In These Days ...

I sit at my typewriter
remembering my grandmother
& all my mothers,
& the minutes they lost
loving houses better than themselves

Erica Jong, extract from Women Enough.

I've been busy ... a project, of course.  A new website specifically for the project, and all kinds of other things too.

At night, I shift my aching body from my ergonomically-disasterous desk and creak to my bed ... tired from sitting rather than anything deliciously active.

But the website is almost done.  I'll launch soon, via a newsletter that shall become regular.  I'm eyeing Instagram too ... I'm in Genova next week, it seems like a good time to work out all this social media stuff that I've mostly ignored, as the new project is all about Genova.

I've been cooking and cleaning, imagining myself quite marvelously productive there too, although wanting more applause than I get for fitting everything into my day.  I've always been dubious about this housewife stuff.  It seems to run along the lines of 'if a tree falls in a forest and noone is there to see it ...'  Same with housework.  A clean house is the result of many lost minutes and hours.  Many.

Erica Jong wrote the perfect poem when she wrote Women Enough. 

So precisely, yes.

But I must work.  I have one more in the elderberry series to post.  It's been up to 28 celsius, thunderstormy, calm and cool too.  It's Spring.  I'm loving it.

From Piedmont ...

The Beautiful Truth workshop in Piedmont was intense ... I'm only beginning to unpack everything that happened and to go through the images we all took there.

Intense in that way it is when like-minded women gather together.  As always, I met some truly superb people who made me laugh so hard sometimes ... other times, well I'll post a photograph of Sara, Sandy and Julie trying on shoes at the Market in Acqui Terme - cameras dangling over their shoulders.

But no, that made me smile too.  They were delicious and we're all still in touch.  In fact, Julie and Sara arrive at my place tomorrow, flying in from a quick trip to Portugal . 

In the image that follows ... Sara made us pause while she captured herself, Diana, and I in reflection while taking aperitivo in Acqui Terme.

Who Does She Think She Is - a documentary

I found a link to this over at the Creativity and Women site and followed it to this website called 'Who Does She Think She Is?' ... a documentary was made.

That question, it has had so much power.  It can be said with so much venom/distaste/disgust/disapproval ...keeping women, very powerfully, in their place.

Have a look, I think it's marvellous.

Truth, by Justine Musk.

I am enjoying wandering through this woman's website, reading her ideas about writers and creativity and women and all kinds of other interesting things.

She caught me with this one tonight, part 3 of 'why you need to write like a bad girl'.

‘Honesty’ is one of the traits that psychologist and creativity specialist Eric Maisel lists as being key parts of the successful artist’s personality (the others, in case you’re curious: intelligence, introspective stance, empathy, self-centeredness, self-direction, assertiveness, resiliency and nonconformity).

“Standing apart, holding your own counsel, attuned to both the beautiful and the moral, you are the one able and willing to point out the naked emperor, the stench coming from the closet, the starvation right around the corner, the colors of the far mountains as the eye really sees them.

Justine Musk ...

I loved this quote found over on Justine Musk's website. 

The photograph of the beach,taken when I was home, is an old and beloved beach of mine, located on the east coast of the South Island, down at Tautuku. 

Sometimes, when the highway is roaring here in Belgium, I pretend it's simply a Spring tide down at Tautuku, back home in New Zealand

Wendy Towers, Psychotherapist - a women's therapy group

Wendy Towers is about to establish a second Women's Therapy Group here in Belgium.

She is opening the door to women who are interested in working together in a therapeutic way, women of all ages and at all stages in life.

She explained, 'the primary focus of the group is about creating a safe space where it is possible to explore our own lives; a space where we can be heard and where we are willing to hear others.'

The key words, when defining the group, are confidentiality, safety and commitment.  A therapy group needs to be a confidential space.  It is a dynamic that requires commitment.

Group size is limited to a maximum of 7 members.  Places will go quickly and so if you think this might be for you, give Wendy a call and talk it over with her.

You can read more about Wendy and her work over on her website - Wendy Towers, Psychotherapist

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this woman's work.

Just so you know.