February 2021: Do I have a future?

Taking minimal, elegant steps towards improving my art website felt like a big leap… The problems I face every day as an adult survivor of incest and domestic abuse are complex and can be crippling. I’m learning to allow for that and to accept that some days / months / years are going to be harder to get through than others. This month I really savoured the heavy snowfall and evenings in lockdown spent in front of a coal fire with my family.

Excitingly, three of my art pieces appeared in an online exhibition supported by Shape and funded by @acegrams, featuring the work of neurodiverse women artists. Check it out here: Encountering A New Normal

I still internalise the judgements of Western society but reminded myself that I’m enough: I’m strong, kind, respectful, a natural gardener, compassionate, talented, more self-accepting, a musician who has touched many lives, and am a great mother to animals. I may only be earning tiny amounts of money here and there due to the pandemic, but I’m always trying to do meaningful work as an artist and for the wider community.

I’m also sticking to a 2021 year-long challenge to cut out comfort food and lose weight. This in turn is increasing my self-confidence, plus laughing at myself on my yoga mat left me feeling lighter.

Transformational change professional, Ria Baeck’s book, An Emerging Human Capacity - Collective Presencing, really speaks to me at a deep level, and having participated in a number of online Collective Presencing sessions, I volunteered to co-host and came up with some strong questions to do with ‘Rediscovering Projects’.

Ultimately I’m happiest at work on my allotments; alone and away from the computer, admiring my snowdrops.

I spoke with the initiator of ‘Grønt’ Norwegian vegan ecovillage and friends over Google Meets and felt that the project was very ‘me’. I also got to practice my Norwegian!

It’s hard not to give up on my wishes for the future in the face of Brexit and being penniless and depressed - but at least, I guess, I’m going down fighting.