Sue Finch

CAN YOU HEAR IT IN THE SILENCE?

This morning the air brings the aroma of what I used to call mouldy mops. Mops that had been in a cleaning cupboard somewhere for too long. Stored away when damp and not aired. The grass is sodden and squelchy, and my body is still slightly tired from a weekend away at a yarn festival. Kath and I did Yarndale! My first time in Skipton and I would definitely return. Other stall holders had told me to think carefully about footwear and warmth and they were right. Sturdy shoes and layers were definitely needed. I loved it when my sister messaged to say, “I’m not being funny, but your photos look like you are in a cattle market in one of the pens.”

Alt text nails it with the description of this week’s photo because it is indeed, “Two women smiling for the camera”. You can just about make out some knitted flowers in the background and this was the ‘Yarndale Meadow’ and it was beautiful. I love the photo for capturing us just before we started up again on Sunday after a busy Saturday. And I love having a photographic capturing of what for us was a big weekend.

Before packing the cars and heading off for our weekend adventures I spent some time thinking about silence last week. I have thought a lot about silence as a poet and as a coach. I know for example that work I have done to develop my voice means that I wouldn’t now be able to write my poem Silence. That poem was a moment in time that needed setting down, and my relationship with silence has evolved since then. It is still evolving and that in itself is a joy.

Listening to a conversation on The Coaching Inn Podcast between Claire Pedrick and Oscar Trimboli opened up my thinking even more and began to bring the two sets of thinking together for me. My thoughts started to unfold as I listened in and I found myself transported to standing on the path in the forest at Loggerheads, three o’clock in the morning waiting for the dawn chorus, waiting to hear the first blackbird sing. I found myself visualising silence as a space with complete width and depth. I saw it as a darkness about to be lit up.

That image of silence being a space and width that enables things to emerge got me thinking about the times in a coaching room when something similar happens. Silence as a canvas for thoughts and feelings. When I feel that kind of silence in front of me in a coaching room it gives me a tingle of excitement and curiosity as I wonder what is going to emerge. When I am gifted it, I can feel my thoughts being given a welcome, open space. There’s a real joy when this is created between two people and the very essence of it can be felt. Palpable silence.

I have a poetry workshop that I wrote called “Can You Hear it in the Silence?’ and I can see now that this also relates to my thoughts around the silence of a blank page and the silence between words or lines.

My car mot was due and I chose, as always, to sit in the garage waiting area while this was carried out. I feel like a valued customer there and I will often choose what I might do with the hour or so before I go there so that I treat this as a gift of time for focusing on one thing. This time I wanted to continue reading Pascale Petit’s first novel My Hummingbird Father. I consider this reading time to be a silence, but given that there is a lot of sound associated with the environment of the garage showroom I find this quite intriguing. The words played a film in my mind as I listened to them in my head voice at the same time as successfully tuning out the showroom tv which featured the news and a local radio station which was playing some eighties hits. This felt like immersion, it felt like a silencing of my thoughts that enabled me to be in the pages. It made me think that for me silence has so many facets. When I walk and I get to the quarter that is a country road I can find silence when the rhythm of my walk is settled and steady and I can fade out the sound of my footsteps and breath. Very different from the shiver of silence that comes when there is a solar eclipse.

I think I rather like thinking about silence and I think it was the perfect balance to the weekend where we were surrounded by the sounds of show setting up, happening and closing down again. This included the wonderful echo of sheep’s calls on Saturday morning as they arrived to their pens. Deep, throaty sounds as if to say, “Wow there are a lot of humans in this space today”.

I think I will return to thinking about silence… whether other people consider it rare, how they visualise it and what kind of silences they love. For now I will leave you with two poems that I have set down along the way:

IT IS NOT ABOUT DAWN

It is about that moment

before the dark time breaks,

being present in the silence,

standing still in an exact moment.

It is all about when that first bird sings,

first light,

the fact that there is an order

that layer upon layer

sculpts the day’s beginning.

It is about discovering how long it takes

before the crow starts to echo back

with his rough

cruck, cruck.

SILENCE

Silence stands in the hallway all night

says she doesn’t need to sleep.

In the morning, she is in the chair

waiting.

Sometimes she smiles

and I think she gave me the dream

about meeting Dolly Parton for the soundcheck.

Sometimes she is so aloof

I imagine she sent me the handless mob

lumbering towards me,

bloodied boxing gloves

where fingers should have been.

