I love being a part of your Substack community Clover :-) Because of the time difference I often wake up to your posts. Sorry you've had a sad week. I'm very jealous of the people going on your memoir class - I'm off to Wales tomorrow by myself to work on my memoir and enjoy walking by the sea completely alone. I'll be taking the notes I made when I spent a day with you in Oxfordshire last year. I'm sure your latest class will leave you feeling just as inspired as I did
Clover, I am amazed that your voice echoes my path in life. Grief is my new side kick and I desperately need to explore how to grieve the loss of my beautiful husband and the life I adored and was so mindfully grateful for. Life is an unending exploration, and I am now discovering, whether I want to or not, worlds I never thought I would be experiencing. Thank you so much!! And I would love to do a meet up!
Aww! Seriously big Lego! There’s a strong urge to stem tears when they come - like it’s fundamentally wrong. I agree it’s best to let them happen. Goodbyes are hard.
Love this little video, your 'surprise guests' and especially the way you presented yourself in your ordinary everyday you - like we'd find you if popped round for a cuppa unannounced. That made it all the more authentic and fitting with your theme. I realise this is a super late post, but I've only recently discovered you (via Lily Dunn) and find alot of your themes resonate with my life and what I'm writing about. Especially about the daily hideous drag of having to cook supper EVERY night! Looking forward to more.
I have been feeling more and more leaden since Easter Saturday. I'm used to the seasonal exchange now; I look back at diaries stretching across decades and find my increasing optimism as the light returns to the Northern Hemisphere counter-balanced by a post-resurrection slump.
Both my children were born in very early Spring; their arrivals are catalogued in extreme terms. My son, my first, was born just as predicted, on the first day of Spring and tidily between 9.30-5.33. My daughter, my second, came in a flurry after supper as crocuses reached through the thin layer of snow, which greeted us as we returned to a cramped home, in shock, with a swaddling-wrapped-packet, born just the other side of a corridor, within 90 minutes of reaching a maternity unit.
I remember feeling compelled annually in my thirties, to sort through files, pay bills and kick bad habits in time for the annual rebirth. Investment in 'Intentional Creativity', promoted widely by garden centres, charities and Universities' recruitment drives, promised certain prosperity and a sense of fulfilment.
'New Starts' in the garden are on sale in Lidl once Valentine's day is done and the light's on the way back. 'New Starts' in education begin as nights draw in - and exam seasons, often hot, sticky-sapped and flooded with light draw a veil over all that happens in-between, pre-empting the next year's 'Summer Wedding'.
But Easter, the Spring Solstice, and May's fertility, reminds us that we already know, anything that resurrects is born of compost, loss, distress; the dead recur, in buds, in May Poles' threads, in deep regret and joy.
And I still want one more day, another night, supper and a walk in the dark; a week; a year with my children when they and I were young and with many of those dear friends and relatives now, some long, dead.
The optimistic crocuses just now piss me off.
I've been in the dumps; slumped and feeling a bit bad about that, guilty about the privilege of miserable thinking, given I am living in temperate conditions with safe water; I don't live in Palestine and neither was I born an Afghan woman destined to be protected from all I have enjoyed.
Comfortable prejudice abounds - 'Victorian women didn't feel the same attachment to their babies since so many died' ... 'People from 'those places' don't notice it's unbearably hot/the black cloud over the City while the rubbish dump's on fire' .... 'They've an ability to be happy that We can't understand' ... really? Even when one of 'them' is one of 'us'?
It seems, to me, that all of us are all a part of everything and that siometimes things are in the flow and sometimes they're not; the weir near me, which I watch when I can't find words, shows me how simple twigs, bits of life make rafts that can become stuck for days at the foot of the waterfall.
And I've been there for a week or two - when was Easter? Tumbled, turned, flipped but still trapped, turned again over and over in the churn, breathless, surrendered to the stasis, until just now when a different turn of the pour unlocked my me to drift free.
And so it is not a surprise to find, my MUSE 'Clover Stroud' writing on Substack today about THE DARK which hurts
I love these little off the cuff style videos where I can begin to know more about people than through their written words alone. Thank you. I wanted to ask if you’ll share your Letter from Love here as I’m not a paid subscriber to Elizabeth Gilbert….
I just finished watching your video on Liz's substack and I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for your vulnerability and sharing something so important and brutiful. I write about all our messy feelings too!! So happy to have found a kindred spirit 😍😍😍
So relate to all of this Clover. Im sorry you’ve had a sad week but I think you’re right - those big feelings are hard but there to be felt and a reminder we are alive and feeling! I’m off to see Liz talk about ‘Big Magic’ on Tuesday at the Barbican! Look forward to reading your letter in her substack 😘
A meet up would be a lovely way to fully connect and explore the ideas you expressed. In particular, I am interested in conversing with others about grief. How to migrate it when it is unending and how to feel less isolated when it takes hold. I love that you do not shy away from the really hard stuff and share the vulnerability you feel. I'm just starting 'The Red of my Blood' and am thankful I have discovered this platform and this community.
