Finding Beauty
I’m a little obsessed with the idea of finding beauty just now. It’s almost becoming like this daily personal mission. Oh, it’s hard to describe… I’ll have a go.
I can’t bear the thought of wasted days, I think that’s what it is. It’s not that every day has to be endlessly productive, although those have always been my favourite kind of days if I’m honest, it’s more the sense that every day must have some meaning. I don’t mean meaning in the wider, spiritual sense, and I don’t mean it always has to mean something good. but I do like to close my eyes at night feeling like, oh I don’t know, like my world is a bit richer, or deeper. That there was a reason for me to be alive that day and get through to the end of it, even if that reason was pain or the kind of beauty that hurts a little to look at. It’s not always sunlight through trees, my idea of beauty. Sometimes it’s the kind of beauty that looks like dead things on snow. I don’t mean always pretty kind, not always the nice kind, but still full of meaning somehow, even if it hurts like hell.
Read MoreSaturday
My body is a little demanding and fragile this weekend, so I’ve knitted myself a prescription out of sunshine and a duvet in the garden, and apples and books…
Read MoreWriting Workshop: One Year – On me, Cybermummy and Blogging
This is the bracelet I wore to Cybermummy this weekend. In case you don’t recognise the symbol, it’s a Save the Children one, and on the back is engraved “Every Child Born To Shine”.
I lay in my hotel room the following morning, ribs aching from laughing, heart aching from unexpected feeling, and head a little numb from thinking, and rubbed the red token with my thumb in the sunshine coming through the blind. And I thought back on the last year.
Thinking about last year’s Cybermummy I suddenly realised how much I’d changed, and how much those changes have affected the way I approach and experience things. Not just things like Cybermummy, everything really, but comparing myself at the two events really hit home.
Last year’s saw me full of self-doubt, feeling like I had something to prove, feeling like I needed to convince everyone that I had something to say that was worth listening – brands as well as people. In a room full of mostly strangers I felt small. Standing up to deliver my talk about blogging and authenticity and voice as part of the main panel session, something I had anxiously worried over long before-hand, I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be there and I worried that everyone else thought it, too. This meant I tried a bit too hard, I think. It certainly meant I worried more, a bundle of self-concious nerves with a slightly forced face of confidence and a ‘I belong here’ attitude to try and convince myself.
But by the end of the weekend I wasn’t in a room full of strangers any more, and my voice had reached people that I never would have expected, prompting an email a couple of weeks later from Save the Children and the beginning of that amazing journey and all the changes that followed.
Read MoreCybermummy, Lego Duplo and YES, I AM SHORT
It’s that time of year again when bloggers of the mother-persuasion (and a few daddies, too) start to wake up in cold sweats worrying that someone has bought the same outfit as them and whether or not there’s a spelling mistake on their business cards. Yep, folks, it’s Cybermummy 2011. Now, I had a blast last year, and was delighted to have spoken on the main panel, met some amazing people, made some useful contacts, AND managed to only accidentally flash my knickers at a handful of strangers. So although not quite in the almighty hysteria-driven hyper-excited state that most on my Twitter timeline seem to have driven themselves into, I am looking forward to it.
Now, although people seem to recognise me fairly quickly, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that one of the first things that almost every blogger that has met me in ‘real life’ points out is that I am much smaller than they expected. I’m not quite sure how I’m managing to exude this virtual aura of height, but you should probably know, in case you’ll be turning up on Saturday expecting to see me towering elegantly over other delegates, that I am a short-arse. I’m 5′ 2″ and fall over in heels so will be in flats, so perhaps look about a foot lower than you’re expecting and towards the back/cake and there you will probably find me. Please come and say hello. I’m quite nice.
This year I’m attending thanks to the lovely people at Lego Duplo, who are paying for my ticket, travel and accommodation, along with other Lego Duplo ‘Experts’ who are lucky enough to receive occasional goodies from Duplo for our kids.
Read MoreMark making
Today hurt. Physically, I mean. A lot. This relapse is a persistent sod, that’s for sure.
BUT it didn’t win today. It didn’t define it. Despite undercoating the day in a thick and heavy pressure, pain won’t be the thing I remember about today.
Today will be about an afternoon in the sunshine, watching Kai play cars as I sat and untangled the heavy knot of wool I have got in a mess (again) strand by strand. And then about the bucket of water and the thick, crumbly chalks we both carried to our old out-house wall which we stood by and covered in our scribbles, our bold water-soaked paintbrush stokes, and our hand prints, big and small.
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