DAY 592: TAKEAWAYS, CHARDONNAY’S AND SLICES OF PRE-CUT, PLASTIC-PACKAGED, BUTTER- AND MARMITE-CAPPED WHITE BREAD
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This work is a journey in embroidery and in life, translating my own personal experiences into art. It is also a way of making sense out of the confusion and pulling purpose from the path. Photographing it daily and partnering it with written reports – each in itself a miniature snapshot into my life – allows me to document so that in ten years time I’ll remember. And it makes it more accessible, too, so that others can follow along. 🤳🏽
As part of being accountable, I keep an Instagram page and a blog, and post to a Facebook group. Most people are really nice and some are really supportive. But, as in every situation, occasionally, there are some who are not. This hurts as well as confuses, because I would never act or be like this, never speak ill, unprovoked, to anyone, let alone a stranger. And, also, because if you took the time to get to know me, to look and read or at least check me out... you would see that this a journey of great depth. The sewing and the telling are vital, challenging, changing and healing the experience like Vitamins. 💊
Today in cheerful pink; pink that is softer and lighter than yesterday, like watermelon instead of raspberry, I couch another camisole/bra strap adjuster, turning it into intestines. I’m enjoying adding these organs and studying them as I go, learning all about the purpose and benefits of keeping them well. I realised yesterday, as I was swimming laps – which is when I drift off and think about the meaning of life – that it’s ridiculous, really, that we have to take lessons to drive a car and to operate machinery, have to go to school to learn about history, geography, science and maths... but in all that no one really spends more than a second on the body and how best to maintain and keep it. 👇🏻
Continued in comments. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
DAY 591: TWINGES, ACHES, LOW RUMBLES AND GURGLES
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It’s the height of summer and the streets are packed, quiet places vibrating with an unnatural buzz, making it hard to find a peaceful place to sit, work, contemplate and take a coffee. The roads are full too and in true Mallorquín-style, they’re tarmacking the city centre and the air is thick and black. I feel like I’m reducing and eliminating – chemicals, toxins, waste – on one level and then the outside is putting it straight back. The swimming pool I use has even gone cloudy and sports a skin of cream and sweat. And on top of that, I got eaten alive by mosquitoes and now have red welts across my back.
🏊🏼♀️
I move from the thyroid to the liver, another organ I have never known much about but which I am now focussing on healing. For while my thyroid is swollen, sleeping and not presently doing enough... a butterfly stuck in its cocoon; my liver is slow, sluggish and fat from working too much. Like a skip on a building site, or a much-used hearth.
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As I drink my juices of lemon, celery and cucumber, along with some healing tinctures and teas... I am aware of the corresponding twinges, aches, low rumbles and gurgles inside and perhaps my emotions are heightened too, because everything around me seems louder, closer and much more real. 📢
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #astitchaday #embroidery #sewing #lifethreads #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #needleandthread #mylittlestitchery #mallorca #mallorcacreativity #mallorcaembroidery #palmademallorca #balearicart #1yearofstitches2017 #1yearofstitches2018 🥒🥦🍏
#thyroidhealing #epsteinbarrvirus #liverrescue #medicalmedium28daydetox medicalmedium90daycleanse #medicalmedium #anthonywilliams
#mynewfavouriteguru
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If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸.
DAY 590: I HAVE A PLAN
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Yesterday, even the sound of a chair scraping, a phone ringing or an engine backfiring had me shrinking in on myself. Today, my nerves are subject to invisible things. I feel like a sponge with no power to affect what contaminates me. My dog’s anxiety permeates. My partner’s frustration burns. I can sense and feel my neighbours. I hide on the other side of a door – mattress beneath my back, pillow behind my head, shutters closed and candles burning – trying to imagine I am the woman in the mirror and not the woman on the bed. It’s not peace, but it’s quiet, and that’s a step. 🙌🏻
I return to my thyroid – filling it in, padding it out, adding running stitch ripples and satin stitch leaves. It looks a bit like an elaborate dream catcher or a bespoke chime, and is at once both ocean and sky. I try to send love to my actual thyroid, offering her support and care, and even though I don’t feel that great, I’m ok because I have a plan. 🙌🏻
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #astitchaday #embroidery #sewing #lifethreads #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #needleandthread #mylittlestitchery #mallorca #mallorcacreativity #mallorcaembroidery #palmademallorca #balearicart #1yearofstitches2017 #1yearofstitches2018 #thyroidhealing #epsteinbarrvirus #medicalmedium28daydetox 🥒🍋(ps. we should complain because there’s no emoji celery) #medicalmedium #anthonywilliams
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If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸.