Always lovely to watch your videos Clover, I love the idea of a chat too, your writing always makes me feel less alone with the big feelings and questions of life 💕💕
I love being a part of your Substack community Clover :-) Because of the time difference I often wake up to your posts. Sorry you've had a sad week. I'm very jealous of the people going on your memoir class - I'm off to Wales tomorrow by myself to work on my memoir and enjoy walking by the sea completely alone. I'll be taking the notes I made when I spent a day with you in Oxfordshire last year. I'm sure your latest class will leave you feeling just as inspired as I did
Clover, I am amazed that your voice echoes my path in life. Grief is my new side kick and I desperately need to explore how to grieve the loss of my beautiful husband and the life I adored and was so mindfully grateful for. Life is an unending exploration, and I am now discovering, whether I want to or not, worlds I never thought I would be experiencing. Thank you so much!! And I would love to do a meet up!
Aww! Seriously big Lego! There’s a strong urge to stem tears when they come - like it’s fundamentally wrong. I agree it’s best to let them happen. Goodbyes are hard.
Love this little video, your 'surprise guests' and especially the way you presented yourself in your ordinary everyday you - like we'd find you if popped round for a cuppa unannounced. That made it all the more authentic and fitting with your theme. I realise this is a super late post, but I've only recently discovered you (via Lily Dunn) and find alot of your themes resonate with my life and what I'm writing about. Especially about the daily hideous drag of having to cook supper EVERY night! Looking forward to more.
It must be the moon.
I have been feeling more and more leaden since Easter Saturday. I'm used to the seasonal exchange now; I look back at diaries stretching across decades and find my increasing optimism as the light returns to the Northern Hemisphere counter-balanced by a post-resurrection slump.
Both my children were born in very early Spring; their arrivals are catalogued in extreme terms. My son, my first, was born just as predicted, on the first day of Spring and tidily between 9.30-5.33. My daughter, my second, came in a flurry after supper as crocuses reached through the thin layer of snow, which greeted us as we returned to a cramped home, in shock, with a swaddling-wrapped-packet, born just the other side of a corridor, within 90 minutes of reaching a maternity unit.
I remember feeling compelled annually in my thirties, to sort through files, pay bills and kick bad habits in time for the annual rebirth. Investment in 'Intentional Creativity', promoted widely by garden centres, charities and Universities' recruitment drives, promised certain prosperity and a sense of fulfilment.
'New Starts' in the garden are on sale in Lidl once Valentine's day is done and the light's on the way back. 'New Starts' in education begin as nights draw in - and exam seasons, often hot, sticky-sapped and flooded with light draw a veil over all that happens in-between, pre-empting the next year's 'Summer Wedding'.
But Easter, the Spring Solstice, and May's fertility, reminds us that we already know, anything that resurrects is born of compost, loss, distress; the dead recur, in buds, in May Poles' threads, in deep regret and joy.
And I still want one more day, another night, supper and a walk in the dark; a week; a year with my children when they and I were young and with many of those dear friends and relatives now, some long, dead.
The optimistic crocuses just now piss me off.
I've been in the dumps; slumped and feeling a bit bad about that, guilty about the privilege of miserable thinking, given I am living in temperate conditions with safe water; I don't live in Palestine and neither was I born an Afghan woman destined to be protected from all I have enjoyed.
Comfortable prejudice abounds - 'Victorian women didn't feel the same attachment to their babies since so many died' ... 'People from 'those places' don't notice it's unbearably hot/the black cloud over the City while the rubbish dump's on fire' .... 'They've an ability to be happy that We can't understand' ... really? Even when one of 'them' is one of 'us'?
It seems, to me, that all of us are all a part of everything and that siometimes things are in the flow and sometimes they're not; the weir near me, which I watch when I can't find words, shows me how simple twigs, bits of life make rafts that can become stuck for days at the foot of the waterfall.
And I've been there for a week or two - when was Easter? Tumbled, turned, flipped but still trapped, turned again over and over in the churn, breathless, surrendered to the stasis, until just now when a different turn of the pour unlocked my me to drift free.
And so it is not a surprise to find, my MUSE 'Clover Stroud' writing on Substack today about THE DARK which hurts
Love your work Clover and watching you talk is so real and true. I would love to join a live meet up! x
I love these little off the cuff style videos where I can begin to know more about people than through their written words alone. Thank you. I wanted to ask if you’ll share your Letter from Love here as I’m not a paid subscriber to Elizabeth Gilbert….
I just finished watching your video on Liz's substack and I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for your vulnerability and sharing something so important and brutiful. I write about all our messy feelings too!! So happy to have found a kindred spirit 😍😍😍
I would love an online meet up!
A chat on Substack is a great idea! Wonder if it can be live via video too.
So relate to all of this Clover. Im sorry you’ve had a sad week but I think you’re right - those big feelings are hard but there to be felt and a reminder we are alive and feeling! I’m off to see Liz talk about ‘Big Magic’ on Tuesday at the Barbican! Look forward to reading your letter in her substack 😘
A meet up would be a lovely way to fully connect and explore the ideas you expressed. In particular, I am interested in conversing with others about grief. How to migrate it when it is unending and how to feel less isolated when it takes hold. I love that you do not shy away from the really hard stuff and share the vulnerability you feel. I'm just starting 'The Red of my Blood' and am thankful I have discovered this platform and this community.
Always lovely to watch your videos Clover, I love the idea of a chat too, your writing always makes me feel less alone with the big feelings and questions of life 💕💕
Totally up for a meet up, just a bit of a natter about those topics would be ace:
So sweet at the end ❤️ And yes, it’s so hard when people leave. A chat! Yes!
Love this, and love the boys joining you!