I am joining in with Shae’s things I know meme again this week because I know a lot of things and this is one way for me to share them without sounding like a know it all.

I know that reading Shae’s blog post this morning where she declares that she is farticus made me smile. No woman, I AM FARTICUS!

I know that small things often have a very big impact.

I commented on a post written by Eden Riley the other week and Eden sent me the shell she had photographed. This tiny tiny shell only a bit bigger than my thumbnail will soon have inspired a whole series of work.I pinched this photo from Eden’s blog.

When I am absentmindedly doodling, or when I let myself be transported to the quiet space within, these swirls in the shell are a recurring feature in my art work. Whether they are lines drawn in the clay with a wet finger, while I am thinking of other things or pen marks on the back of an envelope drawn while I am on hold to centrelink. These marks are always there just below the surface. I asked Eden for the shell because I liked the tiny blue swirl on the flat side and thought to use that as decoration in a pot. The  ridges and swirls on the underside of the shell were an unexpected bonus and I felt slightly disjointed for a while as I thought about beauty and destruction. I felt very strongly that the Earth Mother was saying, “See Kimmy, here I am again, listen to me,you need to make work of the earth.

I am trying not to listen to the planet as it screams at me to make more work, as it takes me such a long time to recover.I have held myself back from making any earth pots as the energy it takes is enormous. I am faffing about making bread and butter items for the shop, instead of dead bird bowls. I am more concerned with paying my rent than paying my dues and I have deliberately kept my shoes on to minimise the humming in my soul as the birds keep on dying.

This next series of photos illustrate what I mean. The post is here if you want to read about it Blood and Ashes, Oil and Despair. I couldn’t get the birds out of my head. The dead birds nagged at me until I made the work. And it took me weeks to recover from the making.

I know I started this post out on a humourous note declaring that, “No Shae, I AM Farticus!” and then I went to a darker place. It was as unexpected a journey to me my dear internets, as it was to you. I had just planned to touch lightly on the surface issue of friendships and small things making large differences when, “Bam” the birds ambushed me.

And so, here we are together again internet, just you and I on the cusp of another journey. I think I would like you to hold my hand please.

I am far from okay but there isn’t a whole lot than anyone can do to make me better.

I also don’t see that anyone other than my very closest friend, asking me if I am okay are going to get a straight answer.

I will just lie and grin and say of course I am okay and then change the subject.

I am a brilliant actress.

RUOK is a wonderful concept but today it is giving me the shits.

Now before you start to get all upset with me and decide to lecture me about the ideas behing RUOK  and all that jazz.

This post is about me. Not about you.

If you are going to get upset with me, just piss off quickly and don’t give me the shits ok.

I am stabby enough as it is.

I am not okay today.

Tomorow I will be better, maybe.

The day my mother told me she had a black spot in her lung was one of those defining points in my life.

Everything now is measured in befores and afters.

The day my daughter was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome was another defining point

As was the diagnosis of her two chilfdren with EDS and their subsequent diagnosis of Aspergers and Autism.

My husband has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.

My son has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and suffers from anxiety.

These things are not okay.

These diagnosis dont bring sunshine and fucking roses into my life.

They bring despair.

Great fucking bucket loads of despair.

I am grieving.

I am grieving hard.

Lung cancer shouldnt have killed my Mother she was a non fucking smoker for fucksakes

My daughter shouldn’t have to struggle to brush her own hair.

She is 22 years old and can barely walk from one room to another.

Simply taking her children to the park exhausts her.

This sucks.

My son is 17 and is proving he is  grown up by rebelling against everthing we have taught him.

He has moved out of home.

He has dropped out of year eleven.

He was stabbed behind the ear in a brawl. The wound was superficial. My fear manifested as anger.

And I gave my son another reason to push me away.

He has unfriended me on facebook because I pulled him up privately on a thuggish racist status update.

I am desperately afraid that his anxiety will get the better of him.

I watched a police car driving up my quiet country road the other day and I was convinced it was coming here to deliver me bad news.

I started to cry with relief when it drove on by.

