Jacket 1 It’s there, on the chair The red fleece jacket With hood and drawstring waist That I don’t want to wear Don’t want to keep.
It’s warm and soft when I put it on But far too big for me Drowned in a red sea Shapeless, I feel A baggy, saggy, faceless entity.
I look at the jacket On the chair In limp, loose folds of red, and seams This isn’t the jacket of my dreams.
It’s theirs to wear Not mine to keep Their tears to cry Not mine to weep.
It’s there, on the chair The red fleece jacket With hood and drawstring waist That I don’t want to wear Don’t want to keep So I’ve put a price on its head To let it go free To someone who wants it But who wants me?
Jacket 2 It’s there, on the chair The red fleece jacket With hood and drawstring waist That I don’t want to wear Don’t want to keep.
It’s warm and soft when I put it on But far too big for me Drowned in a red sea Shapeless, I feel A baggy, saggy, faceless entity.
I look at the jacket On the chair In limp, loose folds of red, and seams This isn’t the jacket of my dreams.
It’s not my layer These aren’t my lies With drawstring waist And nylon ties.
It’s not my jacket They’re not my dreams These aren’t my ties They’re not my seams.
So I leave the jacket On the chair To go my way While they go theirs.
Jacket 3 Now it hangs upon the door That red fleece jacket That I didn’t want to wear Didn’t want to keep.
It’s warm and soft when I put it on And not too big for me Warmed in a red sea Shapeless no more No baggy, saggy faceless entity.
I look at the jacket On the door In limp, loose folds of red and seams It’s not the jacket of my dreams But just a layer to keep me warm From frozen looks And glares of scorn.
It is my jacket With hood and waist To wear awhile From place to place.
One aspect of depression that is a constant struggle is finding something – anything – to build up my self-esteem. To a certain extent I’ve learnt to live with it, knowing that the worst moments pass if I rest up and tune in to parts of my brain that I’ve trained, using positive processes such as meditation, and affirmations: “I choose to be peaceful and calm; everything is unfolding as it should.”
I’ve identified my own truths and ‘root causes’ of past problems, and arrived at a point – in a very long and arduous journey – where I felt I didn’t need to have any aspects of these verified or vindicated by any one or any thing. However, I have found it helpful recently to have discovered the work of Imi Lo. I went through her book – Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity: how to manage intense emotions as a highly sensitive person (John Murray Learning, 2018) – highlighting many passages that I felt applied directly to me. I urge anyone who has been deemed ‘over-sensitive’ and felt alienated one way or another as a result, to read and take hope from this book.
The author states in a key point (p.45):
We are not here to dismiss the validity of all mental health diagnoses, or the importance of appropriate treatment in the case of severe psychological trauma. But it is important to examine the root of your suffering: often, it may be a reflection of your natural tendencies, and a result of being misunderstood, rather than as a sign of defectiveness. We must be extra cautious to not reinforce any restrictive categories, diagnoses and stigma around emotional intensity.
In the final chapter of her book, Imi Lo identifies possibilities for tapping into our creative potential.
It’s possible to be creative in many ways – not just through the arts. I’ve been as creative as I could be at different stages in my life and through many different types of work. However, having arrived at the point when I’m now retired, giving me a new-found freedom that I relish, I’m loving being able to re-immerse myself in solving problems associated with art and design, construction and concepts.
A significant difference that I’ve noticed between how I feel about work that I produce now, compared with work that I produced when I was younger, is that now I can feel a sense of satisfaction about having produced it. I can ‘own it’, take pride in it, see it for what it is in the context of my life; a life that I’m glad to have.
My self-esteem still falls by the wayside sometimes, but – generally speaking – I’m in a much better place than I’ve ever been. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I’m determined to make the most of it, knowing that I am – after all ‘gifted’ rather than the waste of space I often felt my self to be.
43 years ago, when I graduated with a degree in Ceramics, I knew that there was something wrong with me – mentally, emotionally – but I didn’t know what or how to deal with it. Since then, I’ve been close to the edge more than once and in more ways than one. I nearly lost my life during a psychotic experience in Iceland, felt broken to the point where I didn’t think I could possibly mend, and ultimately pushed myself through such extreme, painful experiences that many times I wondered why.
Thankfully, I also thought ‘why not?’ and bit by bit I found a way through.
Being in survival mode doesn’t leave any energy for forward planning, including consideration of what I would do when I retired. The idea of doing some work with clay again suddenly came out of ‘nowhere’ and I’ve been enjoying going to workshop sessions at a studio not too far from where I live. However, I also thought it would be good to be able to do some work from home, especially during the winter months when I can’t work outside in the garden.
