Mantras for this moment

Painting is meditation for me. 

I breathe slowly. I can almost feel the paper through my paintbrush. Time slows down. All that matters are the colours, the water, and the rhythmic strokes of my brush. 

Each brush stroke is a mantra. 

A mantra is something, usually a word or phrase, that is repeated and that expresses one's basic beliefs. 

I believe a brush-stroke can be a mantra, too, as it expresses silence, and colour, and light, and our connection to the force of continuous creation. 

My mantras change every day. Sometimes the brush-strokes are enough. Sometimes tap-tapping on the keyboard in a silent room is enough. 

But sometimes I need something more concrete to cling to when I'm being buffeted by the winds of the world. 

Here are two mantras that are getting me through the day right now. 

ALL SHALL BE WELL

This has been a steady mantra for me for years. It repeats itself quietly in my subconscious without me noticing, and then not so quietly in my conscious when I need the support. 

Tough day with a toddler? All shall be well. Mountains of unfolded laundry? All shall be well. Another polite rejection letter? All shall be well. Feeling lost in life? All manner of things shall be well.  

All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other, faithfully, and repeat the phrase: all shall be well.

And it

will

be.  

BELONGING

I repeat this over and over when I'm feeling out of synch with where I am in life. It could be my home. It could be my work. It could be my body (sometimes I don't feel at home in that, either). I repeat "belonging" quietly under my breath and visualize everything in my life being at home, or wherever it belongs. 

Let my illustrations find a home. Let my stories find a home. Help me to feel at home wherever I am. 

Belonging.

BREATHE

This is as much an exhortation to inhale and exhale as it is a mantra. I find that when days get difficult or complicated I hold my breath; or I gasp; or I sigh; or I exhale sharply in annoyance. 

Sometimes I pause in the middle of "the hard thing" and remind myself to breathe. When I inhale, deeply, I can feel the muscles in my upper back and shoulders expanding, and when I exhale they loosen and relax. 

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I tell myself. 

With breath comes

inspiration

. After all the word "inspire" means "to breathe in."  

Whether my mantra is a brush-stroke or a phrase or a breath, it always makes me feel refreshed and ready to face anything. 

Do you have a mantra that speaks to you? 

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

St. Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)

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My week in drawings and verbs

 I love verbs. 

When I hear a verb I feel that I am right in the action, swinging along with the story. 

So here is my day in verbs.... 

Reading // I just got a rather large amazon delivery, which made a random day in May feel like Christmas. So, I'm anticipating breaking the covers of: Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, and A House with Four Rooms by Rumer Gooden.  Now I just need to find some quiet moments to start my journey though the pages. Also, Swatch by Julia Denos, which is a poem of a picture book. Just perfect in every way. 

Listening to // Right this minute I'm listening to Little One trying to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the baby monitor. We're still preserving the morning nap, even though most days it ends up being "quiet time" rather than "sleep time." She sits in her cot, babbling and singing to her three darling stuffies. 

Sipping // My second cup of decaf coffee. Only decaf or else

this...

Painting // I'm working on my fourth illustration for this week. If I want to finish my current two picture books by my deadline I have to paint four illustrations per week, minimum.  This is to allow me time for a holiday (yay! Canada!), and time at the end of the project to repaint or fix any illustrations that don't meet my exacting standards. I have three baby-free mornings, and five afternoon naps in which I can work. Every minute counts. 

Seeing // The gorgeous, skim-milk-thin, post-rainy-day morning light. The grey clouds are low and gossamer. I expect they will burn off by the afternoon. 

Running // Errands... not marathons. Little One and I have lots of tasks to complete today, but once we're done, hopefully the afternoon will be perfect for duck-feeding by the river. Once we've gone for our doctor's checkup... bought some new shoes... stopped by the pharmacy... and run around the Bentall's shopping centre examining all the knee-high window displays (why do stores display everything so low!?).... 

What are your verbs for today? 

Running to the river... always at top speed. She's the fastest 18 month old I know. 

A notebook to hold all the lists... 

How to make work easy PLUS a few daily drawings

{Soaring through the week, and crossing things off my list one by one}

It is a sunny, sweet day: perfect for sitting in the breeze and dreaming. 

Next door, workmen are clanking, whirring and banging. It gives me a false sense of industry. I'm not doing much, but someone nearby is working very hard. It feels like that work transfers to me by proximity. Like when I'm drinking tea and the washing machine is spinning loudly. I'm not doing anything, but it is working very hard, and so I feel satisfied and accomplished. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about what work means. 

My Dad always said that we should "work smart, not hard." 

And I've spent my entire life trying to figure out what that means. 

