I have been trying to nudge myself back to life over the past few months. One of the ways i've been doing this is quietly working in my studio. It's process work but i needed to work on projects that are not all about Jon. I probably have too many balls in the air at the moment and some are sat on back burners simmering away, the smell of them mingling with whatever i am giving more concrete focus to on any given day. 
At the beginning of the year i decided to give myself one fairy tale a month to play with. This month's fairy tale is The Little Mermaid. With the two previous months i have used the time to immerse myself in the stories i have picked. I have made bits and pieces of work but nothing finished. I am ok with that at the moment as getting myself back on my feet feels more important than meeting a strict or heavy weight done goal. If anything my heavy weight goal is to stop spinning and re-find my still point so I can know and begin following my yearning again. 
Yearning i think is something i will be able to explore this month with this story. In many ways I was here before Jon died, wondering where i was going contemplating if and feel directionless. The time i am spending now in my studio with no deadlines and only my will and heart to follow is a parting gift. A gift maybe not wanted, but maybe needed. 
As i'm thinking about mermaids it seemed like the right moment to go to the sea. I had unfinished business to attend to in Southwold so that's where i went. The sea is always a comfort to me. I walked from the pier to the end where the river runs into the sea where  I met a lovely man who said that two metres of beach had been lost in the recent east winds and that tonnes of sand had been lost. His job was to put the sand back. 
I can't step on a beach and not beach-comb, i have so much sea treasure sometimes i feel a tad silly for picking up more but there is something meditative about the process. And it's funny what catches the eye and curiosity. This time it was wooden beach pebbles, and scraps of cloth, primarily. I think I know what I will do with the cloth, not so much the pebbles they may just end up in a bowl until i find a use for them.
For a while I sat and gazed out to sea. I hadn't been to the sea since my daughter and i had been to Dublin before I knew about Jon being dead. Of course i cried. There was no-one to see me cry and  who cares anyway. 
And I came across two gorgeous broken statues in slightly ramshackle garden. A marble man, a god or hero, grotesque in his broken-ness and a wooden woman, headless and legless.  Both useful and beautiful research figures.
I guess that yesterday was me picking up my threads, yes saying goodbye to Jon, Southwold was where we had our first proper date and our last, but also recomposing my world as it is now. Letting myself be soothed by the sight, sound, smell and feel of the sea, letting it lullaby me back into a walking life. 

  

As a late birthday treat my friend of many years Sally took me to the beach. We walked from Eccles to Sea Palling and then back again. It was warm, the sun was shining and the sea was turquoise. We chit-chatted and gazed and dropped our heads to beach-comb, looking for sea-glass and witch stones (stones with holes) and small scraps of drift wood. Then we ate chips outside the cafe/chip-shop in Sea Palling, and dark chocolate truffles. It was a perfect day. We even saw a couple of butterflies, raggedy peacocks making the most of the last days of this year's sunshine, and a dragon-fly.  

And finally a trip to Sheringham which I took a week or so back. A train trip and a good walk on a clean beach in gorgeous english sunshine is always balm for my soul.

On sunday I went to Sheringham. It was a day out with my family so I wasn't focusing on taking arty photos, but I happened to snap some seaweed and a piece of old raggedy rope, and I caught a few ideas to follow up next time I'm out there on my own.    

And some flotsam and jetsam.

Just a few photographs from my trip to Cley because walking feeds my dreams, my heart, my soul.

I'm not going to claim any gift for making videos but the butterflies on the Cley to Blakeney coast path were something wonderful.

  

Sometimes you get given a chance that is challenging but too good an opportunity to miss. For some years I have been going to dance classes, exploring the shapes my body can make and learning a myriad of skills that I have taken into other areas of my life. Dancing has helped me to extend my physical vocabulary and I love it, but I have stopped short of performing. In a way learning a little more about my physical presence has given me the confidence to own my space, to be a little more true to my self and to begin to know when I am acting a part and when I am just being me. 

However, a month or so back, one of my teachers Gaelin Little (mentioned in previous blogs) invited me to be a part of the research project detailed in the invite above. With some trepidation I accepted her invite, yesterday was the performance and I was a part of it. 

I am not a dancer I just like to dance, so taking part in this was something out of the ordinary for me, a step into the unknown and quite scary. I would say that performing to an audience is something quite odd for me, but it has been fascinating to see how Gaelin and her friend and assistant Lucille managed to put together the work and I have learned such a lot from this experience. 

I guess this blog post is a thanks to Gaelin for giving me this opportunity to stretch out of my comfort zone and learn a little more, and for trusting me to be a part of her project. 

Two amazing days of dance workshops this weekend. Led by the lovely Gaelin Little, in Happisburgh village hall, and along the cliff path by the lighthouse. Gorgeous sunshine today, but a brisk wind on both days, cold from the sea, has blown away some of the dust and cobwebs. Gaelin has been given funding to create a dance project based on the lighthouse at Happisburgh and the surrounding landscape. We have been exploring notions of gesture and place, using movement that has stemmed from authentic movement improvisations made on the cliff path yesterday and using phrases and words and games to create links and an easy cohesion between two people and then small groups. Words that came from the group as a whole at the end of this weekend are nourishing, air, grateful, sustaining.

Overy - Holkham with a friend. The weather was cold but with beautiful sunshine, bright, slanting winter light. We saw a marsh harrier and geese. And I took photographs of sea shells, seaweed and a set of crossing tracks with some seagulls, of which there were great flocks.