The work I produced at college for my degree show was fired initially to bisque level and then finished in a sawdust kiln. We have no space here for a proper kiln but I’ve been exploring possibilities for sawdust firing; even firing ‘greenware’, that is without having put the pieces through the initial bisque firing. This will produce porous pots that are not ‘vitrified’ as they are when fired to higher temperatures, but some beautiful subtle effects can be obtained.
So with a few basic tools and a dining table, I’m off to a good start. I’m still going to continue to attend the studio sessions – apart from anything else it’s a lovely encouraging atmosphere and I enjoy the companionship and sense of shared experience. But it’s also great to be able to ‘sit and do’ at home – to make whatever I want to make – without time constraints or consideration of anything other than what I’m working on.
This brings me to Poetry/Pottery Rule No. 20: Enjoy the process.
Now that does sound like a plan – the housework may not get done, but these are pots that won’t need washing up!
Lydia gave me a gentle nudge in the early hours and I went downstairs to open the back door for her, propping it open so that she could enjoy some morning air, which I knows she likes to do, while sheltering inside. It gives her a chance to go and have a ‘peepie’ if she needs one and I go down later to close it, as expected finding her now curled up in her chair.
My lower back is aching a bit after my exertions of yesterday, balancing on a stepladder that I’d positioned so that I could reach the far corners of the walls I was painting. I knew I hadn’t strained my back – I’d been careful and I have Qigong and yoga to thank for giving me flexibility and strength that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I did, however, feel that I’d stretched muscles that I wouldn’t otherwise have stretched, and decided to make myself a cup of tea for comfort, to take back to bed. It must have worked because I didn’t wake until after 9am and I felt I’d had a reasonably deep sleep for a few hours.
It was the ‘Boot and Shoe’ walk – that I also call the ‘woodland walk’ – for Lydia and me this morning, the name coming from the house nearby. She was sniffing and pulling most of the way so I don’t know what scent or scents she’d picked up on, but they were strong.
After coming home and giving Lydia her breakfast, I decided to make some blueberry muffins. I don’t feel like my usual breakfast foods at the moment – even poached eggs on toast which I normally love as a brunch – and muffins seemed like a good option. I’d bought a large tray of blueberries when I went shopping yesterday and they are a good nutritious fruit.
For a standard cake mix I use a basic formula of equal quantities of butter or margarine, sugar and flour in a ratio of 4, 4 and 4 plus two eggs. This morning, I had 12oz of baking margarine in a tub leftover from when I’d made a cake a couple of weeks ago, so I used that as the starting measure. Deciding that I didn’t want my muffins too sweet, I weighed out 8oz of sugar instead of 12oz. I’m quite happy to use metric measures but this morning stuck to imperial as it made it easy with the amount of margarine I was starting with. Six eggs, a sprinkling of salt, 12oz of self-raising flour – plus a little extra baking powder just to help the muffins be as light and fluffy as they can be – an unmeasured quantity of blueberries and a splash of evaporated milk completed the mix.
I’d preheated the oven to 180 degrees centigrade and spooned the mixture into 18 paper cases. I baked them initially for 20 minutes and then moved the muffins from the top shelf to the lower shelf and the ones from the lower shelf to the higher shelf to help them all cook evenly. I set the timer for another 10 minutes but got engrossed in writing this post and didn’t hear it go off! The muffins, however, are just nicely browned, not burnt, and I am now waiting for them to cool down so that I can try one, or two, or more.
The carbs should help to set me up for some more painting this afternoon. Having finished the walls I’m now turning to woodwork that was done not so long ago but needs a bit of freshening up in places. It shouldn’t take long and won’t be anywhere near as strenuous as yesterday’s efforts. I do find the process of painting soothing, so I’ll just take my time and it’ll get done.
As it turned out, the small pot of paint that was in the garage, that I thought was a water-based satin white for woodwork, was actually a matt white emulsion. I only discovered this after I’d painted over with it in a few places but it’ll be fine. I’ll buy a pot of the paint that I need tomorrow and go over it again.
There’s also a skylight window frame that needs doing, so I started to prepare that by giving it a good clean with some sugar soap solution. I was too tired to start painting it today as it will need careful concentration – including masking tape application in places – to make sure I do a proper job of it. It will take a couple of coats and I also need to try and reach the outside pane to clean it. I cleaned the inside pane today but I may need my steam cleaner for the outside.
