Riding it out

May 1, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Things are starting to settle down again. Rose and I both dosed ourselves with some phenergan last night and got the first decent sleep of the week. I’ll probably do the same tonight, then this weekend is the wonderful, long awaited Medieval Fair again – and I’m camping out there for the whole weekend. Camping always helps me to sleep so I that should be a big boost forwards too. Not to mention that a whole bunch of friends are going to be there and I’m feeling really excited and relieved that I’ll be able to float around a little spacey in the happy hubbub of it all.

Today started well. I’m still so tired, heartsick. In recovery. I decided that this week was a write off, I’ve been doing whatever I feel like (mostly staying home in my dressing gown and working on my book/s) and doing just enough admin to keep life ticking along. It’s getting easier, finally, the admin. I print everything, I do my best to work around issues I know are tough, like phone phobia, and I keep lists and tackle small portions with time limits. I went to see my shrink recently and we discussed my exhaustion and pain levels and how unmanageable the business plans feel now that Rose is working nearly full time in a different job. She laid on the line that it was time for a major restructure to make things manageable before I do a major crash – which is where I was up to but it’s helpful sometimes to have that from a person in some kind of authority. There are things I’ve been able to do with Rose being available to support me so much – like face paint up at Monarto Zoo because she handles the drive there and home, that without her I simply can’t do. There isn’t a choice not to change things, it’s merely one of timing. I change them now and just have a period of adjustment, or I wait until I crash and wipe out my health as well as my old business format. The biggest issue I’m having is chronic pain, which is particularly from the dreadlock work, and also the face painting. I do have a bunch of other possible business ventures that cause me a lot less pain, which it looks like I will have to figure out and move into. I am hoping to get back into my studio next week and start setting them up and rewriting my website. I also have an appointment booked for my accountant to get all the work I’ve been doing assessed and make sure I’m on the right track to get all the over due reporting finished. I have to move a bit slowly, with all the stress both my physical and psychological health are rather vulnerable at the moment.

I don’t have a clue what to do about my degree finishing before I can finish it yet. Still mulling that one over. I missed classes on Monday due to crisis and chaos and being back in hospital with Rose. This Monday I’ll start up my photography class and get back into drawing. I’m hoping to find my favourite Sculpture tutor and ask some advice. I also have some frightening appointments with Centrelink (welfare) coming up which I hope I’m ready to deal with. It’s all a little scary and unstable. One step at a time.

So, this was the start of my day. Actually having food is a step forwards. The research one of us who is starting the book layout work tends to work obsessively and rarely eats. So much of this is about riding out the processes and gently steering them away from the rocks.

Talisman

May 1, 2014May 1, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

It’s funny, I’ve started carrying the first draft of my book outline with me everywhere. I went to bed last night and couldn’t sleep, so I wrote ideas in it into the small hours. I slept beside it in the bed, and when I woke up, I took it with me into the garden with the first cup of tea of the day.

A lot of the day was hard. Bad pain, not enough sleep… Whenever I wake up, the memory of losses floods me and my adrenaline spikes. I’m alert and feeling ill and unable to get back to sleep. It will pass. Whenever I touch the book notes, something in me calms. They are some kind of talisman for the easing of my heart.

It sparks a memory, of being a student at school, caring with me at all times my huge blue folder of poems. It was my lifeline, my shield against that world. I don’t write in my journals as often these days. I have Rose, and other people to talk to, there’s less quiet moments in my day that lend themselves to poetry, and I write this blog. I don’t know how long this passion will last, if the spell of calming will wear off. For now, I’m grateful.

I’ve been speaking a lot lately with people about crisis and multiplicity and being a carer and recovering from trauma and grieving. It’s really crystallised for me that I do have some unusual ideas and approaches that can be helpful for other people at times. I have come through a lot, learned a lot, been able to put good ideas and good advice from others to use. There’s a sense of purpose and meaning in this work that is keeping me going at the moment. Perhaps the best part of it is that it doesn’t cause me pain. I can write on bed, at my desk, in the bath, in the garden, but it doesn’t hurt the way almost all the rest of my working life does currently. That’s a blessing indeed.

I’m writing

Apr 29, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I woke up this morning with a book in my brain. I’m sad and short of sleep (read, not able to sleep much), and there’s a sense of sorrow that I’m carrying around, a kind of tiredness of spirit. Writing at the moment feels like lighting a candle and warming my hands at it, or a small fire. I can sit and stare into it and all the things that are aching recede. I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about where to start and which book to work on first, and I’d settled on the plan of a small collection of poems, paintings, and essays about suicide. This morning I woke up with my whole alternative framework for understanding and working with multiplicity in my mind instead. A friend had expressed encouragement for that one a few days ago and it seems that’s the fire that wanted to light. Maybe there’s a little too much grief going on for me at the moment to work on the other.

So I’ve been putting together a framework, drawing partly upon things I’ve already written here on this blog, and talks I’ve given, but sewing it all together into something coherent and sequenced. I think people are going to find it much easier to follow than skipping from blog post to post. I’m still debating about whether to include a section on multiplicity crisis support, or keep this for more general principles and stories about engaging multiplicity. I don’t want to make it ridiculously long and detailed, but I do like to read things that are thorough and well thought out. Hard calls. I have a bunch of people keen to read a draft which is very exciting, and I’ve got an appointment booked on Friday with a friend to review the planned structure.

I had to interrupt the flow this afternoon to head off to be part of a reference group, supporting the development of sexual health training for mental health workers. Unfortunately in that time another 3 books turned up in my head and tried to write themselves. o.O True multiple style, sigh! So I’ve drafted some notes about them to put to one side for now. The timing is a little frustrating, I want to get my studio running and the last of my paperwork sorted. But I’m not about to argue, the impulse is there, the joy, that hint of obsession, my brain writing and re writing things while I’m trying to concentrate on other tasks. Might as well run with it.

Now I’m off to cook dinner for Rose who has done a stellar job at her first day at work. I’m making creamy lemon chicken pasta and there’s leftover peach cobbler from the other night. Life goes on.

Zombies

Apr 27, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I finally got a decent sleep last night! At first I woke at 7am again, with bad pain, and I thought today was going to be another killer. Fibro quickly gets into a nasty cycle where the pain makes it hard to sleep, and not getting enough sleep makes the pain worse. Fortunately I remembered that the light was probably also bothering me, and after covering my eyes with a soft old t-shirt, I dropped back to sleep.

I dreamed furiously though, huge, portentous dreams of world ending catastrophe and terrible, suffocating dread. Blood red moons rose over black frozen landscapes, people had secret agendas that left just a trace of something wrong and uneasy but impossible to really explain about them. In one, my nearest and dearest turned into zombies, fast, lethally intelligent, and driven by malice. When I woke I cuddled into Rose and told her about her chasing me as a zombie. She held me close, nuzzled into my hair and whispered ‘mmm brains’. So I tickled her until she screamed.

