Fizzy Fantastic Fabulous Females

Fizzy Fantastic Fabulous Females

Ok so how often do we get share something that is so so wonderful that we think we might pop before we get it out?
Well this is one of those occasions, apologies in advance if this posting isn't completed because I have indeed popped before I could finish writing it.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful daughter who's name is Kate, that's her on the right in this picture, the budding writer on the left is Emily. Kate is an artist. When I tell people this I say it like this. 'She......is.....an ARTIST!!!!!! And then I look at them as though I have bestowed upon them the gift of the secret of life and the universe itself, if they don't appreciate the gift I then give them one of my special looks so that they know they had better appreciate what I have just told them...
My daughter cringes of how proud I am of her. I do not let this bother me at all. I bang on about her all the time. It is my job. Those of us who have children (however old) are hopefully in awe of how truly lovely they are, those of us who do not have children hopefully have a parent who will be awed...for all the right reasons. You get the gist to awe and be awed...share the awe.. that kind of thing.. anyway the reason that I am banging on this time is that Kate and Emily pulled off the most fabulous of achievements this weekend in London.
Kate is the brains behind KEA Illustrations and Emily the brains behind YGT Collective, together they raised sufficient funds from scratch, attracted international artists, DJ's and purveyors of fine cakes for a one day exhibition that highlighted the objectification of women in art. These young passionate women worked tirelessly to produce a world class exhibition at the fabulous Gallery on the Corner in Battersea. They took their ideas but would not take no for an answer in making this event happen. Myself and my husband drove down from the Welsh hills on Saturday morning, ready to be impressed and see the outcomes of all of their hard work, but do you know what impressed me most? It was the attitude of the artists (male and female) and the mostly bright young things who were at the gallery, which epitomised a zest for living that we often lose sight of. It was their passion for their work that smacked you in the kisser, their exuberance and self belief that they had something important to say and were prepared to do this very publicly.
Their work challenged the way we think about women in art, and in the way women are manipulated by modern art media.  The title of their exhibition is SKIN, it is all about raising awareness of how we as women are influenced to live inside our skins and is a serious comment on how we as women are often hoodwinked into becoming less that we are. The plan is to take the exhibition on the road, if you would like to become involved and help make this happen then drop us a line and we will pass your details on. For the rest of us let us bathe in the reflected glory of Kate, Emily and the fabulously talented young artists who have something to say about society and hopefully it will inspire us to gett up of our behinds and make our dreams a reality.

The wisdom I would pass on to woman.

 Good morning everyone, it has been a few weeks now since the last posting, ok so you know that and you also probably clued up to the fact that it is not through lack of passion for sharing stories it has simply been a matter of giving myself the time! So my dear women I am very very please to be able to sit with my cup of java this morning, feel the sun through my attic window warm the air where I work and post this wonderful piece of wisdom from the fabulous Sophie Jonas-Hill.

Have a read and think about what she is saying, I know I found myself in her wisdom and was heartened too by her advice.....please share with all your women and if you have a story come and share it with me.

Oh and if you want to see something daft, here is me being alive in my pini...in Zanzibar.....

Dee

The wisdom I would pass on to woman.

by Sophie Jonas-Hill

Stop it.

Stop it now.

Stop hating yourself for not being how you think you ought to be. It’s not good, it’s not making you change, it’s not making you grow, all it’s doing is stopping you be the best person you can be. There will always be someone thinner and prettier and richer and more successful and with better hair than you, but you know what? None of those things matter because they’re nothing to do with you. All this self-hating just holds you back and it stops you from getting close to all the things you envy in others. It makes you defensive, it makes you small, it makes you weak — and you’ve been sold a lie that this is somehow what it means to be a woman, to always be hungry, dissatisfied, restless. If only my nose were smaller, if only I could lose ten pounds, if only I could buy those shoes, then I would be happy.

No, you wouldn’t.

Today, why not make a change, a real change? Stand with your feet on the ground and stop for a moment. Take off your shoes and feel that you are standing on a rock hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour, and yet your brain and your body are so clever, you don’t get motion sick. Feel that your legs are holding you up, that they can walk and run and dance and no one makes you pay for any of that. Feel your fingers and think how they can clap and point and hold hands and stroke, and make coffee for a friend — think how amazing that is. And that’s before you even start to think of your brain and how, while you’re thinking all of this, it’s keeping your heart beating and your lungs breathing and fighting off infections and renewing itself.

