Starting and starting again
The currents of grief
Hi and Welcome to A Nomadic Rose! If you’ve found your way here but are not yet subscribed, you can do so HERE. You will never miss a letter, and I’ll be eternally grateful for your support.
Now on to this week’s musings…
Grief makes time flow strangely, with minutes seeming to last forever and weeks slipping by in a blink. I am struggling to find my footing in this strange flowing river. I keep thinking I’ve got it figured out only to wake the next day and realise I don’t. I am holding onto too many things and keep dropping them. Shifts at work, a commission for Hay Festival, my PhD, building my van, and grief. My grief has made everything slippery and hard to hold on to.
That and the fact that I hadn’t yet really settled into my PhD yet.
I had added this immense, vast, complex thing into my life and had only just begun to grapple with how to structure my months, weeks, and days around it. Then grief came and, over the last month, I’ve stood partially frozen in its waters, daring only single days and single activities at a time. Panic came to quickly if I tried more than that.
Thankfully that panic is lifting, and my grief is easing. Over the last few weeks I have gently, cautiously looked ahead on my calendar and written lists in my day planner. I’ve once again begun attempting to recentre the shape and daily activities of my life around my PhD. I have begun that reshaping in my studio. These are the walls and surfaces that will cradle me as I work on my PhD, will offer space for inspiration, imagination, ideas. A recently purchased table has finally created space for messy work, work I began instantly. Leaving my studio with plaster caught under my fingernails felt overwhelmingly wonderful.
Filling in my calendar, dedicating more and more days to my research as the months go on, feels overwhelming in a different way, one that is at once scary and empowering. It is one thing to start my PhD and another to fully commit, to fully dive in, to acknowledge that no matter how scary the finances or creative uncertainty, this is my priority, and it is ok to dedicate my days to it.
I recently presented at a conference, sharing a little of the work that brought me to this moment. I spoke about the all-powerful change that came over my life when I first heard the word rewilding. I spoke about hiking the South West Coast Path and learning to trust by eyes and my body. I spoke about the patience I’ve learnt as the work that’s come from those hikes refuses to fully take shape even now. I spoke about the startling devastation of the wildfire as Zennor and learning to acknowledge and accept the difference in human and planetary timescales. I spoke about The Seagrass Walk, and the intimidating privilege of making work about one of the most important and damaged species in our waters.
Reminding myself of these projects, the stories and lessons attached to them, reminded me that I want this, and have already learned so much that will enable me to do it.
I also spoke of the dawning painful realisation of the damage the art world does to the more-than-human, from materials and equipment to exhibitions and events, the carbon footprint is untenable and unforgivable. This realisation came to me as I foraged, shifting from gathering for my kitchen to gathering for me studio. It is a realisation that sits at the heart of my PhD. It is where I will begin, what I will be exploring in those first days dedicated to my research.
What I am going to make, what the work will look like will come later. First I must figure out how I am going to make it. What ancient craft or traditional practice can I draw on, what medium needs rethinking, what material can I pick up. This is my starting point, and it is exciting enough to keep my feet steady in the currents of grief.
I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experiments with you all.