She’s on the mend at last. Still very sore and tired, and needing a lot of pain relief, but the antibiotics are finally starting to do their thing. Lovely people came around yesterday and walked Zoe and mopped floors and my unit is just beautiful! Today is going to be a lovely day. 🙂

Epiphanies & baths

Apr 26, 2014Apr 26, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

I started my day in the bath today. It was really nice. I’m still super tired and in a lot of pain, and today I’m working face painting at the local zoo again, in the cool weather which is hard on me. But I slept well, and actually woke a lot earlier than I needed to, with things bubbling over in my mind. If have liked the extra sleep, but it was nice to wake up feeling so hopeful.

I’ve had some really helpful conversations lately and things are crystallising in my mind. It’s about frameworks and how things are approached… Like baths. I like baths, they’re a place I feel safe, they help with my pain, and I like relaxing in them with candles and a good book. But often I find I don’t want to be in the bath, I feel blocked and frustrated. Sometimes I can figure out why, like I’m not feeling comfortable enough about being naked, or the harsh light in the bathroom is bothering me, but sometimes I just don’t want to… I think it’s my approach. You know how when you’re having a really bad, overwhelming day, someone can offer to make you a cup of tea in a way that feels gentle, respectful, caring, nurturing…. Or someone can offer the same cup of tea in a way that makes you feel patronised, dismissed, like they think you’re pathetic, over dramatic, useless. It’s not the cup of tea. It’s the relationship, and the way you approach it. It’s the implied attitude to you.

When I try to make myself have a bath as if I’m an impatient, frustrated patent with a whiny, irritating kid, it sucks. When I run a bath as a luxury, a treat for working hard, something love for myself, it’s not the same thing at all.

It’s a small thing, but it’s powerful. And it’s playing into my business stuff too. I’m constantly trying to prove myself, prove that I’m a hard worker, that I’m not lazy, that I do my best, a whole bunch of things that no one but me is in doubt of. I think of myself and my skills as resources to be consumed, I fit myself into whatever the client needs me to be. I give myself to my work and I’m burned up by it. I woke up this morning with the idea of my skills as something valuable to be protected. Like a gemstone that’s displayed to its best, put where it can shine, but looked after. I felt this sense that people around me care for me and see as having worth and don’t want me to be consumed by my work. They are trying to protect me.

Maybe it’s the difference between an open cut coal mine, and when the coal is gone, it’s all gone, and tending a herd of goats for milk. Or perhaps, not killing the goose that lays golden eggs…

Maybe it’s about having a sense of worth.

I’ve resolved to take better care of myself and stop selling myself as being really flexible and available, but move towards being more exclusive and working around various limitations. So I’ve been pressured to take work that starts in the mornings when this is really hard for me, my pain levels are always worst in the morning and late at night. But when I turn people down I feel bad, and anxious about my reputation, and that this is poor business practice. Today my resolve was tested when Rose and I had to reschedule a client as she’s still incredibly ill and unable to work. They were so cranky they refused to rebook. It was a rough way to end a morning that had felt so golden, but we do not need every bit of work that comes along, and we cannot do every bit of work that comes along, and no one who is as sick as Rose is should feel bad about not being able to work. We’re going to have to get tough about looking after each other and protecting ourselves from the unrealistic expectations of others.

I’ve been in start up mode for a long time, between the DI, face painting, and other plans. Start up mode is mad, you think about, breathe, dream, live your obsession all the time. There’s a constant drive to grow it, make it work better, fix problems, think of better ways to do things, it’s almost hysteria. Then there’s maintenance, when the framework is there and now you just rock along, doing what you do. Even if I can’t be self sufficient like I hope, I need to shift over to a maintenance mindset. I don’t have what it takes to stay in start up, especially not by myself. That doesn’t mean new things can’t happen, but the focus is different, gentle, less urgent. I get time off. I get help and support. I don’t use myself up. I don’t try and prove things. I find small teams for projects, so I’m not working alone.

I’m writing in the quiet moments of face painting, so I don’t feel that this is as coherent as I’d like, but somewhere in the ramble, there’s a sense of hope, even if joy, that work can be wonderful again, something I like and look forward to instead of something painful and exhausting that claims me and makes me feel like I’ve failed. I feel excited about changes and it’s wonderful to have other people be excited with me, concerned for me, looking out for me. I don’t feel so small and scared and inadequate. Something will work, even if it’s not what I first planned.

A study in contrasts

Apr 25, 2014Apr 25, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

It’s been a mind bending week. A few nights ago, I was sleeping on a lovely bed with room service for breakfast and a private spa bath, last night I slept on the floor of the local ER with hospital cornflakes for breakfast and I can’t remember when I’ve last showered. There’s something about spending the night in the ER, no matter how freshly washed you might have been when you went in, you always feel grimy and smelly when you come out. I’m so exhausted and sleep deprived at the moment that everything feels upside down and inside out, days do not progress in an ordinary linear fashion and my sense of time has gone compressed and surreal. The short version of my week is this – I had a wonderful birthday and a party around a camp fire where I was thoroughly spoiled by friends. Rose then swept me away for a romantic surprise holiday in a fancy country club for a lot of luxury and pampering over three wonderful days. On the last day Rose started getting sick, I brought us home and since then we’ve been doing the rounds of locums and trips to the ER to manage 2 severe ear infections. Zoe is also sick with ear infections so I’ve taken her to the vet and she’s on drops and tablets. I’m near collapse with exhaustion and lot of bad fibro pain. I have managed to keep enough housework happening that we have clean socks to wear and clean bowls and spoons. I’m also supposed to be in the middle of a crazy 5 full days of work and study, but as I got about 3 hours sleep last night I cancelled today.

It’s been a really full on couple of months. We’ve done the house move with Rose, the sudden death of my friend Leanne, we’ve opened our studio and had our first dreads clients, then Rose has been suddenly offered a fantastic job on a nine month contract and accepted that, I found out that the government has ceased funding the Bachelor of Visual Arts degree I’ve been working on for the past several years, which leaves me with some difficult choices to make as I cannot complete the degree in the remaining time it will be offered, I’ve finally made sense of my paperwork and some major headway on my backlog, and a couple of dear friends are planning weddings and have invited me to be involved. I took my car to be serviced and discovered there is a huge crack in the firewall which will cost about $1,000 to fix, so in the meantime I’m borrowing vehicles to get around. There’s been so many ‘hurrah!’ and ‘oh crap’ moments that my head is about to fall off.

My business plans are in disarray, I’m physically exhausted and struggling with constant pain, and need to do a major overhaul of the plans for the next year in light of everything that’s happened. It’s not all bad news, a lot of it is very exciting and there’s some great opportunities happening. But I am confronted by the reality that what I am doing at the moment is not sustainable. There’s nothing like having a couple of days off to really notice how overwhelmed you have become. At the moment I’ve just got my head down to get through this week, then I’m going to start making some big decisions about what I’m doing and how. It will turn out okay! I believe that.

