Stitch This

So, I started my MA. I’m a student and my brain is wrenching and uncurling accordingly. Good brain. Well done.

And I’m trying to work out what my ‘thing’ is. I have to have a ‘thing’. I thought my thing was flow. The creative process itself. That light bulb moment. But, I don’t think this is going to work. Because, I have realised, that everything I’ve done until  now has nothing to do with the flow. And it does have everything to do with being remembered. Not fading away into nothing.

When I was younger, my ambition was to have an obituary in The Times. Not any time soon do you understand no,  when I’ve reached a healthy age. And why did I start this blog in the first place? Well, because I wanted my children to know me, to remember me as a person not just as a mother. I wanted them to remember all of me. And finally, I have always tried to keep diaries because I want to remember myself. When you read a really old entry that you wrote when you were 10, 15, or younger, it reopens the days that you lived. And you are there again. And parts of your memory are unlocked. And I have never wanted any part of my memory to be locked up.

So, my unifying theory is not flow, it is remembrance, legacy, presence. Which is a relief on one hand because I can see the pattern of what I have collected so far now. But is a huge pain in the posterior too, because I have to redo my essay plan… No one said being a student was easy. I guess there is an upside dot dot if I do really well in this MA I may get a mention when I pop off eventually … Probably in the local paper though.