I've said it now

Sunday 26 January 2020

If I can write every day – even just a few paragraphs, then I’ll be making progress. I haven’t written properly for a long time, and there are lots of reasons of course, but all of them are just excuses. I love to write, and by not writing I have let a little piece of me deteriorate. Same with song-writing – not just the lyrics, but the music too.

I got stuck in a rut for a while, I have to admit. But my life has changed so much in the last two years – I’m out of that rut, and now I’m looking around at the new horizons. I have not changed my life so much that everything is different, but I can most certainly spend time now doing more writing, and – if I can motivate myself to do so – playing more music.

Last year was untypical to say the least with my partner’s cancer treatment pretty much occupying the whole year in various ways. I did write a bit about our experiences, but it was a different kind of writing – writing to share something intimate and challenging, and to share to help others as well as ourselves.

A blog without a photo is boring.
This is my favourite pine tree.

Cancer treatment has finished, and hopefully Sheena will continue to get stronger and better now that the cancer has gone. But the side effects of the treatments (which only stopped this month) need some recovery time too.

Back to the start of this – that I want to write every day. Writing is like any muscle, you need to use it to keep it strong and flexible. So, I’m limbering up – getting ready to launch back into exercising my writing brain beyond the daily use demanded by work, or the occasional blog.

My plan is to write a novel. Oh yes, everyone has a novel in them we know, but do I have a story, and a loose plot, I just need to work on characterisations, structure and then simply sit down and write. It doesn’t matter if what I write isn’t good enough – it matters only that I write. The more I do so, the more I will improve. I will also ask for critique from those whose opinions I value, sure of their honesty.

If you have a goal you want to achieve, what do you do to pursue it? In a recent training course (which has prompted me to do this), one of the recommendations was ‘affirmations’ – saying out loud to yourself what it is you want to achieve. One colleague put it really simply, “I’ve said it, so I’ll do it”.  I like that.

Hence this rather boring, but important to me, blog. I have said it. I will do it.

Other blog posts related to writing:

Thesisa

Troublesome angels

Time management

Postscript - having looked for a photo to illustrate this post, I think I just might write something about that tree next.

(C) Carolyn Sheppard

So long, and thanks for all the...

STM at Cambridge Junction, 2020

Cropredy, 1994

Well, not fish, for sure! Saturday 18th January 2020 did, however, bring an end to something that was a big part of my life. From 1988 to around 2010, I was part of a band called Shave the Monkey that played folk clubs around the UK and folk festivals in the UK and mainland Europe. We had some amazing times, including playing at Fairport Convention's Cropredy festival (to something like 17,000 people), Cambridge Folk Festival, Dranouter in Belgium and Skagen Festival in Denmark.  We appeared on BBC and ITV and on lots of radio stations.

I don't think I can explain the feeling of being on stage, with five other musicians all working together to enterain, and so many people listening, enjoying and participating in your music. There's nothing quite like it.

I'm a songwriter mostly, but the band was probably 2/3 instrumental, 1/3 songs. It wasn't just me that sang, Steve also wrote (writes) songs and we did a few of his songs and tunes in our sets and on our CDs. I still sing, I still play, but arthritis in the hands is a bugger for a guitarist!

Here's me singing our 'hit' The Witchfinder General for the very last time:

The band broke up (so did the marriage of two of the members), and we played a couple of  reunion gigs (I think in 2012 - but happy to be corrected). That was weird, because I was in a very difficult place. The husband's girlfriend was in the audience, there were musical tensions, lots of emotions, and it wasn't easy with the new relationship dimensions. I don't think I did my best, but I certainly tried - the audience (and their reaction) are always the most important thing when performing; you have to give it your best. Which reminds me...

A very long time ago

I remember one time we played the Rupert Bear Appreciation Society Annual Conference. Yes, such a thing exists (and lots of them did wear check trousers/scarves and red jumpers), and we were their evening entertainment. This was about 2000, and I know because I was in the depth of depression at the time. I remember laying on the car roof before the gig, looking at the sky and wondering why I was alive.

But I also remember going on stage and playing - and seeing the Ruperts dance, hearing them clap, and even sing along with a number or two. And that was always a good way to banish the black dog.

There was another time we played the Pagan Federation's annual conference in London.  I wasn't black dogged then, thankfully, but it was a strange gig. I remember a few things - such as my bum being too hot as a massive stage light was directly behind me, a small child leaping on my lap and giving me a 'pagan kiss' because he liked our music so much, and a large man in a pink fairy costume. I have to say they were a great audience, and I went back and played again with a musical duo n later iyears.

I could reminisce for ages - good times and bad - gigs with five people, gigs with five thousand, but the important thing is closure. I had said I wasn't intrerested in any more reunions, but with the 'last ever' on the cards, I was happy to contribute a couple of songs and a tune. The audience at the Cambridge Junction was filled with faces we knew from times past, as well as current friends and family. We couldn't have played to a friendlier, warmer, more receptive audience. Perfect for a last gig.

From our very first gig to our very last, it's the audiences that have always made it worthwhile. So though I (and others of course) will continue to play music, Shave the Monkey has finally hung up the razor and is going to let the fur grow.  So long, and thanks to all our amazing audiences for listening, buying CDs, talking to us, telling us what you liked, and for being there at every single gig we ever played.

Mic drop...

Liked this? Try...

Promo video from 1998 (above)
Broken Rock (song)
Music, music (blog)
Mermaid's Tears (song)
Two performances (blog)

(C) Carolyn Sheppard, and Shave the Monkey. Photos from various sources.