It means being efficient. It means figuring out what is absolutely necessary, doing that necessary thing, and then resting. It is when we rest that we get our best ideas. 

The trick is figuring out what the necessary things are. 

The other day I made a list of my "necessary" things. It is small but mighty: daily drawings, daily journalling, writing stories, working on my illustration projects, reading novels and poetry, keeping detailed to-do lists. (Playing with little-one and hanging out with my husband are necessary things, but they don't fall under the "work" category; they are unadulterated fun.)

That is all. 

Six necessary things.

Of course, my day-to-day life contains a million and one things I need to do: hanging laundry, cleaning the toilet, making my toddler's dinner, making our dinner..... These all huddle under the umbrella of "keeping detailed to-do lists." 

My to-do list umbrella protects me from the storm of tasks that constantly hurls itself at my door like a monsoon. I simply write down the things I think are most important.

And then I stick to it. 

Then powering through the drudgery becomes automatic. For example, I don't question whether or not I clean the bathroom on a Wednesday, I just do it. And, while I'm cleaning, I go through the motions by rote so that I can let my mind glide off and spin in circles, thinking about my wonderful, confounding ideas. 

But, that is tangental.

Meanwhile, I'm focusing on daily drawings, journalling, and doing good work in my studio. 

What are your necessary things? 

How do you work "smart, and not hard? 

Is anyone interested in reading a more detailed post about how I structure my to-do lists so that I can minimize my effort on a weekly basis?

{Don't forget, you can download all sorts of to-do list and planner printables if you join my

"Studio Friends" mailing list.

I'll add more printables every month.}

{The work in progress}

{Hippity-hop hippity-hop}

{Drawing faces on paint blobs}

{I can't get enough of cherry blossoms: I captured these on our morning walk to little-one's nursery school}

{A weekend trip to the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park, a short bicycle ride from our house}

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Daily Drawings plus a few photos from the week

{A midsummer night's dream. Celebrating Shakespeare's 400th anniversary}

{Happy Birthday to the Queen! I sketched her surrounded

by coins from all the Commonwealth countries I hold dear: 

Canada, Great Britain, South Africa and Namibia.}

{A portrait of Mrs. Pontipine from the children's

TV show "In the Night Garden.}

{Baby's desk...}

{My desk}

How I'm hoping gratitude will change my life

It has been two weeks since Easter, and I'm finally planning to take the egg tree down off our mantlepiece and carefully pack the decorations away for another year.

Easter always sneaks up on me. It blooms, unexpectedly, out of winter darkness like a crocus popping out of the snow. Always before I expected it, and always against the odds.

Despite my unpreparedness, it is my favourite holiday. The promise of new beginnings always gives me new hope. Why don't we make Easter resolutions, instead of New Year's resolutions? The momentum of the new-growth would carry us farther than the gloom of winter.

My Easter resolution this year was to keep a gratitude journal. I've flirted with the idea for years; scribbling little notes in the margins of my journals or day planner, but I've never stuck with it for longer than a few weeks, because I've never had a concrete plan.

This year I decided I needed to be more committed.

Enough flirting, let's get serious.

I realized that if I listed three things I was grateful for every day, that would be 1095 happy things to remember over the course of a year.

I wanted a special notebook to motivate my in my quest for gratitude, so I ordered the gorgeous "Line A Day" diary from Chronicle Books, which is a perpetual diary that runs for 5 years.

Think about this: five years of daily gratitude would record 5475 happy moments.

I hope that as the years go by I will notice how my responses to gratitude will evolve, and that I will discover aspects of my life that I have previously underrated.  Maybe I will even discover the secret to lasting happiness. (One can only hope).

When I look back over a period of time and think "I have been happy" or "I have been unhappy," what I say depends completely on the mood I am in at the time.

If I am happy -- if my daughter is laughing and content, and I have had time to draw, or paint, or read -- then that moment acts as a thread to connect to all the other happy moments in my life, when I have felt similarly content.  It becomes a string of pearls extended backwards in time.

But if I am unhappy, then I am reminded of all the moments in my past when I have been sad or discontent. The past, and therefore the future, seems impossibly bleak and cold, with all those unhappy memories starting at me like reflections in a hall of mirrors.

What I want to do is focus on all my happy memories.  To do that I need to focus on being happy today, so that I can pull that pearl-string of happy memories back into my life.

I want to dwell in gratitude.

This is how I'm doing it:

1. Setting a time.

I like to write my gratitude list right before going to bed, so that I can fall asleep surrounded by happy memories.  So that I don't forget (and I forget everything nowadays) I set a reminder on my phone to go off at 9.30pm.  I'm usually asleep by 10pm.

