On 25 August 2021 I wrote
This is fun! I’m sitting in the sun, mindlessly stitching and feeling my whole self begin to relax.
This wee swallow is beginning to take shape but I need to go and make lunch so you’ll see the rest of him later. Yes, since there have been so many days with no updates, I decided you can have double updates some days. Watch this space later.
I have just re-read something else I wrote at this time, illustrating how much I curated my life on social media to suit the world I wanted you to believe I live in.
My friend Juliet had asked me that simple question, “How are you?”
And I don’t sugar the pill with Juliet, I am able to be entirely open and honest with her. I said, “I’m not sure really. I say everything is ok, because it’s not awful. And I’m sitting outside sipping coffee and eating madeleines. And embroidering swallows. So it is ok by most standards.” And, honestly, by most standards it was.
But then I went on to say, “I’m sad. OK but sad”
And when Juliet responded with “I think sad is very acceptable”
I knew this to be true, “It is. Indeed. And I have madeleines”
So Juliet added, “And love”
And because it was on WhatsApp and sometimes you get out of synch, I then replied with, “Orange and cardamom flavoured if you want to know” and “An abundance of it”
I hope that wherever you are and whatever is going on in your life that you, too, have an abundance of love. And also that you have people around you who you can say how it really is when they ask how you are.
***
You might want to dip into other posts, or understand how we got to this point? This series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; as her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.
Shewolfinthevalley 
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