I know that this stage will pass but it doesnt make it any easier.

I share snippets of my life here on this blog.

Tiny slices.

I was told that I should have a professional ceramics blog and leave all the personal rubbish out of it if I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist.

But I cant be bothered starting a new blog  full of art wank and words and ideas that belong in a dusty book somewhere.

I use this blog to think out loud, to order my thoughts, my ceramics and my life are intertwined, as is the blog.

They all are a part of who I am.

Maybe RUOK has worked anyway

As I have cried and written my way through the shit that is in my head.

I am not okay today.

But I am feeling a tiny bit better, thank you for listening to me internet.

I will be okay tomorrow.

Because really what else is there to do but

Just keep swimming.

An alternate title to this post could well be Dick Adams staff don’t care about his constituents opinions.

Dear Mr Adams,

Yesterday I decided to ring your office in Perth, Tasmania and voice my concerns about the offshore processing of refugees.

Your own website Mr Adams clearly states that

My priority as the Member for Lyons is to listen to the community and work in the best interests of all my constituents.

As your local Federal Member of Parliament, please feel free to seek assistance from me if you have any enquiries in your particular area.  My priority is dealing with those issues that are directly related with Federal Government such as Centrelink, Veterans Affairs, Health, Immigration, Superannuation to name a few.  I know there are other issues that cross all government boundaries and I am happy to help with those as well.

So I felt pretty confident that I could ring your office, politely tell you that I was concerned about the offshore processing of refugees and then I could happily go about my business, secure in the knowledge that my federal member was listening to me.

What I didn’t expect Mr Adams was your female staff member to be extremely condescending and dismissive of my concerns. I did not expect to be rudely asked where I had received my information about the governments refugee policy. I certainly did not expect to hear a tone of condescension and incredulity when I told your staff member that I receive my information about current affairs via twitter.

Twitter? She scoffed, as if I had just said I received my news bytes via the fairy telegram service at the bottom of the garden.

That was the end of the conversation as far as the office lady was concerned, I could hear the derision and laughter in her voice as she dismissed me as another bleeding heart, lefty, greenie nutter.

And that stung.

Way to go Mr Adams.

I would like to remind you Mr Adams that it is the 21st century. It is also the 21st century in Tasmania.

I use twitter as my main means of information gathering about all world events.

I tweeted my displeasure at your offices condescension and dismissal of my concerns to my 1518 followers

My tweet was then retweeted by two twitter friends within Tasmania with a combined following of 4053 people.

You do the maths Mr Adams, three people in Tasmania with a follow count of 5571 people between them, tweeting the one message.

That is a lot of fairies at the bottom of a lot of gardens.

Yours in despair,

Kim Ponds Rock

Southern Midlands.

Otherwise my head might just explode and that would be very fucking messy.

Some people are just arseholes. There is nothing you can do about their inherent arseholiness other than stand by with your mouth agape and wonder where on earth they learned their low life skills.

Australia, the lucky country, the land of the fair go, home of the tall poppy syndrome.

Where if you start to shine a bit brighter than all the other stars out there some lowlife will always come along and decide to start throwing a bit of mud.

anonymously of course

*sigh*

Well,
what can I say. firstly congrats on the wedding, Really, you drug your child at 3 am with panadol, didnt you watch today tonights segment on the effects of medicating our children for a “good” nights sleep, oh thats right you have sold out to ACA and Kellogs for a measly few words on allergy free breakfast. Luckily – you didnt make an “idiot” of yourself.

Selling out? Where on earth has all this talk about selling out come from? Veronica has always had advertising on her blog and has always worked with brands.

Drugging her child? For fucks sake.  Amy was sick. You use paracetamol to reduce fever you idiot. You of all people should know that.

I am seriously grumpy today internet. Mainly because I am 99% certain I know who the anonymous arsehat is and that makes me very sad as well.

I am going to play in the garden today because I need to have my hands in the soil. I need to earth myself so that all the negativity is absorbed by the universe instead of fizzling around inside my head and fucking up my balance. And if you scoff at that as old hippy nonsense well then anonymous that is your loss and I advise you to remember that Mammon is a poor excuse for a  god.

