A love letter to Matt.

Dear Matt.

I still have the gift you gave me nearly thirty years ago. It's still in use and sits on my dressing table containing spare buttons and brooches. It always reminds me of you.

I don’t expect you even bought it at the tender age of 7, a present I suspect that was purchased by your mother for me one Christmas!

Nonetheless, I treasure it as much now, as I did back then.

You were my first love and my first heartbreak. At an early age, You taught me so much about how cruel the emotions concerning the heart can be.

I remember there were the three of us. You, me and Toby. I remember always laughing and being so happy when I was with you both at school.

 At breaktime we played together and in the classroom, we copied each other’s work! I think sometimes we may have been a distraction to the other children in class for bursting out with snorts of giggles. But I didn’t care, I was happy to be with my friends and nothing else really mattered.

I missed my first terms of school due to illness;. Consequently I missed out on learning important ‘social skills’ with my peers, I always found it hard to establish a friendship with other children. However, when I was eventually well enough to join school properly, you and Toby took me under your wings and we looked out for each other.

For a while it was all good, but then shortly before I was told I was to move up to Juniors ((I was kept a term behind from my peers) (you and toby were a year below me so didn’t move up til the following year. A new girl joined our class, I don’t remember her name, but she came to join our little threesome. You and Toby happily accepted her. However, I was so jealous. I tried to like her, I think deep down I did, but I felt threatened by her, it seemed like she was taking you away from me. You were of course oblivious to my feelings. How could you know?! We were 7-8 years old, I didn’t even understand myself all those emotions running around inside me.

But it got worse. –Oneday I went to school just like every other day, I sat down at our table next to you, but then the teacher told me I was to go over to the junior class in Mrs Topleys.

MY whole world came crashing down on me. I wanted to cry, but I was aware of not wanting to make a scene and so I quietly picked up my pencil case, packed my satchel and walked alone across the playground to the ‘huts’ where mrs Topley taught.
I remember how I stood at the front of my new classroom and was introduced by the teacher to all the other kids. It was a bigger class than what i was accustomed to and it scared me. I was guided to a seat, everyone already knew each other and seemed to understand the lesson that we were being taught. I however, didn't and I sat in silence fighting back the tears once more, pretending I understood the mass of numbers that were being written on the blackboard.

But in the darkness, there was light that morning. I was kindly told that under 'special circumstances' I would be allowed to join you at breaktime in the infant playground to see you. I was happy once again , my heart was bursting with excitement and I looked forward to our break to arrive. Eventually after what seemed eternity, we were dismissed and I ran along the path behind the main building to find you both.
However, the reception I got from you had lain heavily in my heart for years afterwards.

I was expecting a grand reunion, instead I got ignored. You and Toby were playing with your new ‘girlfriend’, I hung around trying to muscle my way into your affections once again until one of you told me to go away. ‘We don’t want you anymore’ you said. I will never forget those cruel harsh words. They were like a kick in the stomach and my heart broke in smithereens right there, right then.

 I stood in total shock. I didn’t know where to turn and as I watched you all run off, I had no choice but to turn back. That breaktime I never played, I never spoke to a soul. I just walked behind the buildings and wept tears of hurt and anguish until the bell rang to do back indoors again. At the tender age of 7, this was to be my first experience of rejection in love. To this day I still claim it was my worst ever day at school.

To add insult to injury, many weeks later, I remember trying to make friends with your older sister, but she punched me in the stomach!

 

Fast forward thirty years, I’m all over it now! However it took me many years, even at secondary school where our paths crossed once again, I was unable to look you in the eye, even though I still carried a flame for you! I desperately wanted to reach out my hand of friendship again, but for fear of rejection I never did.

 I think if I look back, I always held a 'distant' emotionally cool dispositon with schoolfriends. I was forever in fear of going into school oneday and eveyone would be against me.

I was however able to put aside childhood issues with your sister years later when we were working together as chambermaids and we became good buddies for a while.

These days, I am confident, I am secure in my own identity and I am able to give my love unromatically and otherwise freely to anyone and everyone without living in fear of rejection.

 I am glad to be friends with you once again. I still carry a little flame for you, I think I always will! You are kind and sensitive and funny. Your sense of irony is truly magnificent! You never fail to make me laugh.

And now, when I think back on that fateful day when you and Toby broke my heart, I see it as a lesson of love and life. It taught me that we cant always have the things that we think we want in life and although the road to recovery from a wounded heart and bruised pride can be a tough one, its better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before. I have fond memories of our time we spent together albeit brief in our childhood episode and I thank you for them.

With love, Melissa x

is it me?

 

Is it because I threaten your preconceived ideas of me that you shy away?

Does my passion, my openness, my zest for life become too overwhelming?

Do I make you feel uncomfortable when I speak of love, but of an unromantic, unconditional love?

Does it disconcert you when I can see the highest potential in you, even if you can’t?

Do I confuse you when I don’t quite fit into any of the boxes you’ve created for yourself?

Do I make you nervous when I go out my way to seek truth and justice amongst all the lies and corruption in the world?

Does it make you feel uneasy when I expose my vulnerability and imperfections?

And do I make you feel inadequate when I look to you for strength and courage if I’m feeling weak?

Does it trouble you that I have the capacity for forgiveness, however hurtful you may have been?

Do I freak you out with my beliefs; do I push the boundaries of yours?

Do I threaten your very own world that you have created, just by being me?

Do you think because I don’t agree with all that you say, I dislike you?....

……..Because you couldn’t be further from the truth…..

Quirky Cow Creations Studio

 

 

Quite what to make of me you do not know,

Unless you shed assumptions, step inside:

Inspiration, celebration show;

Real and fake, and art and life collide.

Keep looking at the colours burning bright,

You stop at green and see the red’s well dun.

