Dancing in limbo

Transitory places and states of mind

The Face May Change, But The Screaming Never Ends

This month’s missive is going to be very short. I have recently moved out of Newport, where I have been living for the past seven years, into Lincolnshire, where I expect to stay for only a few months at most, and the dust is still settling from the upheaval.

I have a lot of notes written for the next ‘proper’ update I want to share, digging deeper into my collaging journey, but right now I don’t have the energy to do this justice, so it will have to wait another month.

So, instead, here is a brief, cobbled-together expliqué of how I’ve ended up here…

I moved to Newport, South-East Wales, in 2019, for my then-husband’s work. Being self-employed, I could work from anywhere and, having lived in Wrexham for 22 years, I was ready for a change. We had initially planned to settle in Swansea, as we both had connections with the place (I spent many childhood holidays there visiting my grandparents; he went to university there), but due to practical considerations (the extent of travel into England required for his new job) we gave up on the idea and landed upon Newport as the most convenient location.

I never settled. While it is easy to blame this on external circumstances (the global Covid pandemic hit us less than a year in), the truth is I never wanted to go there in the first place, I never ‘clicked’ with it, and I never found my feet there, despite meeting an enormous number of lovely people doing amazing things. It would be utterly remiss of me not to stress the significance of Newport in my overall life’s journey: it is where I discovered my visual artistic leanings, connected with a variety of creative networks, and (importantly) was lucky enough to be granted a bursary to attend a year-long online art programme that changed the course of my life.

However. I have written previously about feeling strong negative ‘vibes’ for a place (specifically Eastbourne, East Sussex), and it is dawning on me, ever more intensely, that for the past seven years I have felt this same alienation from the city I was having to call home - but which I have previously felt unable to articulate, for fear that it would be seen as a critique of the people I have known, who are understandably defiant in their defence of a place that, for all its faults, has a distinctly rebellious and wildly creative spirit.

But now I have moved out, I can begin to look at my experience of this city with a more objective eye. I can allow myself to acknowledge that my unhappiness there need not be a comment on the lives of my friends, but rather a purely personal disconnect. Ironically, it is the emotional, artistic and intuitive growth I have experienced there that has permitted me to come closer to my own self, and to recognise that this is simply not the place where I am meant to be. At the risk of over-mythologising my story, it is not the descent into the underworld that teaches us a lesson, it is what we find there and how we negotiate our exit from it that counts.

Some time ago I realised that my dream was to move to the coast. My current financial circumstances make this a little tricky, but moving out of the city whose vibes have affected me so negatively is the first step. Here in the countryside I can draw breath, gather my thoughts, and start putting plans in place for the ‘final push’ towards the place my heart truly desires. I have no idea how long it will take to get there, but I am comfortably accepting of the need to ‘trust the process’: it will take as long as it has to.

In the meantime, once the dust has settled from my move, I will gradually be building up my artistic exploits, looking to offer works for sale via my website, developing my Tarot reading practice, and pursuing research into some of the more esoteric of my intellectual interests. I aim to develop the ‘journal’ on my website as a place for publishing more in-depth articles on topics of interest, so please keep an eye out there and on my ‘words’ Instagram account for news and updates.

Next month I will return with a deeper dive into my collaging journey - unless I am swept sideways by unexpected events, in which case I make no promises as to the subject matter! Either way I hope it will be of interest to you.

One last thing. I’ve always been keen on pairing writing or visual posts with musical tracks, whether on a blog or on Instagram, so I’m going to experiment with sharing something with you today. Dancing in Limbo [link to the track onYouTube] is a gorgeously delicate offering from Kirsty MacColl, which I recently used as the accompaniment to a collage I shared on Instagram (below), and which you’ll no doubt have spotted I used as the inspiration for this post’s title. The song doesn’t share the exact same sentiments as my art, but rather acts as a ‘companion piece’. If nothing else, I hope it leads you to further thoughts, musings and explorations in your own time.

I Am A Work In Progress

Until next month…