This was the scene of my lovely birthday. Rose organised it and friends helped with lights (we forgot about that), a beautiful cake, and cleaning and suchlike. It was lovely. It was also kind of embarrassing and a bit stressful being the focus of attention, and there were guests who didn’t know anyone else who I worried about and people I think I should have invited but didn’t think to at the time, and people I wanted to come but couldn’t get hold of (some of my friends are very much non-tech and don’t even keep a phone running consistently) and a lot of opportunities for guilt and stress along those lines. However, for all my faults, I had a very nice evening and although some aspects may have been a bit awkward I think most of the guests did too. There was also bunting, and what’s not to love about bunting? 🙂

We prepped a lot of food. We baked spuds on the fire and asked people to bring their own toppings as there were quite a few food allergies and special diets to cater for and I wanted to make sure everyone could eat something. I also baked up a big batch of apples with an oaty crumble filling that was delicious, and a quadruple dish of self saucing chocolate pudding. I ran out of phone battery so there’s no photos of these or the lovely cake.

I made the usual chilly evening hot drinks too, a big slow cooker of hot chocolate, and a rice cooker of mulled mead. These were the flavours I spiced the mead with:

I also got all creative and made up some little dread art in the form of tiny bird coils and silk sweet pea blossoms to wear. I really like getting to make things.

We also had marshmallows around the fire. It was a big, hot fire, we used as much wood as I usually go through in three or four camp-fires! You can just see some of the fairy lights over the camp fire:

The next day Rose took me away. It was a very watery weekend, I really love water. I swam in the ocean and had several spa baths a day. We were lying in bed at one point, feeling so clean and skin so soft and everything so lovely, and said to Rose how come this bed feels so clean? My bed never feels this clean even with fresh sheets. She said – your clean sheets are still covered with pet hair. It’s true! It was really nice to sleep on such clean sheets. This is one of my happy memories from the trip, I had a bath with a cocktail, some good chocolate, and a new book of poems we bought from a market that morning. All the hot spas really helped my pain levels too.

Another good memory. We did lots of tastings of cheeses and olives and local produce. We kind of spent two days pretending we weren’t poor, didn’t have lots of responsibilities or work to think about, and weren’t short of time. I didn’t touch my phone or get on the net or social media at all. I didn’t do any thinking or planning about business things, didn’t answer emails or return calls, it was just uninterrupted time off. I often work evenings and weekends, and many of my days off are full of housework and admin. Taking a whole day off has become extremely unusual, and I find that there is a very blurry line between work and the rest of my life.

For a few days, this wasn’t the case, and it was like turning back into myself. Without chronic pain and the constant demands of work I relaxed properly for the first time in months. I wasn’t irritable and overwhelmed, I didn’t feel that near permanent sense of not being able to catch my breath, that shrieking inner alarm that I cannot manage this that has been going off in my head since Rose got her job. I felt like Sarah again. I had fun, I relaxed, I enjoyed myself and could be present in the moment and breathe it all in. It is so difficult to be present when part of your brain is always managing admin, chewing on tough problems, trying to plan the next few months. It was nice. I want more of it. It doesn’t have to be about money or luxury, it’s a simple thing at the moment of accepting that I cannot do what I am trying to do the way I’m currently trying to do it. I want more capacity to enjoy the rest of my life and I want less time in really bad pain.

The very first thing we did on getting to the hotel – shift all the mini bar contents to a drawer, and close it!

I found this beautiful old clock at a market, my next door neighbour Aunty Marie used to have once just like it when I was a child. I’ve wanted one of my own for a long time to remember her by. It was so nice to be able to bring home some mementos of this wonderful trip!

Dinner brought to the room one night, we ate in bed. We lived very extravagantly, and there was a lot of cheese. 🙂

A memory to treasure – we found a lonely fire by the bistro one night and sat by it drinking strawberry and lime cider while I read Something Wicked this way Comes to Rose.

Lunch by the sea on the last day.

My beautiful Rose. She’s such a romantic, such a generous partner and fun companion. I’m blessed to be with her.

Exploring little towns and second hand shops, it was good to be away. I love travelling.

And last night in the ER. I made a striking figure in my pyjamas. It’s so hard to advocate for yourself when you’re in terrible pain (ear infections are agonising) and the one thing I’ve found consistently through all hospital stays – whether for physical or mental health reasons is that it’s a better trip if you have good company. Someone who knows you can soothe you, help the pain relief be more effective by reducing your anxiety, can advocate for you – get you another blanket or find a nurse or ask questions or remind you about an important detail you’ve forgotten. More than anything, a caring companion journeys with you, you don’t have to handle problems alone. You are seen as someone who is loved by someone else, a person who is important to someone, a person who probably isn’t always as overwhelmed or hard to connect with because clearly someone else thinks the world of you. It changes how you are treated, helps to humanise you however you are presenting. It makes a huge difference.

So for now, the plan is sleep, rest, reach out and connect to try and stop my head spinning so much, and get through the next few days before re-evaluating and new structure for the business. It’s going to be good, and I’m happy that it’s happening now, not after a major crash. I love Rose and my friends and family and my life and I want to spend more of my time able to enjoy what I have and connect with those I care about. 🙂

It’s my birthday!

Apr 19, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 7 Comments

I often struggle around my birthday, but fortunately Rose is very good at celebrations so I’m getting spoiled. We usually get badly depressed this time of year, but with some extra loving and being the other side of 30, it hasn’t been intense this year. Plus my life has gone through so many changes over the past month that my head is still spinning, a birthday hasn’t really had a look in. I’ve finished my working week, which was painting at the Zoo again, good work but painful. Last night was dinner and cards and chocolates with friends, a good laugh as always and just what I needed after a hard week.

Today is presents and breakfast in bed, a trip to the plaster fun house for my kidlets, and a campfire with friends around tonight. There will be baked potatoes and chocolate pudding and hot spiced mead and bunting in the trees. We’re a bit excited! We might be going out dancing at the local goth club tonight too. One or two of us who just freak out have had some time to write in the middle of the night and hide out. Birthdays can be complex when you’re multiple!

Tomorrow Rose is whisking us away on a surprise holiday to I don’t know where. I love trips and I love surprises so this is pretty special. People are looking after my animals while we’re gone. I used to be so lonely and miserable on my birthdays, a hang over from years without friends. Now my world is taking good care of me, and I’m very lucky.

Zoe turned 2

Apr 15, 2014Apr 16, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

April is a month of birthdays at my home – mine, Tonks, and Zoe’s all come around in this month. Zoe kicks things off, she turned 2 years old this year. What a ride! She’s hardly recognisable from the crazy puppy who drove me to despair. While she’s still bright and bouncy and loves people, she’s happy to chill on the couch while you work and sleeps inside in her crate at night with a minimum of fuss. No more chewed furniture! She’s pretty cruisy and easy going.

