Last Thursday morning I woke with an idea. To be fair, I pretty much wake every day with a new idea, often multiple, but last Thursday I had an idea I wanted to implement that day. Right away. Implement quietly, without specifically talking about it, or planning it, but just trying and seeing and if it went nowhere, well that was ok too. Don’t overthink it, as they say. You should note that I am rarely if ever this calm about implementing an idea, and just the thought of not planning it to the nth degree may well herald the beginning of the end times (so dramatic). But I did it. It has been a week. And it has been delightful.
I know many of you aren’t on the Substack app (or website), which is perfectly reasonable (yet another app! And more time on your phone!), but there is a section called ‘Notes’. Substack call Notes the place for short form writing, sharing other writers work, quotes, pictures, discovering new people to read etc. It is a tidy little place where you can discover new creatives. No noisy videos, no advertisements (Substack is not supported by advertisers, but by paid subscribers), just shared thoughts and articles and quotes in a more bite-sized format. As much as I have loved Instagram over the years, it is getting too much for me and my brain lately, and I would much rather scroll my Substack Notes and feel nourished rather than drained. In any case, I thought I might use Notes as a space of grounding for myself.
At first it felt a little ostentatious, a little conceited to think that I might post a few lines each morning and evening and expect anyone to care, or even notice. Then I got to thinking about the kind of things I like to watch on Youtube, and the sort of longer form writing I enjoy reading, and I realised at the core that they are primarily all about revealing our humanity. That is how we connect, to feel a little less alone. I hope I reveal my humanity in my longer posts here too, but I may not always dish the (less attractive) dirt. I don’t want to moan all the time. But I am 49. I have more than one chronic illness and all the grief and pain that comes with that, aside from the bodily evidence of ageing, and losing beings so close to my heart this year. I try to find connection and beauty with the wild, but mornings can be hard (even if I am preprogrammed to start them before even the sparrows consider rising). I have a lot of thoughts, and no, not everyone needs to hear them all, but maybe there are some that I do have, that I do share, that might make you feel a little less alone in your humanity too.
Anyway, that seems like a long way around to try and justify why this last week I held a little series called Breathe In, Breathe out on Notes.
A few thoughts, morning and evening, and a photo. My morning thoughts are nearly always informed by what is going on in my body, and what is going on with Seraphina, and the wild birds outside. Mornings are where I feed my girl and those winged friends and watch them all in their own beingness, stare at the trees out my kitchen window, and grapple with existing. There is often a lot of philosophising in the morning. I also try to reckon with the very essence of my physical existence before my brain gets too carried away in flights of fancy.
Evenings are where I try to find gratitude and celebration and perhaps a tiny bit of wonder for what has gone on through the day, to come back down, to perhaps find some meaning and some resolution, and, as I have discovered over this week, to come back to my body. I can be very cerebral. I mostly am very cerebral. That is one of the many (many) reasons that making art is so incredibly valuable to me personally - I physically feel a completely different being while I am creating, so much calmer, so much more grounded, so much more at peace. So much more a human being than a human doing. But even in art making, even in imagining myself as the creature I am honouring, I am quite disconnected from my own embodiment. I am rarely exquisitely aware of my physical existence. Also, who would want to be constantly aware of their physical existence, that sounds like A LOT. But I do know I need to be a bit more cognizant, if only to know when I should stop pushing so hard and let myself rest (what is this rest thing?). Or at the very least pause.
So here, for your reading pleasure (as they say) are my notes for the week. They are not grand and revelatory, but they are mine, and maybe they make sense to you a bit as well. Will I keep up with a daily Breathe In, Breathe out ? I am not sure. I have enjoyed it, so yes, but maybe without the pressure of every day.
We’ll see.
Let me know if you would like me to collect the Notes I do make and share them here for you in future though.
May you revel in your own exquisite bodily existence today, however that may be.
Oh, alsoooo, I participated in a writing challenge from
the piece had to be 199 words exactly, and start with “you can not park here”. I wrote about self doubt (which I carry so much of). I will pop that at the end too. I hope you enjoy!Breathe In, Breathe Out
Thur 13 Jul 2023
Breathe In
Cold toes. A deep reluctance to leave the dark cocoon, but a brain that has switched on and is yelling at me to get up and get going. She can be so mean. Winter sunshine is my favourite but the low sun stings my eyes. The sky is already so blue, even this early. The beauty, and my itchy reluctance to stay grounded in it for a moment (or eternity) hurts a little.
