Keep calm and Golly on

Hello my dear friends. Long time … 

But we are back in business, blog business.

Today I want to talk about how going “on a retreat at home”, can do miracles for resetting, reorganizing, rekindling your creative and social juices.

It turns out than just at the beginning of the summer, my social petrol tank was empty.  I found out I had no patience left when interacting with people. The braking point was a visit to my studio of a class of 7 year olds. As the 1 hour visit progressed, I was straining to keep it together: to be interested in their questions, answering at their level and when one child touched something we explicitly told the class, not to… I nearly snapped. 

When they were gone, I knew I had to reframe the situation. 

Once I dared to “go there”, I identified how impatient I had become over the last weeks/months. Not only, just now with the children. My phone had been a real burden. I was sighing at every ring or message notice. I acknowledged that a “please leave me alone” thought had been there for weeks on end but I had refused to listen and a breaking point was right in front of me.So…, what would, could help me?

Traveling was not an option. With summer upon us, it was too late to find a free spot in a summer course of some sort. I also could not face any packing and traveling and even less people I would encounter.

If “people” are the issue, home is the best place for me.

But the situation requested more than just “home”. 

I was in need of an overall social shut down.

My family is large, I have 6 siblings with their kids and grandkids, all over the world. We connect in numerous social apps: multiple messages and pictures on a daily basis, not a week without a birthday, etc.  So, this was my starting point: sending a mail to my family to explain that I needed a “time out of social interaction”. I would “go quiet” for a whole month.

I ended my mail with my new slogan: “Keep calm and Golly on”.

And that is exactly what I did.

I did calm down and set up a routine to “Golly on”. I went to the studio, daily, only for 2 up to max 3 hours in the morning. I told my studio partner, Ion, what was going on. He very kindly did not engage into big world or art issues and kept our talks light and easy. 

Ion also helped by suggesting: make something with animals, they are your favorite subject. 

Coming home I did shut off completely. I started by showering and having a good nap.   I would then do my needle point that had been sitting in a corner for years. I told myself: no pressure, just one stitch at the time.  Next, I walked my dog to another parc than usual. I would not encounter familiar faces and have to engage into small talk.  Back home I cooked a nice meal. What is fun to cook and what food do I really want? Spicy? Comfort food? Fruity?   I went to “my” super market for the sake of being “fast”. It is walking distance from my home and I know the place inside and out, no lingering.

I also decided there and then that I would stop eating sugar: sweets, biscuits, chocolate and bakery goods such as donuts, cake and pies. In short anything where sugar is a key ingredient got banned. 

My dear friends, this regime of light ceramic work in the morning and steady organization in the afternoon with as little technology as possible, did its magic.  There were for me 3 key elements to the success of my “Keep calm and Golly on”-campaign.

First of all, getting lovely responses such as “please take good care of yourself”, “just let us know if we can help”, from my extended family was very, very nice! Then there was the steady keeping up of my piano practice. If I could only cope with 5 minutes, that was fine with me. All that mattered, was “doing piano” on a daily basis.

And last but certainly not the least, is the presence of the one and only Sidonie. My miniature dachshund which is even more bonsai than her breeding standards.

Having a companion of such loyalty and adorability is priceless. Retreating for one month was not enough, and I prolonged it right into September.

I then started by accepting small social gatherings and am still going easy on those.

Work in the ceramic studio is going well and my home studio is right now in full swing with a sewing and a punch needle project.

This logo of Sidonie was designed by Ion and we use it in/on all our studio communication.