Positioned at the top of the stairs, I used a combination of a chair, stepladders and a left-side-step on to my ‘strategically placed’ filing cabinet today and was able to reach all parts of the skylight frame. It’s going to be a job for later in the week and probably going on into next weekend.
Trev’s back after going out earlier. He sampled and approved the muffins and I’ve now reached the 28th day of my latest 28-day writing cycle, so I’m taking a short break from writing new posts and will publish an earlier post each day instead, starting with ‘A Bag of Clay’ that includes a poem. Hope you enjoy it.
My books continue to be available on Amazon, in paperback, for Kindle and on Kindle Unlimited:
Today I applied the second coat of paint to the walls of the landing and the stairs.
It’s good quality paint which flows well and only drips if I overload my brush, which I do – sometimes.
I wipe up drip spots as I’m going along, and make steady progress. In a few hours, it’s done.
I clean brushes, put clothes and cloths into the washing machine, then rest for a while. Lydia comes to join me.
I’ve got some more painting work lined up for tomorrow but for now I can just relax. Time to give Lydia her tea and make ours. I think it will be early to bed for me.
It was damp this morning, but mild and bright, when Lydia and I set off to the dog field that I’d booked for us; not too early.
We hadn’t been to this particular dog field for a while, as I know Lydia likes to race cars that pass on the other side of the fence of another dog park that I take her to, and it gives her a good workout. It’s good to have a change though, and she was wearing her happy legs as she sniffed and mooched about the field that we went to today.
Once home, with Lydia nudging her breakfast ball around the lounge, I reheated chips from last night’s fish supper for my own breakfast, giving them just short of 2 minutes at full power in the microwave. They were sizzling and tasty, topped off with a light sprinkling of salt and vinegar and a splash of salad cream. A strong cup of tea completed my morning meal and I then went back to bed to rest for a while, to ensure that I’ll have enough energy reserves for more painting that I’m planning on doing tomorrow.
Suitably rested, I went out and bought in some groceries. Somehow, as I was carrying the bags into the house, I dropped a container of milk, which split, spilling milk all over the floor. So, I set to, soaking it up with towels and mopping the floor before putting the shopping away. I managed to get some of the milk in a jug before it was all lost so, hey, no point in crying over spilt milk!
I decided to enter a poetry competition – who knows, I might just win – and chose three that have not previously been published by me or anywhere else.
As it’s Halloween, at Trev’s suggestion I bought some sweets as treats to give out in case we get any ‘trick or treat’ callers tonight. We haven’t had them here on previous years but you never know, so I have put them in a jar by the door, ready, just in case.
I’m doing an easy tea tonight: prepared spinach and ricotta tortellini with a simple tomato sauce that I’m making myself. I’ve chopped up and fried an onion till soft, added some chopped garlic and a tin of chopped tomatoes, plus a vegetable stock cube – chopped into small pieces – a splash each of soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, a good squirt of tomato puree and a small sprinkling of brown sugar, to just take the edge off the tartness of the tomatoes. It’s bubbling away now and I’ll finish it by using a hand-held blender to make it smooth. I think it should be tasty and nutritious along with the pasta.
Having unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and set the towels that I used to soak up the milk on a wash, I feel fairly up to date with what I need to do today so I think another rest is in order.
Lydia is lying by the back door. I’ll see if she wants to go outside for a while before I go upstairs.
Home now after an afternoon at the pottery studio and a tea of fish, chips and curry sauce.
Lydia had been on her own all afternoon but while I was out – on the way to the studio – I stopped off and stocked up on dental chews and some gravy bone biscuits for her.
I held off giving her a dental chew until after she’d had her tea, so that she could get the best benefit from the cleaning effect, although the raw chicken wing that she had as part of her tea will also have helped.
Slightly disappointed that pots I’d hoped to pick up today were still in the kiln, I continued to work on others. I applied oxides and a spray of transparent glaze to one piece, and finished making two others, placing them on the shelf for bisque firing, once they have fully dried out.
So, overall, it was a constructive afternoon in good company, including that of my friend, Jenny, who I have a particularly close connection with. We both started going to the studio at around the same time, heading towards our respective 7th decades. Jenny’s enthusiasm knows no bounds; she is full of ideas and energy, always trying different things and quick to give encouragement to others including me.