Breathe Out
Too many ideas today. I write them down and put them away - I am learning not to hold them all in my head at once, the burden is too heavy. Graphite skipped across the page for hours. This was not on my list for this week, but the muse wouldn’t let me go. When she talks I listen. This project in my heart, wow, she is fierce and wants to be seen NOW.
Fri 14 Jul 2023
Breathe In
Seed parcelled out under the kind watchful eyes of yellow crests and feathers of clouds, and then the chaos of rainbow bullies a sixth their size pushing them off the feeder. I play bouncer, but these sugar junkies are fierce. The kindness in a cockie’s eyes brings silver to my own. Connection. Understanding. “What can you do” she says, and reaches down to take a few sunflower seeds from outstretched hand. So gentle. Seraphina is squeaking, telling me she is wild and wants to roam free in the yard with the birds. Inside, with me, she stays. We are waiting for our wings to grow in.
Breathe Out
The first dance, the first conversation, the first lines of pigment of a new piece for a new project can be the sweetest (and the most daunting). It is the time I am most unsure of my abilities, often convinced I am not up to the task. It is no different today, the resistance was strong. And She is waiting. So this first play will be with pencil, my first love. Then, once I have proven myself worthy, the oil paints will come out. It is all a process.
Sat 16 Jul 2023
Breathe In
Stiff limbs. Creaks and groans. Phantom period paid. Even though there is hollowness where my womb was, this disease pretends, insidiously, still. And I get to be reminded over and over and over what would never be. I close my eyes and breath slowly. The kettle is on, and noisy in the quiet. I catch a sweet scent, my eyes follow my nose to a tiny banksia rose bloom. I close my eyes again and breathe deeply now, and in taking that sweetness into me I am becoming the rose.
Breathe Out
My space bar has decided to squeak when I type. I am not sure how I feel about that. If the other keys chime in I may need to act. I am enraptured by the deliciously wild responses to my call for a collaborative poem, and the heart of those who have shared them so far. This deer (dear) woman has been whispering to me again today. I am enraptured by the tale she is weaving too.
Sun 17 Jul 2023
Breathe In
The butcherbirds are singing. We’ve given them such a revolting name, yet their songs are such a gift. Dark clouds are gathering, some rain to come. I am watching the early winter morning leaf-laden cast shadows through the steam from my mug. Veils. How can this be real, this incidental beauty? I shake my head to try and loosen the trance, but I am held. Raising the mug to my lips breaks the spell, and suddenly there is only lemon and ginger and honey sweetness.
Breathe Out
Walking among flowers in gentle rain, pressing a liquid amber leaf, the colour of merlot, between the pages of a notebook (and among heartfelt words about self doubt). A cupcake for dinner, Seraphina curled up on my lap, the sound of rain to sleep to. I'm dreaming of all the art I want to make.
Mon 18 Jul 2023
Breathe In
Cycles. A new week. Who decided that? Who decided that Monday is a beginning, and Sunday an end? When each moment is a beginning and an end. I want to buck the system, and say that my week begins at Wednesday 11:13am precisely, but the calendar above my computer mocks me, laughs at my desire to disentangle from these systems that bind us, even as we want to unfurl our wings and fly.
Breathe Out
Today was black and white and shades of grey, inside and out. I woke under the heaviness of being. Some days are like that. I hydrated, I affirmation-ed, I journaled. I couldn’t face the plan I had for today. So I did what makes me happiest in the world, knowing the rest would wait, and if it couldn’t, well, it would. I finished the first study for this project that is lighting me up (even in the dark) and she told me everything would be ok.