2. Three unique things.

I try to make my items unique. So, if I'm grateful for a cup of coffee for the third day in a row, I try to think of something special about it. Maybe holding the warm cup in my hands. Or the smell. Or the ritual of preparing it.  That way I can explore as many aspects of the things I love as possible and not get bored in occasional repetitiveness of the process.

3. Really being grateful.

Once I've written my list I pause for a moment and I actually say "thank-you" for those things I've just written down. That way I can internalize the gratitude and not write the lists mindlessly (though some evenings I'm so exhausted I'm happy if I can put pen to paper.)

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Dancing with Daffodils

When I open my front door I step into a cloud of purple fragrance. It is sweet and intoxicating. At my feet the bees are getting drunk on the nectar from the hyacinths. My window boxes are an open bar with an infinite tab.

I love to see the bees waltz, bourrée, and fox trot around the hyacinths, muscari and daffodils.

Sometimes, when I'm stuck in my studio with a fog of thoughts and worries clouding my senses, I think I hear the flowers knocking on the door, wanting me to come out to play.

So, the other day I did.

I drew a fairy, and she and I cavorted with the spring flowers for an afternoon.

A hand painted iPhone wallpaper and more daily drawings

My Christmas gift this year was upgrading my iphone4 to an iPhone6. I've never been much of a technology snob, but this small change has revolutionised my smart phone experience. The camera is crystal clear, maybe even nicer than my fancy dslr in some ways. 

However, the one thing the new phone didn't have was my favourite "cloudy cosmos" wallpaper. 

So I decided to paint my own! 

Sunset on the winter solstice above the roofs of west London. 

The view from our kitchen window 

Sketching on regent street 

Winter solstice sunset and more daily drawings

It's dark and cold, the time when we all crave the light the most. Yesterday, on Winter Solstice Eve, the sunset was merely a faint glow of light above the Victorian rooftops of West London. 

When the year is the darkest, I have to keep reminding myself to keep my inner light shining brightly. 

What do you do to protect the light in these dark months? I read, write and draw. They are the triumvirate of all things good for me. 

(If you like the drawings, feel free to pin, share on facebook, or otherwise appreciate them!)

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! 

My New Writing Routine: Take Two

 

My mom stayed with us for a month and helped to look after Little M while I tackled a few creative projects that were gathering dust in the corner. I had the liberty write and draw freely and exuberantly.

I finished the dummy for a new book for Penguin Random House South Africa. And I made headway on two personal projects that I had been bursting to start. One has completely changed shape after a transformative weekend retreat at Gladstone's Library; the other is plodding along at a slow pace, but I'm very happy with its progress. 

So... success all around.  

But it's interesting to notice how success "feels" versus how you "thought" success would look when you were imagining it.  

This is how success looked... 

I didn't write 500 words per day.

Not even close. But if you consider that a picture might be worth a 1000 words, then I didn't do so badly. 

I managed to close the door and turn off the internet.

 But I ended up sleeping most of that time. I'm convincing myself that sleep can be as restorative and inspiring as drawing and writing.

I wanted to page through the dictionary.

 I did look up a few words words (asperity, restive, adumbration...) but otherwise the tome gathered dust on the floor beside my bedside table.  Perhaps I'll open it more now? One can only live in hope. 

I hoped to read with reckless joy.

 And I did.  This isn't a difficult resolution to make because it's what I always do anyway.

And finally. I wanted to feel proud of anything I could accomplish,

even if it was less than I had hoped for, because being a stay-at-home/working mom is tough. Yes it is.  No question.  And I'm so proud of the small steps I've taken this month. 

Going Forward

This month of rest and creativity has given me a lot of courage. 

To all you readers who might be stay-at-home/working moms... it can be done.

It takes 3 minutes to sterilize Little M's bottles in the microwave.  I often pop them in, and then quickly do a few chores in the kitchen.  I wash a few dishes. I wipe the counters. I fold laundry.

It's amazing what one can accomplish in 3 minutes.  I can do anything for 3 minutes, even the things I think are impossible, like sitting down to write or draw.  (Someone, someday, will be able to run a 3 minute mile, even that's not impossible.)

Sometimes, when Little M is fractious and I'm exhausted, I divide my day into innumerable 3 minute parcels. That way things don't feel overwhelming.

I write for three minutes; I draw for three minutes.

I thread those little moments together like beads on a string, and suddenly I've accomplish more than I thought I could.

I'm not sure how I'll manage now that my mom has returned to Canada, but I saw a scintilla of light glimmering in the fog of confusion and exhaustion. 

It must be possible....

It is possible. 

The key is to realize that there's no way of knowing how to do it until you're in the middle of it, muddling your way through. 

