Being made a life band by Perry at Rhodes Wedding Co, is not only a beautiful thing to wear, but has really thrown up a lot of contemplation about life itself recently…
As I mentioned in the first post of this project, I am divorced, ( which was not something I had ever factored into the plan of my life ), but having to take that on board and then carry on with life in a different way; having had to re-calibrate and re examine the whole notion of who I actually was and who I wanted to be, and having had to leave behind a ‘girl’ to become a woman, has led to a surprisingly more satisfying and independent existence…and although I now have a wonderful new partner, we choose live in separate houses!
I wouldn’t say I have left behind all the struggles and strains of my ‘other life’, as they massively inform who I am now, but I have definitely found a good and safe car park for them to rest quietly.
Very occasionally I re-vist difficult old memories; they help me see how far I’ve come and also they remind me of how I’m here at this present place…cracks in tea cups don’t always mean you have to throw them away and marks on the table, for me, make it more beautiful…
So you can see how the life band is so perfect for me…and in my opinion anyone who has reached a point in their life when they can look back and reflect on the good and bad, the cracks and the survival, and see how basically each experience has been woven into their being would suit a life band…
Following on from last week’s post about ‘life objects’ I wanted to share a couple more interesting ones from people I know…
One of my friends really struggled to think of something that she couldn’t do without…( she’s not a person who feels the need of redundant old objects like me…something I quite envy! ), but she suddenly appeared with her Grandmother’s knitting needles… She’s a keen knitter and had combined her own, modern needles with the old ones, but knew exactly which ones she’d seen her Grandmother using years ago… I thought the very practical combination of the needles was a beautiful metaphor for how family stays with you…whatever your relationship to it, and then it inevitably leads you into another life space; knitting all the memories into a new you…I also visited Emma, who pulled off a small white tablecloth to reveal what appeared to be a well worn drinks table… … which turned out to be her Grandmother’s old sewing machine!
It’s not the machine she uses now for her work, but she hasn’t the heart to get rid of it…
She opened it up, which revealed a small, dusty Playmobil character which must have been in there for years, and which then triggered both our memories of our boys when they were very young…It was really lovely to have a proper look at something that meant so much; to see how her grandmother had modernised it into an electric machine, and even though it doesn’t work anymore, and it’s hidden away, it still lives, with all it’s beautiful details and character, as part of Emma’s life…details which, of course, I could instantly imagine into an amazing life band… …and this, alongside the sewing machine, was a pin holder from her husband’s grandmother… (…and this is a pin cushion Emma made me for Christmas about 5 years ago! )As I’ve said before, I’m not good at letting go of objects, so I thought I’d share some of my redundant object history… ( from Right to Left ) 1. my son’s first proper shoe ( the other one was lost out of the buggy ), 2. empty cotton reel from my mum’s sewing basket. 3. a brooch my mum had as a child and she gave it to me to wear in my early teens. 4. coins from 1899 and 1913 which feel historically precious. 5. badges from my first skiing accomplishments when I was 10 years old. 6. A Chinese Jacob’s Ladder from Father Christmas circa 1980, 7. stickle bricks of my son’s which got separated from the main tub, never to be returned. 8. one of my Grandmother’s safety pins. 9. an erroneous piece of dalek lego. 10. 2 lost pieces from a Bob the Builder jigsaw, 11. the first brooch I ever bought…it’s a wooden pineapple, circa 1982. 12. the top of an ‘automatic’, electronic violin toy which used to make people laugh a lot, 13. a selection of lost pieces and instructions from what was my son’s favourite Transformer, 14. A commemorative coin of my Grandfather’s. 15. A Venetian glass sweet I bought for my ex husband on our first trip to Italy. 16. a piece of an eraser my art teacher gave me to use at school. 17. A headband which my mum wore in a Charleston routine when I was little, and which I wore in my final showcase at the end of Drama school. 18. the end of a hair curling tongue I used every night in one of the happiest stage shows I’ve ever been in ( obsessively curling my ringlets as the Infant Phenomenon made me late on stage at least twice!! ) 19. another commemorative coin of my Grandfathers. 20. ( the tiny bits ) a peg from travel ‘Mastermind’, a doubloon from a Playmobil pirate chest, and one of my Granny’s buttons from a favourite dress of hers. I needed to get rid of some…not to forget them, but just make some space, so I made them into a visual life poem on the table……and decided that these 5 things were the things I wanted to keep most ( my son said he thought he should take to Venetian glass sweet to his Dad, I’m going to track down the jigsaw in the loft today, my son also wanted the old coins, and we’re giving away the commemorative coins to a friend. I have put ( most ) of the other stuff in the bin…it wasn’t easy! )
* after I wrote this I did indeed find the Bob The Builder puzzle in the loft, but when I put it together there were still 2 pieces missing!! No doubt they are somewhere, and I WILL find them, but here’s a little animation of how one of the lost pieces was the last to find it’s place…
So for this week’s arrangements I wanted to use things that on first glance seemed finished with, but which actually are very useful… I love that my beautiful life band also has ‘Just as I am’ engraved on the inside…as it’s very true!If you’d like to have your own life band made, you should definitely have a look at Perry and Jessy’s page here, and get in touch with them directly to have a chat about it.
