‘And bees too…’

When the sky gets big

I shared on my Instagram stories this week that I’d had yet another rejection, one more to add to a six month long list. I’ve not been successful in a single thing I’ve applied for this year—every bursary, grant and residency— I’ve been rejected for. I shared how this is part of the creative life: we do our best, give our all but sometimes whole years look like this and that is normal and ok! Last night I dreamed of a golden swan in the water, and I could see the fine, swift workings beneath the surface and I understood what the dream was reminding me.

Yesterday we noticed the borage I grew from see had flowered. “Like this blue one mammy, and bees too” — my wee one told me as he held it in his wee hand. Noticing, already, at only two, the world around him and the ways in which it makes his heart sing. Naming that love, and recognising that something he loves can also be loved by a small creature— a flying one; a striped one; a buzzy one— one so different from him in many ways but so similar too. The things we each need—all of us creatures— are often more alike than we would take them for. All flourishing, as the wonderful Robin Wall Kimmerer said, is mutual. The rejection I received this week was for a bursary I’d hoped to write a book about (m)otherhood with the support of. I knew even when applying that there wasn’t a chance I’d get it, really. Even reading over the summary now of the book I’m wildly moved by the fact I thought at all to apply—given the nature of the material— but there is something in me that still feels it is important to place oneself in the line of good things.

I detailed in the application how tricky I have found it to be a new mother in this world of publishing in which I am so grateful to have found myself. I wrote it at the beginning of the year, mere days after we had moved our whole life here to the west of Ireland with no real idea if we’d ever be able to afford to buy a house here. Still , we knew we would make a home here. Already we have, in this rented cottage, again something for which I am so grateful. We placed ourselves there in the light of good things and we trust that all will be well. That we will find the way to do you the derelict cottage we were lucky enough to buy, that I will find a way to work alongside mothering the way I know I need to, that my partner will find the right ways for him to work in ways he wants to. The money would have helped so much, of course it would have, but really the truth of it is that us creative folk always seem to find a way through. Something always comes long and then we understand that really it is going to be ok after all. The picture above was taken on Sunday at a soft play birthday party. I was not in any way prepared for how much I would enjoy it. Children’s joy is contagious, it is colourful, it is communal. It was a gorgeous way to go into the week.

Some other good things from this week…

I read, in the garden, between thunderstorms, THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. It is a glorious telling of how the creatures all got their colours and I thought it looked gorgeous beside CACOPHONY OF BONE, a book that also looks at creatures and art and colour. I feel that there is a market for serious, beautifully crafted reviews of children’s literature and I hope to start looking at some children’s books on here too.

I can (and have) mapped moments of vast change in my life with This is the Kit albums, and this exquisite one is no different. CAREFUL OF YOUR KEEPERS is a glistening, raw and searching album exploring change and what it means to live in a world where so much is outwith our control. And I think it’s about finding beauty in that, for there is much beauty in those places of deepest unknowing:

‘The lines will take you somewhere else

And the sky will take you somewhere else…

This is when the sky gets big

This is where the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big’

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the sky gets big

This is when the- ’

I placed flowers from the garden and laneway into my favourite vessel, made by the hands of one of my favourite people, and it made me happy and as if I were closer to her.

I spent half an hour in the garden while my son was being bathed by his dada with this important, soul shattering collection. This is a replacement copy—the copy my dear friend L sent me long before I was pregnant— the one I speak of in CACOPHONY, was taken from my bedside just hours after I gave birth to my son. I wonder, often, where it ended up, and hope it brought as much comfort to the person who took it as it does to me. I listened to this afterwards, and would highly recommend it. Liz Berry, my heart!

I held, in my grateful hands before bed last night, this beautiful creature. Ki’s wee body vibrating against my skin before flying off again was such a tonic; a gorgeous way to enter the silken folds of night.

How much beauty there is in this world, how much to notice and protect and be grateful for.

How big the sky.

Thanks for reading, it means the world to me. If you like my work perhaps you would consider a paid subscription to access all my material. Hope you have a big sky weekend X