your body aches
as comfort evades you
your mind rummages
around dark recesses
doubling back into wounds
sneaky drafts seep through window panes along with the cries of seagulls
eyes gritty and sore, moisture absent
when will it be morn?
when this charade can be over
for another night?
when you can drag your body
towards the light
your consciousness
compromised and dull?
but it’s the best you can do
after sleepless nights
under salty cold air
I discard boots before I hit the sand.
Dense turfs of grass tickle my ankles.
Raised veins single the cold.
White winter light under a wolf moon. Deep. Red. Heart.
The sight of seagulls.
Wingbeat to wingbeat song.
Stripping down to my costume
rich flesh graces the air.
Dip one. Slip one. Soon come.
Into the sharp shallows.
Howling with a hunger.
Dip one. Slip one.
Handfuls of sea slipping
through fingers towards
total immersion.
Welcome these little deaths,
to be born again and again.
Here and there and afterwards,
in solitude, as traces of you linger.
Do you wanna know a secret?
Yes I thought that might get your attention. I’m willing to share my dirty little secret if you’re willing to listen?
Okay. Here goes.
I love Nordic Noir. There. It’s out now and I feel a whole heap better.
When I want to chill and relax and switch off, I switch on a Scandinavian crime drama or pick up a novel in the same genre.
There’s something about the landscapes that act as a backdrop for the crime, usually a grizzly murder, that holds my attention and enchants me. I know. Sick right! All these people getting bumped off and there’s blood and guts everywhere and I’m mesmerised by the ice and snow and the mountains that set the scene.
This genre is quality storytelling as well and solid characterisation and suspense and tension too.
I can binge watch a whole series or read a whole book in a evening ( and into early morning) when I get into a certain groove and I’m not ashamed to tell you. At the moment I’ve been making my way through Walter Presents series on All 4. Last night was Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders. A Stockholm lawyer who returns to her hometown after a childhood friend’s death. And isn’t her home town remote, icy and full is lakes and mountains? Beautiful.
I know it’s pure escapism but from time to time it’s good for me, or anyone really, to suspend reality and slip into another, usually distant from the norm, world. I do believe it supports me in my day to day living and striving and thriving. A little sanctuary of make believe. I highly recommend it, I do.
Oh my. I have missed you. My life. I didn’t know how much until I re-entered you again this morning at first light.
My soul began to hum again and then began to sing once more. I’d almost forgotten what she sounded like. I’d almost forgotten myself.
There was colour in my life but not technicolour; fizzy, vibrate reds and oranges and yellows and turquoise. These singing colours have been missing until this morning. Thank you.
I do feel cleansed and purified and detoxed and lighter. My skin is stinging. My feet are tingling. I might well lose the sensation in my toes but it was worth it to get back together with you.
You hold me captive but not against my will. You just keep coming at me. Light upon a crest of a wave. A constant. Washing a little bit more of me with each cold, cold caress. Until I can take no more. And I don’t mean I leave you. No. It means I need more of you, all of you. All over me. So I sink down and take you in, all over me. The pain and pleasure mingle together to escape into a deep guttural sigh. Relief and release. Joy definitely.
But also a sacredness which colours me with grace and gratitude and love.
I’ve never through of us together as a spiritual experience. But this is the most holiest of communions for me. Nothing else compares to this, not even sex.
Here I can take you whenever I want or need. But this is not possession. There is no possession of you because you are wild and free. What it is is a surrender. Almost like praying. An appreciation and inspiration. A giving of thanks. An admiration. You are so beautiful to be with. With your dark seeping liquid, this morning like mercury, tomorrow maybe like glass.
You fill me up with love and goodness and joy. And it’s the kind of love, I want to share. It’s the kind of love from which patience and compassion flows freely. There are no obstacles, boulders in its path. It gushes this love. At times like a geyser and at others like a waterfall. Never ending, always flowing from source to sea.
Or should I say seas as you are never the same sea twice. And for which I am in awe as well as in deep appreciation.
I know I depend on you but I never knew how much until now. Until this moment. This time I come to you bruised and wounded and scared and without hope.You have renewed my hope. You have blessed me with you just being you.