I really should follow my own advice to Veronica when dealing with arseholes, which is to stand a little taller, square your shoulders and be secretly pleased that you chose today to wear your teflon shirt so that the shit these arseholes fling, just slides right off.

But I am having a bit of trouble with that advice right now.

Deadshits.

When I am stressed I cry a lot over nothing, not big ugly heaving sobs, I save those ones for when I am in bed. I am talking about those annoying stray tears that escape when I am in the middle of a conversation and always take me unawares. The next big indicator that I am extremely stressed is when I begin to forget stuff.

I drove out to visit my daughter the other day specifically to deliver a set of ceramic cups,Von is flying to Sydney soon and had offered to hand deliver the cups for me. Halfway there I realised that I had left the cups on the studio bench. The whole point of the trip was to deliver the cups, how could I forget them?

Frustrated with myself I posted this facebook status

Drove out to visit Veronica specifically to drop off a set of ceramic cups that need to go to Sydney. Forgot to take the cups. Was given some eggs to bring home. Forgot to grab the eggs.

The sneaky aspect of stress is that I often don’t realise I am stressed at all, I just wander about the place making a mess, leaving a trail of half done jobs behind me and becoming increasingly grumpy with myself.

It wasn’t until a friend rang and commented that serious levels of forgetfulness aren’t like me at all. During the course of that conversation I started to cry small tears again because I had been slightly worried I was losing my marbles. My friend gently laughed at me and told me it was just stress.

One of the indicators of stress for me is I hide in the computer. I faff about on twitter and youtube following links to obscure news items and re-discovering forgotten songs.

This week I have been making a video. The obsessive nature of video editing and sound design perfectly suits me. I am always a bit surprised by the music I compose as I don’t particularly like synthetic beat boxy type rythms but I think it fits this short video.

How do you know when you are stressed?

It is four am and I have been lying in bed for the past hour thinking about why I am having such trouble with my cardboard sculpture project. Once I started to organise the words into a coherent structure, the answer was obvious.

Cardboard doesn’t have any soul.

It has had the life force machined out of it, the process of  industrial refinement has removed any echo of the tree that once was there. The violence of the process has shattered the music into unrecognisable shards of sound.

Cardboard is a dead material to me. I cant hear its song.

I didn’t realise until just this minute, that is what I had been trying to do. I had been trying to listen to a song that wasn’t there. I had been trying to work intuitively with a material that was incapable of telling me what it wanted me to do.

Trying to catch a glimpse of the path has been an exhausting process. I have been incapable of true thought, the echo of nothing has been almost overwhelming and the white noise has been deafening.

My attempts to create anything have been ineffectual.

Simple solutions such as needing to cut a slot into the cardboard so that it will sit flush with the line of the railing, have been almost impossible to realize.

I have been unable to properly explain my ideas and this failure of articulation combined with my ineffectual problem solving has added to my frustrations.

But, a throw away line that I used in the class debrief at the end of yesterdays session, has coalesced into a practical solution to my problem and I think I know what I am going to make. Now that I have realised that I can’t work intuitively with cardboard, I have developed some momentum again.

And with these words gone from my head and given to you, dear internet, I am going back to bed.

Because if it wasn’t for her I would have stopped swimming long ago.

This blog is only a slice of my life, it is a tiny snippet of how things are. I use the blog to get the words out of my head. I write out the sad, press publish and then walk away. The simple act of writing out how I feel, helps me to make sense of my emotions so that my head doesn’t explode with the weight of the words circling like so many hungry buzzards inside my mind.

I think hungry buzzards as a metaphor was a bit over the top but the image  of words with wings flying in lazy circles is making me smile.

I like this internet connection I have with you. I like the fact that Jess can hear the stones whisper, that Achelois completely gets where I am coming from, Janet sends me dragonfly notebooks and youtube clips, April sends me chocolate and Christmas ornaments that remind her of dragon eggs.

