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.
Summer Solstice came and gone. I had plans to hit the sea at sunrise, but didn’t make it because I had a restless night what with the heat and house and car alarms going off during the night? Are they sensitive to the heat? I do not know. I thought I was trapped in some kind of twilight zone with the incessant calling alarms and no one moving to switch them off. But I digress. maybe I’m just sensitive to senseless noise!
Mid-year reflections. What can I say? I’m not getting anywhere fast and I’m okay with that.
I FaceTimed with a very dear friend many miles away today and she asked and what’s happening with me. What’s happening in Sheree World?
At first I felt I needed to fill in the gaps with some of this shit and that. Or I’ve been asked to do this shit and that? That I had to show I was hustling and beating the grind real good. But shit ain’t happening in Sheree World and in all honesty I’m happy about that.
I hibernated well into April this year what with going to Paris and celebrating my babies’ birthdays. By the time I came out of my cave, everyone was well into their year, well into 2025. And I could do one of two things ( probably other things too but focusing on just the two for now!).
I could drop everything my heart desired and focused on catching up with everyone else. Max out my diary with jobs and commitments and watch the money roll in.
Or two, I could, continue to roll out of my SheCave slowly and mindfully, carefully and with a whole heap of love and grace for myself and just take things on a day to day basis. No rush no sense of urgency and definitely no panicking.
Which option do you think I chose to follow?
I’m not even sure it was a viable choice because I’m so used to practicing Slow Fugitivity now that it’s the only way I can operate and keep myself sane, safe and thriving.
I’m not measuring my success by how much my bank balance is telling me or more like alerting me to. I’m not measuring my success by how many people are singing my praises. By how many people have my name on this lips and are ready and willing to work with me. Promote me, award me, accept me.
I’m measuring my success on how good I feel moment to moment. How much joy and love am I feeling now? How much care am I giving to my self and those around me? How much am I showing up into situations, gatherings and meetings as myself? Transparent, honest, earnest and hopeful?
How much am I being open hearted, loved, loveable and loving towards myself and those around me?
This is my measure of success.
I’m not turning away from all the shit and cruelty and destruction that is happening around me and in this world. I’m feeling it for the people who are getting caught in the middle of men with big egos who are playing at being leaders and pretending to protect their people. I know what is happening in the name of religion, or history or land and justice. I’m listening and seeing genocide after genocide happening and those responsible not being held to account. I see it and feel it and I want to do more to stop it, to fight against it. So trust me when I say, I do not turn away or ignore it when I choose joy and care and love as my weapons of choice. I’m not living in a fantasy land of all happy happy joy Joy. I’m not being naive or flippant.
I’m choosing to refuse the stories we are being told. I’m refusing to perpetuate the capitalist structures and feed into the patriarchy and imperialist tendencies. I’m choosing to refuse the roles assigned to me as a black woman as just another body to be used and abused and disposed of after I’m no longer useful.
Fuck that fuckery.
So mid-year reflection is that:
* I’ve got no regular working gig on the horizon.
* I’m searching for my tribe.
* I’m dreaming of other possibilities, another way of being.
* I’m refusing the shit sandwich that is offer me again and again.
* I’m refusing what has already been refused of me.
* I’m creating spaces for creative fugitivity.
* I’m creating gaps or breaks in the capitalist dome from which we can break free into the land of possibilities filled with imagination and play.
* I’m embracing craftivism. My word are my weapons. Always have been, always will be.
* I’m lingering in the midst of flight.
* I’m taking MY TIME to stretch OUT my tired limbs. Limbs reaching for the sky, eyes focused on the stars above as I’m breathing deeply, and allowing my deep belly laugh to roll out over the landscape as I pick a rhythm to my own beat and I’m shaking shake shake shaking OUT by big beautiful black behind.
Come join me if you dare. Make sure to bring a plate of food and story to tell as we gonna be gathering around the fire soon to build a free community, or as my dear friend Dal was saying just the other day, build a village. Yes thank you, indeedy!
Let’s get to shaking, shake shake, shaking this shit up!
It was so good to have a deep dive into my practice, my work around fugitivity and refusing to perpetuate white supremacy culture. And it was all welcome at Feral Words. Nothing off limits and it was so liberating to try and make sense of all the concepts and ideas and feelings that are circulating within and without of me at the moment in time. A very disturbing time.
My word of the year is LUSH. And I’ve shared about my reasoning around choosing LUSH, here. On a basic level, I just love saying the word. By the end of the year, I know those around me are going to be sick of hearing the word, LUSH. But I know I’m not going to stop saying/ using/ projecting LUSH.
LUSH needs support moving forward. LUSH needs to spread throughout my life and practice. LUSH is my mantra and I want to direct this energy into bringing about change in my life. Going with the flow at the same time as maybe directing the flow. For me it is all about energy, and for the last couple of years, my energy has been warped, abused, stagnant and awry. So 2025 is me taking it back.
LUSH is a start. And to support this feeling, I have three other words that are coming into the mix, which are coming to my aid and will be used as my guiding forces, this year and beyond, along with LUSH.
So what are these words I hear you ask?
DREAM CONJURE FUGITIVITY
For me these supporting words feed into LUSH as well as each other. They all I feel have a sense of magic and possibility about them.
TO DREAM. I think I do this daily through my visual journaling practice. Everything that comes to fruition in my life, things that I make happen for me and others, starts on the page, starts within my visual journalling. This year, I’m adding some more energy, potent energy into those pages as I intend to dream big, dream bold, dream beautiful.
TO CONJURE. This is where the magic lies. I love the word conjure. It has come to take on more meaning over the last couple of years as I’ve explored it in relation to Black Feminism, Black women and another way of knowing. Another way of being in this world which draws upon our ancestors, Mother Nature and our innate wisdom. I want to conjure with intention this year and be open to what appears, what happens. I want to step into my power as a CONJUR WOMAN ( See Romare Bearden) and appreciate all the layers.
FUGITIVITY. I have Dal Kular to thank for bringing this word into my life as well as supporting and inspiring me in the use of it too. Fugitivity is state of being and movement. It’s a way of moving through this world where you are your own authority and guide. You refuse that which has been refused. It’s a divestment from white supremacy culture, the structures and systems which state that I will never be good enough, white enough, human enough. Another life, another way of being is possible. And I’m exploring the possibilities.
I’m mighty happy with the supporting words this year I have with LUSH, because already sharing them here and thinking/ feeling on them, in the process they are already bringing about change, SLOWNESS as well as JOY.
Have you decide on your word of the year yet? Are you going to support that word with some other words? Let me know in the comments, I’m interested.
I was invited to submit my chapbook, for blackbirds pushing against glass, to a new press, The Wildheart Press, created by Eleanor Cheetham.
I was part of Eleanor’s Soulbook course offering in 2023 where I had the time and space to explore my creative fugitivity. Breaking the rules were welcome.
So Eleanor was familiar with my work when she approached me to submit my feral words to her press. I jumped at the chance because the words were already created. This was an opportunity to share my words further. And I just love supporting a person and a press who recognises that I do not colour within the lines. My writing does not stay on the straight and narrow path. My words like to wander and meander and that is mighty fine with me.
Living Wild Studios 