You are alive, and you will be so for too short a time however long you live, time you’re just wasting with hate.

Love yourself.

Love your friends.

Take a moment every day to feel the edges of yourself and where the world touches you, because you need to save yourself from hate, the worst hate, the hate that has been sold to your as truth. If only you could be thinner, if only you could be richer, if only you could be younger — no.

You’re you.

And you’re amazing.

The fruit never falls far from the tree

Today is my birthday. I love birthdays. They don’t have to be mine for me to be fizzing like pop, I am known to be the proverbial firework when it comes to celebrating other people’s birthdays too, but today is mine and I awoke with a feeling of real happiness.

It isn’t just receiving Happy Birthday wishes or even the thoughtful gifts that makes me happy, it is the wonderful fact that I really am grateful to be alive and my Birthday reminds me that my life is a gift.

This morning I am playing David Bowie tunes, I am drinking super strong coffee and eating marmite toast, I am breathing the beautiful clean silken air in the garden, I am absorbing the feel of the day.  As I think about my life I think of my daughter. My daughter was born 22 years ago. Her name is Katherine Fiona, which means ‘pure light’, and she is to coin a phrase the light of my life.

A thought struck me a few months ago that although she does not know all the ups and downs twists and turns of my life, how often her own life follows the pattern of mine. By having her it is as though I have experienced the joy and pain of being me and then the joy and pain of her becoming her….and while she is different from me in so many ways, in so many more we are alike. So that when I play David Bowie tunes full pelt she joins in with the mad dancing and singing, and we even have the same taste in shoes…..check these out she bought me for Christmas!

Sometimes when we are together I don’t feel as though our ages are different at all, we laugh at the same stuff, we discuss what is going on in our minds and bodies, and share the same indignation and rage at injustice and inequality.

This last was brought home to me when Kate decided on the research subject of her current Masters in Fine Art. Unlike her contemporaries she has chosen to explore the objectification of women in art. I studied for a Masters in Philosophy some years ago and instead of following my legal career I chose to explore the obstacles to career progression for women. We had never discussed my Masters and as far as I know she knew nothing of it before she made her own choice. When I asked her why she had chosen this she said ‘I am not afraid to try and use my skills as an artist to make the world a better place for women’ …..She is not afraid to voice her thoughts, and she is not afraid to stand up for her beliefs either. I tell you when I look at her it is like looking at me. And when I see this concern for the world growing in her it makes me feel a wonderful joy that this little apple fell near enough to me for me to watch her blossom.

Kate has her first exhibition in London soon, if you want to go and have a look at what she and other young women like her are doing then check this out.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ygtcollective/skin-croen

So….my dear women, on my Birthday….. I would like to say a very big Happy Birthday to you too, and wish for you that whatever fell near to your tree brings you heartfelt love and joy.

Best

Dee

Whispers and Shadows

Hello everyone, today I am very proud to present to you this short story by Jean Garrod, I was stopped in my tracks when I first read it and it has caused me to stop and consider what my own legacy may be. Please read and share with your women folk and send me your comments, I will be very happy to pass these on to Jean. 

many thanks

Dee

 

Whispers and Shadows

By Jean Garrod

Just whispers. Nothing definite. The timing would be about right  though… Irish Potato Famine. Leave or starve to death. He took his fragile young wife and baby daughter. Terrifying journey across a hostile sea. The stench of vomit, the screams of the mother counterpointed by the howls of the little girl, who would forever now fear crossing water. Liverpool docks, still rocking beneath them as they struggled to recover their land legs. More bone-weary travelling to arrive in East Lancashire. Stunned relatives with little enough for themselves now obliged to help these refugees. The child was quieter now, just the occasional murmur. They discovered she had had a stroke, and would be permanently paralysed down her left side. He tried to find work, but what little there was, was not for Irish “bog-trotters”. With rising despair, he left his young wife and growing daughter for America – the land of opportunity for Irish refugees. At first the letters from America came with news and a little money. Gradually, inevitably, the letters dwindled. His news got bleaker: the money got less. She knew he would not return. With a burst of energy that surprised the relatives, she sailed for America, promising to send for the child when they were settled. 