I'm just going to start and hope for the best. And hopefully I'll find inspiration, energy and a bit of luck along the way. 

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Adventures.... at Gladstone's Library in North Wales

I spent two days working in the grand theology room at Gladstone’s Library.  I desperately needed some peace, quiet and rest after 10 strenuous months of motherhood. My mom and M looked after baby while I burrowed into hibernation in North Wales.

I set up my computer, my notebooks, and all my other resources (pens, paper) and hoped that both motivation and inspiration would be close at hand.  The library reminded me, nostalgically, of my studying days; sitting in the Warburg with piles of books, trying to sift through citations and notes to discover some clear ideas about art history.

Like panning for gold.

It felt similar being at Gladstone's Library. I wasn't actually there for the books, but for the "bookish" atmosphere.  I wanted to sit quietly in a place inspired by, and completely passionate about, books.

So there I was; with all my supplies; ready to work; but with no idea what I should be doing.

I revelled in the quiet, dusty smell of old books, with their tooled bindings and leather covers. I heard the hushed whispers of other studious folk. Their fingers tapped their computer keys (were they more inspired that I was?). They shuffled papers. Every so often quiet sighs of contentment or frustration echoed in the vaulted hall.

I sat in solitude and silence for 2 days, and this is what I learned...

  1. It’s so much easier to “want” to write a story than to actually write it. I could feel the emotions of the story running in an undercurrent, through me, like an invisible river. But I was having difficulty becoming quiet enough to plumb the depths. 
  2. You will be compulsively driven to work or read at Gladstone's Library... because there isn't much else to do. If you wanted to procrastinate: you could walk up the hill to Hawarden Castle and back; you could have a coffee at the Gallery Cafe or a glass of wine at one of the two local pubs; you could stare at photos of houses for sale in the windows at the two estate agents on the high street (so much more affordable than London!); or you could read the names of all the departed souls on the gravestones at St. Deiniol's chapel. That pretty much exhausted my (very creative) efforts at procrastination. And then I gratefully returned to the library, my stack of notebooks, and my thoughts. 
  3. Time stretches. And stretches. And stretches. Solitude and silence made each hour feel three times longer than at home. (There's a lesson in this about and nature of time and chronos vs kairos, but I'll think about that later...)
  4. I work best amidst a little commotion. The washing machine spin cycle; builders erecting scaffolding across the road; groceries being delivered; they all create a feeling of time being very precious. If I tell myself I have an hour before Little M wakes up from her morning nap and I need to finish "x," I often accomplish far more than I could have expected. This made me confident about returning home with a renewed sense of purpose and an enthusiasm to work in the midst of our busy household. 
  5. Gladstone's library is a bibliophile's dream. It is the only "residential" library in the UK; which means it is a simple hotel housed within an amazing library. It has a bar, a cafe serving very good food, a chapel, and books, books, books. The bedrooms are basic, but have everything you might need, except a TV (...which is in one of the lounges. The assumption is that you didn't come to the library in order to lie in bed and watch telly). And it is amazingly affordable! I would return in a heartbeat. It's the perfect place to both "get away from it all" and gain a bit of inspiration.  

My stay at Gladstone's library was everything I wanted it to be. I had solitude and rest in spades. I read. I wrote. I fleshed out the idea for a new story. I planned. I imagined. I daydreamed. 

In the end, I left refreshed and rejuvenated, and eager to return home and bury my head in Little M's curls.

Fancy your own quiet weekend amongst the books at Gladstone's Library?

Check out their website here

. 

*  *  * 

And finally... 

Did you enjoy this post?

 Feel free to pin the photos, heart the post on bloglovin, tweet it, or share it on Facebook. And, make sure you subscribe or follow along to get even more weekly inspiration and follow along in my creative journey. 

See you next week!

{Heaven in the Library}

{The Bar}

{The Gorgeousness!}

{Time to Read}

{The view from the graveyard}

{The Library Garden}

{Classical music on the radio in my bedroom}

How I write: my new writing routine

My mom arrives this week; I’m excited and nervous.

I’m excited because I haven’t seen her for half a year, and I can’t wait to sit at the kitchen table chatting about not-much-in-particular, with Little M crawling underfoot and clinging to our knees.

I’m nervous because it means I have to start working.

I have two rather important projects that need time, energy and creative spirit. So far I haven’t been able to concentrate on them, and having my mom around means I’ll have live-in nanny for a month. So… no more excuses.

What I’ve realized is that, in order to succeed as a stay-at-home/working mom, I need to completely re-imagine my writing life.