I was reading a book about shamanism recently which suggested that animals teach us things about life. I thought about what I’d learned from having Zoe in my life. It’s been a tough run at times. I was so overwhelmed by her and how much exercise she needed (I live in a unit) that twice I made concerted efforts to find a different good home for her. At one stage I was a mess of guilt and frustration, constantly yelling at a dog who was shredding my house, stressing my guests, and on one occasion, raced over my foot and broke my toe! I got in a behavioural consultant for help, which was a huge, huge support, Rose and I knuckled down and spent Saturday mornings at dog training, and we put a lot of effort into environmental enrichment and a better relationship. I was thinking that the thing I guess I’ve had to learn with Zoe is how to see the Zoe who is in front of me. When I took home a gorgeous little pup from the shelter I was single and lonely, looking for protection at home, looking for companionship, and after nursing Charlie for months, looking for a really healthy, strong dog. I got that dog, for sure. But as she grew up a little and my life circumstances changed with a new job and a new relationship meaning I was away from home a lot more than I had been, I found myself with a bored and lonely half puppy in full destruction mode. It was a big shift! She destroyed 2 couches, a lot of clothes and sheets, stole items from around the house (books, nail polish, socks) and buried them in the backyard, chased my cats… Some days I hated her. As she’s grown older and I’ve learned a lot and changed a lot of what I was doing, a different Zoe again has emerged. This Zoe is still not absolutely content, she’s a bit lonely and wishes she had more walks and more room to play. But she’s boisterous rather than destructive, very affectionate and protective. Sometimes it’s hard to see this Zoe because the memories of the crazy, overwhelming puppy get in the way. But she’s right here in front of me, cuddling on the couch, nudging me to let me know she needs to go to the toilet, playing with Tonks, or watching the garden through the window. It’s a valuable lesson, to see what’s in front of me.

So, for Zoe’s birthday, she got a new chew toy which she adores, a lot of cuddles and love, and some food treats. She had a pretty good day. I love her to bits! 🙂

Paperwork

Apr 12, 2014Apr 12, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I’ve had a quiet week, turned down work opportunities, stayed home, and put in some major hours to make sense of my paperwork backlog. (about 3 years of business records) I haven’t been keeping proper records about my business income and expenses and it’s a big job sorting them all out. There’s a few reasons for this, one is that I’ve really struggled with phobias about money and admin that have left me very overwhelmed and muddle headed. Another is that it’s taken me this long, several courses, (including a cert 3 in home businesses), and help from an accountant before I’ve been able to set up a simple system for record keeping that suits my business. Most of the systems or advice I’ve been offered have been needlessly complex, full of terms I barely understand, and I’ve been utterly confused. I now have a physical folder in which income and expenses are printed and filed for that financial year. It’s less environmentally
friendly, which I hate, but it works visually, which is how I work. It’s easy for me to see what’s happening and check on things filed. I am using an app called invoice2go which generates my invoices, concerts them to pdf, and emails them for me much quicker than I’ve been doing manually using an excel document, and all from my phone if I wish. I have a simple sheet for income, and a different simple sheet for expenses. Generating profit and loss forms from these is child’s play. So I’m finally making progress.

I’ve been scouring the house for all those pockets of paperwork, random collections of receipts stuffed into tins, boxes, drawers, envelopes, and other ‘safe’ hidey holes. Even worse, I’ve been finding, printing, and cross referencing every previous attempt to input this data using much more complex forms. At some point I’ve scanned a couple of months worth of receipts and collated them, then lost both the original and scanned versions of the receipts. That’s giving me a headache. I’m looking forward to all this being over and moving on to running my new studio with a simple, relevant, accurate method of data collection in place. It’s going to be a huge weight off me! I have learned a hell of a lot!

So it’s happening. This is one of my biggest bogey men, a thing that has been hanging over my head for years, stressing me constantly and filing me with a chronic sense of guilt, frustration, inadequacy, and dread. I jumped into a business with enthusiastic support from people around me, but far before I was ready for this side of things, and it’s been a burden since then. I’m so glad to be finally sorting it out, facing the debts, and moving on. It’s a good feeling!

Tonks has been loving sleeping in my boxes of paper, so I accommodated and began using her box to store paper I no longer needed. This seems to be like cat nip, she migrated back to her box shortly afterwards.

Good music and good company, sure helps when doing paperwork!

Admin & Tonks

Apr 10, 2014Apr 10, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

I’m making headway on my backlog of business admin, at last. Here is the comfortable cat box, next to the window. Here is the box of paperwork I’m inputting and filing. Of course!

Dark & light

Apr 9, 2014Apr 9, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I’ve lost my voice again, the blog goes quiet. Funny how that happens sometimes. I’m grieving. I struggled awake this morning from a terrible dream about someone close to me dying. At the end, even as I started to realise it was a dream, I couldn’t help myself from reaching out, trying to hold on as it faded.

Depression comes and goes, a joyless, lethal lethargy with a bitter self hate.

There’s a pervasive sense of something being terribly wrong that’s hard to live with. I can’t tell if it’s the grief and sense of loss, or some other choice I’m making. I woke with it this morning as I wept into the sheets. Life is so fragile, what am I doing with it? What am I making of it? Suddenly I miss everyone, want to phone everyone, hold them all, tell them I love them. I restrain myself, I make tea and come back to bed. I let the animals touch me, I’ve disturbed them with the sobbing and they need to come near. It’s a beautiful impulse, the simplicity of the need for touch when someone cries out in pain.

I’m curled in bed, looking out at a white sky through the branches of my tree. This beautiful house. I won’t live here forever. There’s a sense of everything slipping away, of time stealing all. I try not to re evaluate my life, there’s been so much of that lately. I pat Tonks and think about a conversation with Rose last night, talking about how sick my dog Charli was, how I nursed him to the end but struggled to connect, how I bonded to the foster cat Abbie, but she died. Death and attachment. How strange it is that so much of what we want from life comes down to feelings. It’s not that we want success or career or to find love, it’s that we want to feel whole, content, connected, loved. I want those things. I think I’d how much work Rose and I have been doing lately and suddenly I want to run to her house, take her away, drive somewhere lost and lonely in the white sky, sit on the edge of an empty beach and fish. Sit by a fire and listen to the crackling, for hours and hours. Slow time down. More than anything I want to be able to feel the things around me, love and affection, grief, wonder. It’s the numbing detachment I fear. Living without being alive.

Rain glitters on the leaves of my tree. Rose is getting ready for work in her house down the road. Tonks is in the window, watching the birds flying black against the sky. There’s some kind of peace here. I still have a heart to break. I can still be moved by life, I know what I’m pursuing. Grief and terror rest alongside acceptance, a calm joy in the beauty of my world, my little home. The big searing questions of life and meaning and my life settle like tigers, resting behind me in the shadows, purposeful and waiting, but at rest. Rain falls silver. I lie by the window, between the dark and the light. My heart stops trembling and sleeps. Shadowed by pain and lit by joy. I’m still alive.

Sophie eats an eclair

Mar 31, 2014Mar 31, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I’m exhausted. I can’t remember the last time I had a decent sleep. The last few weeks have been mad and I’m ready to collapse in a heap. Final projects are due at college today, I’ve finished late last night although I’m not very happy with them. Trying to do college and get a studio running in the aftermath of a house move and a funeral is just about finishing me off. My life feels very surreal and confused. I love it and its worth the mess. Just hanging in there until the roller coaster lets me off so I can curl up in a small ball and sleep for a month. Just this one more thing, and then the next, and the one after…

As a treat – here, have some photos of my gorgeous goddaughter Sophie. We had a lovely big dinner with friends recently and she was introduced to chocolate eclairs. They were greatly enjoyed!

