June 2021: Relinquishing the fight

I continue to feel immensely grateful for my home, family and my constant loving and funny companion, Buddy the black cat: I just want to revel in that feeling of safety and protection while the outside world seems to get madder, more aggressive and deadly.

June was a month of letting go of the diet after five months and enjoying tasty nasties because despite my best efforts I’m just getting beefier. Simultaneously I knew I had the strength to choose peace in my relationships and to trust myself - or not.

It was a fight to reclaim myself from the quicksand of depression and self-hatred while others seemed to be stoically getting back to living their best lives with the easing of COVID restrictions: having ‘contamination’ OCD in a pandemic is hard and everyone I’ve turned to for help either minimizes it, isn’t trained to deal with it, or refers me elsewhere. I renewed my commitment to yoga which helps, but my frozen shoulder makes even laying on my mat an impossibility some days.

Then as if it was meant to be, I was made aware of the SAND and Gabor Maté film, The Wisdom of Trauma and its accompanying interviews with artists who like myself live with trauma, such as Alanis Morissette and V (formerly Eve Ensler). Here I found that there are those who still value and respect musicians, writers and artists… I must just actively seek them out.

As ever I experienced pure joy in witnessing a poppy party, the bees buzzing around the tree flowering in the centre of my allotment, and the bliss of reading in my shed while it was pouring with rain outside; knowing in my head that I deserve abundance in life, but maybe not in my heart.

Every day I created art pieces featuring the overlaying of different shades of colour in ink, biro, pencil, felt-tip pen and glitter. My friend, David R. Aldridge said that my work is holding his attention, which is good I guess, and I tried my best with the Village Builders course.