Sunday Scribblings:- 'I don't want to be a passenger in my own life'

There is a moment in your life, around about the time when you have left college or university when decisions have to be made. You look ahead, the years stretch before you as far as you can see and further still. You have, usually, been cocooned until that point in your life by your family, by the unreal world of college, then this time arrives when you seriously need to think about your way in life. Probably, for the first time you stand unsupported, no financial backing, no place of your own, the primary need is to earn some money to enable you to live your life. This can be one of the first times you face the driver /passenger routine. The bold, the brave and the people with tunnel vision take the wheel, regardless, to pursue their chosen route. Others, desperate to find money to support themselves, dive into a job that promises them the security of being able to rent a flat, feed themselves and unfortunately, this is when they take their seat firmly on the passenger side. Not always meaning to, but slowly and dangerously silently sink into a life they had not envisioned, having lost sight of their aims. Many years later there is a time when, with the wisdom of hindsight you look back, and see that you did become the passenger which didn't enable you to fulfill your creative potential.



I feel this happened to me and this is my personal story. I could blame the times I lived in, times of peace, love, war, upheavels in ethics, morals, the way we were and thought as young people, but that would be a 'copout'. I started my twenties in a whirl of creativity, I thought I was the ideal Earth Mother, and I loved it, baking my own bread, growing my herbs, making things, full of idea, even though we lived in a large city. Then the economy took a turn for the worst, jobs were hard to get, food prices were rising and also rents. We returned to my home town. Why I ask myself now? Was it a place of safety in a harsh world? I know now it was a wrong turning, we should have toughed it out a little longer in the city, or at that point looked into moving to a rural or seaside location, before we gathered all the heavy baggage of life around us.

These are what I call my passenger years. I look back now and see that for years I slowly became a person that was not me, not exactly a Stepford Wife but slowly letting my individuality seep away from me. Me the most eclectic dresser I knew slowly buying clothes that all the other wives wore, thinking a sliced loaf was as good as it got, instead of baking my own bread.



My children arrived nearly five years apart, and although still a passenger I did adore these early years with them, teaching them to read, cooking with them, painting with them and making all sorts of weird items, but still I was not the person I was, my friends were people, who now looking back, were not in tune with my soul, which although I wasn't listening to it, was still the true barometer of me. So life went on, I did go back into creative jobs, mainly theatrical costuming, but, like a lost soul, never daring to pick up a pen or pencil and drawing something just for me. I was a long time in the passenger seat and time was ticking on, my children were ready to start their own lives.

Then my life changed completely, due to some personal occurences, this ended up with a move for us into a rural area and a chance to assess my life. By this time, in fact for about six years previously, to this I had slowly started returning to wearing clothes in the style I loved and hearing the jingle jangle of my bracelets again. I looked back and realised all the time I had wasted by not creating. Why had I given up? Why had I not continued to try to make and sell my work, even if I had just created on a quiet weekend? I don't think I can ever answer this fully, different times of asking myself, give me different answers. The only continual truth I can come up with is I had lost belief in myself. I had wasted a gift, the gift of creativity.

I have become aware over the past couple of years, that is is not too late, though I suppose some people might think so, and I have now put myself firmly back in to the driving seat of life. I have my garden, my cooking, my research and best of all I am a fully creative person, I feel I am slowly returning to the creative Earth Mother I was in my twenties, and I do so welcome that fact. I say better late than never, and I am not such a Pollyanna that I would say every day is a fantastic day, but I am definitely not letting go of that wheel. I want the years to be fully creative years in everyway.

My message for everyone is don't be a passenger, if you can help it, if you have a creative talent, please use it, you don't realise how lucky you are t o have been given it. Try to use it now and not leave it until later. You will have twice as much use of your talents than I have, but also it's never too late.



Artwork that illustrates this posting. The first photograph above to the right is my latest collage card, She would lie back on a leaf, talk with her butterflies and drop petals below. The second photograph, to the left, is He hid behind the flowers towatch her feeding her butterflies. The third collage, to the right is , In the moonlight she would fly down to the shore and question the parrots. The fourth photograph is of the piece for the Daisy Lupin Friendship Piece Project that I received from Kai. It is my window out onto a garden.

We are having the most horrendous weather this weekend, it started yesterday morning with heavy rain, byt lunch time the wind was blowing almost galeforce and rain became torrential, the water was running down the middle of the road like a stream and visibility was down to almost nil. In the middle of this dreadful weather my daughter, Sweetpea arrived from London to spend a couple of days with us. The weather has been not much better today, frequent heavy showers and squalls of wind, not the sort of weather to encourage outings. Still we all enjoyed ourselves, I cooked a roast dinner, followed by apple crumble and custard, both requested by Sweetpea. Although we all found we were too full of chicken and roast potatoes and vegetables to have any apple crumble, so we left it for an unusual supper dish, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope the weather will have improved tomorrow.

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