She has birdsong in her;

sends the call of a bittern

to make me laugh

after she has taken me to the darkest silence.

Once she tapped me on the shoulder

at 3am, handed me the car keys

got in the car with me

and directed me to a forest.

She took me over a stile to the darkened path

where we could not see our feet

and the bumps and gnarls of roots

sat under the mud.

Before my eyes adjusted

she stopped me, stood with me

to hear the last owl and the first blackbird.

Once she wrote me a note

folded it and put my name on it

so that she could watch me open it

and read, I am your shadow.

Her drawings tattooed the page –

a tarnished axe

a coffin

and a holly bush

all its leaves on the ground.

ELEPHANT HAWK MOTH NOT SHOELACE

This morning the air is fresh after the rain. It carries the scent of green leaves. A cockerel, a distance away, crows in the morning while smaller birds sing for the new day in hedgerows nearby.

Alt Text says this week’s photo is a caterpillar on a branch. It is. And I have been going out each day to observe this creature and wish it well. I have even proudly shown the postman. I love the fact that most years I get to see one of these elephant hawk moth caterpillars in the front garden, and this one has been sticking around in the same bush these past few days. This year I learned that they like to feed on fuchsia and I feel glad that I left the largest bush in the garden relatively untamed. I did wonder if I would be able to see it cocoon, but I read that they bury themselves in the soil to do this.

When I was young I loved Autumn for the exciting new term at school and the joy of being one year older and ready to learn different things, I enjoyed the change of colour on the trees and the way fallen leaves piled up. I fell out of love with it for a while as an adult and had to remind myself to see it as a season of its own again and not a period of time that led to Winter. Now I take time to listen to the echo of the passing of time and immerse myself in the essence of Autumn as it unfolds around me. I have been extending my walks when the sun is out to make the most of feeling the heat on my skin, and readying my favourite jumper because I sense the end of t-shirt walks soon.

There was sorbet from Snugbury’s ice-cream farm last week (chocolate truffle and mango) when we went to see the enormous Paddington Bear sculpture and it was lovely to be out in the world, just being, for a portion of the afternoon. I have spent a lot of time lately planning work things rather than doing work things and it was good to just leave all of that behind for a while. I like ice-cream (vegan versions) and we have a scoop and cornets here, but nothing beats eating it out in the world as a real treat. And nothing beats a moment or two in time of remembering to be.

If you want to lean into the season of Autumn with me I offer you two autumnal poems: Conker and They Are Autumn… (Oh and if you are wondering about the title of this blog there’s a great photo of a shoelace that’s not a caterpillar on my website.)

Conker

You slip out smooth;

your emergence perfect gloss.

You are Autumn

seemingly solid as wood.

I pocket you,

roll you between finger and thumb.

Palm you

as my lucky charm.

Yet there is a hint of death in you.

And a tree.

I am holding you still as I walk.

Daring myself to lick my fingers

for the taste of you.

THEY ARE AUTUMN

And they look delicious;

smooth, polished nut-brown on the ground

with their snug little green hats.

And I want to eat some,

but I have forgotten their name

and I am not sure if you can.

I give in to the temptation

to tread on some,

to feel them hold out

until they crack under the weight of me.

All I know is they fell from the tree.

Its leaves are telling me it’s an oak,

and I know so much depends upon it,

but it takes me all day

to remember they are acorns.

ANGEL OF THE NORTH AS DANCER

This morning there is a tang of wood in the cool air. It is the kind of scent that might come from opening a little used cupboard door or how I imagine the very centre of a conker smells.

Alt Text says this week’s photo is: fabric in the air. I say it is ‘Angel of the North as Dancer’, a photograph of the ‘Angel of the North’ shawl by Kath Andrews Designs. I enjoy lying on the patio to capture photos of the shawls in flight while Kath throws them in the air. This year we have made a set of twelve of these photos into a calendar and we had fun showing the images to people at the Yarn Gathering Show this weekend and talking about how they were created. (The images not the people!)

