So how do you move on?
Pain and ongoing ill-health will undoubtedly continue on both fronts as my husband and I straddle that (in?)significant number 60.
I think, by way of looking back and realising that growth is possible under difficult circumstances helps. I can plod on when feeling dull and delicate. Then I can zoom about when feeling energised and well. I shall try not to hijack myself as I am prone to doing. By seeing myself as unworthy, not seeing the value in what I have to offer, I scupper myself. I might not be what other artists, singers, songwriters are, but I do have an all-pervading Elena-ness that they cannot hope to achieve. I hope that the looking back enables me to be brave as I look forward… that I learn to persevere and accept.
Elena-ness is a daft word I know, but it encompasses everything I am or have been: the child, the mother, the woman, maturing with inherent wisdoms and invisibilities too. The artist I now am, and the singer and songwriter that I’m still shy to admit to being. I recognise individuality and the value and strength in it. My reach may become less as I become physically restricted. But influence and affect is not about physical size or fitness.
2019 is already looking interesting in the planning – especially musically to push the year off. I’m looking at the songs that are not band songs, but most definitely Elena songs. I’m pushing them as far as I can, so that I know who they are and the shape of them before I take them to someone else to help me record, play, produce… I have things to say in songs that are different things to those in my drawings, or they are needing to be said in a different way.
I will be working with people who I love, admire and respect, who I feel give me the same in return. These people recharge me and I leave them always with a full heart and a smile, with a brain buzzing with inspiration. There have been some in the recent past that I have allowed myself to be used by, taken advantage of, who have discarded me with no concern. So now, with wisdom hard earned, I don’t do that any more if I can help it. If I surround myself with the ones I know to be warm and encouraging, the pain in my joints will feel less significant.
In 2018 my work came closer to my skin.
It has become more real to me.
I came to love it more deeply.
This is where authenticity sits.