Tue 19 Jul 2023
Breathe In
Some days I awake wanting only vegemite toast. As though it is the most exquisite cuisine. It is. Sometimes I cannot make it quick enough, to have that salty umami pleasure many Australians know. Most times I tell myself I have to wait until the morning chores are done. I ponder why I have a strong tendency to delay gratification. Thinking about it too long makes me feel uncomfortable. There is obviously something that needs exploring there. I like my toast cold. My maternal grandmother did too. I am told I am weird. For more than just cold toast. And I am ok with that. The kettle is on, the toast popped a moment ago and is cooling. Peace is in a bag waiting for boiling water. Peace in the form of spearmint and ashwagandha and help seed oil anyway. I am instructed to “embrace tranquillity”. Vegemite and peace. That seems reasonable to me.
Breathe Out
Today was a long, but delicious, day. The morning drawing, then preparing prints, taking photographs, two small poems, website work… looking forward to tomorrow when I get to paint. Hopefully. I worked long into the night, Heron Woman was determined to come to being these last two days, and I am a little in love with her. She brings to a powerful 7 the initial {wild+woman} series, and I feel like that is a beautiful conclusion as the next project, taking these stories further, burgeoning and abundant, begins.
Wed 20 Jul 2023
Breathe In
The mulberry is clearly confused. It is the depths of winter (as ‘depths’ as it gets here on the coast) and yet she is heralding spring. I reassure her that it is ok, I am often confused these days too. Confused as to how we have let it get this bad, how much damage we have done, what cannot be taken back. These thoughts are too much for 6:42am. There are cobwebs between the succulent pots on my kitchen windowsill. Before they were cobwebs they were home to a jumping spider I would hold palaver with when washing up, but I have not seen her for a while. I miss her big-tiny energy. One of those mornings when everything I look at seems like evidence of destruction and death and decay. Yayyyy. I think it will be a long day.
Thurs 21 Jul 2023
Breathe In
I forgot to breathe out yesterday - metaphorically, and in many ways literally. I spent much of yesterday in agony with sciatica in both legs (though I painted still, coming back to a piece left alone way too long, standing, moving, dancing while I worked). I stretched and rubbed in ointments and hot presses and mostly held my face in a screwed up grimace, my shoulders near my ears, tension in my neck and head mocking the tight muscles pinching those nerves. Over some tea in the evening, perched awkwardly on the lounge chair in tentative ‘comfort’ (but ensuring, of course, the absolute comfort of Seraphina all curled on my lap) I wondered if this discomfort was asking me to release something, to let something go. I haven’t figured it out, but wondered all the same. This morning is brighter, the pain much less, and we had a deliciously cool night that let me sleep well, the softly snoring Seraphina curled up against my belly. More tea, the air is filled with the sounds of four different types of parrots crunching away at sunflowers and millet, my easel patiently waits behind me.
~Unfurling~
You are not allowed to park here. You are not allowed to take up permanent residence, to linger, to loiter, to languish. You may not consider this a loading dock, nor a drop off point. I granted you a momentary pause, a passing place, once, and you stayed instead. You set down insidious roots, coiled with viscous intention from my head to my heart. Winding through my core until doubled over with fear and grief I could not stand in my own power. I could only stand in my own way. Like prying lichen from granite, painstaking, brutal, I have worked diligently to uncoil the words, the wounds you brought. To push back. To question. To no longer listen with rapt devotion. It was easy to accept your lies, a twisted desire to keep me safe, but harmed and hurt instead. I am unfurling. My shoulders roll, my wings spread wide, the bindings broken. I raise my head, strong, on shoulders straight. I can see you now, I can see what you are, my wounded child. I embrace you, I wrap you in a mothers love and care. You are not allowed to park here, self doubt. Not anymore.
That was a long one. If you are still here, you are all kinds of amazing, and I am so grateful for you! Go get yourself some strawberries, you deserve it!
I love this Also ! .. like so MUCH I cannot even describe how ‘refreshing’ ..
I have so MUCH on ‘my plate’ .. & have grandchildren now !
But I’m an ‘outlaw salamander !’ & my ‘DAILY thoughts’ scurry among the trees
like squirrels! 🦎🏴☠️
I love your Breathe in, Breathe out notes Natalie.. I have been wrecking my head trying to think of something original to post daily in notes - yours are truly inspired and I’m feeling more than a little envious... I’ll get there eventually..!! Meanwhile I’ll just enjoy yours 🙏🏽🍃