"We all have a room that we live in that is our life. As a child, your room had many doors leading to undiscovered hallways with secret passageways to great ballrooms and elaborate gardens. As many doors as you could imagine opened to all of your possible lives that you could lead in the future." A beautiful rumination on these doors and how we perceive them through the years.... I love the importance of the window. I don't think I draw much on "imagination," but I definitely think the windows are important.
I've been planning to finally "actually" read Mrs. Dalloway ever since you mentioned it a while back. It will have to be part of my list for January. Thank you for the shout-out, too. I really appreciate it.
I probably could have cut the whole thing in half but just went with it. It struck me the other day... External doors closing, internal ones open. Curious what you think of Mrs. Dalloway when you get to it. I had to marinate in its aftermath (read about it and also watch The Hours) to get it's full effect.
I absolutely love your observation that a window is both reflective and transparent. Wow. There is so much inside that observation and it lit my mind up! Beautiful writing. So glad we've found each other's work!
My main art practice is making soft sculpture. It’s how I process my lived experience of chronic pain and anxiety. I like using slow stitching, felting, and crocheting. I also play in my sketchbooks, with pens and watercolours.
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing. It's nice to meet your virtual acquaintance. I think it's so amazing how working with our hands with materials (writing included) allows us to work through and process our internal emotional and physical pain, logjams, etc. I picked up crochet specifically after a painful divorce five years ago. Connecting the threads, creating something from nothing, weaving parts together, was a salve to an overwhelming sense of dissintegration.
Great rumintions on this odd time in the middle. Have you read Kieran Setiya’s “Mid-Life”? I really liked it. As a philosopher, he adds an extra dimension to the self help genre that sometimes gets molasses in the current pop psychological study of the day.
Coincidentally, I just finished relistening to it yesterday!
The other concept I’ve been toying with for a couple years is the Hindu stages of life (Āśrama), especially as we transition from being householders to seekers of wisdom.
You crochet too! Nice to meet you 🙂 I’m hoping to work up the courage to actual post something here. I want to write about the connection between being creative and our mental health.
(There’s a link to my website in my bio, where you can see some of my work, if you wanted to check out soft sculpture)
I'll be here for it if and when you do. I'm on IG too and followed you. I'm Emma McBean. My crochet IG is Rainmakerdesign but I don't post there much anymore. Beautiful work! Im particularly drawn to the slow stitch with messages. 💜
I definitively have a bout of midlife melancholia. Having a creative practice for the past few years has helped and is helping. As someone whose chronic conditions have gotten worse in the last couple of years, which are affecting my day to day life, I’m also mourning a very recent past life. But, making art helps. And hopefully writing too, in the new year.
Thank you so much for commenting and sharing. The grief and mourning of what could have been is, I think, a very real step in development. Some people experience it very consciously, maybe moreso than others. I'm a big "feeler" and there is no lever within me (that I have found yet) to dial that back... And I don't necessarily want to either. What is, if I might ask, your favorite creative practice? I tend to draw and watercolor but writing has always been a constant.
This is so lovely, Emily, deeply considered and felt -- and the conception and construction of it is impressive too. I have to say that while I experienced what's commonly called a 'midlife crisis" -- lasted intensely for about 3 months at the age of 43 -- it would otherwise be a challenge to distinguish my midlife melancholy from my youthful and older melancholy. LOL
The essential lines for me: "Just a minute, I'm busy, I'll be right with you, working on something important in here!"
I definitely resonated with this, although I might be past mid-life. I still have the outlines of doors shimmer in the corners of my eyes. I could be a reading tutor, an OT, a vet tech....only to realize that once I finished the required training, I might be past the age to start a brand new career, I might not have the money, I don’t have the freedom.
"We all have a room that we live in that is our life. As a child, your room had many doors leading to undiscovered hallways with secret passageways to great ballrooms and elaborate gardens. As many doors as you could imagine opened to all of your possible lives that you could lead in the future." A beautiful rumination on these doors and how we perceive them through the years.... I love the importance of the window. I don't think I draw much on "imagination," but I definitely think the windows are important.
