Gathering tools and baby steps

 I'm on the edge of a precipice, leaning out against the wind, which beats against my face with its torrent of breath. Even at the edge, still with my feet on the ground. I am nearly at the vortex, a spinning cyclone of images, phrases, ideas possibilities, openings, outlets; reaching at me, grabbing me.The wind's fervour excites me, inspires me, scares me rigid.
 Should I go should I jump, should I stay tiptoed at the edge or retreat to the balmy flower meadow and a rather dull picnic. Or even quite a good picnic, sugar free of course, with quinoa and sprouted seeds and raw chocolate delights with a helathy sprinkling of gogi berries?

That's the problem. I often stand at this edge...although never quite so near, and always end up returning to the picnic. Literally. An idea will come to me, one of those running for your notepad and grabbing the only writing implement available .(usually a pale yellow beeswax block crayon) type of ideas, and having noted it down...(as far as am able with yellow crayon in the margins of my bank statement); I might limply retire to the kitchen and bake some muffins, or fetch the laundry, and then the baby is awake and oops, oh well can't do it now. Hmm

The precipice is churning with colours, and possibilities, it is a tumult of unknown,  a shiver of fear, a dazzle of brightness. And yet I turn away.

But NO....I WILL NOT. And here, publicly, with you to hear me....

At the moment I am caring for five kids four of my own plus our German student, with their myriad needs demands and issues, from constant breast milk, to spelling to gym membership and lifts back from paintballing, more printer paper and a white gel pen NOW and my coloured pencils again, and patiently reflecting back the needs of a furious six year old and deflecting angry fists,while holding a baby, trying to cook and tidy up the tornado that is the kids room and......anyway you get the idea...did I mention the laundry?/.

But.... I'm also taking two online art courses (more about these in another post when I have dived into them more deeply) in the wake of the amazingly transformative Flora Bowley course Bloom True which I have talked about at length already here which has already started me to the edge of the precipice.
 By sheer fluke I have also just won a free place on a funky Instagram based pithy, quick fire writing course, which is exciting but also overwhelming as my phone has just given up doing Instagram and it starts on Monday. I'm also not sure how I can possibly squeeze even one more thing into my already overflowing day but I will try. Everyone can have dirty sheets and baked beans on toast for a month.

And then two days ago my signed copy of The Rainbow Way arrived, the fourth book of the inspiring Lucy Pearce. I plan to do a review of it when I have read it but in short it is about  the burning need some of us feel to create and mother simultaneously without causing harm to either. A treasure of a book which I am reading in tiny snatches and I am now part of an online forum of women.... (some places still left I believe open to those who purchase the book direct from Lucy) support and opportunities in bucketloads.

From this forum, one of my paintings has found a place in an inspiring new online magazine, to be found here at Raising Loveliness which is also really exciting.

In my nearest town my favourite cafe has a chalk board outside calling for artists to put their work on their walls. I need to finish two more paintings to have enough to approach them for my first ever public showing....

I have finally finished a written piece on loss and recovery for a friends website, which I will link to as soon as it goes live....



Are you getting a theme here....it's exciting; things are moving, shifting, progressing, tiny steps maybe, but in a life as full as overflowing as mine it feels big, it feels like the tip of the wave. The tip of a huge powerful swell which I can ride...if I dare. If I have the time...but will I ever have the time?

Have I the the ability to work in minute snatches and snitches of time, but without hating the person who interrupts me or curtails my flow? Because they will and they do.

 I currently write and paint at the kitchen table, as our bedroom is so icy its hard to do anything there apart from sleep surrounded by hot water bottles. There are seven of us in the house...everyone likes to hang out in the kitchen/sitting room which is very small. And I have a 6 month old baby....I have to keep remembering that.

So will  I sink or swim if I jump? I can only try....




 

I keep adjusting the blog, ...as you've probably noticed...but