If you know me, you know I have endometriosis. This year I even started to share work about living with the condition on this blog. I have quite a fun little monthly project called #BloodWork where I document one of the realities of having the condition and make funny, fun little reimagined images from phone-cam pictures. I recognise that some readers of this blog find it confronting... blood IS confronting. It shouldn't be when it's just menstrual blood but alas...
I am so excited about abstract painting that I am openly sharing my process pretty much daily over on Instagram... Siobhán Vs Abstract And secondly, because I just published a demo of a tune and intend to finally start sharing demos regularly on this site. Health challenges are probably the number one reason I have struggled to share my songs over the years, through performance and cataloguing through recording. I also have young kids, so for better or worse my songs won't be given the production treatment I would like to give them before putting them out into the world. I have had to make peace with my own limitations over the years it regards to how my health affects ALL areas of my life but it's affect on art-making is very hard for me to accept, when it comes to performance in particular. Endometriosis can often feel like 'a life half lived' but chuck in the racket in my head and... ... ... well just getting out of bed can feel impossible on bad days. That's me, eleven years ago, on the Sunshine Coast, recording. At the beginning of a wonderful but challenging decade that would see me make nowhere near the strides I had hoped to with music and song-writing. And this is me now, baby down for nap, menstrual products and pain-killers stocked up, still wearing my nightie, recording a guitar part. This is me, knowling my limitations and deciding to make some art in spite of it all!
Well, what a flippin' year it has been folks! Most of 2016 was taken up with pregnancy, the lead up to birthing, birthing and now caring for a delightful newborn who is making my heart full and my eyes heavy. And although this year my activism fell by the wayside and my contributions to The Ballarat Craftivist Alliance were few something quite incredible came out of those months trying to just get through the challenges of my pregnancy. For the first time in my adult life I was able to carve out a daily practice with my music. I worked daily on three seperate digital EPs, noting down all of my thoughts and developing the over-arching story of each project whilst bringing each song or arrangement to a point that is ready for recording. I haven't worked this way on my own stories in about ten years, when I was first starting out. Blimey! TEN YEARS since I fell out of the groove that I was forging for myself in my early 20s. :( The project that came together the quickest and I am hoping to have recorded first was about the making of mothers. About the enormous transformation that occurs during pregnancy, childbirth and as we find our feet as first-time parents. These songs focus on the stories of women who are trying to put themselves back together, either due to trauma experienced in the lead up to motherhood, during labour and/or birth or in the months immediately after. I recently shared some notes and lyrics from one of the tunes from this still nameless EP in a zine and will share them again here. Why not hey? The work is unfolding in stages and perhaps a nice way to move forward with work that is deeply personal is to bring the people who may be interested along for the ride: This year I also kept my hands busy sewing, I was nesting after all but in 2016 I REALLY enjoyed myself with paper craft and memory-keeping. I was telling a friend recently how much happier I am working on my songs knowing that I have this hobby to work on too. There's no presure! Everyone needs a hobby don't you think? It doesn't matter what you're doing in your professional life or what your daily work entails, hobbies and interests = self care and down-time... a luxury for many really but important... for me it's vital. It's taken some years to work it out but I need this time, it has to be factored into my week and if other things have to be missed to make it happen then so be it. As I get older, seeing my peers take so many different pathways on their creative journeys and seeing careers really taking shape, I am realising that creative folks inparticular need hobbies... an activity or interest that doesn't dwell in the same space as the vocation. Space to exhale! My hobby keeps my hands busy, is something I can do with my kids and I get great satisfaction completing projects using materials I love that are keepsakes, telling the stories of my family as my kids are growing up. This year it was all about the baby ofcourse and I was gifted some great crafting materials: But back to writing... I also want to share some thoughts about another 5 track I put togther this year. The EP is called Bloodlines, the image below is a mock-up single cover for the track In The Next Room. I am keen to use the design but I think I'll drop the snowflakes. The image was taken in the hills around town out here in the Western Highlands. In this spot the bush is coming back to life after some small fires from last Summer. It felt like a fitting image because although these songs were inspired by loss I was pregnant with my son. So Bloodlines is being recorded at my home in Ballarat and will be produced by myself and my husband, guitarist Jeremy Rough. It comprises of two original tracks, one traditional Irish lullaby and two folk anthems, one of which I reworked entirely.
As I touched on above, this humble project came to life during a period of great change for myself and for my extended family. The original tunes were written as my family were collectively experiencing loss and a painful reconciliation with the past. Each song tells a unique story and yet marks out a chapter in a much bigger story. The bigger story is inspired by the recent history of my mother's family and so I will most definately be dedicating this project to them. I can not wait to get these projects published and will continue to share the stories that inspired them. Getting these songs down during such a physically and mentally challenging time was such a revelation to me and I hope I can hang onto the habits that allowed me to develop so much work this year. With another babe on the scene it will be interesting to see how I go but I feel like I am definately coming back from something , coming back from somewhere perhaps? Not just moving forward after a very difficult pregnancy but coming through a fog that has been hanging around my head for the best part of the last decade. I recently posted some words and picture on Instagram as part of that silly 2006v2016 thang and after writing this up I have realised I was gearing up to take a journey as a songwriter back then... but then quite a different journey started. I want to write more about this soon I think because the themes of the last decade are definately coming out in my songs now. Anyway, here's to 2017! Sláinte! Siobhán I've heard it all before; having courage is not about the absence of fear but about how we face fear... righteo... so feel the fear and do it anyway? Maybe that's the book I should be reading right now... wasn't that title a bestseller? Anyway, I'm here today to say I am living in so much fear right now. There are some very normal fears that I think I am handling reasonably well, some that are particular to my circumstances and some that just completely holding me back! I am certainly not feeling the fear and doing it anyway!
So I'm not over-thinking this, I'm just writing this, spilling the beans, saying: I'm a feminist and keen to set a brilliant example of female strength for my daughter, yet if I'm honest I feel terrified about a great deal. I have fears about things I want to take on, personal goals and such but I am also afraid of things out there, in the world, in other people, things in the night! Feminists aren't meant to say that out loud are they? To be fair to myself it has been a rough couple of years and I do have a personality disorder to contend with and let's not even go into auditory hallucinations right now but COME ON GIRL (I say to myself) YOU'RE A SMART WOMAN, PULL YOUR FINGER OUT! FEEL THE FEAR, JUST DON'T BE PARALYSED BY IT!!! 'Hi! I'm Siobhan and I'm a feminist! But can you please hold my hand as i walk through life!' ;) Yeah, I'm being pretty rough on myself, I have to remember that I have achieved, faced and overcome alot in my life and in the face of many challenges. I should be proud of where I'm at. But I'm thirty later this year and my daughter is four next month and I always thought I should be teaching my daughter to 'back herself,' be fearless and if there are fears: Feel the fear and do it anyway! ;) And yet I struggle and for the last few years I have needed alot of support. I still do! Feminism does inform pretty much all areas of my life but I don't know how to let it inform how I handle fear... let alone inform how I manage living through a mental health crisis. Today I found myself writing a song; one minute I'm mulling over a paragraph of lyrics I'd written and twenty minutes later the bloody thing had just written itself. Great success! So I took a recording and listened back. BOOM! What did i learn from my song? My daughter will not grow to be a bolder woman by seeing her mother trying to be an island with unrealistic mental strength in all situations. She's seeing me call in some good support when i need it, because we all need it from time to time, that's what the sisterhood is there for yeah? So i'm feeling the fear and i'm asking for a hand; so i can get some shit done! |
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