In which I show you more of the inside of my house than I am comfortable with.
I have an urgent yearning to reconnect with the feminine. Round and round this circle I go and that’s where I have landed over the past few weeks.
But what is this feminine I want to embrace? For me, it has been about consciously moving away from the identify of high-achieving entrepreneur who lives on zoom and towards the energy of the homemaker who creates a meaningful life within five miles of her home.
This woman has a rich life full of depth and connection. She has a beautiful home that feels like a sanctuary. She has her hair highlighted, brushes it and wears it down and takes care of her body and wears clothes that feel exquisitely soft.
She is the heart of her home, her presence is felt in the living room, the kitchen and the bedroom (not just the office).
She builds a life in her community, getting more involved with the dance classes she’s been part of for over a decade but only ever shown up for on a Monday night for an hour then vanished. She volunteers to spend time with people at the end of their lives in her local hospital. She joins the choir. She sets up a local women’s salon so her life can be full of rich conversation with in-real-life people that you can hug at the end of your time together.
She steps down from the role of breadwinner and is financially supported. She writes, which takes up 36cm x 25cm of space (the size of her laptop), and her nails are painted as she does so.
This vision, which to you may sound awful, truly lights me up and I have spent a lot of time with it over the past weeks. This is how it came about.
I have been using AI to help me create room mock ups for my art. The rooms it creates make me go ooooooo and feel a yearning for beauty and the warmth of being home. So this summer I took a photograph of my living room (which I hate) and asked it to pimp it up in the style of my room mock ups. This is what it gave me.
I then asked gave it the prompt: source everything in this room for me. It gave me a list of links and then on the Friday before I knew my husband would be away for a week, I sat down and ordered the lot.
My Mum had left me a small amount of money when she died three years ago, which I had been saving for this purpose, but felt too guilty to spend on such frivolous things as making my house beautiful. Plus my husband and I could never agree on what should happen to the hideous curtains so…..
While he was away, everything arrived and the room was transformed in a sanctuary that, when I spend time there, makes me happy. (Pic to follow when the new curtains arrive to finish it off.) He quite likes it too.
Beauty is one of my highest values, I simply must have it – and this room showed me how much I needed it.
But then, if I walk out my living room, this is what I am greeted with. In my attempt to create beauty, I have created a fucking mess. The carpets are spattered with paint, the main room in the centre of the house that we walk through every day is full of new canvases, canvases that are drying and easels. My office is jammed full in every corner with paints and brushes. The kitchen table is always covered in half-made things.
And so last week (behind the scenes because I was launching a new collection at the time), I quit painting.
Made plans to pack it all up and take all the supplies to the local adult education centre. To create a life that embodied serenity instead of chaos. And the vision above was born.
But then……
One conversation with a woman (isn’t it always?)
“Nic, creativity IS messy”, she said.
And I remembered I am half serene-sanctuary-woman and half wild woman.
The wild woman scrapes back her unbrushed hair into a bun because she’s moving around doing stuff and long wafty hair gets in the way. She wears her skankiest clothes because they will be covered in mud and paint by lunchtime. As will her nails.
Her creativity does not require refinement and quiet and direction and simplicity. It requires huge explosive experiments with loud music where no one has any idea where it’s going except we can pretty much guarantee it’s the carpet.
All this to say; I am both of these aspects of the feminine.
And I un-quit painting.
Now my experiment is to work out how to welcome in all parts of me in a way where the judgement falls away. (Though the judgy bitch part of myself might also have to get an invite to the party to solve that problem.)
We are so complex, us humans. That’s why I love us.