Blyton, E. (1950). The Land of Far-beyond. p. 12 (Leaving lockdown!)
The contents of my cupboards, wardrobe, drawers, and cabinets have never looked so neat, aligned, contained, and ordered; my control over an uncontrolled time. I sometimes randomly open one up and stare at its ordered curated contents; bliss! However at times my emotions and mind don’t seem to be able to comprehend the death tolls, the loss and the endless grief, grief manifests itself in the lungs and this is part of the killer’s skills, sending me into a breathless panic; how long can this last, will we bugger all our hard work up for “the greater good” and end up back at level 4 again; will the virus mutate and come back for the ones it missed? I hope not!
Standing in my kitchen I ask myself what do I do first today? Not enough time to do things, too much time to think about doing them. I can feel the ‘decision fatigue’ loitering in the back of my mind, in my normal routine I’m sure I don’t normally make so many decisions in a run of the mill day, my fight or flight response has now been reduced to questions, such as did I set the timer when I put the cake in 25minutes ago, oh bugger no I didn’t! Did I clean my teeth before I put child No.1 on the mat for hitting his brother?! This gives zest to the day and give the brain a high, however with every high then along comes the “lull” of lockdown, the energy goes and my eyes slide back to staring out of the window again!
The pressure to perform under this emotional stress is great; lose weight, learn a language, simply home in on becoming the ultimate you, or make a sourdough starter… oh, get stuffed, do you think I’m made of hands? It’s intense. “Want” and “Should” questions plague me, I “want” to work and create, oh god and to do my BLOG(S)!!! But I “should” be sitting with the children and helping them learn while my husband teaches online! Locked lull lockdown syndrome!
I achieved something today, I got dressed before 9am, I’m quite proud of that fact, both children sat down and did their school work, I made a cake, and then I decided to start my sourdough starter, my third child! I was sent the ‘method’ by an elderly relative in Rome who has had the same starter for 50years, who has passed on this secret of how to make the best sourdough starter ever, “it has magical properties, only 3 others know this method, child; if you stuff it up I will curse you or haunt you forever! However, If you can do this, you can feed your family, nurture them and provide for them while all the world goes through a period of turmoil”. I’ll give it a go! DNA passing on to DNA, enzymes, ph. levels, a biochemists dream, it lives, it breathes, the starter is its soul, it lives!
‘The starter day 5, the third child’ May 20202
‘Crumbs of thought, brain filler during lockdown’, Sourdough bread and Hat pin. May 2020
It has moods, it’s sensitive to its environment, it needs you to nurture it and feed it, it’s your third child! I woke at 2am one night, I had forgot to feed the starter, I dragged my carcass out of bed and fumbled around for the kitchen light, finding the slide marks (if you have ever made a sourdough starter you will know what they are) screaming out for me to feed it’s starving enzymes; oh no, how could I be so forgetful, it had sat for an extra four hours waiting for my attention, sobbing and crying in the corner, waiting, needing to be cultivated. After feeding it and replacing the cover, I went back to bed and slept uneasily once again. I have not slept well since the lockdown started, and when I do sleep my dreams are surreal, yet have a sense of reality to them. The one that sticks out from this week is related to my research of the processional Madonna (I have been looking at the bare bones of the structure under the layering of the fabric, wood, wicker, and rope etc); alongside this the washing and repacking away of my children’s baby knits that family and friends had given us when each of the boys were born. They are stored under our bed in their old Moses basket; I decided to wash the lot in Lux, I have packed them away to give to them one day! In the dream I was standing within the old cottage where I grew up back in the UK, it was cold and frosty outside and even colder inside, my feet felt like ice. I looked down at the worn out empty basket, reached towards it and placed my arms through the handles and put it on my back like a rucksack. It felt so heavy like a burden, the shape of it forced my head forward and down so I was crunched up and it restricted my breathing, yet at the same time protecting my soft underbelly. I tried quite a few times to remove it but its handles dug deeper into my shoulders, the frost began to encroach into the house and the floor became slippery. I came to the door in my old bedroom which had been once the original stair case, but my parents blocked it up forming a new room and built an alternative staircase elsewhere in the house, however the stairs still remained beneath the floor; from the bottom the stairs hit a ceiling. I slipped and fell down the old steps as the floor gave way, waking with a start…
‘Reaching down dream’ May 2020
As a child my mother would read me lots of Enid Blyton stories before bed in my old bedroom with the blocked stair case, my favorite story was and still is ‘The land of far-beyond’ which is a child’s version of Pilgrims Progress, the prints by Horace Knowles accompanying Blyton’s work are stunning. We all go through tough times and it does feel like the burden of that particular moment will be with us forever as our anxieties and fears feed into its weight. Sometimes we have to carry these burdens, become tired and bored of them and then move on. It seems silly, but I feel that the making of the sourdough starter was a focus point for me trying to control the burdening fear and anxiety I have experienced throughout this lockdown, and when I piled up intentions and fabric onto the Madonna (check in for the next post) they seemed to always have the weight and volume at the back like she was carrying all the worries and anxieties around. If you are religious, maybe this is what you want her to do. However, Covid-19 looms still looms on the horizon and it’s fall-out will be our burden we will all have to carry in some shape or form…
A couple of ideas and material play during lockdown…
‘Hold on to your past as it will push you through this time’, play with fabric and ideas. 1950’s Nana’s gloves, May 2020
Mary’s collar, play with fabric and ideas May 2020
Blyton, E. (1950). The Land of Far-beyond. Methuen