There are far too many of you to list but you all help me and I am grateful.

But there is a dark side to the internet community as well. A darker side that is giving me the shits. Trolls are not uncommon, plagiarism is rife, a holier than thou attitude is starting to come to the fore, cronyism is becoming more obvious and mini dicatorships are springing up left right and centre.

And now the Australian mummybloggers have a manifesto.  I will not be signing the bloggers manifesto. I will not be told what to do. I will especially not be told what to do in such simplistic terms, as if I am a child tottering about within the interwebs being told to “play nicely now.”

I like my manifestos to have a little more substance, to be a little heavier in weight, I like a manifesto that makes me think. My personal favourite is A Humanist Manifesto. Then there is the Dada manifesto, or the Communist manifesto or even the SCUM manifesto to give my brain an early morning work out.

But this post isn’t about blogging this post is about Dory whispering to me, to just keep swimming.

I took my teenage son to the doctor yesterday with the sole intention of getting him a prescription for anti depressants.

No mother wants to hear their child tell them that there isn’t any point in living because life is just too fucking hard.

The pressures of a new school environment where every bogan bully wants to fight the big guy in order to prove they don’t have small dicks. The constant pain from his Ehlers Danlos syndrome. The ongoing grief and loss from the death of his confidante and main support person, his Nan. All these things combined with the normal adolescent pressures were enough to send my son hurtling into a well of darkness and despair.

Our family GP could tell I meant business and he wrote out a prescription for David. He talked to David about lifestyle choices and the need for exercise and sunshine.

He also in one sentence totally dismissed David’s Ehlers Danlos Syndrome as being a contributing factor towards his depression.

For Fucks Sake.

This is the reality of living with a rare genetic condition in Tasmania.

Sometimes it is all just too hard for me as well.

But I am an adult, with 45 years of life experience behind me. I know that nothing is ever as hopeless as it first looks and I also have the clay which grounds me and gives me an outlet for my rage.

Dear internet, here are the words that are in my head.

I give them to you, so that they stop flying around my mind.

Your friends either suggest lithium or nod their heads and smile.

This is The Mountain that is the backdrop to the city of Hobart. I grew up under the shadow of The Mountain and one of the hardest things about moving inland was not being able to see the changing moods of The Mountain every day.  

I haven’t been up the mountain by myself for a long time. As a young teenager I used to ride my horse all over the mountain, from Lenah Valley to Fern tree and back again. As an older teenager we used to drive up the mountain and light cooking fires with the wood provided in the huts. We would drink cheap wine and try to count the lights of the city below, before turning our attentions to more serious teenage concerns.

I have been feeling restless lately with a wistful yearning in my soul for something. The practical side of my nature ignores the fanciful and mockingly whispers that a midlife crisis isn’t a good look. Whilst a small part of me feels like crying out, “Can you see me? Can you tell me that I am not invisible?” I push the thought of any sort of crisis away and ponder instead what it means to be 45 and overweight in a society that worships at the altar of anorexic youth.

I am teetering here on the precipice of my next great adventure and as I spread my wings ready to leap, I am filled with an unbearable sadness that my mother isn’t here to help me on my way.

Mum would tell me that it is normal to feel like this at 45. That it is normal to have quiet moments where you feel old and ugly, withered and useless. That the drumming I hear in my ears is my biological clock banging away erratically and that I need to get my shit together and just ride it out and to remember that I am only invisible if I choose to be.

My grief has settled into a cycle, in tune with my own lunar cycle. The grumpy irritability of PMS has been mostly replaced by a week of tears and longing and introspection,which is annoying as I would much rather slam a door in anger and be done with the shitty mood, than reach for a box of tissues and cry like a child for my mother.

On a whim I drove up the mountain and had a good talk with the stones. I let their ancient energy wash over me and I opened my mind to who I am and what I do.

The stones told me that it is okay to feel old as long as I don’t act old. To remember who I am and where I come from and to not lose sight of where I am going. To remember the ley lines and to feel the power of the earth through my bare toes. I think that is half the problem, I have been wearing shoes for too much of this year and I am losing touch with that energy that only comes from walking barefoot in the garden.

