Usually I’ve finished my weekly letter to you by now, but today I’ve been busy with physical letters: ‘A New Topography’ arrived back from the printers yesterday and is starting another journey to those of you who have ordered a copy. Thank you. I look forward to learning that they have reached you safely and I hope you will share your thoughts in response to this latest book.
Earlier in the week I wrote something on Notes, which quietly died the death that this part of the Substack app can engender:
As creatives we are full of it, our heads swirl with ideas and possibilities. We lavish them with love, attention, and oodles of time. Our outputs can at times feel like our babies: we birth them, raise them and ultimately set them free.
We are full of doubt too. ‘Average’ doesn’t cut it. ‘Above average’ - nah! It has to be the best it can be, that we can be. Doing it all yourself is perhaps the mark of the perfectionist? Or is it control freak - it’s a fine line. It's the one I’m accustomed to for prints and handmade books but this all comes with consequences: material costs and time inputs that don’t accord with producing something small, affordable and accessible. Producing ‘A New Topography’ has meant opening myself up, not just in terms of the words written (emoted), but handing my images over to someone else to print. Queue plenty of tweaking, finessing and checking of writing, artwork and CMYK colour conversions. I was nonetheless happy to send the completed file off to print last week.
After a few quiet days the mind games start. Did I miss anything? Have I made the right choices? I’ve been busying myself with the admin - invoices, labels and packaging for orders received - but as the time nears for the books to arrive I have to admit to feeling nervous. Will the reproduction be okay? Will this first book of writing and images be good enough, and its consequential partner - am I good enough? We expect everyone to look at our creations with the same hypercritical gaze that we do. At times it makes you wonder why we put ourselves through it, but making is a part of who we are, and sharing feels like the right thing to do.
I’ll let you know how it pans out…
As it happens, I’m satisfied with the result. My husband, not always impressed, says it’s great, but being British I was brought up on understatement. It’s funny how on one level we can be full of optimism and confidence and on another we can even doubt our ability to complete all the postage forms.
I don’t think I need to make excuses, but it has been a challenging few weeks. My quiet place, the source of so much comfort in troubling times, is less so: changes are afoot that bring noise and uncertainty, and I’m having a hard time getting used to it.
I’m returned to these words: “Were it not for shadows there would be no beauty.”
I’m finding it hard to find that place of ease at the moment, the joy in noticing, the embrace of nature. As always it is the actions of man that impinge, and this time it is close to home. It’s been hard to notice the small beauty as the echo of machines follows me into the wood; grey weather has compounded the mood, and even my writing has faltered. I’m having to recalibrate, to reflect on the depth of my attachment to place. I resent the intrusion; it has brought shadows and as yet I cannot connect with beauty. I know this will return, but it has made me wonder about my attachment to place.
What is it that draws us to a place?
Do we delude ourselves that it calls
As we blindly rush in?
Do we think to hear its voice
In the wind, among the leaves, through the birds’ song?
Are we like the weeds, rooting in the smallest crack?
Does it fill a gap, the interstices between stones of thought
Our lack of belonging
Our drift in the wind
Our weakening over time
Our guilt at what we inflict on nature
I’m contemplating a potentially uncomfortable truth: that I fall for a place too quickly, too deeply. On each of our last two moves I have quickly settled in and felt a connection with the land. The first relationship lasted for 14 years; the latest is just past two. ‘Home’ is far more than a place to live.
Thank you for joining me and for reading this. If you’ve enjoyed it, please let me know. There is also an option to become a paid subscriber if you value and would like to further support my writing here.
If you’d like to find out more about ‘A New Topography’ you’ll find full details of this book here.
You’ll find more image rich writing in previous posts on FLOW’s home page. My photography and mixed media art live here on my website.
Until next week,
That finishing up and getting ready to put something out there - it’s a VERY hard part of the creative job!
I've returned to your words a few times now. The idea of home and attachment is fascinating.
I'm thinking about online connections and social platforms bringing other dimensions to this too. How much are the attachments tied to internal longings than a current satisfaction? And to what extent does quickly falling for a new place represent a nostalgia for objects/ideas/feelings/relationships from the past?
Your reflections could extend in so many directions! I hope that in your contemplation of an uncomfortable truth that you can find renewed comfort within that curious exploration. Thank you so much for sharing and allowing so much food for thought.