Ice cream & breakthroughs

Mar 22, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

There’s so much I want to write about and so little time to write! I’m so happy today. I got a big sleep in, a lovely morning with Rose having big conversations about our life and business plans and relationships… After weeks of rushing around with little down time and no space for reflecting, this was bliss. We’re off running errands for the studio again now, then going out for good ice creams as a treat.

The treat is because I’ve made a major breakthrough in my admin phobias! I am seriously behind for my business, I find recording everything just unbelievably confusing and stressful. Even writing invoices can give me panic attacks. I’ve been working on the issue a lot, and this week I had a big conversation about it all with my shrink. I’ve nailed down some important ideas.

Firstly, I’m not bad at admin, which is what I’m telling myself and everyone else. For example, chasing people who owe you money is a horrible, stressful, and stupidly time consuming aspect of business, and many small business owners really struggle with it. I’m pretty good at that, I keep track of who hasn’t paid me and I stay in top of it with regular contact with them. That’s really quite big! I don’t like it, but I can do it and with a minimum of stress. I wrote and update my own website and manage social media just fine. So I’m selling myself short and adding a big mental block when I say I’m bad at admin.

I cannot use the admin income and expenses systems I’ve set up. I can’t think on them. I’m a visual thinker and I need to be able to see the paperwork. I wanted to save paper and keep everything online but I’m finding it impossible. Instead of feeling guilty and angry and trying to make myself do something in a way in finding impossible, I’ve completely restructured how I record things. I’m printing all receipts and keeping them in concertina files. I’ve split my income and expenses apart and now they’re on separate databases because this way there’s less visual clutter on each page and I find it easier to see what I’m doing and think clearly. Basically in adapting the system to the way I work instead of trying to force myself to function in a way I clearly don’t. It’s blindingly obvious when I put it like that.

It’s working! I’ve done months of record keeping in the past couple of days. I’m so relieved. I’m applying this principle in many other highly stressful aspects of the business and letting go of how I think I should do things and focusing instead on how I work and how to set up things that work for me without feeling guilty or angry with myself. And the stress is melting away and the excitement and sense of having a song in my heart bubbles up from beneath it.

Can’t write more today, we’ve reached the Copenhagen store 🙂 xx

Photos of the Studio and Dread Art!

Mar 20, 2014Mar 20, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Hard work is happening to get our studio ready in time for our first client booked in next week, and I’ve been asked to share photos. 🙂 I just delivered the chairs today, the paint work is almost finished now, we just need to add a final coat to the purple walls – it’s a very dark colour so inclined to look patchy unless we really stack on the coats of paint. I’m alternately really excited and inspired about it all, and overwhelmed with anxiety and dread. Working hard on dealing with that.

One unexpected upside has been that now that I know I have a studio to display my work, I’ve been so excited about art again and making lots of things in my studio! It’s by far the most effective technique I’ve ever tried in dealing with feeling blocked creatively. That’s such a wonderful bonus for all the stress of setting this up. 🙂

Our lovely display for beads – some of us love to decorate our dreads 🙂

Our new chair for clients! I’m in love with it. Can’t you just see yourself relaxing in this while henna or inks are done?

I told you I loved this chair. You can see our gorgeous purple walls here – one more coat to go hopefully!

Dreading chairs! Adjustable heights, as comfortable and friendly on backs and joints as we could find.

Dread Art! I stitched this little bead sleave last night, and I love it.

More dread art! These little wire dread coils are gorgeous! I made this myself, using copper wire, Swarovski crystals, and a beautiful paua shell button from New Zealand.

A second handmade dread coil I’ve created, this one is a bit finer for my little dreads. 🙂

I bought this beautiful tree on the drive back from my friend’s funeral. It’s going to hang on the studio wall and be a little reminder of her.

The studio room, coming along.

Close up of a couple of beads – I’m sourcing all of these extremely carefully. Did you know that eBay has a warning about ‘Tibetan Silver’ beads? I didn’t! The term is unregulated so it means any silver coloured alloy. Some have been tested and found to contain lead, or arsenic! Wow. So, only sterling silver/quality natural ingredient beads will be sold from this studio. These are hand carved wooden skull beads.

The body art chair and a lovely ergonomic stool, for the artist.

We’re very excited about this beautiful huge mirror and can’t wait to hang it!

We now have a big supply of synthetic hair for natural coloured extensions

And some really cool colours too.

Death of a friend

Mar 9, 2014Mar 9, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 5 Comments

I’ve just heard that a friend of mine has died. I have no details, only that she passed away in her sleep. She was one of my oldest friendships, but she herself was not old. I thought we had more time. She was in my plans. Her death is like another door closing, slamming shut, becoming part of a past that is full of closed doors. For someone like me, someone who had to run a long way to find some kind of peace, there’s already so many shut doors. She was not going to be part of my past, she was going to be part of my future!

I wanted her to meet Rose, to meet my children, the babies we used to write about in letters to each other, as she chose – ambivalently – to not have children, and as I grieved my own dreams of children due to sickness and ended relationships. She told me once she’d had a vision of me with a baby of my own in my arms. I wanted her to be here to see it happen! She was there through so much of the shit, our relationship suffered, we fought, there was distance and pain. We’d just started to reconnect, to let go, we’d just decided to make a new friendship.

I want to scream! There’s a howling rage in me. We suffered so much when the old world burned. I wanted her to know me now, in a place where my skin doesn’t burn anymore, where I’m not all teeth and shadows. I wanted to hug her again and tell her I loved her and never forgot her.

She’s not supposed to be dead.

I don’t want to be okay, I don’t want to move on, I don’t want to grieve, I want to burn the world down. This is not fair. This is wrong. We deserved better, we’d earned it. I’m screaming. I’ll scream as long as I need to.

About Growing Up

Mar 3, 2014Mar 2, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 8 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Some people with multiplicity point to key experiences such as wishing whatever was happening, was happening to someone else. I’ve never been able to relate to that. But the idea of not wanting to grow up? Oh yes. And what better way to achieve that then splitting off child parts and forming more parts when circumstances required new skills?

There was not a single adult in my world I envied. No one whose life I wanted to have. What I saw around me was a lot of pain and loneliness. Often they didn’t even seen to be aware how unhappy they were, but for me it was painfully visible. I could smell it on the air, feel it in my chest. An empathic child, I felt the cast off emotions and denied anguish of everyone around me. I felt stuck, in a body growing older, when there was nowhere I wanted to grow to. Perceptiveness can be lethal. I saw, and understood, far more than I could emotionally process. I was constantly caught between the dark and the light, between the way everything seemed to be on the surface, and the underworld. A good loving family, and the constant threat of violence. An upright private school, and the casualty list of victims too underprivileged to be worth protecting from the bullies.

Adults close to me had their own issues with the adult world. One told me that the process of growing up kills your spirit. Adults don’t play anymore, don’t climb trees on the way to work. They’re numb. I promised myself I wouldn’t turn into an adult. Another told me how children are innocent but adults lose this. In Sunday School we were told stories about children who could ask the challenging questions of hurt and angry adults, and be heard, where another adult would have been shut out. Many used me as a secret keeper. I heard horror stories that many had shared with no other person. I became tasked with this impossible goal, of not growing up, by adults who were mourning their own lost inner children. I tried very hard to comply. I kept the secrets of my peers also, even those who bullied me. I was steeped in the knowledge of unspoken pain.

