More mermaids… if you can stand it…. and something about failure

I have been meaning to post a picture of these ‘dolls’ which were also in the mermaid exhibition in November.

It was really fun to work within the same shape/template but just play with colours/fabrics and my entire repertoire of embroidery stitches! (chain stitch, back stitch, running stitch and oversew). I have already started a couple more of these – sewing just might keep me sane over the xmas hols.

For the book group I go to, we have just read the Anh Do autobiography ‘The Happiest Refugee’, it’s an entertaining, easy read – a love story, a rags to riches story, a family drama all entwined. What impressed me was his willingness to have a go at anything and to try again after failure. He writes this, about his father’s attitude to failure when he didn’t get chosen for school captain.
‘But my father treated that loss as if it were a win and it was a lesson that stayed with me for a long time. If the worst happens, if you lose and fail, but you still celebrate coming second because you’ve given it a red hot go. There is no need to fear failure.’
I could have used that advice early this year – I entered a couple of literary awards and an art award and was knocked back from them all – and got discouraged instead of celebrating the fact that I had work finished and good enough to submit.

Well, one of the positives of the year has been starting yoga classes, I’m working on a poem about it, here’s a bit of the first draft.

Going to yoga

What I get is an hour
and a half of peace,
a view out to a garden
where water trickles,
once a bird flew down and
perched on a ginger stem
as I made the tree pose.

I love the asanas with names
like eagle and warrior
the name is powerful,
and how our teacher
describes a pose as strong
instead of difficult.

When she demonstrates
I think
no way I can do that
and then I find I am
balancing one foot on the wall
the other planted on the ground
one hand resting on a block
the other reaching up –
half moon pose.

Wishing you all a relaxing xmas and a creative 2012. Hopefully I’ll be back next week with a bit of a review of the year, favourite book, best exhibition, etc.
Bye for now.