Showing me

Originally uploaded by Julie Merrett Glass

You may have seen that I've decided to do a course called unravelling.

This week was really interesting for me and a building on some of the things I've already seen about myself. What struck me is that generally I'm a very confident person and thats the view that other people get to see.

The thing about photographs of me is that I get to see them to. There is something to be said about being blissfully unaware of my appearance so that I dont judge myself. A strategy which means that I have few photographs of myself and as a result few recorded memories.

There is more to be said about seeing my appearance and not judging mself. Not criticising every last detail and flaw but loving me, loving who I am. That image represents me at this moment in time. A time which will pass and never be repeated. Something that is recorded through the camera lens that can evoke memories rather than the faded images that run through our minds whch are distorted over time.

I have really come to love over this last week taking pictures of me, discarding the ones which are pretty duff and there were many of them. By taking many images I now have a few that I can say represent me now... and I like them... and as a consequence I like me a little more

Slow down and smell the roses

I’ve said so often that I don't want to live in London and that I yearn to live somewhere on the south coast where there is a much slower pace of life.  I realized today how much of that fast pace lives in me and that if I were to move somewhere else those thoughts would still be with me.  Just as they have when I have moved from job to job.

Over last few months I have been taking notice of the rhythm of my body, the whispers my body speaks to me when I’m not listening.  They really are asking me to slow down and I’ve been learning to listen to them.

I initially thought that it was just about dealing with my grief but there is something so much more than that.

I walked into Tesco at lunch today to pick up some bits and bobs.  The speed and pace of everyone around me seemed to be on another setting. A much higher one.  Everyone seemed so stressed and overwhelmed.  Including a mother who was pushing her shopping back out the car, holding her toddler by the hand, and the poor mite couldn't keep up with her.

The amazing thing was today I didn't feel the need to speed up to keep pace with them.  I got when I needed doing without feeling stressed.  I retained my peace and my tranquility and it felt good, good, good.  My creativity remained intact and there were flowing ideas.  It turned out to be a great lunch break.

It got me wondering, how many of the things I crave are very accurate but my solution is so very unhelpful and causes me to feel dissatisfied.  There is something about learning to love and live where I am.  Something which I’ve felt is such a corny thing to say… but you know I think it might actually be true.

Technorati Tags: slow down,desires,natural rhythms

I wish I knew how not to hurt

I wish I knew how not to hurt.

The grief and overwhelming emotions I seem to be feeling since my Christmas miscarriage just seem to be getting deeper.  They seem like a bottomless pit of emotions.

It may be true that I’m processing the emotions relating to the other miscarriages and it may be true that we may have an answer as to why biologically its happening but that somehow doesn't touch my soul. 

I don't understand why having been blessed with the gift of life that has been taken away.  I don't understand how the pain seems to get deeper. I don't understand that even though you say to people it feels like my heart has been ripped out they still manage to ignore the pain.

I don't want to be rescued.  I know this is a journey I need to walk and need to get to the other side.  I know that I am loved and people care for me but I don't know how to let them walk this journey with me so I can feel that love.

My sense of not knowing and not understanding seems to stretch into every area of my life.  I know i have skills within my job, but if you asked me to write a CV at the moment, I don't think I could do it and tell you I’m any good at anything.  I know I have a loving father in God who holds me and keeps me safe, but I couldn't explain to you some of the other things of my faith.  It feels like a ball of uncertainty.  Although at least I have faith in a God who understands it and holds it even when I don't get it.

In this mess I feel a peace and a sense of things will work out.  The other side of that coin is to feel a sense of peace I have to let go of the things that I strive for, that I really want, that I cant get to.  Without letting go of what I desire I cant get what I need which is peace. In letting go of what I desire I strip away one more part of who I am and release more of myself into not knowing and not understanding.  I have to take one more step into the arms of a loving father.

Closed For Business

I've made a huge decision regarding the business this week.

As you can tell by my blogging recently there has been a lot about me but nothing to really promote my glass art. That's because there hasn't been any. No that I haven't wanted to create, I have, it has just been in other avenues.

I have realized that I need to close down my glass bead business. Unfortunately it has become a millstone round my neck rather than something that I love. I love glass, I love making things with glass but there is something missing in my heart.

That may solely be down to my grief process and dealing with the issues following my miscarriages. There is something however in there about my attitude to money and how that becomes an overwhelming reason to create. Given what I long to create has meaning a purpose this is clearly unhelpful. I am also lucky in that I have a well enough paid job that I don't have to earn through glass.

I have learned how to be skilled in craft, I now know that I need to find my voice as an artist.

I don't know what I will do with the blog. Whether I will stay chatting in blog world or whether I will disappear here too. All I know is that there is something more to what I need to create and being tied to glass beads prevents me from doing it.

I would like to thank you all for your love and support recently

Julie

Self Portrait

This was me having a play at a self portrait... seeing as I don't have a picture of me that I wanted to copy I decided to create something slightly more abstract

There are loads of things I do around the outside

• beads and my glass work are represented by the white circles
• There are brown dots which look like reeds which represents my love of water
• there are musical notes
• there is golden wool which I used when I made our wedding invites

But the thing is that these are the things that are outside of me.  It is the things that make me up, my hopes and my fears, my dreams and ambitions which make up who I am.  They are the core of my being

Starting to Unravel

I found this guy when I was out yesterday and he seemed to summarize what I was feeling in my post yesterday about wanting to run away from what I had signed up to do.

Now not being one to run away from how I am feeling I've jumped into the tasks that we've been set.  The truth is I can not help but compare my pictures the the beautiful ones that every one else is producing however that isn't going to stop me participating... although when feeling too raw might stop me looking at everyone else's photos.

These two pictures go in tandem for me.   it was one of those moments when you realize your images portray something of what you are feeling.  The colourful one is when not working the other one is when I was.  The work one looks so boring while the non working one has so many colours and textures in.  the interesting thing for me is that at work I have complete freedom to design my job as the job description isn't written in stone... yet I've brought that work is boring attitude with me.

Something to ponder... how to find the adventure in my paid work because it truly is a new venture and nationally there is no script for it.

Unravelling

I have signed up to do an e-course called Unravelling. Its a photography course looking at connecting more deeply with yourself. 

I've been getting really excited over the last couple of days waiting for the start of the course and now its here... well I find myself turning and looking for my familiar rock to hide under.

Now the truth is I haven't taken a single photograph yet for the course and I already feel like I'm unravelling, well falling apart at least.  I find myself besieged with fears that I'm not good enough, that my photos will be dull and boring, that it will reveal that my life isn't good enough and just how messy I am. 

Logically I know I don't have to share anything and that its not a competition to see who has captured the best image.  Still my fear says I cant do it, that I will be bottom of the class and find myself as an outsider to the group.

Man I didn't think the idea of taking pictures of my feet would be just so hard.

I guess I am currently on a journey which seems to be all about stripping away some of the masks which I hide behind.  Because my photography isn't great and often I do not think too much about the composition of the photograph, I know the snaps I take are going to be raw.  They are going to show me things which I find uncomfortable and are just so gonna slam that not good enough button.  I fear the images will not be beautiful enough.

Listen to me I'm comparing in my head my photographs to someone, in the course leader, who is a professional photographer.... arrrrrrrggg

I just really hope that over the next few weeks I really do become more connected with me and in finding that sense of me have courage to show the real me to the world.