June | 2023 | waves and pebbles

Journaled poems

I first wrote a poem when I started writing Morning Pages (Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way). It somehow just flowed onto the page as I wrote my three pages of free writing. It was a poem to me, but not in the sense of a proper poem written by a poet. However, it was very personal and special to me. Since that time I have written quite a number of such poems, especially when I was going through a period of depression. I’ve always referred to them as my doomy gloomy poems. I kept these for a long while as although they were a bit gloomy, by the end of the poem I was turning things around so they had a positive slant. This all happened at the time I decided to write. I would start writing something, often deciding to have a set number of syllables and rhyming line endings but no set pattern, just spontaneous decisions which carried through until the poem was finished. I would say that during that time, at least part of it, I was in flow, I became immersed in what I was doing and lost all track of time.

I haven’t written many in recent years and they tend not to be so gloomy. From time to time I have gone through them and wanted to do something with them. I compiled a draft book with them all in, in alphabetical order, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. There was nothing special about it, no special meaning for me. So I put it aside.

Photo memories

I thought about having the poems illustrated. I’m no artist but I do love taking photos, they are like my diary of life. So one day I just came up with the idea of choosing one of my photos to go with each poem, with their own linked memory. Alongside this, I had decided to select my favourites and ten seemed to be the perfect number. One poem is a haiku written during a creative workshop, the rest are journaled poems written quietly, either at home or in a local cafe … or in one case, on a train when it was delayed and stuck in the middle of the countryside.

Some months after, I have given the book a name and am self-publishing under my Waves and Pebbles imprint. It is a tiny book with few pages but it has ended up meaning so much to me. I decided to write just a couple of pages of endnotes that say a little about the memories.

Repurposed painting

I recently started doing a mixed media mantra art course with artist Kelly Rae Roberts and that has got me back into playing around with paint. One day I decided to paint over a large canvas of a painting I did en plein air in the garden where I used to live and have ended up with the work-in-progress painting shown in the picture. I decided this was perfect for my book cover and just added a blob for the back cover to represent the sun and remind me of the beautiful sunrises and sunsets that I experienced when I lived on the beautiful Isle of Thanet coast in the south east of England.

The blob makes all the difference to the back cover!

I’m excited to say that the book dropped through my door a couple of days ago. It will be online, official publication date was yesterday – a year on from my last book “Writing Back to Happiness” written in collaboration with four wonderful ladies in Thanet. I notice that some countries already have it available but it has not yet worked through the system to be everywhere and will appear in time. I’m not sure how other people may experience “Ripples” A journey through belonging 10 poems with personal photos and endnotes (by Kay Underdown) but for me it helps show a different way of representing personal memories and preserving them for the future.

Self-publishing – pricing dilemma

I have found it very difficult to put a price on this book as it is very slim. Often we are guided by the size of something in putting a monetary value on things yet if I think of what else you could buy for so little, it is not very much. For me, I will treasure my little book with the memories it holds safe for me and provides the starting point for more little stories in life, whether written or visual. More recently, I have explored sound and music in telling a digital story in relation to my personal experience of cancer … but that is definitely for another post.

I decided to have a 40 day adventure by writing in my travel journal, a gift to myself many years ago that has lain dormant, waiting for some special time. I had no idea where I was heading, it was to be an adventure in life as opposed to an actual journey, although I had already planned to go away for a few days to Scotland. I just felt the need for it, life wasn’t turning out quite how I had hoped and I knew something needed to change. I needed an adventure.

This seat overlooks Botany Bay on the Isle of Thanet at The Botany Bay Hotel … thoroughly recommended

It wasn’t long before I started revisiting what my dream had been some years ago, to have a little seaside cafe named Pebbles. Rather than dwell on an unfulfilled dream, I thought about what it was that I enjoyed about café life. Cafés, and other sociable daytime places such as hotel lounges and bars, have the potential to be wonderful places to spend time – but it has to be the right place. A place where I can feel welcome yet left to immerse myself in my own thoughts. Whether it be developing ideas, writing or reading a book or just wanting to sit and absorb the surroundings.

The Botany Bay Hotel is in the distance on the right

So what is it about cafés that draw me in? Sometimes it may be the local cafe that becomes a place where I find a sense of belonging and community, seeing familiar faces. These may not be friends but may be acquaintances and even conversations or brief interaction with strangers can make my inner self feel connected. Other times, it’s a place with a view, a seascape with time to reflect at leisure on life or just to immerse myself in just feeling totally blessed by my surroundings.

Through writing in my journal, it reinforced the importance to me of nature and creativity. I have written things like “My little world of joyful nature” and then added my thoughts on what this is. I also came up with the phrase “I am a social entrepreneur, inspired by life, grounded by nature”. On reflection, now I want to reverse it – inspired by nature, grounded by life. Perhaps that’s for a discussion another time.

Birds are all around us as soon as we step out the door. They have the potential to captivate me, especially the little robin that joined me during the first lockdown when I tinkered with gardening. The seagull holds a special place in my heart yet others seem to despise the way they scavenge and steal. The baby seagulls are innocent of this in the early years, still learning and relying on their parent for food. If one comes knocking on your window with a cute, quizzical face be prepared to fall in love with the soft, feathery bundle that walks on stilts. Seagull parents are the most protective so a handy umbrella for protection from dive-bombing can be a plus.

Some birds capture our wonder before we have even caught sight of a real one. The colours of the Kingfisher, often depicted in flight captured by photos or within a work of art, captivate me whenever I see them. I am grateful to have a beautiful painting by a dear friend and this reminds me of Margate on the Isle of Thanet where she was exhibiting at the time. On the other wall is a painting of Botany Bay sunrise by another artist friend living in Scotland. Each picture brings back a host of special memories and stories regarding the people and places. It intrigues me the power that pictures have, aside from their intrinsic value and interest as a work of fine art.

Returning to birds, I am reminded of the joyful birdsong that greeted me whenever I ventured into the garden early in the morning with no other sounds to distract me from these magical notes of pure happiness. Drawn to look up to the sky and consider the wonder of flight, particularly the murmurations of starlings that take me back to special times by the Thames Estuary in Kent.

So well might you be wondering what is this to do with my travel journal and having an adventure. I believe an adventure in life can be had at any time of our choosing. It’s about being open to opportunities, whatever else may be going on in life that is outside of our control. It’s enjoying exciting exploration of what is out there to experience combined with an introspective inquiry, what do I really want to do? Oftentimes I don’t actually know what I want to do and having discovered that there are people who are multi-pods or multi-potentialities (look up Emily Wapnick on YouTube), I realise I lean that way. What that means to me is that sometimes I have so many interests and so much going on in my head that it needs somewhere to go, to be offloaded, to try and make sense of it all and to bring back clarity. In essence, to simplify life and bring it back to the basics. My travel journal does all of this and more.

It took me on a real journey to Scotland and an unexpectedly extended holiday traversing the Lake District, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Peak District. I drove along routes that filled me with a little trepidation when there were warning signs regarding breathing and altitude. The reward was a stop off to admire the view and take in the peacefulness and fresh mountain air. I stayed at different places, discovered those I would love to return to and felt such a sense of freedom. I made few plans, often guided by where the next Starbucks was, somewhere I could sit in my car and refresh, ready for the next journey onwards. I am a free spirit still learning to live within the confines of life as it is today. Enjoying aloneness versus craving connection. A paradox in life.