I was thinking about lipstick last week. I don’t wear lipstick. I did when I first met my wife and strangely enough we wore the same colour back then. But the last time I bought a new lipstick was thirteen years ago. I bought it because I was meeting Dolly Parton. The photo from the ‘Meet and Greet’ thirteen years ago came up in my memories on my phone last week and as always it gave me a lovely tingle of joy. My lipstick, foundation and pink shirt go with the moment itself! Winning the ‘Meet and Greet’ was a dream come true. I hardly moved from outside the arena all day because I didn’t want to miss the instructions of where to go. I also didn’t want to crease my shirt! I used to have a real thing about being early because I couldn’t bear the thought of being late and this was the ultimate in being punctual. Over time I watched everyone else enter the arena and take their seats before I was led to the ‘Meet and Greet’ area. It felt good to be heading somewhere after standing around for quite some time. When Dolly stepped off the tour bus she shone and radiated joy. That moment in time was a gift. When I was going through my memory boxes recently I realised that I don’t need the photo to remember the moment or the feelings, but I do really, really love it. I like to read the Dolly Parton book Dream More at least once a year, and so this week I am going to make myself comfortable with a cup of tea and settle into it again. September, with its new year vibes, feels a very good time to revisit the book. It also ties in with the Neuro Linguistic Programming learning I engaged with last week.

At the weekend I enjoyed a different kind of meet and greet when I was able to help out at the local yarn show. It felt good to welcome people and I loved the different conversations that can evolve after a short introduction. It’s good to talk. Saying things out loud makes a real difference and brings connections. I like these new mini connections and I also love when I look forward to seeing people who I am pretty sure will be there. If you watched my 15 second Circus video when invited this weekend then please know you always make my day when I see you. The story behind the video is that Kath asked Pinder’s Circus if we could have the advert from the end of the road as a souvenir. I wanted to make a video for my sister to remind her of our trip and of Yuri the clown. We loved our circus trip and felt very lucky to be able to take a short walk to see trapeze artists, a clown and a whole range of circus acts.

I love it when people’s talent shines from them. Here’s to all the sparkle we each bring to the world with our interactions, connections and individual joys.

I had prepared two poems for this blog because they went with Autumn, but I will save those for another time and whilst I am thinking about sparkle and people and connections I will share ‘The Stars are Clays’:

THE STARS ARE CLAYS

Because I didn’t listen in science

or had forgotten that stars were big balls of gas,

I told you that under a silenced moon

an unnamed god had taken aim

then fired.

I told you that they followed

each upward trajectory

after hearing someone’s cry

of Pull.

I said, the stars are clays

held by the galaxy,

to pattern the darkness

for you and me.

They have been shot

into smithereens

and are shining there now for us.

Even though I knew the sun was a star,

that the shine had something

to do with immense pressure

changing hydrogen to helium,

even though I could have told you

that there were hundreds of billions of them out there

I didn’t.

All I was actually sure of was that

I needed to stand in the darkness

with you.

Will you lift your eyes and look with me?

ONION RINGS AND OTHER JOYFUL THINGS

This morning the wind stirs the leaves on the trees into an unsyncopated crisp rustle. The swirled air brings a cocktail of green scents. Two magpies hop and tap dance in the road before lifting their fans and becoming five.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a picture of a person holding up two rings. I say it is my sister holding up two massive onion rings. I also say that one day I will focus when I take the photo and make sure both her eyes are framed.

A year ago my sister had recently been to visit, and I was starting a new career journey. Today my sister has recently been to visit, and I am starting the qualified and accredited part of my new career journey. These are beautiful echoes as the new academic year establishes itself.

Last year I had a black coffee when we stopped for coffee on our shopping trip and this year (having learned the art and joy of going out for drinks in coffee shops) I had an oat milk cappuccino. Both drinks made my head spin as I mostly drink water or minty tea after my first cup of tea of the day. I am amused by how long it took me to understand the joy of going out for drinks or pausing on a day out for some refreshment. For years I thought it was something I didn’t enjoy/didn’t need to indulge in and now I get it.

So what else have I learned/what else am I celebrating from the past year of new paths. Here’s ten things:

I still don’t really love onion rings, but I love it when my sister has them.
The ‘JOY’ letters get repainted and moved and whatever colour they are and wherever they are they are always fun to be photographed in.
The circus still amuses and entertains me.
I am really proud of my training to be a coach.
I still think of September as the beginning of a new year.
I still know that January is also the beginning of a new year.
Every day offers the chance of a new beginning.
Testimonials make me glow with pride and joy.
That spending time working in my stretch zone leads to good things.
That I can always be relied upon to have hand wipes and hand gel.

