inspiration – sue orton | gathering threads

Early morning swim

I’ve tried two pairs of reading glasses already. They all seem smudged, even if I’ve just cleaned them with a small confidently named ‘Lens Cleaner’. I pick them up, and still can’t see clearly. Is it my eyes? I’m 67 so it might be the beginnings of some debilitating eye condition like Judi Dench. She’s at Specsavers all day, on the recorded message answerphone, she won’t talk to you though. I expect someone employed her after seeing the film scene in Marigold Hotel when she was telling the call centre staff about digestive biscuits in an attempt to get them to be interested in their clients. I still I can’t be sure I can see the screen clearly. Shall I zoom in, change the font or move the computer? I don’t know, never mind, I’m sitting writing which is a start. Only 132 words though, it’s like morning pages looking inside my head to see what’s there. Nothing much today.

I’ve had a really excellent beginning to the day though. It started with a swim in the sea. If I swim in the morning it sets me up and puts me into a good mood for the rest of the day. I don’t know a swim is on, until I wake up. I have a routine.

Wake up about 6.30am. Pull up the blind, look out of the window to check the trees for wind and sky for weather, sunny, no wind, good. Check the tide on Imray Tidal App, it shows the curve of the tide with depth and times. I like two hours before or after high and high if it’s neaps. This morning it’s high at 8.30am so perfect to go. I have a bag of swimming kit ready. Towel, towelling robe, goggles, hat, neoprene shoes and gloves. I get into my costume – nicknamed Captain Webb because it’s long with shorts onto my thighs – gorgeous. Baggy tracksuit bottoms, blue soft inside with drawstring and pockets. T-shirt and sweatshirt. Today my dark blue Octopus one, it’s thick soft and warm with a joined-hand pouch type pocket at the front, then blue non itchy woolly hat, my ears are the first to feel cold. Pull on neoprene feet, they are tight so I sit down to get them on. It’s getting into spring so the sea is still cold. No wind becomes crucial. ..Don’t hesitate, just go. Out of the back door, down the garden, out of the gate, down the lane, cross the main road, up the bank, over the shingle; the sea. It’s empty not even a dog walker. Pause. No don’t pause, go. Choose a groyne, hang bag, towel out ready, robe out ready, clothes off, today neoprene gloves and hat on. Pause. No don’t pause, go. Walk to the edge, first sense of the cold sea, pause, deep breath, walk, deeper, go on, deeper, plunge in. Shout, smile, laugh, scream… it is COLD. Keep moving, keep breathing, keep going as the shock eases. Swim, shout, smile, laugh, scream. It’s fantastic, it’s SO cold and it’s wonderful.

© susy orton 2021

Braiding Sweetgrass

I’m reading the beautiful and inspiring book: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
“In her Onondaga Nation neighbours call the maple the leader of the trees. Trees constitute the environmental quality committee – running air and water purification service 24-7.” I offer you her notion of guidelines for the Honourable Harvest.

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last.
Take only what you need. Take only what is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
Harvest in a way that minimises harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

Buy the book at The Book Depository here

A new beginning

I am weaving again. It’s been nearly a year.
Slowly my creative juices are flowing back. My confidence and energy are returning.

Beach pebbles and sunsets attract my attention again. Flowers, bees and butterflies hold my senses again. Colour and texture, shape and form are beginning to interest me again; at last.

I sat under my loom a week ago, bending in amongst the shafts, heddles and treadles, puzzled. “Did I ever know how to do this?” I think so.

So slowly a project is forming, gathering and beginning. I have another commission, sent by the spirits of encouragement and inspiration; it’s tugging at my soul. I am joyful, excited and terrified in equal measure.

baskets in the woods

I have just spent two joyful days making bramble baskets in new leafed woodland near Heathfield, East Sussex, facilitated by Ruby Taylor of Native Hands.

The gentle supportive tone and pace of the weekend was set as we were invited to make the short walk into our camp in the woods, silently and to turn off our mobile phones. Each day we joined in the lighting of a campfire, blowing gently to ignite a small spark held in a dry grass bundle to which twigs, sticks and small split logs were added. It became the centre of warmth, support and mindful making.

For our material, we gathered and stripped brambles; a small wall basket with a handle the aim. Each technical step was taught with care and clarity by Ruby. We shared food at lunch times and punctuated our days with plentiful tea and flapjacks. Baskets finished, but not yet trimmed as bramble shrinks, we gathered with joyful surprise at our efforts.

As we contemplated our return to busy-ness, Ruby read The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry to complete a quite beautiful weekend.

“When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Wendell Berry

generous inspiration

Inspiring books have come into my life these past few months; they arrived in various ways but all with generosity and warmth. I wanted to share them.

The first is by Elizabeth Fisher and Rebecca Fortnum: On Not Knowing: How Artists Think. It’s a chewy book, when slow re-reading and digesting is essential for me. It has chapters like ‘Tactics for Not Knowing’ and ‘Unteachable and Unlearnable’ and ‘Pedagogy of the Not Known’. I am loving it, chewing it and allowing myself to relax a little more into my own puzzles and artistic endeavours.

The second is by Kate Davies: Handywoman. Paralysed by a stroke at the age of 39, Kate’s world turned upside down. Forced to change direction, she took a radical new creative path. Handywoman is not a book about triumph over adversity, rather it is her account of the ordinary activities and everyday objects that stroke and disability made her see differently. Part memoir, part personal celebration of the power of making, it redefines disability as in itself a form of practical creativity.