Getting Going (again)

It has been a while since I blogged.  A couple of posts sit waiting in draft, hardly formed, unfinished. I have the sensation of wanting to say something but being quite unsure what exactly it is.  It presses on the back of my throat.  It comes fleetingly in images and small sentences. I have made things.  I have redecorated.  I have renovated.  I have repaved and rejigged.  I have gone off the island and come back.  I have had adventures and taken photos. I have gone to load them up, to just get on with the show and tell.  But it just doesn't come.  A heavy heart on the brink of change does that to me.  I lose my ability to find where to begin.  I forget where it started ... like trying to unravel a knotted ball of wool, you just have to have the patience (and time) to work backwards before you can get going again.


Today I have felt a change.  Today I feel like I can get going again.  Today I went to a bloggers meet up.  Tanya gently directed our discussion.  Interesting thoughts were aired, points raised, ideas crystallised.  I thought about why I blogged.  I thought about what I get from it.  It is indeed a record of what I make, of how my family are growing, of where I go, and what I find at op shops... and I love that part of it... the reporting part.  I love looking back through old posts and seeing where I have trodden. But I think what I have inadvertently found in blogland is more than a show and tell.  It is a sense of connection.  That the world is both vast and tiny.  That for all our differences we are so similar.  I like feeling connected to people; that I am, in small ways, sharing small parts of their everyday experience and likes. I don't necessary outpour all the contents of my life in every blog post.  I don't necessary disclose the struggles.  But I shy away from posting when it feels to me like sugar coating or skimming over or hiding something. Not that every absence can be explained by me visiting struggletown ... sometimes its just the computer on the blink or preferring the couch at night after a day of kiddy wrangling.  But I guess what I am saying is I like that blogging makes me reflect ... even if those reflections are never to meet the publish button. I like that blogging has the power to do that even when I'm not actually blogging. Does that make me authentic?  Truthful?  An honest representer?  Don't know really.  I think it just documents points where I have arrived at some clarity, the beginning of the ball of wool and that I'm ready to get going again.

For me sharing in this space makes me remember I am so small amidst a beautiful bigger picture...That is when I usually draw breath and tell myself to get on with it because noone is watching and the ones looking on are with you.

So here is what I made last week.  It is a present and the first shirred dress I have made in  a very long time.  It made me happy from the pink rosette down to the vintage lace that found a home at last.

PS. Thank you Tanya for organising the meet up ... it was lovely to meet everyone outside of cyberland