The multi-headed monster

The black-sequinned hat really got me worried. Or rather, my reaction to it did. Trotting out for sausages, I strayed into this shop selling off rather posh clothes from goodness-knows-where; the sort which if not sold where they were intended to be sold end up at the end of the line as incoming cargo in some sleepy little town like Barton. So there was this black-sequinned trilby on the mannekin in the window that I just had to try on; but quite out of character, I replaced it on the mannekin and went out of the shop without buying it. What is happening to me?

A leather-bound sangria-assisted 'blog post' coming on in Rabanal

Perhaps the self-help thing is getting to me, as I have felt rather sensible lately, at least, what I imagine sensible feels like; I could be wrong. I've been working through 'The Artist's Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering your Creative Self' by Julia Cameron. Part of it is to get some writing paper and allow one's bilge thoughts to drain away onto it every morning, and not to divulge them to anyone. This I have done, which is perhaps why there has been little blogging of late. But then half a dozen topics seemed to come to the fore, and I got that old familiar tingly feeling of 'I think I feel a blog post coming on'; but which of the many topics to tackle? Somehow I seemed to have acquired a whole heap of self-help books, and I started to evaluate them all. I have a kind of prejudice against the ones that originate in the US, and this is very wrong of me; perhaps it is because the book above seems to begin with a picture of the reader which doesn't quite fit. The reader is envisaged as someone who feels guilty if they devote a big chunk of their life to their art. This is totally opposite to me; I'm supposed to be devoting my life to my art, for a year anyway, and am feeling guilty that I don't. My to-do list has developed into a multi-headed monster too, so I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I have another book from the States beside me, called 'Sulky secrets to successful stablilzing', but this turned out not to be another self-help book. You have to understand that 'Sulky' is the brand name of an American range of thread and backings for fabrics, what might be called interfacings, but as they do an awful lot of things for fabric, stabilizer is a better name. The book contains many example of 'wearable art'*, and you can see some examples of the genre here:

http://www.sulky.com/scripts/challenge/challenge.php?YEAR=2001&CTGY=CPG-HM

...and don't think that by putting that here it contains anything that I would walk out in. Rather, it made me wonder whether the French did anything in the genre, as they seem to have an understanding of clothes which I don't see quite so much in evidence in a lot of the stuff coming from the States. Now here's something much more to my tastes:

http://www.wearableartblog.com/my_weblog/2008/07/french-fashion-designer-malam.html

Oh dear! I started by lamenting how I had gone all sensible. Is this an example of my favourite literary game, deconstruction, in action? I hope my readers feel for me; I'm torn in two by warring tendencies, just like St Paul, though here the comparison ends.

[*"wearableart" ?? Looking at this 'word' next morning, I read it as 'wear a bleart'. It seems to me that 'bleart' would be a good new word to describe a garment you couldn't possibly wear, as in 'I couldn't possibly wear that - it's a bleart'. Old Norse or summat.]

But let's go with the flow, and I must tell you more about the Sulky book. Mostly it is written by women using their sewing machines to amuse the children by embroidering animal heads on their clothing, 'their' meaning both the children's and gran's. Pitiful. But it was written in 1998 when such things suddenly became more possible, and I suppose they have learned a bit since then. But there was one page written by a man, and his page is the only one which talks about 'Sulky Firm Stiffy Tearaway', which is useful in producing an 'Elegant Evening Clutch'. Really! I'm trying to concentrate on my embroidery. Oh dear, this blog has gone in a particular direction that I'm sure is familiar to my readers. I'd better quit while I'm just a little bit ahead. But there is a lot more where that came from.

Next: (We need) the self-help book based on those who have gone before us in the faith. I'm thinking that to really help myself I need some kind of physical reminders to keep me on the right path at every moment. What about... a bangle embroidered 'WWMKD?' (What Would Margery Kempe Do?) I'm old enough to remember a few decades ago when it seemed OK to view her with a kind of amused ridicule. Back in those days, I gave her a side-long look, feeling slightly sheepish that I found her a rather attractive figure. Now I have no such compunctions, and I think I might have found my patron saint. I could do a lot worse. She ended up looking after t'owd man (hers, I mean) after he fell down the stairs. No, I'm not going to push him, I'm just saying that she is a good role model, better than she might at first appear. I recommend Gordon Mursell's book 'English Spirituality from the earliest time to 1700.' (SPCK 2001) which has a good section on her. See also

 http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/margerykempe.html

For real self-help, you just can't beat the reading of a really good book. I've become a big fan of David F. Ford, whose book 'Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love' (Cambridge 2007) is an excellent scholarly and deep and wide-ranging exploration of the biblical wisdom tradition and how it might contribute to living today. He really loves lists such as 'Nine theses and ten maxims for...' which is very 'wisdom'. But his little book 'The Shape of Living', which was the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent book in 1997, seems to be a kind of accessible preview to this, and seems to be a good fit with the way I usually feel, since he talks about the multiple 'overwhelmings' (from Noah's flood to the demands of learning new computer skills; and we can be overwhelmed by beauty as much as by pain or despair ) that we experience these days. I end with a quotation from p.xxv of the introduction:

'The conclusion will be that the wisest way to cope is not to try to avoid being overwhelmed, and certainly not to expect to be in control of everything; rather it is to live amidst the overwhelmings in a way that lets one of them be the overwhelming that shapes the others. That is the 'home' or 'school' in which the practicalities of coping can be learnt.'