In the hustle of New York City, she got the bus to his last known address. Almost there, she suddenly saw him from the window! She rushed off the bus and hurried after him. She watched him turn into a street and rounded the corner just in time to see him enter a house. Breathless, she patted her hair and dusted down her dress. A woman answered the door, smiling. “Excuse me, I’ve come to see my husband.” Frowning, “There’s only MY husband here.” The man, who was husband to them both, rushed through the door and away into the night. 

She collapsed on the doorstep. When she came to, she was on her way back to Liverpool. Arriving home, the relatives arranged for her to live quietly in a bedroom with the madness. Elizabeth was my father’s mother. Despite the poverty, she up married, had two children and a long life. My mother welcomed her into our home in her senior years. As one of six children, I vividly remember her scary stories that left me afraid of the dark for years.

Just whispers, nothing definite. But very believable against the backdrop of that history. Such legacies leave long shadows. Abandonment, rejection, poverty, pain and struggle. A deep-rooted legacy of shamefully being not nearly good enough. The Grammar School didn’t help me. No fitting in anywhere. The shame is overwhelming. My whole family is covered in shame.

But the shadows are deepest when the sun is strongest. What is this legacy for me? My great-grandfather left an intolerable situation to help his family – twice. Taking a great risk for those he loved. Trying to keep the family together despite the challenges. My great-grandmother,although fragile, seeking to know the truth of her husband, despite the cost. Survival is a strong theme here. And my grandmother? Well, she left me her gift of storytelling that our grandchildren love so much. She passed on the Irish gift of the ‘sight’ that helped her to “read the tea leaves without the tea leaves” and enables me to bring comfort, reassurance and sometimes a different perspective on life’s challenges. Family has been a strong force and I can now express my love for them in words without feeling shallow and pretentious.

All-in-all, I’m very grateful for the legacy that they left me. I have come to a deeper understanding of and gratitude for all they did for their future children. What’s your legacy?

Breathing out and breathing in..............

Breathing out and breathing in...............

There is a space between breathing out and breathing in, when the breath and the life force is stilled, that an opportunity arises to just be. The time in this space may be only a few seconds long but if you take the opportunity to be in this space for even a few seconds you are actually being still. Applying this practice to other parts of our lives may at times feel difficult, there is pressure put on ourselves and others to do, and not to be. Sometimes though fate lends a hand.

About three weeks ago we had severe storms here in North Wales, the Met office issued the area as being code ‘red’, while what we experienced pales into insignificance compared to other countries, for us here in North Wales it was pretty wild. The storm, although predicted, seemed to blow up out of nowhere one Saturday afternoon.  I tend to ‘feel’ the weather and immediately it hit this storm felt ‘cruel’. The first bout didn’t last long, about an hour of thunder, hail, stair rod rain, wild wind and lightening. The lightening hit the hill I live on and as a result it blew my phone lines and with it my access to the internet to pieces. It also blew up my TV and my amp. When all this happened I was standing in front of my microwave and because the door was open I heard then saw electricity arc across the microwave…..if my husband hadn’t been standing next to me I know he would not have believed me. So with all my media ‘blown’, my cottage on the hill was unusually quiet, no internet, no TV, no radio, no music at all. The storm raged on and off for three weeks, the fields surrounding my cottage were flooded, neighbouring houses were damaged, trees were brought down, but because my cottage was quiet on the inside I experienced it all in a different way.

I was essentially in a breathing out and breathing in space, fate had intervened in the hurly burly of my life and I was now for the first time since I returned from Africa, feeling the planet by ‘being still’.

My initial response was to fill up the space, read, do chores, plan work schedules, faff about……but the quietness seeped into me and after a while I would allow myself to sit and watch the weather through our huge dining room window. I would stand in my garden and be hit by the wind, pelted by the rain and hail, I would inhale the cold and think to myself that this was wonderful. It was scary too, the storms were brutal but I was not afraid. I felt more love for being alive than I have felt for some time and I am truly grateful for being able to feel the storm yet remain unharmed.

For those of you who need to find that breathing out and breathing in space don’t wait for the storm, have a look and listen to this then sit back and 'be' for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8X0s_Hns-Q