I’m hoping for another good sleep tonight. We shall see. I inadvertently bought an arctic iced coffee at the petrol station while topping up with petrol, momentarily forgetting about my ‘no coffee’ and ‘no caffeine in the afternoon’ routine. I’m fairly confident it won’t have an adverse effect and I’ll be able to enter the ‘land of nod’ tonight. Funnily enough, there is a signpost to ‘The Land of Nod’ on the way to the pottery studio. I must remember to look it up one day.
Tonight’s Buddhist class completes the five-week course on ‘Embracing Change’.
Change can happen in so many ways, on so many levels.
In my experience, I have not always known why I have not been able to ‘let go’ and move on at times. I think, now, I have more insight into why, and it’s because of the deep inner healing that I needed to do. It’s understandable to want to do that in a safe way, at a safe time, so that when the wound is exposed, it won’t be subject to any more damage.
Sometimes, however, circumstances force us to push through pain on a survival basis. How amazing then, to be in those circumstances and somehow find that you have got access to the support that you need to heal, from sources that in the past you could not have even imagined existed, yet somehow, they do. That’s where I’m at now.
And, for now, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing; different things on different days. Today it was painting, white emulsion on walls; tomorrow I’ll go to pottery in the afternoon. Walking Lydia, of course, in the mornings, is such a good thing, I’m pretty sure for both of us. Meditating, practising yoga and Qigong, listening to the teachings of Buddha passed on through the Kadampa lineage. Meeting up with friends, chatting with neighbours. More painting of walls until that job is done, then I’ll move on to do something else. I know this is all leading to further change, and I am becoming more able to embrace the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
I rarely remember dreams but woke this morning from a deeper sleep than I’ve had for a long time, remembering one.
The sense of relief that comes from sleep is immense. The strategy of reducing my caffeine intake, limiting myself to just two or three cups of tea a day – in the morning – and no coffee, is starting to pay off.
It is by no means the only part of my strategy, as limiting or eliminating caffeine altogether isn’t necessarily going to do the trick without other factors kicking in, in my experience anyway.
For me, I know it is a combination of physical and creative and other activities.
It also depends on the type and context of activities.
The heavy lifting and shifting I’ve done recently, clearing stuff out of house and garage and taking them to the tip, are good for the musculoskeletal system, but my nearly 70-year-old back was giving me a few warning signs. A few stretches at home helped, but not as much as the yoga class I went to yesterday. There has been no Qigong this week as we do classes in groups of three, then have a break, then back for another group of three. This works very well and yesterday meant that I had time to do a charity shop drop-off, again with more lifting and carrying – a big bag and a box – and then go shopping for our tea, a stir fry that I cooked using a combination of a bag of pre-made sauce, some hoisin sauce from a bottle, and some dark soy sauce. I usually make a stir-fry sauce from scratch, using a combination of lemon or lime juice, ginger, garlic if we have any, and again soy sauce; also a bit of brown sugar, salt and pepper. However, due to my having had a cold, I thought I’d make it a bit easier for myself. I also took the time to buy a large pot of matt white emulsion, some concentrated sugar soap and a precision paint brush for edges. This will enable me to start doing the painting work I have lined up for later in the week.
So, for now, I’m keeping my strength up and the aches and pains at bay, glad to be able to enjoy a walk with Lydia on this bright and sunny, if somewhat breezy, morning. I always feel invigorated after I come back from our walks, and I now have a good little routine that involves putting her poopie bags in the outside bin, washing my hands, filling and setting off her breakfast ball for her to nudge around the lounge, putting a chicken wing or drumstick (sometimes a lamb rib) in a cool bag for later, so that it defrosts and hopefully gets to room temperature but doesn’t go off, and making sure that there’s a further supply of her raw food starting to defrost in the fridge.
Today I didn’t feel like sitting down for breakfast so I put some mashed banana on toast that I’d spread with olive spread and did some tidying up in the kitchen while I was eating it, unloading and loading up the dishwasher and a few other things. A dishwasher is a relatively recent acquisition for us and it makes such a difference.
Later today I’ll visit M in her care home. We’ll go for coffee and a cake but I’ll make sure I get decaff. It’s the way forward for me, for the time being at least.
Trev has done some more clearing out as well, which puts us in a good position for me to start painting the walls by the stairs and in the landing area. I painted through all the rest of the house when we moved in, a section at a time as I wasn’t feeling well and I could only do a section at a time. I never did get round to doing the walls up the stairs and on the landing though and since then there’ve been a lot of things going on. I now, finally, have time, energy and inclination to do that job. It shouldn’t take long but then there’s no need to try and do it in a rush. A bit at a time and it will get done.
Glad About 
You must be logged in to post a comment.