Seasons are important to me and it feels good to share the following poem in September to mark the start of Autumn. I have shared it before, but to me it stands the test of time. It was originally drafted during a workshop with Caroline Bird in September 2021, and was published by Ink, Sweat and Tears a month later in celebration of National Poetry Day when the theme was ‘Choice’. I can’t wait to tell you about another poem of mine (a prose poem) that I wrote two years ago which will be published soon, but for now here’s my ten line autumnal poem:

This Was Once a Good Poem

but it has eaten cheese and pickle rolls for a week now

and it can’t work out why the vitamins aren’t working.

It rocks in the chair until its eyes are too tired to see

and has scared itself with thoughts of Autumn spiders

under glasses in the hallway.

It is wondering if it is true that conkers in corners

keep arachnids at bay

and is now standing in the dark

sniffing last year’s horse chestnuts

desperate to find their scent.

Thank you for listening. Here’s to onion rings and other joyful things. (Feel free to share your onion ring photos if it pleases you.)

A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH MONDAYS

This morning the air is drizzle misted and the first scent it brings is warmed tea rose.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a stuffed toy in the air. I say it is the photo from September on the calendar showing Ronnie jumping for joy and the sky is blue through the clouds.

It has been one year since I started this blog and my new relationship with Mondays. This time a year ago I decided to start a blog as a way of documenting my year and holding myself accountable whilst I started a new journey in life. I had handed back the keys to the primary school I had been head of for seventeen years, and I wasn’t buying new shoes for a new term or planning my first assembly of the school year. I decided to see what the air smelt like each Monday morning as each new week began.

I see now why I focus on providing time for people to ‘think, breathe and be’ when I work as a coach. I definitely needed time for those three things at that period of immense change. This is wonderfully illustrated by the fact that when I started this blog I didn’t immediately record it as a podcast. This came a few weeks later when I had begun to land in my new space and find the voice that went with it.

The title of the podcast, ‘Singing as the Darkness Lifts’, comes from my love of and gratitude for three things:

the sound of birds welcoming the dawn,
the feeling of darkness lifting,
the moments of joy that make my heart sing

Start and keep going. That’s been a useful motto for me. I know that small things repeated will make a difference and I know that it is better to get started than wait to be fully ready. I think it would have taken me a very long time to feel fully ready for blogging or podcasting. In fact there is a distinct possibility that neither would have happened if I had waited for that kind of feeling. And, I knew that at the very least I would have a pretty impressive diary for my year even if nothing else came from putting my words into the world.

I had a lot of loud thoughts in my head last week when my email system broke. I really disliked not being able to fix it and not knowing why it had suddenly happened. I totally disliked the timing of it too because it happened just after I received an email to congratulate me on becoming an accredited coach. I felt frustrated when I could not respond. Well, I did respond, but my messages went out into the ether, stayed there for a few hours and then beamed messages back to me to say they were undeliverable. I did not like the thought of learning a new email system. I liked the way I could change my signatures in the old system, and I wanted things back as they were. However after much effort to try to resolve the situation switching to a different system seemed preferable. I heard my sister say that I should be able to coach myself to deal with this and this made me laugh. It’s always good to have my sense of humour reawakened along the way. Dealing with it factually and taking one step at a time (with a few internet searches for help along the way) motivated me into action instead of using time trying to unpick something I didn’t understand. Within a day I had learned to make a decent signature in my new mail system and had organised folders and the buttons I liked in my tool bar. That’s pretty good for me. And there was something very therapeutic about deleting emails that were no longer relevant. I always used to do this ahead of the new school year and it felt good to replicate that for my new systems and procedures. It always prepared the way for the new and gave a good opportunity to remove things that were part of the past and had been dealt with. I felt glad to have been nudged into action and see something good come out of those hours of the system not functioning.

I learned so much during my time leading a school and I celebrate all of it. I celebrate all the people who made that journey special. I celebrate the email I found that said “It’s always you that makes my heart sing” and the person I happened to bump into a few months ago who told me they had loved being taught by me back in the late nineties. It feels right to take all that forward into the next stage of my journey. When needed I can still do many things at once and attend to them in priority order, but I doubt there will be a time to match morning registration combined with a suspected gas leak. We had a whole school ‘let’s take our coats outside and sit on them whilst we enjoy some spur of the moment September sunshine’ reading session. It was ‘just’ the drains. I learned quite a bit about drains and pipes and leaks, and how mops are just not enough in some situations as a result of being a head.