Don't load their gun

Last week, several of us from work attended a training event that was a bit different from the norm. The two-day course, called ‘Winning Edge’, was about how to change the way you think to develop (amongst other things) ‘success-oriented attitudes’.  It was donated to the Charity by a local trainer who needed to deliver her first session solo so she could be signed off to teach it independently.  

I’m not going to attempt to distil two days’ training in a single update, but here’s a little excerpt from one of the workbooks to give you a taster –

“Remember that the opposite of success isn’t failure – it’s not trying at all. If we view the ‘failure’ as a stepping stone and not a stumbling block, we ‘reframe’ the word in our consciousness, increase our confidence and reduce our fear of failure, which is a key reason that many people never even attempt to achieve their dreams.”

OK, I’m on board with that. But there were many discussions around several subjects and concepts that – I’m delighted to say – the team were ready to discuss, challenge and develop. It was a stimulating two days, and we still have a further day to go (in February).

But the title of this post is about weaponry, and it’s a concept that I think worth sharing. If someone insults you, or says something that upsets you, or offends you, then they are using a ‘verbal gun’. Now that gun is only loaded if you are insulted, are upset, or offended. In other words, the other person has absolutely no power to ‘shoot’ you unless you choose to ‘load their gun’ by feeling a negative emotion.

And you can choose how you react.

Let me give an example:

“Carolyn, you look tired today”. Is the person saying this to me

• a)       Concerned for my health
• b)      Making a snide comment as I have dark rings under my eyes
• c)       Just making conversation
• d)      Making an observation?

It doesn’t matter, because how I react, how I choose to interpret and respond to what is being said to me, is what counts. They made a comment. I can choose to listen, or not listen, and above all I can choose how I feel about what they said. I can choose not to be insulted, upset or offended. 

This subject alone engendered quite a bit of discussion, but it did have a useful learning point – perhaps it could even be interpreted as ‘don’t let the beggars grind you down’. But it’s more than that, it’s not about defiance or challenge, it's about choice. Choose not to let someone insult, offend, upset you, and you totally take away their power. Don’t load their gun with the bullet of your response.  This will take time and practice if you choose to subscribe to this way of thinking and if you are upset by something that’s ok, it doesn’t mean your feelings are less valid because you chose to react to them in that way.

For more information; and in the meantime, here’s the website https://www.winningedgemindset.com/

Kiss away time

This is a song I wrote in 2000 - it's about the departing spirit of a loved one:

There's a bell ringing

There's a door banging

There's an open wound on the flesh of a child

There's flies buzzing

In the quiet garden

While mother says the injury is mild

I wish I were young again

How I wish I could take away his pain

And kiss away the tears

and laugh away the years

And play like a child at a game

There's music coming

From an open window

The cat upon the fence

Is half asleep

The child resting

The sun warming

Summer afternoons can be so deep

I wish I were young again

Could chase through the meadow and the corn

The sun warms the garden grass

As I drift back towards when I was born

There's a church bell ringing

And a hymn singing

I lift above the sound upon a prayer

I watch slowly

The sad faces

As summer's last breath takes away my cares

Now I am young again

I live within the memories they keep

Now I am young again

I slip away as quietly as sleep

There's a bell ringing

A door banging

The child now has a child all of his own

I watch smiling

As he bends to touch him

And kiss away the tears now that he's grown

Kiss away the tears

(C) Carolyn Sheppard.

Suffolk Lullaby

Oh my, I haven't written my blog since October last year. How remiss of me! Who cares? I do. Why do I care? Because I love writing and I am letting other things distract me. Oh yeah, I'm busy with work and fun, but I'm lazy too.

So this little blog is about something really simple, about the wonderful place I live - near Dunwich, a small village on the East Coast of the UK.

At night I can hear the roar of the sea, and the soughing of the wind in the trees. I call it the 'wind giants' - I imagine them striding through the pines, shaking the trees as they march through, thoughtless for all else but progress from land to sea. I go for long walks with the dogs when it's dark - and I hear the calls of tawny owls, and the frantic flapping of disturbed pheasant and pigeon as the big dog goes chasing them hell for leather.

We hear the bark of the deer - muntjack and red, and the sharp call of the fox, who we often see using our road as his own convenient highway.

When it's damp, the woods release their scent; a fresh wood mould, and the tang of fungi. There is a sharpness when the ferns open, uncurling their fronds and turning the brown undergrowth into a deep carpet of green.

When we sit in our lounge, looking out of the window, we see the squirrels try and defy our latest 'squirrel proof' feeder, and watch the woodpeckers, long tailed tits, marsh, blue and coal tits, swaying as they enjoy the sunflower seeds and peanuts. And sometimes, swooping with deadly speed, we see the sparrowhawk and mourn the loss of one of the smaller birds.

Some Sundays we go to Southwold and walk across the marshes - in summer weather the grass in lush and green, and in the winter we need wellingtons and a careful sense of balance as we negotiate foot-deep swatches. Geese, ducks, lapwing - all circle and land, startled by our presence and the over-enthusiasm of the pack of dogs we and our friends have brought with us to enjoy the exercise.

At home we light the wood burner, and it smokes like a grumpy dragon before sending it's warmth through the room, and through the house. We watch the flames dancing - hypnotised by their colours, their patterns, and the mysteries they suggest. The wood is pine, oak, sycamore - wood that we have cut, that we have split and stacked. Each log is a small testament to our hard work, and we see it go up in flames, delighting and warming us.

Late at night, lying in bed, the wind giants precursor the rain, and the drumming of drops on the window, on the roof, on the grass outside - is a soothing Suffolk lullaby.


Photos: (C) Carolyn Sheppard

Liked this? Try...

How life changes
The gift of snow
A walk around Fowlmere
Adelong Morning