course our vanlife travels last winter down to Crete, and this year through Spain and France. This isn’t a travel book though, it’s speculative fiction/sci-fi, a bit anarcho-feminist, with myriad elements of the natural world encountered making appearances. So,…
Woke remembering this poem. Living slow allows the space to listen to the subconscious and really think about what she’s trying to tell me instead of rushing off and discounting her. Posting this here as a note to self, and to you, for this coming solstice, Yuletide, and a new decade that will manifest in reflection of us. We are magic. I think sometimes we forget that. Listen to the whole poem on Soundcloud.…
A lot of the time life feels like this balancing act between maintaining momentum but not overdoing things. I’ve definitely been guilty of overaction for the sake of it in the past. It’s how I’ve kept the anxiety at bay. These days it feels good to have resolved that creative tension – still feeding the need to keep creating, while letting go of expected outcomes. I think maybe that’s a confidence that comes with age. Anyway, I’m going to pause…
Slowing down is a strange experience, at once soothing and terrifying. Many of the stresses of our productivity-focussed lives fall away, but also busyness can be a mask for all the sides of ourselves we don’t want to admit to. You take it off and what’s left? I never met a tree, or a badger, or a river with these worries. It’s all a construct. Slowing down just allows us to see this world for what it is; to see…