Whilst sorting all that email stuff out I did wonder if I should change my email address so that it sounded ‘more professional’. I decided against it because I like my email address and the story that goes with it even if spelling it to people sometimes sends me off on a tangent. That very evening I communicated with someone on Linkedin and they said: “PS love your email address.” I started this new journey to be authentically me and I might indeed set another email account with a simple address as a back-up, but I am glad I didn’t drop the one I have got when I did my tidy up.

I hope there’s an aroma in the air that makes you smile this week and that you share the joy that makes your heart sing.

LET THE SPARKLE SHINE

This morning the air feels fresh and cool. I hunt for a hint of scent, but am instead drawn to the moon screen-printed in milky white on blue sky. As I enjoy the pull of the moon and remember it has been elusive under cloud recently I can still detect no particular hint of herb or grass or leaf. It makes me wonder where the aromas are hiding this morning. I estimate the moon to be half full and on checking find it is just over that at 56% illuminated and tomorrow will be just under at 46%.

Alt Text offers the suggestion that this week’s image is: “A stuffed animal with lights around it.” I say this is the image that summed up how I felt when I completed the first part of my coaching qualification in December 2023. It was a definite shiny, sparkly tingle of the feelings of pride, excitement and joy. I choose to share the same photo now because I have recently successfully completed the whole of my coaching qualification and those feelings are with me once again!

This marks a key moment in my life. I was determined to use this academic year to study and take a new career path. It’s been a personal journey as well as an academic one, and it has been one of the best journeys I have chosen to take. That makes it well worth noting and celebrating.

I like taking time to look back before looking forward, and looking back to last September shows me how far I have come. I have met so many good people and have much to celebrate.

I celebrate the excellent work and vision Jo and Zoe from In Good Company, UK. The content and facilitation of the course they have designed is excellent. I had high expectations, and these were definitely met. I celebrate the wonderful people in my cohort. There is so much support for one another in this group and I absolutely love that. I celebrate all those people who have shared coaching time and space with me during my pro bono hours.

I was thinking about all of this whilst listening to some of my favourite duets on a long drive this weekend. I often listen to a playlist of duets while driving because I know each song will resonate and sparkle in my brain, whilst also keeping me alert. It’s the kind of music I can inhabit and be surrounded by all at the same time. I love that feeling. For me there is connection and uplift in the listening. It’s that harmony when the voices complement one another so well. It’s the fact there is a beginning, middle and end to the whole story of each duet.

And the harmony that is there in duets is also there in the connections we make with people. It shines when lifting others up and when being lifted up by others.

This makes me think it’s time to extend my playlist of my favourite duets and a decent reminder to always let people know when you are grateful for the harmony they add to your life. If you’ve got a favourite duet, I would love to know, and then I can decide which part I might take on when I am driving in my car. I swear I can even hit the high notes when I am driving on some roads…

Two of my absolute favourites at the moment are:

Catch the Wind by Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter

For Good from Wicked

DO VENTRILOQUISTS TALK TO THEIR DENTISTS DURING TREATMENT?

Today the air is lightly herbed with rosemary. It is fresh and cool and temporarily free from fumes. An orange cat is adventuring with purpose as a herring gull laughs and I remember looking for a red tinged moon last night in a clouded sky.

Alt Text makes me smile with this week’s suggestion of ‘A person standing in front of a wall of art’ for the photo of me at Qube Gallery in Oswestry where my #ElasticBandPhotos are being exhibited. I’ll take that as accurate.

On Saturday I made my third trip to the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight. It was ace for many reasons including:

· Knowing which bits of set-up I am good at and just getting on with these.

· My enjoyment of talking to new people.

· The fact I was not responsible for an alarm system.

Last year I sat down next to someone for a tea break and shared with them my tale of how the school alarm system always needed attention at the time of this particular yarn show. (In 2022 it went off in the middle of the night so we only got a couple of hours sleep the night before the show. In 2023 the alarm panel needed a reset code so I travelled to set-up and then detoured to attend to it.) They then shared with me their tale of the day they had to deal with a gas explosion in their place of work (no injuries, but highly dramatic) and I realised that so many jobs carry that kind of responsibility and my experience in comparison was small. It’s good to talk, and to put things into perspective.