I've been planning to finally "actually" read Mrs. Dalloway ever since you mentioned it a while back. It will have to be part of my list for January. Thank you for the shout-out, too. I really appreciate it.
I probably could have cut the whole thing in half but just went with it. It struck me the other day... External doors closing, internal ones open. Curious what you think of Mrs. Dalloway when you get to it. I had to marinate in its aftermath (read about it and also watch The Hours) to get it's full effect.
I absolutely love your observation that a window is both reflective and transparent. Wow. There is so much inside that observation and it lit my mind up! Beautiful writing. So glad we've found each other's work!
Thank you for reading. Feeling deeply this week and needed some metaphors to get me through it.
My main art practice is making soft sculpture. It’s how I process my lived experience of chronic pain and anxiety. I like using slow stitching, felting, and crocheting. I also play in my sketchbooks, with pens and watercolours.
Soft sculpture. I looked it up as I wasn't familiar with the term. I am an avid crocheter; mostly of mandalas. And, am also a sketchbook dabbler.
Oh, and I journal. That is my favourite creative practice!
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing. It's nice to meet your virtual acquaintance. I think it's so amazing how working with our hands with materials (writing included) allows us to work through and process our internal emotional and physical pain, logjams, etc. I picked up crochet specifically after a painful divorce five years ago. Connecting the threads, creating something from nothing, weaving parts together, was a salve to an overwhelming sense of dissintegration.
This sounds really cool!
Great rumintions on this odd time in the middle. Have you read Kieran Setiya’s “Mid-Life”? I really liked it. As a philosopher, he adds an extra dimension to the self help genre that sometimes gets molasses in the current pop psychological study of the day.
Coincidentally, I just finished relistening to it yesterday!
The other concept I’ve been toying with for a couple years is the Hindu stages of life (Āśrama), especially as we transition from being householders to seekers of wisdom.
Thank you! I know neither and shall take a look!
Cool! Here is my blog post from a year ago about Setiya's "Mid-life":
https://www.grizzlypear.com/midlife-a-philosophical-guide-kieran-setiya-2017/
And the Wikipedia entry on Asrama is good start for scanning the concept...and Arthur Brooks "From Strength to Strength" touches on it as well
Thank you!
Thank you! I’ve followed you back. I love the author portraits 😍
You crochet too! Nice to meet you 🙂 I’m hoping to work up the courage to actual post something here. I want to write about the connection between being creative and our mental health.
(There’s a link to my website in my bio, where you can see some of my work, if you wanted to check out soft sculpture)
I'll be here for it if and when you do. I'm on IG too and followed you. I'm Emma McBean. My crochet IG is Rainmakerdesign but I don't post there much anymore. Beautiful work! Im particularly drawn to the slow stitch with messages. 💜
I definitively have a bout of midlife melancholia. Having a creative practice for the past few years has helped and is helping. As someone whose chronic conditions have gotten worse in the last couple of years, which are affecting my day to day life, I’m also mourning a very recent past life. But, making art helps. And hopefully writing too, in the new year.
Thank you so much for commenting and sharing. The grief and mourning of what could have been is, I think, a very real step in development. Some people experience it very consciously, maybe moreso than others. I'm a big "feeler" and there is no lever within me (that I have found yet) to dial that back... And I don't necessarily want to either. What is, if I might ask, your favorite creative practice? I tend to draw and watercolor but writing has always been a constant.
This is so lovely, Emily, deeply considered and felt -- and the conception and construction of it is impressive too. I have to say that while I experienced what's commonly called a 'midlife crisis" -- lasted intensely for about 3 months at the age of 43 -- it would otherwise be a challenge to distinguish my midlife melancholy from my youthful and older melancholy. LOL
The essential lines for me: "Just a minute, I'm busy, I'll be right with you, working on something important in here!"
I definitely resonated with this, although I might be past mid-life. I still have the outlines of doors shimmer in the corners of my eyes. I could be a reading tutor, an OT, a vet tech....only to realize that once I finished the required training, I might be past the age to start a brand new career, I might not have the money, I don’t have the freedom.