“Adults are the corpses of children.”

Oddly enough, I was expected to function at an adult level at a very young age. For an oldest child in a family under massive stress, this isn’t an unusual story. Not all of that was a bad thing. But some of it hurt. Some of it was lying in the dark at night, afraid of the shadows, because I was now too big a kid to have a light on. Some of it was lonely and overwhelming, heavy burdens of expectations and responsibly.

I grew up surrounded by the myth of the Golden Age of Childhood. Constantly being told these were the best years of your life. I swore to myself never to rewrite my history and pretend this had been the case for me. I lived in this surreal world where everyone was locked away with their private pain, where everyone pretended there was no war and no dead bodies. It was like being able to see blood all over the walls and no one else acknowledging it was there.

A boy stalked me when I was 14. He was profoundly distressed, suicidal, and self harming. When I sought help for him from the head of our school department, I encountered endemic denial. The boy had started coming to school with extensive fresh injuries on his arms from cutting. I begged the head teacher to intervene. He asked the boy how he received the injuries. He reported back to me that they were ‘from falling into a rose bush’. I cried and said you know that’s not true! The teacher said well there’s nothing else we can do, with the relief of an adult out of their depth who has been allowed to keep running with the easier cover story. You could scream for help very, very loudly in my world without anyone hearing.

My peers were not the same. They yearned for adulthood. They craved power, freedom, and sex. Impatient with childhood, they raced towards an adult world that contained everything they desired and were denied. This difference became a rapidly widening gulf between us, bigger every year.

My sexual development was screwed up by weird attitudes, secrets, teachings, and abuse. I feared my own desires. I feared power and corruption. I had no illusions about the freedoms of adulthood. The only freedom I craved and lived for was to leave school. Responsibility and failure weighed heavily upon me.

I’m 30 now, undeniably an adult, at least physically. I have child parts, and sometimes I think they are the best of us. We have on some levels, admirably succeeded in our attempts to not grow up. It has been a painful mess. Sometimes I think that child in an adult body is one of the loneliest creatures in existence. My little 5 year old would sometimes just switch out and sit alone on the couch, waiting. She was hungry and wanted ice cream, but kids aren’t allowed to open the freezer so she would just wait for a grown up to come and help her. I live alone, no one was coming. I feel them yearning in me when we pass children at the park. When I read about a multiple giving a box of crayons as a gift to another newly diagnosed, a great desire leaped in my heart. It was another year before I was brave enough to buy crayons for us.

So here I am, painfully suspended between the worlds of child and adult. There’s so many ideas to untangle. That adults live in the ‘real world’. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fit myself to that real world – the world of admin and responsibility and success and bills that need paying. I also keep rebelling against my own goals, switching in the rain, running away from my own life. I’m starting to develop new ideas. I’m starting to think that perhaps the task of all adults – multiples and otherwise – is to love and look after their own inner children. I’m starting to think that there is no ‘real world’, that the real world is just as much a dream as any other. When I live in a caravan, what am I ‘really’? White trash or a gypsy dreamer? Adults get together and dream up their version of what reality is, of what love is, and what success is. I think my idea of the real world is a nightmare. A bad dream, dreamed by a lot of hurting adults with very lost and lonely inner children. It’s not even about success, when I look at some of the ‘successful’ people I admire – like Amanda Palmer – she doesn’t live in the real world! Oh, she does admin and pays her bills, but only as a means to ends, not as a goal in themselves. They are the poles that keep up the tent in which the magic happens. The magic is the real world, the creating and adventuring and connecting and being uniquely oneself.

I’m starting to dream new dreams of adulthood that don’t scare me so much. Some days I have the most glorious glimpse of life as a mother who is very imperfect, who is sick and strange and full of dark art. And I see her painting the kids to be dinosaurs and chasing them round the yard. There’s joy and freedom and silliness. There’s a different world, that has nothing to do with the real, nothing to do with adults who are dead on the inside.

Rose and I have both been so sick this week, and yet, when I let go of the idea of what we should be doing and how I expect this to play out, something magic happens. The day becomes infinity. I’m captured by the fall of the light through the curtains, by the colour of the skirts of leaves, by the warmth of her skin, the feel of ice water in my mouth, watching the kitten chew the dog’s foot and laying back to laugh. What was a wasted day, a sick day, a day in which nothing good would happen, a day to be endured as I wait to get back to the real world, becomes the most beautiful day of my week. I read lovely books and slip in and out pain and sleep and let go of the driving and the haunting sense of failure and I am given back the most beautiful day.

Rose has signed a lease

Feb 27, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I’m still sick and exhausted, endometriosis is kicking me in the teeth, but my attempt to restart on the pill this month had to be abandoned due to immediate, severe depression. I can’t be sure it was related, but as I went through the same thing when I stopped taking it last year and that took 2 months to get over, I stopped it straight away. I’ll try it again in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, my pain levels are very high, and I feel like hell.

Rose has a virus that has developed into a chest infection, so she feels like someone ran her over a few times then stuffed her lungs with cotton wool. I feel like my bones have been drilled, fitted with bolts, and then clamped in a vice. We’re an awesome pair at the moment.

But – she’s signed a lease. Rose, my sister, and my friend and his daughter Sophie (my goddaughter) are all moving in together in a fortnight, to a house on my street. They’ll be only 10 houses away from me. 🙂 I’m staying put for now and will move in sometime later. This staged approach keeps the pressure off and the stress as low as possible for both Rose and myself. It gives us a home base for the move that doesn’t change, and staggers the introduction of our pets. It also puts off the nasty reduction in welfare that happens when you move in with a partner, until my work is successful enough that we can afford it. It’s actually happening! Some of the people I most love in the world will be a short walk away. I feel so blessed. Stressed out of my tiny mind and in horrible pain, but very blessed. There will be vastly more excitement when I’ve got through work tomorrow and recovered. I am so so sick of being sick. I have a studio to paint! 😦

Everyone was thrilled about signing the lease. And then immediately started getting panicky or depressed about various logistical problems with the move itself. I was reminded of how quickly this approach wears people out. I see it all the time in mental health work. You must take time to celebrate each victory, to enjoy it, before moving on to the next problem. You have to give yourself a break from the chronic stress and problem solving, have to make room for the peaceful feelings and the celebrations. It’s such an important part of resilience. Savouring the moment. Rose has signed a lease!

Riding the avalanche

Feb 25, 2014Feb 25, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

What a week.

Rose is sick, probably tonsillitis or a flu. I’ve done a huge fibro flare after work this weekend and been in more severe pain than I’ve experienced in a long time. I’ve also been wildly depressed and wound up meeting with a friend and crying on their shoulder for about 3 hours at a local pub. We’re running out of time for Rose to sign a lease before she winds up stranded with her current one expired. She, my sister, and my friend and his daughter, my goddaughter Sophie, are all putting in applications together for places near me. I wont be moving anywhere yet. Rose and I are both stressed out of our brains, sleeping badly and having nightmares. Rose keeps running into conflicts in her life with people who yell at her. I’m finding that my ability to be a patient support in the background is being severely tested. Yesterday between pain and illness and someone having a go at her while I wasn’t around again I really started to feel like I was losing my mind.

