Thank you, to all concerned.
One reason I hang in there with Instagram is the connection that sometimes happens. Moments like tiny jolts of recognition and kinship with people I haven’t met in real life. Moments of shared wisdom or life experience or encouragement.
Last week, Paula, a Canadian artist encouraged me to read the poems of the late Andrea Gibson. And this set off a whole path of reading and thinking (which is why I haven’t properly replied to you Paula!!)
Sometimes I’ve anguished about the whys and whats of this blog. In my Andrea Gibson rabbit holing, I read a phrase about Andrea’s blog describing it as part journal, part poetry, part pep talk, part treasure hunt. Andrea’s partner talked about how the journal was a place of finding reasons to be grateful, of finding beauty and of fostering community.
While I have no aspirations that anything I write will have the power of Andrea’s writing, in those few lines I felt kind of permission to let this blog be what it is…part journal, part (other people’s) poetry, lots of encouragement, sharing...almost a love letter to all of us hanging in here.
Behind every shared polymer tip, every book review, every shared poem or Nepal anecdote, there’s my belief that we’re all in this together doing the best we can.
So much of what I rattle on about here, and the jewellery I make (or help others to make), is an expression of my wonder that I exist. That I am me. I mean what are the odds? Not to mention the hot minute when the odds of hanging around for a bit longer weren’t fabulous.
And what were the odds that the me that I am crossed paths with the you that you are?
And then there’s that uncomfortable knowledge that it’s all going to change and will eventually end. Which adds to the preciousness of the being here now!
Something shifts for me when someone says will you look at this? How beautiful? How amazing? Noticing beauty doesn’t make my suffering or anguish less, but it adds that vital AND. Life is tough and there is suffering and there is also beauty and joy and reasons to be joyful. I’d love to try and be a look at this woman. A woman who is learning to stand still and be astonished (Mary Oliver). A celebrator. A person who keeps reminding us (including myself!) about beauty and tenderness and colour and joy amidst the shite.
I’ve taken it upon myself to learn some poems off by heart. I’ve tried this before but am sticking at it better this time. Overheard by Ross Gay, is the poem I have learnt this month and for me, it says all this beautifully:
It’s a beautiful day
the small man said from behind me
and I could tell he had a slight limp
from the rasp of his boot against the sidewalk
and I was slow to look at him
because I’ve learned to close my ears
against the voices of passersby, which is easier than closing
them to my own mind,
and although he said it I did not hear it
until he said it a second or third time
but he did, he said It’s a beautiful day and something
in the way he pointed to the sun unfolding
between two oaks overhanging a basketball court
on 10th Street made me, too
catch hold of that light, opening my hands
to the dream of the soon blooming
and never did he say forget the crick in your neck
nor your bloody dreams; he did not say forget
the multiple shades of your mother’s heartbreak,
nor the father in your city
kneeling over his bloody child,
nor the five species of bird this second become memory,
no, he said only, It’s a beautiful day,
this tiny man
limping past me
with upturned palms
shaking his head
in disbelief.