My old writing life

I used to stumble out of bed just before M left for work. I kissed him goodbye, made a cup of decaf (always and only decaf), opened the curtains just enough to let a shaft of light in (but not to much to pierce the morning dream-state), crawled back under the covers, pulled my laptop onto my knees and started writing. Or, if I had pressing illustration work to finish, I would hunch over my paintings at the kitchen table, still in my pyjamas and with my decaf in hand, to complete the day’s quota of illustrations. In the afternoon I would switch, either writing or illustrating depending on which I had done in the morning.

The new routine

This is no longer possible; my mornings are unrecognizable.

Now, I jump out of bed at 7 am sharp while M is still in the shower. I fetch Little M, who is often already awake and playing with her stuffies in her cot. I change her diaper (usually poopy), make breakfast, pour her bottle. I try to coax spoonsful of porridge or fruit into her mouth. Meanwhile, I jump up to brew my cup of decaf in between her complaints at not being able to wield the spoon herself, and wiping mush off the floor.

I roll out the yoga mat and attempt a few serene sun salutations and other stretches while Little M climbs under, over and through. She touches my face while I’m in downward dog, she fiddles with my pony tail or climbs over my legs while I’m practising the splits, and she sits underneath me while I’m in the bridge, making getting down very challenging.

Then, I re-roll the yoga mat and open my computer and dayplanner to focus at the tasks at hand.

Little M roars around on her hands and knees, trying to explore any undiscovered corner or piece of fuzz on the floor. She bangs empty water bottles against the fridge. She watches the sudsy laundry revolving around in our front loading washing machine. She pulls her books off her bookshelf and pages through them, examining each page to see if any new characters arrived over night. (This means I need to read her a story, of course).

I take a deep breath and make another cup of decaf. Sometimes I clean something. Little M watches with fascination, thinking my scrubbing and spraying is some sort of game.

By 9 am Little M is ready for her morning nap. I snuggle her into her blankets and deposit her gently into her cot. I close the curtains and sneak out the door.

Finally. An hour and a half to write/draw/think/read/try to be creative.

And all I want to do is make another cup of decaf and stare at the victorian rooftops and swaying plane trees out our window. The hurly-burly morning has exhausted me.

Novelist Roxana Robinson wrote a poetic article about her morning writing routine in the New Yorker in 2013. She talks about how, if she answered emails or looked at the news, the delicate membrane of her early morning imagination would be pierced. She wants to keep the mysterious and limitless post-sleep dreamlike state alive as long as possible.

I can’t do that any more. I have to try to recapture that penumbral state hours later.

The new writing guidelines

So, for the next month, while I have a little extra help at home, I’m planning to adopt a few writing principles to help me through this transition…

1.

Write and draw daily.

Even if it’s one line or one tiny gesture with the pencil. The ultimate goal is 500 words of either fiction or journalling every day and 2-3 spreads, sketched (even roughly).

2.

Close the door. Turn off the internet.

I need to give myself permission to seek solitude. Little M will be fine with my mom. The internet won’t collapse without my attention.

3.

Page through the dictionary.

Words are our resources, we need to know how to use them wisely.

4.

Read everything else with reckless joy.

(Fiction, poetry, self-help; it all inspires)

5.

Feel proud of what I am able to accomplish, even if it is less than my (probably) impossible expectations.

Being a stay-at-home/working mom is challenging… and amazing.

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For this post I was deeply indebted the post my good friend Ayla wrote on her blog.

Check it out here

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When is a bookshelf not just a bookshelf? {Life in a London Flat}

{So tall it doesn't fit in the picture}

When is a bookshelf not just a bookshelf?

When it is a rainbow. 

When it is a home for all the books previously stores in dusty boxes in the attic. 

When it is an invocation. 

I have been dreaming about this bookshelf for several months now. I visualized it in all it's rainbow glory. I knew exactly how I was going to arrange the books. I knew how it would look when I was lying on the couch, admiring it. 

With all things, though, the actual reality of getting it was more complicated and more hilarious than I could have ever imagined.  

Our good friend

Anne van Mansvelt,

a master woodworker, designed and installed the shelves.  To make sure they were perfect, he built the whole unit in his workshop beforehand. When he arrived and placed it on our front step I was blown away. 

It was beautiful.  

It was so beautiful and sooooo tall. 

There was no way it was going to fit up the steep, narrow, Victorian staircase leading to our flat door. We tried and got catastrophically stuck trying to manoeuvre around the first landing. 

Being Dutch, Anne's first thought was to haul it up through the windows. In Amsterdam all the tall narrow houses have winches hanging in the eaves, perfect for moving heavy furniture in and out of the windows. 