I went and visited nice people who fed me dinner and let me rant. I was pissed off on facebook. Then I came home with chocolate, milk, and the darkest book I could get my hands on at short notice (The Death of Bunny Munroe, by Nick Cave) and took myself to bed. This morning I checked in with Rose (still sick) and called Centrelink in the faint hopes I had miscalculated when figuring out that if we move in together we will need to add to our income (or subtract from our expenses) an additional $246 a fortnight, to be as broke as we are currently. Fantastic.

We’re waiting to hear back about another application. It’s sounding promising so far, and if this one comes through then things should be sweet with no one stuck between houses.

It’s good to wake up this morning feeling like I can breathe. Yesterday I woke out of nightmares into asthma and intense pain which is one of my least fun ways to wake up. Just taking things minute by minute at the moment, which is helping a lot. Letting myself off the hook. Trying to get a few dishes done. Breathing. Trying not to explode. One foot, then the other, then breathe. Losing my mind a bit here and there seems to be helping. Don’t try to stop the avalanche, just ride it down and try not to f*&% too much up on the way.

Ink Painting – From the stars

Feb 21, 2014Feb 21, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

I sat up late last night in my studio, painting with inks again.

I’m sad and tired and can’t seem to shake it. World weary and weighed down. I thought painting might help. All my images were of grief. It did and it didn’t. It didn’t and it did. I re-read Greylands by Isobel Carmody. I’ve looked for furniture for my studio at local second hand stores. I’ve discovered that the name we were going to use for it is already being used. I’ve looked up new names, none of which quite fit.

My basil plant is huge and fragrant and full of bees. My sage is dying, despite all love. Life is strange and sad and my heart is full of broken glass.

I’ve painted this dead woman and her howling dog, she’s hanging from the moon and stars, tangled in the dreams she was weaving.

Nightmares & changes

Feb 20, 2014Feb 20, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

It’s been nightmare central around here lately. There’s changes and upheaval everywhere! The first step of the big move is happening, Rose is packing to move in with my sister, my close friend, and his daughter (my goddaughter Sophie)! This is heart stoppingly exciting, and very stressful for her. Like me, she’s been homeless more than once and is really afraid of making stupid decisions that might make that happen again. She’s also job hunting now that her ankle has mostly healed as she’s not being given shifts at her current casual job. So there’s plenty of fodder for rough nights there. As usual, some friends get it, some don’t. We’re both stressed and I’m doing my best to be supportive.

I did something a bit risky the other night when I came home shattered from a day at college and just zoned out on the net all evening… I read my way through a blog post about movies the writer had found really hard to watch or finish watching. I was gratified to see them list se7en, which I watched at 16 when my then partner stupidly or sadistically persuaded me it didn’t live up to the R18 rating and I’d enjoy it. I remember crawling into an empty room afterwards, huddling into a corner, pressing my face against the wall, and sobbing my heart out. I was a bit cautious about the article as movies easily set off nightmares for me, but as many of them were ones I’d heard of and which lose most of their disturbing impact in the description, such as Clockwork Orange, I read it anyway. Whoops.

The last several nights have been horrific. I’ve latched onto the idea of sadism and torture and murder and had a really rough time as my imagination has played out what I’ve read and added from my own bank of bad memories. It’s been really, really stressful. Hopefully I’ll let it go soon. What it has brought to my mind though, is that this used to be every day life for me. It’s astonishing that this has become something I deal with sometimes, not every night. Bit by bit, things change, wounds heal over. The hard work pays off. You can recover from PTSD.

Things are difficult at the moment. But it’s not death pangs, it’s the birthing of a new life. It’s a price I can pay. There’s moments I’m one breath away from a panic attack. There’s moments I’m so content, in such peace.

Health & pain

Feb 18, 2014Feb 14, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

Rose and I are carefully putting some thought into our health, moving gently around mindfields of food issues and body image and social pressure. We are finding some things that are working for us without triggering bigger problems than they solve, which is saying something. 🙂

So far, we’re eating a lot of rainbow salads and other good foods, without worrying about restricting anything. I don’t do well with restricting and am vulnerable to binge/starve behaviour. So this gentle approach is working well for me.

We’ve also started exercising regularly. Rose loves swimming and I’m finding, to my joy, that swimming seems to really suit me! I’ve swum a little over a kilometre last week without any significant increase in pain! The lack of load bearing on my joints seems to make a big difference. I love having an exercise buddy and I’m feeling excited about building my capacity and my fitness. I’m hoping to gently increase my quantity of exercise with swimming and walking Zoe.

Exercise is a tricky one for me, too much leaves me shattered with fatigue and pain. Too little reduces my muscles tone and slows my metabolism in ways that leave me sicker. This is a common dilemma for people with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

It’s very important to me to maintain my happiness with my body, it’s taken me a long time to feel content and settled in my skin and I still have bad days at times. There’s no point in me being successful with a fitness goal only to have my brain collapse. My aim is some more energy and better conception/pregnancy.

Unfortunately the endometrioses seems to have returned and I’m once again very sick for days each month. This is forcing me to either return onto the meds, which are associated with slow but steady weight gain, or step up my plans for parenthood. I’m ambivalent and wrestling with the options. One possibility may be going back onto the meds with some dietary modifications to try and reduce their impact. It’s a hard call.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying all the extra swimming and hoping it will pay dividends in increased fitness and pain reduction if I pace it carefully. 🙂

Rain & poets

Feb 14, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

Whew, it’s wet and humid here! I’ve just finished putting a casserole on to cook in my slow cooker. I have a bunch of friends coming round for dinner tonight. Next task is peeling a bag of spuds. I usually stick to easier meals like home made pizza but I wanted to do something a bit special tonight, it’s the first time my little goddaughter Sophie will be visiting my place!

The weather is crazy wonderful here. It’s been pouring with rain for a couple of days and lots of South Australia is beyond damp and into deluged. I’m happy as a duck. I like rain. I like being able to turn the fan on at night, huddle under my blanket, and stick out one foot for temperature regulation. If just my toes are poking out I’m cool. If half my calf is exposed I’m a little warm.

Weather is one thing that almost always makes us switch. I love it. There’s a fatigue that sets in when it’s been the same for too long. Life starts to feel flat, to stretch before me like a road going nowhere. Then a shift in the weather will spin my carousel round again and someone else comes out and breathes in deeply and we feel alive again. I love the weather. I love not being able to control it. I love that it intrudes into our lives in ways we try to prevent. It insists we pay attention to it, insists that we feel something. I love storms and rain and wind and lightening. I love going down the beach in crazy weather and screaming into the wind. I love staying up late with a hot chocolate and watching the lightening. I love the whisper of someone who has been forgotten about, left behind in the hustle of our life, especially our new life, so focused on accomplishment and productivity and efficiency and being adult.

