All last year I kept saying to myself, I desire to book a night’s stay at a Malmaison hotel.
Particularly the Newcastle one. Years ago I’d stayed in this very hotel, for different reasons at different times in my life.
I kept saying to myself book yourself in, as a treat. Rest up and enjoy the luxury. And it is a luxurious hotel chain. Decadent and opulent. And way out of my price range.
I couldn’t justify the cost. It was just to fulfil a whim.
When plans for the New Year changed and I found myself at a loss, I fulfilled my dream of 2025 on the first day of 2026.
I booked an overnight stay at Malmaison Newcastle. A Club Delux room, a free upgrade.
I didn’t do much while there except write, paint, shower and sleep.
I enjoyed the space, I enjoyed the nice smelling toiletries and the complimentary chocolates.
But …
I won’t be needing to book another night or two at a Malmaison hotel. I lived the dream. Enjoyed the dream.
But …
I much prefer the life I’ve cultivated in reality, in real life. Right now.
This was quickly followed with the writings and (re)drafts of Darkling, my poetry/hybrid collection published in October 2024.
After this 2025 has been a period of extended rest and refusal.
But something has been niggling me. The desire to create with paint again. the desire to play without expectations and outcomes/ products.
I’ve just scratched the itch through scrolling through Pinterest. Adding another abstract or landscape painting to a board that I’ll probably not look at again.
But it satisfied this niggling feeling. Until it didn’t.
It was going back into the classroom. Completing a few days of supply that pushed me over the edge.
The time I gave away for money. The time I’d lost pursuing my own pursuits. And realising that I wasn’t pursuing all the pursuits I wanted to pursue in the time I had/have.
So out came a creative sketchbook, inspired by the 30 days sketchbook challenge created by Cheryl Taves over at Insight Creative.
This is as much as I’m willing to share for now about the challenge, my creative sketchbook, processes and insights.
One of my rules is that it’s just for my eyes only. I want to see how this rule changes my practice. I want to create without fear but with curiosity. I want to give myself all the freedom without worrying about what others will think or say or comment on.
It’s not like I’m hanging on other people’s responses and reactions but I have gotten into a habit of just sharing anything and everything on my blog and I’m curious to see what happens when I keep things to myself.
Just for my eyes, heart, and soul only.
So far I’m enjoying the process of the challenge and I’m reflecting and paying attention to what makes my heart sing, what’s my creative vocabulary, what pushes my energies.
Do doubt whatever I explore within my creative sketchbook will be showing up in everything that I create. In everything who I {BE}. For sure.
After a busy week, where it felt as if I didn’t get a weekend, because I didn’t as I was permaculturing and fugitivity spreading, I’m making myself comfy and cosy.
I’m all wrapped up in bed, catching up with my creativity. Catching up with myself.
And I feel so grateful for this cosy fort, for the week I’ve enjoyed, mostly on my own terms, and for the weekend to come. Rest and creative fugitivity.
I’ve still got mothering and taxiing duties this evening but I feel, in my cosy fortress, I’m on my own time/space.
I get to play and be curious and satisfy my desires. And right now all I want to do is be here. Right. Now.
I’m safe. I’m warm. I’m stealing my life back. Each cosy, comfy fort at a time.
I come here with a heart filled with joy, love and gratitude.
I put my heart, soul, care and dreams into the WOC Azadi Collective fugitivity visual journaling retreat today.
The time/space we created together was magical. We’re becoming a fugitive collective, creating mischief as we steal ourselves away. Steal our lives back from systems of oppression, systems we never consented to but find ourselves subjected it.
We refuse.
I have so much love and gratitude for Dal Kular who got me back to work with the collective. Dal sees my practices and processes around my visual journaling and fugitivity and constantly cheers me on, holds space and supports me to explore these further in collective/ collaboration with beautiful people.
What we created was powerful and ripe with possibilities. What we can do together is empowering and criminal. Disorderly and messy and so much needed.
There are other ways to {BE} and I’m all for exploring these further, deeper, together.
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark is a book I can’t get out of my head since I finished reading it.
A dark gothic southern historical fantasy novella set in 1920s Macon, Alabama, just after the 1915 film The Birth of the Nation which is being used to grow the KKK but to another level of Ku Kluxes. Monsters upon monsters.
And who is there to fight them and save the day if not three black women armed with blade, bullets and bomb. Helped with special powers and kinship with Gullah women and the supernatural.
Published on October 13, ( my birthday) 2020, this book blurred all the genres, redefines narratives and timelines and had me hooked from start to finish. It messed with my expectations and just left me wanting more.
I hope there’s going to be a sequel as these characters are too powerful and inspiring to be left in one novella.
I’ve got a reading streak going on with kindle – not including the physical books I’ve read this year.
I’m at about 210 days and 70 books done. I surpassed my projection of 50 books on kindle.
Anyway when I get sick, I get to taking it even slower and instead of watching pap TV I turn to books to escape from my uncomfortableness and irritability.
It soothes me to read a good book. And I’ve been getting into speculative fiction. I would have said I’m crime fiction and romance fiction till I die. But once I’ve come to realise, really see how both of these genres prop up the capitalist, white supremacy, patriarchal, colonialist system, I can no longer read them with joy.
I can no longer read them full stop. So to fill the void, I’ve been reading non-fiction by black authors and speculative fiction by black authors too.
If I’m gonna be buying this shit then let me buy the shit that supports my people and continues to help me get free.
Living Wild Studios 