Our flat is very high up on the third floor (second floor to Brits), and we don't have any winches.  There was no way the bookshelf could come up via the front. However, after a complete inspection, we realized that our bedroom window in the back overlooks the flat roof of our ground floor neighbour's bedroom. 

That was the solution! 

It's not every day you find yourself pulling a bookshelf through your downstairs neighbour's flat, into their garden, up onto their roof, and then through your own bedroom window. After that the installation went as planned. But what an adventure! 

Whew!

Now that the bookshelf is there it feels like an invocation. An act of calling upon the creative spirit for strength and inspiration. 

We have brought all the books down from the attic and organized them beautifully on the shelves. We are finally treating all of our books with the respect they deserve. They have an honoured place in our home. 

This, then, is a turning point. I am ready to continue this journey in writing and illustrating. 

There are some objects that acquire layers of meaning beyond their basic function. This bookshelf is one of them. 

{copies of Magic at the Museum, signed, and ready to be delivered to Somerset House}

Cheers! A little celebration and Inspiration

{Photo taken at Beluga in Cape Town}

I have decided that my maternity leave is officially over. It's difficult to make "official" proclamations when you work for yourself (who's keeping track of whether or not you clock in at your desk?), but I have to tell someone, so I'm telling you, dear readers. 

I've had a long hiatus full of soul-searching, self-doubt, moments of happy inspiration, and lots of cuddles with Little M.  

She is now 9 months old.... which also means that I have been a mother for 9 months. I think it's time to transform from a nesting, stay-at-home mom into a working mom (who also happens to work from home). 

I have no idea how I'm going to make this work. Motherhood and my passion for making books sometimes feel like two diametrically opposing forces pushing me in different directions.  One tells me to savour each moment and not work too hard, and the other tells me to sharpen my pencils and get creating because the seconds are rushing by faster than we can count them. 

But, this week I signed a contract to illustrate two children's picture books.  

Now I have no choice but to stick my head into my sketchbooks. I can't wait to get back to drawing, because a part of me will never feel whole unless I'm creating a book and telling a story, in some way. 

So, cheers! Let's celebrate! Raise a glass ... to new books! ... to 9 month birthdays.  And to venturing bravely into uncharted territories. 

Here's a little inspiration from the books I've been reading this week: 

On babies: 

"A baby is a wishing well.  We walk by every day and throw our pennies in. Most are bright and shiny, full of smiles and possibility. Some are tarnished with bad memories, unlucky genes. Others have been hiding under the couch cushions all these years, just waiting for someone to dig them out. A baby is a wishing well. Everyone puts their hopes, their fears, their pasts, their two cents in." Elizabeth Bard from 

Picnic in Provence.

On divine intervention: 

"I learned that to simply ask a blessing on one's circumstances, whatever they are, is somehow to improve them, and to tap some mysterious source of energy and joy. I came upon one of the most ancient and universal truths -- that to affirm and claim God's help even before it is given, is to receive it." Marjorie Holmes. 

Window Boxes: Life in a London Flat

There’s something about lavender that lifts the mood. It’s not just its clean, fresh, fragrance (reminiscent of sea spray, loamy earth and clean sheets), but also the way the purple flowers bob and sway, conducting silent symphonies in the breeze.

In Cape Town we had a lavender garden in our front courtyard. There was a thick, high stone garden wall facing the road (as you must, in South Africa), with a heavy wooden door set in its centre. From the street it didn’t look like much, but once you entered, you were beguiled by a tiny courtyard garden planted mounds of lavender.

I miss that garden. I miss sitting on the stoop and watching the bees dance from flower to flower as the unseen traffic raced down the hill on the other side of the wall.

So, as a birthday surprise for my husband, I planted window boxes on the sills of our London flat. I ordered one box for each front window and filled them with lavender, petunias and ivy.  Now, when I sit on the couch and gaze out the window, I not only see the rows of Victorian terraced houses and plane trees, but also the bobbing lavender, the delicate ruffles of the petunia petals, and the occasional bee who has lucked out and found our tiny oasis.

The window boxes give a new dimension to the flat: there is now an inside

and

an outside. When the evening sun pours through the windows the lavender throws dancing shadows on the white walls. When we open the windows we can smell the sweet petunias in the warm summer air.

All that in a space 18 cm wide.

It's a miracle.

Be inspired

Favourite Quotes 

Judith of Pretty Words Please

. The more you kiss or hug babies or young children, the happier they will be when they grow up. {That sounds like a wonderful plan to me!}

Virginia Woolf

. I decided to go to London, for the sake of hearing the Strand roar, which I think one does want, after a day or two of Richmond.  {This is particularly appropriate after recent conversations of where we would move to if we left central London.}

Kate di Camillo

.  Poetry. He liked the word -- its smallness, its density, the way it rose up at the end as if it had wings.

