Love, loss, nakedness and sparkles.

I had lunch a couple of days ago with the 15year old daughter of my best friend who passed away 6 months ago. I cannot express how precious this was. It was just the two of us and we were able to talk about her mother and laugh about shared memories and also shed a few tears. The thing is, I remember when this girl was born, how perfectly formed she was, and how proud her mother was. I was stunned by the beauty of both mother and child in their newly formed but somehow eternal, relationship. And now here we were, 15 years later, sitting at a table in a restaurant, still reeling from a terrible terrible loss, and realising that the precious relationship I had with her mother was continuing, but had developed a newly blossomed bud which will flower with each passing season.




I went to a life drawing class! I hadn't been to one in years and years. I loved it! I had to get  over the ridiculous urge to giggle uncontrollably with embarassment at the sight of a naked person and had to remind myself several times that I am actually a grown up. ..and then I started to relax. What was interesting was the arrival of my inner critic, "You can't draw, this is rubbish, everyone's pictures are better than yours, you're too tired to do this, time to go home now"...etc etc.  I'm so used to this with songwriting or singing, but hadn't expected to listen to this voice whilst drawing with friends. I realised that the artistic process is the same, even though the genres and contexts are different. I realised the importance of letting go of perfectionism and ignoring the critic on my shoulder, and enjoying the process rather than the end result. There is value even in the unfinished product. We did an exercise where we only had a minute to draw the model in a series of poses. I found this really frustrating at first because I wanted to draw the perfect picture, but looking back now at those hurried charcoal scribbles, they have value in their own right, because they tell the story of my struggle... so more drawing classes methinks...

Last but not least, my daughter was given a pair of sparkly red shoes by a friend who has outgrown them.  My daughter loves these shoes with a passion that only those who love shoes will understand. She wears them everywhere and has even clicked her heels and hoped for something magical to happen, like Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz"!






Anyway a gift so bright and sparkly deserved a bright and colourful card to say Thankyou!