DAY 588: SOYA, SALT AND COFFEE
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It’s been an odd kind of week. I’m on a detox, doing some intense personal cleaning, working on improving the health of all inner bits, eliminating things like heavy metals, toxins, parasites and pathogens. It’s not a fast: it’s a cleanse, so you can live on it, and the idea is that it lasts as long as it lasts. It’s basically lots of juices, powders and living foods. And there’s a long list of NO foods, like gluten, wheat and dairy. I’m mostly clean, but I will miss my soya, salt and coffee. 🥦
In light of that, I decide to dedicate my sewing to housekeeping – tidying up loose ends, finishing off abandoned bits, joining dots... In one way, it’s deeply satisfying: bringing it all together; harmonising and balancing disenfranchised elements. In another, it’s hollow, flat and vacuous. I much prefer diving deep into an idea, couching an object, stitching a word.
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Afterwards, I allow myself to sew a thyroid – beautiful, blue and butterfly-shaped. It adds to the documentation of my journey and is my way of sending love and healing intention to this gland. In other ways, at home, I lie on my bed and envision white light, call upon angels, channel energy through my hands, practice self-hypnosis and meditate. Every little helps, and I like to believe I’m helping quite a bit. 🍋
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #1yearstitchathon #365daysofstitches #astitchaday #embroidery #sewing #lifethreads #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #pinsandneedles #februarystitching #needleandthread #mylittlestitchery #mallorca #mallorcacreativity
#mallorcaembroidery #palmademallorca #1yearofstitches2017 #1yearofstitches2018 ——————————
If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸.
DAY 586: EVERYTHING I’VE EXPERIENCED
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We are still experiencing a heatwave and it’s super hot. After wishing for summer for so many months, I’m almost eager for autumn. My feet are permanent puddles and I’ve taken to keeping an ice pack against my back and having cold baths and showers. There was a rumour yesterday of a thunder storm to hit, but when it came it only spat and then vanished. Too hot to go out, I stay inside and drink water with ice, which works well enough to cool my hands but not for anything else. 🍶
With my blue restocked, I finish off the half-done sequins and add another one for luck, then stitch some ripples and something loosely resembling an anchor. I also begin a word, "swimming", to remind me of what I was attempting to detail here. 🍃
Below, on top of the words "Epstein Barr", I add some leaves... because when dealing with difficult things like illness, it’s important to appreciate their beauty. I’m not saying I’ve mastered this yet or that I’m able to do it consistently, but I’m definitely doing my best. I think I’ll turn it into a garden to show it just how much love I have, just how much I want to heal it, and at the end, when we’re done, however long that takes, there will be a precious memento of everything I’ve experienced. 💐
DAY 584: THE DANCE WE DID
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Today I am stuck with green because I ran out of blue yesterday and forgot that I needed to replace it. Not all that practical when you are trying to depict water, but I make do by allowing. 🕺🏻
Returning to the sea bit, I add another sequin and couch it in green and then sew some more weed. I was worried it was becoming overcrowded and at one point missed the simplicity of what was there before, but now I’m glad I persevered. I love the colours and the emotion the shape evokes, reminiscent of movement and rocking right-way / wrong-way up, reminding me of the dance we did. 💃🏻
Afterwards, I add another condition, because I am doing lots of studying and trying to figure out my health and this seems to be at the root of it. I think, because this piece is a healing journey, it all needs to be there: aches, pains, ailments, conditions, symptoms, diagnosis, false starts, wrong turns, side effects. I feel I’m getting closer, even if I there is a long way still to go and I don’t like what I hear.
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #1yearstitchathon #365daysofstitches #astitchaday #embroidery #sewing #lifethreads #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #pinsandneedles #februarystitching #needleandthread #mylittlestitchery #mallorca #mallorcacreativity
#mallorcaembroidery #palmademallorca #1yearofstitches2017 #1yearofstitches2018 ——————————
If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸.
DAY 582: ON SOLID GROUND
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So I swam in the sea, as promised, and I felt pretty brave, both because I went with a friend and I don’t usually do that and because it was our first adventure together outside of my house. We had to walk down a rickety path and descend a steep cliff face. I felt like a crab; all limbs akimbo, clattering and skittering. And then, everyone was either naked or topless, including my friend, and there was I in my costume, every bit the Brit. 🦀
But it wasn’t that that struck me or stuck with me the most. It the motion sickness I experienced upon entering the water, how strong and brutal the current was, how salty it tasted when I accidentally swallowed it and how it stung when it splashed my eyes. I felt accosted by its battering, attacked by its irregularity and permanently fearful of getting out of my depth. After half an hour, I was like a rung-out rag, and, as I tried to exit, the stones under foot and the sand sucking and sinking all felt like predators on the attack. 🏝
24 hours later and I’ve only just stopped swooshing, my energy finally settling to near still. I think perhaps I will leave the sea to stronger folks and stick to the peace of the pool. I should have known that someone who is sensitive to movement, who gets shaken around by buses, trains, cars, planes and boats... would respond poorly to so much force. But I guess I secretly harboured the hope that it might actually be healing, flushing out and waking up all that is stuck. There go my dreams of living on a boat and my illusions of two week cruises. There go my aspirations of being a mermaid and catching a sailor. Despite my aversion to being bodily grounded, my love of the weightlessness of water and my preference for living in my head: I think perhaps I am supposed to stay on soil. ⚓️