Rain brings out the poets. It always has. Yesterday I was melancholy in that bitter sweet way that makes you want to savour it. Last night I sank into bed after cleaning the kitchen, and fell into a dream where my front yard flooded, and I started to pull trash from it only to find that there was no soil beneath the plants. A cave full of water and tree roots and water pipes lay under everything. Cold, and strange, clear water running. In one dream I fell into it and the sodden earth and lawn collapsed onto me. Their weight was intense, constricting my lungs, the feel of mud squeezing around me, making a perfect mold of my limbs. In another I sat by it, lifting this curtain of green things with my shovel to gaze at a world under my own world, unsuspected and singing to me.

I want to sleep outdoors again. I miss my caravan. Miss being deafened by the rain. I’d love to have a tent or yurt out in the yard and on good nights, nights when I’m not too sick or too scorched, to go and sleep there, listening to the night wind and the trains running in the distance, and the possums looking for dinner. There’s so much life here, if we don’t wall ourselves off from it.

Making marks

Feb 12, 2014Feb 12, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

I was really sick at at college on Monday. Shaky, exhausted, nauseated, and really struggling to focus. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, and my plans to park by the tram stop and get in that way didn’t work out because all the parks by the tram stop were very time limited and didn’t give me enough time to get in and back again. In Drawing class we were investigating different ways of making marks with willow and compressed charcoal. I really struggled to stay focused and keep getting teary and needing to slip away to cry. I hate not being well enough to enjoy college. My tutor at the end of the lesson asked me if I was bored and I’m glad he did because I was glad to clarify that I was just sick!

I kept trying to figure out what was making us so sick, (apart from the usual) and if it was a parts based thing and we could switch. Sometimes I felt better for a bit when music was playing but I couldn’t seem to stabilise and make anything work. I think I need to find out replace my MP3 player and eight that helps keep me anchored if that was the issue. In the end I just let it roll over me and did my best to get through the day. Sometimes taking the pressure off is the best you’re going to get.

It’s an interesting process to see how many limiting ideas I have about art, and how little I let myself experiment when I’m anxious about the cost of the materials. How every piece must be good enough to justify the time and money spent on creating it. It’s not surprising that I find myself blocked and shut down with these mindsets. I’m hopeful about clearing my head more so I can be more creative and explore my favourite materials.

These were some of the marks I made with this process that spoke to me:

Rose was wonderful she made me this great lunch, dropped me off and picked me up after college. I was fragile and distressed so she took me home and read Harry Potter to me until I slept.

Ice cream cake

Feb 10, 2014Feb 10, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

A friend of mine had a birthday recently. Rose and I made her an ice cream cake. It’s not too difficult, provided you don’t try to make it in 42C weather, so consider yourself warned!

We bought a nice quality vanilla ice cream, let it get a bit soft, then mashed treats into it. We went for chopped jelly lollies (they freeze into little rocks so be sure to chop them), peanut M&Ms, and chopped raspberry licorice logs filled with chocolate. We swirled some chocolate fudge sauce through it, and mixed up a second lot with ground cardamom and cinnamon, chopped Turkish delight, and flaked almonds. Then we poured it into a big basin and froze it overnight.

The next day I tipped it onto a plate and decorated it with fresh whipped cream, strawberries, raspberry M&Ms, a chocolate ‘Happy Birthday’ disc, and halved fruit flavoured macaroons. Everything is glued to the ice cream using a chocolate sauce.

It was a success, it’s a very rich dish and you only need a small serve! But it’s very simple, and great for a hot weather party. 🙂

Music is my drug of choice

Feb 9, 2014Feb 9, 2014 / Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

Last night I went out to a new goth club. It was over 40C again here yesterday and I was bone tired, with that hot, angry restlessness that makes relaxing not just difficult but very unsatisfying. I met up with my shrink earlier in the week, who told me that I’m stressed and driven because I’m involved in so many ‘start up’ projects, all of which are high risk and take loads of work. She suggested that every project needs money and at least one partner to make it work without it killing me. I also met up with an amazing guy from Scotland, Ron Coleman, who said roughly the same thing but with a whole lot of practical suggestions and details about how the hell to do that. Damn exciting!

My shrink and I also talked about ‘adult days’ which are days where I have to be responsible and run things. It’s not that great a way to describe them, since some of my adult parts are decidedly not useful on adult days (like me!) and some child parts are, but it’s what we’re working with at the moment. I wind up with too many of them. It becomes like a parent who never gets a break, stuck in parent mode 24/7 and starting to crash. I don’t get a lot of days off from this. Everything gets scheduled. The anxious driven-ness can turn even fun and play and friends into work, something we have to do. There’s not a lot of room for going wild in any form.

Last night I went to a new goth club, and let a little bit loose. Many multiples will tell you that different parts handle things like alcohol differently. My system seems to have two settings – can’t handle it at all, no upside, no good feelings. The first drink makes legs prickle and any more make us sick. Or there’s me. I can’t seem to get drunk. I’m 30 (or at least, the body is) and I’ve never been drunk. We’ve been psychotic. Or high from allergic reactions. But never just gone out and got a bit plastered. This irritates me. I pushed things a bit last night and found that I never seem to get to a place where I feel anything. I don’t get sad, or giggly, or feel more relaxed. I just drink things, which to me taste like cordials. To the rest of my system taste like kerosene, mainly. At some point, if I drink enough, I throw up. That’s so bloody disappointing. I’m sitting in a club, dressed up, that mix of hyped and insecure that’s just begging for some alcohol to wash away the sharp edges, and I’m waiting to feel something. Nothing kicks in. I find myself thinking wistfully of the last time we had a local anaesthetic at the dentist and took all evening to get our head screwed on straight again.

Then Nine Inch Nails comes on and lights a fire in my bones. I get up to dance next to a speaker pounding bass through my body like an electric current, the air tastes of smoke machine and I’m shortly deaf in my right ear. And it feels fantastic.

I love the contrast between the expectation and the reality of places like this. There’s no Matrix style stripped back nightclub full of harsh and frightening people. There’s young ones and oddballs and freaks having a good time in a safe place. A few dancers have come from a fancy dress party. One is super friendly and still has green body paint in his eyebrow. We commiserate about how difficult the green is to wash off. Another is still wearing his Crocodile Dundee outfit. He is fearless and theatrically acts out each song. During Billy Idol’s White Wedding he’s on his knees proposing and bouncing himself off the floor with one hand. People laugh and smile at each other, close their eyes to dance. The room has no air conditioning and feels like a furnace. I’m sweating everywhere. Even my wrists are beading sweat to drip off my finger tips. We dance and escape to the air con downstairs or the crowded beer garden, then dance again. I can’t dance as much as I’d like, so I take photos and amuse myself by irritating people following me on twitter who are used to sensible, thoughtful tweets about mental health.

Weirdly, this morning, no hangover. I’m the brightest and most cheerful person in my house. Considering that most mornings we feel pretty crap, and some mornings we get a really bad fibromyalgia ‘hangover’, this is weird, nice, but frustrating. I’d swap in a heartbeat, it would be much better to have the kind where you have a decent night first and no one to blame but yourself.

So, for now, I’m chalking that one up as a highly successful experiment and looking forward to more. Music makes me feel great. Alcohol is expensive and mostly irrelevant. I need better boots. ‘Not adult’ time is good for me. Cool bananas. I can work with that.