Looking back Looking forward

We spent the afternoon at a local lake. We were there with our two children, their friends, our old dog and another who is staying with us whilst her 'Mum & Dad' are on holiday.

The lake is beautiful with hummocks surrounding it, ducks and swans on it and play areas and a river around it.

Today we arrived to find it was an Activities Day for children. The whole place was overwhelmed by small people and their Mums and Dads, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and dogs and ice cream vans and tents and stilt walkers. Amongst this bustling throng were marquees with Arts workshops: tie-dyeing, face painting, raft making, wheelie bin drumming, withie making, giant paintings, sculpture, pendants etc etc.

The quality of the instruction and the enthusiasm of the artists was wonderful and there were so many happy faces: proud children, proud parents, little boats held aloft, clay sculptures carefully carried back to cars.....

I saw all this and at first my heart sank. It always does when I see these sorts of events because its what I used to do, who I used to be. I started by running arts workshops, then organising small events, bigger events, Countywide events and training artists in how to facilitate workshops. I was good at it. I had all the right contacts, good ideas, unusual ideas. I could plan a good day or series of days and enthuse and surprise people.

When I became too ill to work I tried to go back to workshopping once or twice. It was disaster. It takes tremendous energy to organise and deliver a workshop...to galvanise people to tap into their creativity, support them, help them move forward ---quite apart from the logistics of travel, organization, packing up materials, putting them back etc etc. I just couldn't do it anymore.

Gradually my contact with that world evaporated...I was ill at home, 'friends' didn't call anymore, busy with their own lives. If we went to something like a fete or a school fayre I was suddenly brought up close to that world and all I felt was a huge sense of loss and sadness....like staring at a vast hole. I still did bits and pieces when the children were younger even though I felt so rough. I designed and painted all the scenery for the Xmas plays for 5 years, did publicity and posters and flyers, did face painting for school and church fetes in the summer. I enjoyed it too but it wasn't the same..wasn't at the same level and there wasn't the same camaraderie you get between artists who do it regularly and are working the same circuit.

Yesterday was different. At first my heart sank and then something else happened because I realised that world I had pined for was over for me. It was a part of my past : 'been there, done that, got the T shirt' as the saying goes.

The workshops were primarily for little children up to about 8 years of age. Our children are 12 and 15. The parents were right in there with their kids...helping to paint and decorate and embellish, reassuring, instructing explaining and it was suddenly like watching myself long ago. I've already done all that: my children don't need that level of support anymore and although its lovely to watch Ifeel like a bystander ...but in a good way because I've done that bit of my role as a parent in the same way I don't have to walk around with a spare nappie (diaper) and babywipes in my bag anymore in case someone has an 'accident'.

I can move on and be someone else, do something else. We're all moving forward and it feels good