I had plenty of proof of things that could set off alarms that weren’t fire or intruders… a rapidly boiling kettle with a failed off switch, a person wanting to exit the building who pressed the wrong button, a spider in the sensor, a thunderstorm, an unclosed window, part of a display falling down. But my childhood experience was more 50:50…

My first experience of an actual fire alarm came when I had just started school. I remember crying as I walked in line as instructed and we made our way out onto the playground. I felt a grown-up’s hand take hold of mine and ask me what was wrong and I recall telling her “My new lunchbox is inside”. It was in a brand new Paddington Bear bag and I was feeling sad that it would be gone in the fire on its very first outing. I didn’t understand that this was a drill. My first experience of an actual fire came way before this when I was a baby. My brother was experimenting with matches and set fire to the curtains in the lounge much to my mum’s dismay. At least when he was older he made fires with a magnifying glass outside the house.

I was thinking again about the need to quieten an overthinking brain during my under-the-gum clean. Lying there I recognised a change in how I felt about the time it took for this procedure. It used to be a much needed twenty-five minute relaxation in a busy world and now I was viewing it as being simply a thing that needed to be done. And this time there was a picture of purple flowers on the ceiling for me to gaze at. Before those flowers I was never really sure what to look at during the treatment and I can remember one time staring into one of the ceiling lights for the whole process and then not being able to see properly when I needed to leave the room and go and pay. I only did that once!

This poem from 2019 captures an overthinking brain at the dentist:

Do Ventriloquists Talk to Their Dentists During Treatment?

Do they speak about their teeth?

Joke about the way their tongue tracks

the polishing brush?

Do they make small talk –

a statement on the weather,

where they’re going on holiday?

Do they mention that the song playing

on the radio is taking them right back?

Share that whole story?

Do they say they have heard

that ingesting plaque debris

causes heart attacks?

Pause for a moment,

then ask if it is true?

Do they disclose what it’s like

to feel too visible?

Wish they had kept silent?

BEING SOCIABLE AGAIN

This morning the air smells fuschia pink underlined with gently fermenting darkening green grass.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a collage of 2 people. I say it is a montage of four photos of three siblings ensuring they get a couple of sensible photos at the wedding of one of my nephews. I also say it delights me to have had the moments in these photos. It was good to be out in the world being sociable to celebrate the joy of young love with all the guests at a special wedding.

I love weddings, particularly the speeches and the way the words people choose make me tingle at the very humanness of being. My brother, Mark, gave a wonderful address at the end of the ceremony and my sister and I marvelled at his capable public speaking and the way he made us laugh as well as think and celebrate the couple.

When talking about their honeymoon, the bride and groom mentioned that the place they were travelling to had a hot tub and they were planning to relax there while watching the perseid meteor shower. This struck me as a wonderful way to watch the spectacle. It also reminded me how different things are this year compared to 2020 when I wrote my perseid poem ‘Invitation’. We were in lockdown then and being sociable was very limited indeed. One night back then I dreamt that I was invited to see the perseids in the armpit of a lover, and there they were in great detail and great number. It was a superb dream for the content and for my wondering about how the world had changed.

This year’s meteor shower peaks on August twelfth and the forecast mentions storms so I went to sit under a fairly cloudless sky for half an hour before bed last night. Four bright shooting stars made themselves known not far from The Plough.

Thinking back to the poem ‘Invitation’ I can remember a particular reading of it at an open mic where I felt incredibly nervous. My perception was that my nervous energy had spoiled my reading totally, and I remember that the next day I messaged the person who had invited me to apologise. They messaged back to say that they thought one day I would actually enjoy sharing my work and this reminded me that I could improve.

I have of course gained experience since then and am part of some lovely poetry communities, but it continued to be a focus for me because I am determined to share my poems well. I began to learn that slowing my reading down helped with my breathing and allowed me to be more centred, and of course the more I did it the more I improved.

Videoing myself, as suggested by a coach I work with, has been hugely beneficial, and I used this to good effect prior to a recent in-person reading. It allowed me to see that although I had work to do I was actually giving myself a hard time which was not purely based on fact. That pesky overthinking!

This past week I was very keen to watch back my performance from my headline set at Crafty Crows. Partly so I could focus in on how to be even better and partly because I had felt the dry mouth of nerves as I read and wondered if this had spoiled the reading for the audience. In fact I woke in the night afterwards convinced they would only remember my nerves. I love the Crafty Crows poetry space and have wanted to read a set there for a long time so it was especially important to me. This is a community I really love being part of. Reader/Listener, my performance was acceptable. I can see how to ground myself better next time at the start so I can drink fewer sips of water during the reading, but my diction was clear and my pace appropriate. I delivered the set from beginning to end with relevant intros and the poems followed on from one another well. A goal has been met… I CAN share my work and I AM able to enjoy doing so. How cool is that?

