52 Ordinary Words: Beginning

© Sophia Roberts

I rarely experience difficulties starting anything.   The same has not always been said, of my ability to finish projects.  Hence my environment used to be littered with WIPs (works in progress).   Periodically I would decide to either ditch them. altogether, or to make a super human effort to complete a few.  

When I considered that honour had been satisfied (most of the WIPs were finished) I would allow myself to start something new.  Needless to say this didn’t last long.   If there was a loophole I could use to justify having several other new projects on the go, I endorsed it; and before long the quantity of WIPs had escalated; I was back where I started.

I now liken my behaviour to that of a yo-yo dieter; I was indulging in a form of cyclic comfort eating, whenever I felt tired or blue. No sooner had I satisfied a desire for the hit of instant gratification then I felt the need to start something else.  

I can’t say that I’m 'cured', but several things have made a radical difference.  This is one of them.  About fifteen years ago I admired S’s Book Diary that she’d been keeping for over forty years.  It was an impressive chronological record of her reading history.  I decided to start one of my own and throughout 1997 I wrote down details of every book that I read. 

I resolved that I would only record titles that I read from cover-to-cover.  I was usually inclined to do this, but in order to be quite sure I now took a great deal more care when choosing to start a book, in the first place.  This new habit bore fruit.  By the end of 1997 I had a record of what I'd committed to finish and tangible evidence that I could regulate myself - if I really wanted to. 

My Book Diary was an end product, but I had learnt something important about myself and what works for me; I had also learnt something about the importance of honouring the process that a beginning heralds.   If there’s no commitment to an ending, then why finish anything... ? I now knew the quality of an ending is reflected in the quality of a beginning; the attention paid to preparation.  David Whyte makes this point in his book, ‘Consolations’ when he says, “the ability to make a good beginning is an art form.” 

I think this is particularly true when beginning a creative project.  In her book, 'The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life', Twyla Thorp says, "In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative." She talks about rituals that bring us into the zone, whilst Whyte talks about clearing.

Whyte touches on the risks that attach to beginnings, which I find particularly pertinent.  I think that for most of my life I didn’t appreciate the risk that attaches to starting something.  Maybe, if I had I’d have been less inclined to dive in head-first.

I am about to start a course called Dreaming on Paper: The Creative Sketchbook, which beginning will take me well out of my comfort-zone. Indeed I feel some reluctance to start, because I have serious doubts that I will be able to do it justice – I am not an artist. There is definitely a part of me that is afraid to participate, because "I have nothing new to offer."

I’m going to have to practice Beginner’s Mind: to have an attitude of openness, eagerness, and a lack of preconceptions!

31 Things: Rings

I wear necklaces, bracelets and brooches if the occasion demands it; but I never go out without I wear a pair of earrings, two crosses - worn on a very long chain beneath my blouse - and one of two wrist watches; and three rings: two on my right hand and one on my left. 

The only ring I can remember my mother wearing was a chunky plastic one – which may be doing her an injustice.  But, I don’t think she cared that much for traditional jewellery. The woman who did wear some jewellery in our family was my maternal grandmother. However, the only ring my grandmother wore was her wedding ring, which she couldn’t remove, because her hands were crippled with arthritis. 

For many years I wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing silver and gold jewellery together; it was a fashion rule. This was a very convenient – if expensive – rule to follow because I didn’t like silver or even own anything silver. I say expensive, because I have never liked anything imitation and gold was no exception. It had to be the real thing or nothing. 

I don’t remember when it happened, but at some point I decided that “I prefer silver now, and not gold.” Maybe it coincided with a mid-life crisis; or maybe at some point I decided that silver, or platinum was classier.  Whatever; I could now afford to own any number of earrings (which I was forever losing) and bracelets – even rings if I wanted to - simply because they were so much cheaper than their gold counterparts,

But this was the moment that that rule about mixing metals went out of the window: silver bracelets and bangles looked good on me, but silver rings did not. No matter how much I wanted to go for an all-silver look, it wasn’t to be. Fantasy hit reality when even the salesgirl, who was desperate to sell me a heavy silver ring, had to concede that silver didn’t suit me.

So, when I married again it was going to have to be a couple of gold rings, and that being the case I knew I wanted an engagement ring set with a red garnet. But, once again, the colour of my skin let me down – a garnet didn’t look right on me. Instead we chose an amethyst in an unusual filigree setting together with a wedding ring in the shape of a wishbone; the contours were a match made in heaven. 

Emma Lee

And despite my dream of having an engagement ring to die for, my fiancé only had to hand over a mere £40 (it was on special offer!) 

Emma Roberts

After a civil ceremony these rings, which I wore on my left hand, told the secular world that I was a married woman. 

Sophia Roberts

The plain gold 18 carat band, with which I was married in church, six weeks later, I wear on my right hand (I’m an Eastern Orthodox Christian). 

Wedding of Anthony and Sophia Roberts

I had all three rings blessed. 

This was the arrangement until we went to Wales for the first time, six years later. We were so delighted with Wales that T bought me a ring that had been designed and made in the heart of Wales. I chose a moonstone (no amethyst available), because a diamond would have made what we intended to be merely a holiday souvenir prohibitively expensive. However, after we came home, I considered that my engagement ring had become perilously thin, so I took the opportunity to replace it - and the secular wedding ring - with my new Welsh ring.

On my right hand, just above my wedding ring is another Welsh ring - an eternity ring. We bought this on our next trip to Wales, the following September.  As our wedding anniversary wasn’t until July I knew I had a wait on my hands (!) But, my very romantic husband took my hand, in the early hours of a May morning, just as the first light of Easter emerged from the sanctuary, and slipped the eternity ring over the fourth finger of my right hand. It may not have been theologically appropriate, but it was a wonderful gesture.