I planned to be with you this morning and I made it happen. But you did all the work that needed to be done almost effortlessly. You made me whole again. You healed me. Thank you.
Not even two week gone yet since I’ve had surgery on my spine and there’s a voice in my head saying you should be doing more. You should be further along in your recovery.
I didn’t sleep well last night, if at all. So I’m going through my day being super critical and super negative in my outlook. Today, I can do no good. Nothing right.
Before I allow myself to wallow any further or spiral downwards any further, I need to shift my energy.
I get creative. I’ll be sharing a new series over the weekend but for now not only getting into the creative flow helped but also considering what I’ve already achieved this year, helped in an upward swing in my thinking, self-reflection.
This year saw me complete not one, not two, but three ‘100 day projects’. This has never been the case before. I’ve never been able to complete one #100dayprojects before never mind three!
So what was different this year in my approach, my thinking, my practice?
I’m not sure if I can pin it down to one thing as I do believe it was a combination of things, such as timing, tasks, enjoyment, accountability to self etc. But I think the main reason came down to my perspective. I set the challenges, I chose the focus, the timeframes, the mediums. I was in control but more importantly I was doing it all for me. I wasn’t completing a daily piece of art for anyone else, for their approval or appreciation. I was doing it for me and how it made me feel while doing it.
Stuff the end product it was all about the process and how for that time I set aside to create all self-criticism and doubts and fears were turned way down low, to nearly a whisper.
So I’m taking this process and applying it again when the self-criticism and doubts and fears rear their ugly heads during my recovery stage. I’m getting creative, luxuriating in the flow because here I happy and at peace and in the flow.
I sent out a studio note in the past week about my current situation of going through unexpected spine surgery and now taking the time to recover. I thought I’d share it here also so we all on the same page.
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
― Martha Graham
Writing around this quote today, I realised that I feel energised when I create. I say ‘create’ but what do I mean?
Over the past few days of being confined to home, I’ve created pocket books, a days of December journal. I’ve decorated postcards for a international swap. I’ve put words, paint and scraps of paper to paper. I’ve collaged as if my life depended on it. And in a way it has. Because all of this creating feeds my soul and this is where my energy comes from.
My light source is my soul. If I feed this source on a daily basis then I have the energy to get through my day. And saying ‘get through my day’ sounds like a chore. But it’s not when I’m feeding my source, my light, my soul with this special, rich sauce that keeps me alive, brings me joy like playing with colour or words.
Things are not perfect and never will be. We’re not rolling in money and we have our worries. But each day, I feel I’m growing in light and grace and gratitude because I’ve made this showing up at the page a priority for me.
For me it all involves paper.
Paper and what I decide to do each time with that paper. Write on it, cut it, stick it, colour it, fold it, sew it. Paper.
My task today is to write a love letter to the body of water that has sustained me, healed me, and nurtured me.
This has to be the North Sea as it has been on my doorstep for decades, even if, I’ve just come to appreciate it more in last 10 years.
A couple of years ago, I came up with the title, ‘The Healing Properties of the Seas‘ for a project involving water. It was basically 10 second videos of bodies of water. On a website for everyone to enjoy. Accompanying this would be a symposium, interviews with me talking to other people about their connection to water etc. There would be an open submission for people around the world to share their 10 second clips of bodies of water.
I have hundreds of 10 second clicks of the North Sea and other waters and I feel I don’t appreciate water enough. The planet’s water enough. I’m fixing to change this and hopefully get, ‘The Healing Properties of Seas‘, off the ground. Are you with me?
I forgot to share my recent creation featured on Nine Muses Poetry website because I was getting lost in the wilderness with the Black Women’s Leadership Program with the Earth Sea Love nature project. But now I’m back and got my head turned around and ready to share. Check it out below. Thanks.
One Poem by Sheree Mack
OCTOBER 20, 2019 ~ ANNEST GWILYM
Written in response to this month’s Special Challenge.
Listen
… to the geese gathering
honking at all hours, they have arrived
to wait out the winter on these shores
Listen
… as they take to the clear sky
together, in formation, whining, squeaking,
as their wide wings caress the cool air
Continued on website here
Living Wild Studios 