I quite like the original reading of ‘Invitation’ so here’s the link. It is a moment in time of its very own, but I will also share it here:

Invitation

She says I will be able to see

Perseids tonight in her armpits,

just as I am worrying

that I cannot read binary.

I assure myself I can Google it later

hoping that the instructions

will be simple.

I plan to have a notebook

and pen ready.

I know that joke about

there being 10 kinds of people in the world:

those who understand binary

and those who don’t.

I tell her it would be great

to see the meteors up close,

nuzzled right in.

They don’t make your neck ache

this way, she says,

and you will be able to hear

the crackles of ancient fires

it is all deep in there.

I wonder if we will ever be

sociable again after this.

How many people in the world

are hankering to see

night skies in the armpits of lovers?

ARTIST SAYS I LIKE PEOPLE TO PLAY WITH MY ART

A paper with text on it
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Works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres can be replicated in a number of places at the same time. They invariably make use of common material which are easily obtained. The artist said:

I don’t necessarily know how these pieces are best displayed ... Play with it please. Have fun. Give yourself that freedom. Put my creativity into question, minimise the preciousness of the piece.

Fittingly, Gonzalez-Torres offers the viewer the opportunity to participate and rearrange his work: you are invited to walk through his bead curtain or take a sweet from Portrait of Dad. His work breaks the taboo of prohibiting physical contact with an artwork. The sweets are replaceable, as long as their overall weight is maintained (the weight corresponding precisely to the weight of Gonzalez-Torres father). They are a copy of an object, and are endlessly replaceable, in the same was as a photograph.

Gonzalez-Torres initially trained as a photographer and was fascinated by the technology and materiality of the photographic medium. A photograph offers us a trace of the visible world imprinted by light as it is reflected onto a prepared surface. This closely relates to the actual subject of the framed photograph Untitled (Jorge) by Gonzalez-Torres, as it shows light reflected off the surface of water. The glimmering strands of the bead curtain and the glistening pile of white sweets, like this photograph, make light manifest, and illuminate the area around them. These objects are imbued with new meaning and a fragile beauty once installed within a gallery space.
Actual text.

This morning the air is warm and brings the tiniest tint of tea rose. A hint of mint would have fitted well with today’s photo, but it wasn’t to be.

Alt Text says this week’s image is ‘a paper with text on it’. I say it was the blurb I once read before entering an art exhibition that I was later escorted out of.

Once upon a time I took a trip to an art gallery. I wore my smart jeans and my lime green jacket and was up for having my lunch out. I loved the sound of the exhibition when I read the blurb in this photo. The words “play with it please” and the permission to take a sweet from Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Portrait of Dad) appealed to me and I was excited to see the works. As did the whole quote from the artist:

“I don’t necessarily know how these pieces are best displayed … Play with it please. Have fun. Give yourself that freedom. Put my creativity into question, minimise the preciousness of the piece.”

Entering the gallery and seeing the huge pile of mints against the wall immediately reminded me of my grandad and the way he used to offer me a mint from his pocket when I saw him at the seafront. I didn’t really like those mints at the time. I preferred fruit sweets or chewy spearmint sweets. Standing in front of this display I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia as I realised they were more than wrappered mints, they were tokens of love.

I am not 100% sure what encouraged me to sit in the pile of mints, I think perhaps it was the word “rearrange”, so sit I did. I took a sweet to eat and pocketed two for later. I was completely lost in the moment and it felt wonderful. And then I heard the crackle of static on walkie talkies…

Setting this down as a poem seemed appropriate and it features in ‘Gallery 2, a gallery of the unspoken’, in my poetry collection Welcome to the Museum of a Life. I see now I misremembered how the quantity of sweets was calculated for the art, but I still like the poem for the memories it captures. I also see now why I ask readers to seek permission before having their photo taken in the huge jar that is installed in Gallery 4, a gallery of dreams.

Untitled (Portrait of Dad)

after Félix González-Torres

In the far corner, against a white wall,

a metre wide pile of mints

half a metre high

and the title: “Untitled” (Portrait of Dad).