Poetry

.

D. H. Lawrence

. We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive ... and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.

What has inspired you this month? 

Hatching New Beginnings

{The crystal egg cup}

Happiest of Easter Weekends to all my wonderful readers! 

I hope you find your golden egg under the rosebush, and contemplate lots of new beginnings. 

We will be relaxing in our lovely London flat, taking long walks in the park to admire the daffodils, and spending evenings watching movies or hosting dinner for friends. 

See you next week! 

On Being and Embracing

How are you doing with your efforts to be inspired by your word (or resolutions) for 2015?  It's the end of March, and I'm checking in to assess my efforts to embrace this year.

MARCH

It's funny.

I'm sitting on the couch while Little M watches her classical music mobile in her cot, and, try as I might, I can hardly remember anything that's happened in the past 30 days.

Did we return from Austria in February, or was it March? I know I had a birthday at some point. I got an illustrating job, thus ending my maternity leave... but aside from those big events, the month is a blur of naps, bottles, and walks, all littered with pencil and eraser shavings.

The only way I can remember anything is if I write it down, which is why I'm designing a new day planner, as well as trying to keep a daily journal. (more to come on both)

As long as I'm getting enough rest (naps are essential), and eating well (meal plans and online grocery delivery are my saving graces right now), I feel like I can handle just about anything.

I'm also trying to embrace the help of random strangers. People in London are amazingly compassionate and helpful when they see moms stranded with strollers at the top or bottom of long staircases in train or tube stations.

Thank-you London!

Embracing "Being"

One idea that has really struck home these past few months is that we are all unique, special and valuable just because we are, and not because of what we do. Too often I judge myself by what I have accomplished (or not), and I forget that my personal worth shouldn't be so closely tied to my successes and failures.

Little M is a miracle just because she is.  It's her being, her is-ness, that makes her amazing.  She plays; she smiles; she drinks; she poos; she sleeps (sometimes); and each day her personality becomes clearer, like a form materializing in a thick mist.  By the world's standards, none of those activities are particularly valuable, and yet, she is a miracle.

You and I were once miraculous babies. We have let the sparkle of that miracle wear off and become a distant memory, but it isn't gone.

You might be sitting there in your bathrobe, sipping a coffee, steeling yourself for your day, and all around you the latent glow of your inexplicable is-ness is shining for anyone who might take the time to notice. You are you and nobody else!

 That's amazing. I am. He is. She is. We are. We can conjugate a verb and define one of the biggest mysteries of life.

So, I'm trying to embrace a new understanding of my self-worth, as well as everyone else's worth. We are all here, zooming through the vast galaxy on a tiny planet populated with miracles. Think about it for a minute. It will change your day.

{Nerd alert: this is a very simplified discussion of ontology, the study of the nature of being, becoming and existence. Ontology is one of my favourite words, both for how it sounds and what it means.}

APRIL

Just this weekend we booked tickets to spend some time with M's family in Cape Town. We're both excited and a little nervous about the new adventure, as it will mean taking our first long-haul flight with Little M.

So, in the coming month you can expect some posts about planning and calendars, about journaling, and about our trip to Cape Town!

How was your month? Are you thinking about your word or your resolutions regularly? Have you experienced any milestones that you think helped you grow as a person? Please share in the comments! 

Did you like this post? Then be sure to share it with your friends to keep the conversation going! Pin, share or tweet! Yay! 

Be inspired

 {Bloom through the gloom}

Favourite Quotes 

Sylvia Plath.

I wonder why I don't go to bed and go to sleep. But then it would be tomorrow, so I decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent I am, I can skip one hour more of sleep and

live

. If I did not have this time to be myself, to write here, to be alone, I would somehow, inexplicably, lose a part of my integrity. {The Unabridged Journals, page 83}

Tony Robbins

. Energy comes from having a mission, not eating or sleeping. It comes from something you're being pulled by, not something you're pushing on.... If you're pulled, if there's something you want to serve that's greater than yourself, something that excites you, something you're made for, then there's a level of energy that most people would never dream of. We all have that, but most of us don't connect to it.

Erin Boyle.

 When it comes to sleep and babies, we're all just fumbling along. We care for our fabulous, feisty little humans the best way we know how. In one bedroom, or two bedrooms, or no bedrooms at all, sleep after a baby is different than sleep before a baby. But then, so is breathing. So is the way your heart beats in your chest.

Melissa Jeffcott.

 So if you are on the other side of forty and think blogging is just for twenty something long legged green smoothie toting yoga goddesses, or wine guzzling toddler taming sleep deprived mamas in their thirties, think again.