I am grateful to Ali Edwards for this prompt.

I've finished Blogging from the Heart!

© Sophia Roberts

I've been working at full-pelt to finish Blogging from the Heart! before I start Photo Meditations on Monday. It will be good to get back to photography on a regular basis after a break of almost a month.

I set out to do three things this year and this blog was one of them. To facilitate this I signed up for course with Susannah Conway. I wanted to get it right.

I’m no stranger to blogging, but I knew next to nothing about how to go about writing a good personal blog.  I've discovered I didn’t know how to do it MY way - to do myself justice. To be honest it’s come as a relief to have a blog as a platform for my voice.

So, I have discovered a new – and a very different way to share on-line. A lot of what I’ve shared thus far, in this space, I wouldn't have considered appropriate for my Facebook page where I rarely share anything personal. 1300 readers/followers doesn’t lend itself to being personal – besides, my FB page is more of an information portal. My blog is for ME and I’m really enjoying myself.

The weeks of the course I enjoyed the most were writing my Mission Statement (for my own reference) and the personal statement featured to the right of this post. From a more practical point of view I have specifically discovered how to:

create a snazzy header (if and when I want one)
the best size photos to use and how discourage other people from using my images by the use of titles that are also links
that I can use my FB page and Google+ to alert the world to my blog. I'm shouting out about just the one post a week  - self-promotion can be very wearing (!)

So, it's onwards and upwards with a blog that's about me - and for me!

A photograph that changed my life

© Sophia Roberts

You could say that photography changed my life. 

When suffering from crippling depression in 2013 I took Andrea Sher’s online photography course, Superhero Photo.  I chose this course because I was attracted by Andrea’s philosophy that “photography is more than a hobby — it’s a way of seeing & experiencing the world. And it’s not about technical skill, or having the latest lenses & gadgets — it’s about chasing light, capturing delight, and shifting our perspectives — literally and artistically.” 

It worked.  Six weeks later I was different person.

I had a new interest in life.  I only had a compact digital SLR but I now used it to take numerous photographs when I went abroad for the first time in twenty years, to visit Poland and Oman.  I was delighted with the feedback I received, which made me think that I may have a talent for making photographs.  

So I decided to take another on-line course in the summer of 2014.  And I discovered Kim Manley Ort and Contemplative Photography.  I had no idea such a thing existed!

By way of a taster I subscribed to Kim's free Roots of Photography course and I then signed up for her course, Adventures in Seeing.  But I was apprehensive, not least because I am housebound, with MS.  I am often restricted to what's available within my home or what I see when I look out of the window.  I thought that I had probably exhausted what was available to me in 2013.  Not a bit of it; I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was – and is (!) – a lot more to see, right here.

I learnt a lot from this course – not least that I had a lot to learn about contemplative photography.  I didn’t really get it… 

But I had found something that ticked all the right boxes for me: it was creative, spiritual and academic.  And – for me – it was also about people.  I could share what I’d seen, with the world (thanks to social media and blogging).

I'd  been very impressed by Kim and by her gentle, supportive teaching style, and I knew now that I wanted to do ALL her courses.  So the time had come to invest in a ‘real’ camera. I bought myself a Nikon D3300. 

The next course on Kim's agenda was The 50mm Project course (since discontinued), which meant buying my first prime lens.  I was also discovering that photography has the potential to be a costly hobby (!)  But prime lenses are worth evert penny.  I now have several.

As it soon became apparent that I knew next to nothing about the technicalities of handling my new camera The 50mm Project represented a steep learning curve.  However with a little application on my part I began, by the third week, to get the hang of things. In the past I'd never paused and thought about how to go about making a photograph (save how to frame an image); so, gone were the days of 'point and shoot'.

This image represents the first time I made conscious decisions when taking a photograph and achieved a modicum of success.  I was – and am – inordinately proud of it. 

It represents the moment when I felt strongly that I may have found my inner calling.

Am I the brand around here?

Sophia Roberts

Because I'm anxious to get this new blog right I'm signed up for Susannah Conway's Blogging from the Heart! course. And yesterday's lesson has got me thinking about comments and how our readership affects what we post. I definitely post different things in different spaces. On Facebook I'm much more inclined to post trivia - albeit interesting trivia (!) But there I'm sharing with 'friends', people with whom I have an established relationship, even if we don't necessarily - strictly speaking - know one another. On Google+ it tends to be mainly articles about photography, so a different audience, again.  

I also host a community blog for the Writers Group I run, which is little more than a repository for the work we want to share with the world at large. In five years I don't believe anyone has ever commented - not once. And it doesn't bother me in the slightest! 

I've had other more personal blogs in the past (dedicated to crochet, origami and the craft of writing), but I let them go, for all sorts of reasons I won't go into here. In those days I had followers, who left comments - and it delighted me. Which makes me feel childish... But, thinking on it, all my blogs, hitherto, have largely been repositories for information, particularly about craft. And impersonal.

So, this very new blog is seeking to be a bit different: to be a little more revealing. It will share aspects of me that the rest of my other on-line platforms don't know about. This is going to be more like a magazine - not really a definable brand. Unless, of course I am the the brand. Ooooooo, er; there's a thought! 

Of course I will welcome comments here and the opportunity to get to know my readers. But, ultimately, this is for me. I'm creating a visual diary - a record of the discoveries I'm making, what I think and where I'm going next. If people want to read along with me and comment that will be great. In the meantime I'm beginning to understand why people say blogging is a creative activity. I'm enjoying myself!