I am halted by wrappers

stuck sticky-tight to striped mints.

I’d have liked them cool and refreshing,

not buttery

not body-warmed, offered in hot hands

from trouser pockets.

One sweet for each day of a father’s life,

tokens of love with unspoken words.

Artist says: I like people to play with my art,

so, I sit down in the pile of wrappered mints

eat one and pocket two.

Then I start to shape the edge, curving it

to resemble the mouth of a conch shell.

I picture Grandad leaning on the wall

at Neptune’s Jetty;

cap on, eyes to the horizon.

I replay the scene,

walk towards him smiling,

knowing he’ll dip his hand in his pocket

and this time I will take the humbug.

Artist says: I like people to play with my art.

And that invitation to touch

had me eager up all the flights of stairs.

A man is talking into a walkie-talkie

heading straight towards me.

Artist says: I like people to play with my art,

yet this is not allowed.

I am escorted from the gallery;

my lime-green jacket

watched down every stairwell.

Reflections

This morning the air in someone else’s town smells cool and fresh. Last night it smelt hot and sulphurous, and I admire the way the night has washed it clean.

Alt text tells me this week’s photo is, a stuffed animal in a mirror. I say it is the perfect picture of Ronnie looking at himself in a mirror to accompany this week’s blog post about reflection.

This past week I have been in and out of a reflective essay as I work towards completing the ‘ILM Level 7 Diploma for Executive and Senior Level Coaches’. I have learned not to wash the windows, clean the car or hoover to distract myself from setting down words in the right order. I have also learned to read (really read) the criteria. This has been huge for me because I have a tendency to skim read and think I know what I need to do. I then go off and write merrily and create a meandering stream that feels fun to write before I realise that this wasn’t what the criteria wanted me to do. I now make things easier for myself and the marker. It has taken a lot of time to get to this point in my academic writing.

Reflection is something that I enjoy finding time for…

During my teacher training we kept a weekly reflective log which included the following two questions: ‘What did the children do?’ ‘What did they learn?’ There was a lot to reflect on in these questions alone and it helped us to be purposeful about planning our teaching and learning in the widest sense. I loved writing up my thoughts each week and making progress in my own development as a result. In fact I loved keeping the log so much that my friends and I took a very large section of a tree from the local park to our tutor at the end of our time working together in celebration of ‘the log’.

When I was studying for my NPQH (National Professional Qualification for Headship) I loved the posh journal they gave us at the start of the course to record our reflections in. Again I remember being one of those in the cohort who relished writing reflectively. Interestingly I tried to record my thoughts neatly in that journal because I thought it was going to become a reference log. I recycled it a while ago and had a read through before I said goodbye to it. It was reflection in the moment, valuable for what it taught me and what I carried with me, but definitely not a reference book.

So, thinking reflectively has always featured in the careers I have chosen, and now it gets to be a key part of what I do. It shines with relevance and excitement for me as I strive to be the best I can be.

On Saturday morning I woke up with an extra sentence for my essay floating around in my head. Perhaps I had been thinking while I was asleep or perhaps I had rested well and a thought had floated its way to the top of my brain. This amused me and I marvelled at the fact that there was one more thought that I wanted to put in my essay.

Talking with a friend this week it was good to hear that they found my summaries of what brought me to coaching interesting and readable. This was my way of explaining the benefits of coaching and how I found myself choosing a new career. Coaching still strikes me as one of those things that has a mystery to it until it has been experienced, and then it sparkles with potential. I love helping people regain their clarity and I love thinking with people.

The conversation with my friend took place while they were out for a walk and I was inspired afterwards to complete the country walk from my door here. We had talked about making good habits easy by having your walking shoes ready by the door. I like this and realised that I hadn’t had a long walk since my ‘really long walk’ with my sister. I set out and because I was feeling happy from having enjoyed a good conversation I did nothing except focus on the walk. It was sunny and the air was herby which felt good. It felt like the kind of walk you have on a holiday when cares are far away.

My sister says I am good at walking her home on the phone at the end of her working day. I love that she loves this. I am also glad she likes me to walk her home and not to work because her walking journey starts at 4:30. I will let her cat do that bit and enjoy keeping her company when she is readying to relax.

(If you saw the most recent Pet Shop Boys video you will have noticed that Ronnie was jumping for joy in the place that this was recorded thanks to my sister taking us both there on our special walk.)