I bought a small stone down from the mountain with me and I think it will make nice marks in the clay. I met a twitter friend the other day who gave me some bones to use as tools, in return I am going to make her a ceramic altar to hold her offerings from the sea.

This feels good.

When I just do what I am supposed to do without thinking too deeply, when I let the clay guide me and I rest in that sweet spot, that silent intuitive space, the work just flows and I feel complete.

This week has been hard, with the lead up to my Mum’s birthday and Isaac’s diagnosis of autism combining to make me maudlin and teary.

My research project for my drawing class is causing me some angst as well. Not much. But enough to contribute to this weeks tears.

I am researching myself. As a visual artist ultimately all my work comes from within myself. I chose myself as my subject because I wanted to examine why I do the things that I do. Why I am drawn to certain things and most importantly why I am happy to just skim over the surface and not really delve too deeply into anything that might require a bit of emotional effort.

Part of the research project is to collect historical data on the subject. Some of my historical data is in a suitcase that I can not bring myself to open.

During the lead up to my mothers funeral, my brother had all our child hood photos in his possession. They were in a blue suitcase that mum had kept in her wardrobe. After the funeral my brother returned the suitcase to mum’s house. I did not see or speak to my brother. All the photos of my father were gone,all the decent photos were missing, there were pages ripped out of albums, and the remaining jumble was  just thrown back into the case. It was heart breaking.

I have been staring at this case for a fortnight now trying to bring myself to open it again but I don’t think I can.

I have been skimming over the surface of who I am, and what influences contributed to make me the person I am today. I examined my relationship with the nuns and my early childhood memories of going to church and being thwacked with a cane every time I fainted and I have discarded those influences as not that important.

I have been trying to pry apart my own mythology and to see where the lines of myth and truth blur and every single thing leads me back to my father.

My father was an alcoholic who passed his love of a drink on to me. I do not drink. I have finished drinking.

My father liked to promise us the world and then on the day of the promise we would sit for hours in the car outside the pub.

My father lit his cigarettes with a match and would ask me if I had ever seen a match burn twice and put the still hot match onto the soft flesh of my arm.

My father tried to teach me to swim by carrying me, screaming in terror, out into the waves and throwing me into the water.

All the kids in the neighbourhood were frightened of my father as he liked to dispense summary justice with his boots and his fists and all the local hoons drove quietly past our house.

My father was killed in a car accident when I was fourteen and I battled with his ghost for a very long time.

When his ghost is strong, I still think that I am stupid and useless and really what is the point of anything anyway?

But my spirit is stronger. My spirit was always stronger. My father couldn’t break me.

I would not give in. I refused to let him win.

As a grown woman, I will not be told what to do. I will ask no mans permission to do anything or be anyone I damn well like.

Maybe pressing publish here will be the first step in really picking some emotional scabs and going down some paths I don’t want to travel.

Either that, or I will just take photographs of churches and pretend it was the nun’s fault.

Now onto the feedback.

I would like to thank my daughter Veronica from SleeplessNights who re did my blog for me. I am pleased with how the blog looks. The reason Veronica had to do a whole new blog design was because I wanted to be able to reply to people directly in the comments section and with my previous template that just wasn’t possible.

Previously I had been replying by email, though not to every comment every time, and I was starting to feel a bit guilty if I didn’t reply personally.

I am after some feedback, how do you think the new comment system is working?

Do you actually get the email notification when I reply to your comment?

Do you like it this way or would you prefer a private reply via email?

Or do you simply not care?

I was talking with The Mona Museum on twitter last, or to be precise The Mona Museum was tweeting and a handful of us were asking questions and receiving responses.

Mona, my beautiful Mona that I am so enamoured with is losing 20 O devices a Day.

An O device is the iPod touch you receive on entry to the museum. There is site specific software on the device which tracks your visit and enables you to tap the screen and get varied snippets of information about the art work you are viewing. They are very clever, fun and interesting.

And also fucking useless away from Mona.