Chew it over – nothing’s black and white.

Open up your senses, let them run

With every colour ‘neath the beaming sun.

 

By Steve Till

Artists Block

I’m having a slight problem. I’ve hit a brickwall, a dead end, an artist’s form of ‘writers block’ and the more I focus on my lack of painting, the more I feel guilty and all these negative feelings are not conducive to any sort of creativity and so it goes on. I’m caught in a vicious circle.

I think all artists have some form of block at various times. My friend Jani has an Imp. Hers tells her that she’s no good at her art.

I too am having self-doubt. I feel like a fraud. Ive stopped painting because of this very belief. I should be doing something more productive like…, well.......Ive not worked that one out yet!

To get me out of this self-destructive pattern, ive hitched a cunning plan.

Going back to jani’s troublesome Imp, I’ve imagined my little quandary to be a pixie! Im not sure why it’s a pixie, I think maybe because pixies can be playful and mischievous, they mean no real harm.

So anyway, giving my ‘block’ an imaginary identity, Im allowing to draw my attention to him. (if you pardon the pun). I'm not fighting to ignore him and so that makes me feel a little peaceful inside already. I mean who really wants to fight internal battles with oneself anyway?!

As I am typing, I can see him in my minds' eye, he’s wearing a soft velvety green jacket, suede brown trousers and funky red shoes. He’s sat opposite me, smirking coz he knows I have been listening to his cruel teasing over the last week. But the thing is, where he comes from, is a beautiful land where many other beautiful characters live and love and in my imagnination, I can enter his world whenever I like.

My little pixie isn’t quite so confident now! In his kingdom, he’s nothing but ‘just’ a pixie. Just a little aggravating individual who uses cruel teasing and taunts to pass the time and I know, that given time, he will get bored and move onto someone else who might give him the time of day. Or maybe he will go play on the swing!

As well as my pixie, I see fairies and elves and even Jani’s Imp! They are surrounded by butterflies and Owls, Badgers and Foxes, they all hold a certain charm about them, even my infuriating pixie!

Where they live, the colours are vibrant and cheerful to the soul, their world is playful, loving and magical and I play with them amongst the trees and it makes me happy. So happy infact, I want to reach for my paintbrush…..

..So you see, my cunning plan worked! I’m painting again!

I wish

 

I wish I could tell you how I have a fire in my belly that has burnt within me since coming home from \Alderney.

I wish I could tell you, how 4 weeks ago I was lying in the darkness of my tent alone and torch-less, in despair on how I would occupy my time for the next week forced to accept and to even learn to love my own company.

I wish I could tell you how, on the second night, as I walked 2 miles back to my tent drunk and full of anguish and on reaching the beach, I sat in the moonlight and wept away years of hurt and pain, anguish and fear and whilst doing so, I felt the sea cleanse my soul and wash away all my anger and all my rage.

I wish I could tell you on waking the next morning, how everything had changed…....

I wish I could tell you, how a few days later, I met someone, who has profoundly changed my world and how they have stirred up my passion to live life creatively, spiritually and confidently and how they have taught me that to love, is to let go and that my connection to them goes far deeper than anything physical.

I wish I could tell you that I am ready to embrace life and all that it has to offer and that my past will never affect me negatively again and how I have forgiven all those who have hurt me or done me wrong.

I wish I could tell you how much love I have in my heart for all my family, my friends and my pets and how enormously grateful for all the love and support I get back in return.

I wish that I could tell you all of those things, but I think you already know......

Mistakes

Not so long ago, someone in conversation mentioned that I had made ‘mistakes’ throughout my life.

When I got home I felt perplexed about that ‘off the cuff’ remark and started to think back on my past. And when I did, I came to this conclusion.

Mistakes are like what you do at school when the teacher hands back your homework with red biro corrections all over it. But you take away that work and you learn from it. Just as you do from any experience you may have in life.

I have perhaps made bad judgement calls, but I would never put them down to a ‘mistake’ for they have all been part of a learning curve.

I remember doing a painting ('Sole Searching')) shown above. Nothing I did felt right and in my mind it went horribly wrong. I made the ‘mistake’, or (so I thought at the time,) of painting too many thick layers all at once and using painting techniques I was unfamiliar with.

I was going to throw it onto the bonfire, when a visiting friend saw something in it that I didn’t. She told me to give it a chance.

So I did and after much patience and painting in a way I’d never worked before, that ‘mistake’ turned out to be a painting I was very pleased with and not only that, I also learnt so much more from doing so!

So you see, a mistake can only be bad if you let it. But look deeper and you will find a mistake can be one of the biggest lessons in life and it’ll be those ones where you can grow and develop in a way no other experience can and when one looks at it that way. How can things ever be a mistake?!

To be an artist means.....

To be an artist, for me, means bearing my soul. Taking risks with matters of the heart.
It is true to say, when you look into my art, you will find my heART.
Sometimes it is a scary concept; I leave myself open and vulnerable to people’s judgements. There is nowhere to hide once I release my creativity. I cannot lie; I have no choice but be true to myself.

Sometimes that truth can be ugly, but when I create, it enables me to turn that ugliness into something very beautiful, into something positive, it can be a release, a way of letting go.
Art to me is therapy. So now and again, I have to remind myself of this. I get ‘stuck’. It is all too easy at times to get caught up in how things ‘should’ be done. We conform to convention because it is ‘safe’. But staying safe, means we stifle our own self-expression.
And so I have made a vow to myself and I urge others to follow suit, follow our passions, be it in writing or music, performing arts, painting or poetry. Find what is ‘true to you’ Don’t listen to people who put us down, believe in yourself, trust your instincts, respect others as well as yourself and above all else. Be creative follow your heART!