{

Can you guess the theme?

Leave your guess in the comments and some way for me to direct message you (either email or twitter name), and I'll send you an exclusive 15% off code for

my etsy shop

! I can't reduce the price much more, as the quality of my prints is so high! Here's a clue: the theme is 5 letters, starting with S.}

For Little M

I'm spending a lot of time singing the chorus of "And I will always love you" to keep her happy.  I'm chanelling

the gentleness of the original Dolly Parton

, rather than the flamboyance of Whitney Houston. 

When I'm out of entertainment ideas, we watch

these black and white videos for infants

with achingly beautiful designs. They are part art installation and part pacifier, and would be just at home in Tate Modern as in my living room.   

On the Blog

For those of you who are regular visitors, you might have noticed that I've done a little housekeeping. I redesigned my blog with the help of the lovely Suzana of

This Girl Design

. I struggle with writing html and css code, so buying a template to work with was the perfect answer. Suzana installed it within days and was so lovely to work with. Once the template was installed, it was easy enough for me to modify aspects of the design to suit my style.

I've organized all my past posts into the categories which you see on the top of the right-hand column. Have some time? Go exploring!

And, I've decided to open up the whole right-hand column to blog banner swaps and advertising. If you want your blog, shop or brand to be featured on my blog, just jump over

HERE

and book a slot. The first 5 people booking a spot can use code WELCOME! to get 50% off. It's a bargain!

What has inspired you this month? 

Life in a London Flat #5 - Bookshelves

I love books; I can't live without them. We have been successful at simplifying many of our possessions, but books are impossible to part with.

Sometimes I think we're going sink under the weight of all the books in our London flat. I worry that, as we buy more books and pile them into the bookshelf, we'll have to build a buttress outside to hold both the floor and the wall up. Otherwise we might collapse into our neighbour's flat below.

When I look at our bookshelf, each book tells a story. Not just the story within its pages, but also the story of who I was and what I was thinking the moment I read it. A bookshelf is like an autobiography.  When I visit someone's house, I love taking a peek at their bookshelves, as I can tell so much about their interests and habits by looking at the titles on the spines. Cookbooks. Travel books. Novels. Poetry. Art books. They all reveal aspects of our characters.

Books allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else's life.  And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people.  But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn't been able to see before.

So, tip #5 for

Life in a London flat

is: proudly display your books, they are part of who you are (and related... tip #5.1 is hide your TV... ours is behind the hinged panel below the shelves).

I don't ascribe to the trends stating that we should recover our books in neutral dust-jackets, or arrange them by size or colour so the bookshelves look like rainbows. Having been a librarian's assistant in a past life (nerd alert!), I try to arrange my books alphabetically and in genres, such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc.  Our books are bright and colourful, and add an injection of personality into our small, serene little flat. 

Our built-in bookshelf was built by the amazing

Anne van Mansfeld

, who worked as a boat builder in Holland before moving to London and starting his cabinetry business. He works with navy-style attention to detail and precision. 

So many thoughts. So many ideas. So many memories. So many ways our minds have been challenged and broadened.

So here's a question: do your bookshelves tell your story?

"A little library, growing every year, 

is an honourable part of a man's history.  

It is a man's {and woman's} duty to have books."

Henry Ward Beecher

"When you reread a classic, 

you do not see more in the book than you did before;  

you see more in yourself than there was before."

Clifton Fadiman

Related posts

More glimpses of life in a London flat

Explore London

How to keep a reading journal

Did you enjoy this post? Then, pin it, share it, or tweet it, oh my! 

A birthday self-portrait

Instead of sharing my daily drawings (of which there were few) this week. I thought I'd share my annual birthday self portrait.

Several years ago I started a tradition of drawing a self portrait on or around my birthday. It was inspired by Rembrandt, who painted many expressive and honest self-portraits throughout his life-time.  The self portraits track his emotional, physical and creative maturation.

I'm not Rembrandt, and I don't paint in oils; even so, each year I'm challenging myself to draw or paint something to represent the moment, the week, the day, that I grew one year older.

This year's drawing is very small, just a simple pencil sketch in my tiny moleskine sketchbook.  Did I catch my likeness? To be honest, I think the sketch was perfect about 3 minutes before I put my pencil down. I added a few too many strokes, and lost some of the intensity.  However, I think it perfectly captures my current mood of introspection.

Today isn't my birthday.  However, on the day, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what has happened in the past year and what I hope will come to fruition in the next year.

Do you have any birthday traditions?

Feeling inspired? Please share, tweet, pin or favourite!  

Go Back in Time...

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