Writing in a red notebook
Hi!
I’m fine, I’m alive. Thanks to those who asked about me. :-)
It’s April, one of my favorite months after all. And suddenly; spring is here with warmth that has kept me and Smilla outside for a few days now. I have been listening to new music, reading great books and trying to write. Today I went for a long brisk walk in the sun. It was lovely.
I’ve bought myself a passion notebook to write texts in. It’s a red plain Moleskine notebook. Red as love, passion and blood.
Writing is something I need just like I need oxygen and friends. It keeps me sane.
Smilla is loving spring this year too. It’s like waking up again. Stretching, getting outside, finding a new pace.
Lately I haven’t been able to find much that keeps me sane around here. It’s not you, it’s me. I’ve been talking about a blog break or hiatus for months (as thorough readers will remember), but haven’t been able to say goodbye yet. I love my blog. I love you. I love to inspire you. Plus, I’m bad with goodbyes, I can’t stand giving up. But even though it will not be a permanent farewell it will be a couple of months away from this blog. A spring, perhaps a summer. I just know I’m getting closer to taking that step away. I need it, badly. So be prepared. Maybe after Easter after a couple of more posts. Let the countdown start. Enjoy it while it lasts.
April is celebration month in my world. Easter not so much for being eastery but brining light, pastel colors and fresh air. My birthday is coming up, and so is the fifth (!) blogoversary of this very blog!
Five years is quite a while to keep writing about everything creative when my creativity is expanding by the minute. It’s draining me right now. Letting it expand further would be asking for an explosion. There has been quite a few changes in my life, in my mind and in my approach to creativity during these years. Of course. Change is constant even though I do try to resist it like a stubborn child. Lately I feel like I’m going farther away from some things, like online community and crafts, and narrowing in on other creative forms of expression, like art collages.
The missing puzzle piece is writing with passion. For me, right now, that is what I need. I even think I’ve said it before, but couldn’t make it happen. Couldn’t figure it out. I think I know what was wrong now. I was closed to that part of me.
The writing one can only do with an open heart. I tried to open my heart to writing and it stings. It’s difficult. It’s hard labor. And even though it might seam like all I do is write for the blog, this is not the writing I crave. I need to dig deeper and I need to do it in my own language. Maybe online, maybe off. Maybe I will find the tone I need in a red notebook, maybe on the computer. I do not know. All I know is that writing helps me find myself. Shows me the road to sanity, and sometimes this blog is leading me to insanity; I’ve been obsessed at times. Wanting to post and setting up internal rules for myself that makes my life more difficult. It needs to be happy and beautiful; great image quality, coming up in the correct order, saying something to inspire you even when I myself don’t feel inspired and so on. I know it’s crappy of me to do this to myself and that’s why I need to take a break. I know you understand. I need to step away, de-tox. Just like a blog junkie I got my fix here. This week I’m getting my fix from the sunshine, from talking with friends and from listening to music. Right now a Swedish band and on my walk Jason Mraz.
It’s all about balance, you know that right? I will find it, don’t worry.
I’ll be back soonish with something I did craft.
Hi Hanna,
I hadn’t realized you had been at this for 5 years ! What an unbelievable document to all the changes you have been through.
We will miss you when you go for your break but I so understand wanting the energy to go to a different part of yourself, more in the “real” world of experiences.
I wish that you find that red shoes, red book, red word passion that you are looking for. I have a feeling that maybe if you look less and rest a little, it will find its way to you…You deserve it.
Cheers to doing what we need to do for ourselves !
Thank you Kim, so much. I guess resting would do something to my mind I can’t take right now, but I know what you mean.
xoxo
i thought about commenting while you were away, but figured you probably needed the pause.. though i did miss you, smilla, and your wonderful photos and inspiration. welcome back (for the time being). :)
i’ve been doing a Daily Art Card for almost four months now, all ’cause of you and yours last year.. (and i’ve only forgotten a day once or twice!) thank you ever so much for stirring up my imagination and my often-absent determination ~ and from across an ocean, too! you are more powerful than you know… ;)
Oh, Hanna, I will miss you and this blog, but I do understand! Nurture yourself and fall in love with that red noetbook. I’m keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.
hey, thanks for your comment a while back.
im sad to hear you wont be around here for awhile, but i understand why you must take a break.
I’ll just have to browse through all you past entries in the meantime.
take care
I’ll miss your creative adventures. Follow your muse and play out in the sunshine with Smilla and enjoy your life. We all need a break from time to time.
I was wondering if you were letting your blog go.
I know someone else that is letting hers go. She
is just keeping her flickr.
It’s spring and what a better time and thing to do, have
a break from blogging. You have long winters and really
do need to be out enjoying the sunshine and your life.
Enjoy Your Time Away! Know that you will be missed!
God Bless You and Yours, Your Creative Life,
Writing and Your Health!!! Enjoy
Dear Hanna,
I’ve just discovered your blog and have been enjoying earlier posts a lot the past two weeks. For a couple of days I felt myself waiting for a new post. Such a pity it will be one of the las for a while. But I can relate to mixed emotions about giving energy to blogs or the internet. Sometimes you need to keep the energy to yourself. And it takes courage to say farewell to your virtual world for a while.
So…enjoy the spring (and summer)…hopefully you have better spring weather in Sweden than here in the Netherlands! And I really hope to see you again in the fall!
~ Mandy
Skickar dig en STOR kram.
I’d better post my first comment before your break. I have been enjoying your writing, links and photos for a couple of months now, and thank you so much for sharing.
I can relate to the language thing, the mother tongue is so much closer to the heart but English just goes out further, as there are so many more readers to it.
I hope you get your shoulders down, your eyes to the sun and your heart on paper in the coming months.
God Bless
Hanna, enjoy your blog break. We will miss you but I am happy you are taking some time for yourself. We will all still be around. Spend hours writing in the sun with Smilla at your side. Enjoy the beautiful warm days. I have several loved ones begging me to start a blog. I just could not do it. I would have to give up my writing. I do understand the next journey you want to take. Enjoy every moment.
I suspect I’ve had some similar feelings myself lately. I recently posted on my blog about how, the more I craft and interact with the crafting community, the less I’ve been writing and drawing/painting. And it’s not like I don’t have the time to sit down with a note/sketchbook -no less time than I used to, at least- but all I can seem to do is craft and write blog entries about craft, as if my creativity is finite and can only be channeled into a very few ventures at one time.
I was struggling to figure out how to describe the difference between writing for a craft blog and the writing I used to do and you hit it on the head- writing with passion. Thank you; having the appropriate words to describe my feelings has always helped me with dealing with them. It’s not like I’m not passionate about crafting, but the passion is in the craft, not writing about the craft. I’m not ready to back off from craft blogging just yet -I’ve only been at it a couple years, not five- but I need to learn to balance these things somehow, to juggle my mental energies above a beginner’s level. I also need to learn how to channel a little passion into the writing-about-craft.
If blogging about creativity begins to inhibit it, that kind of kills the point, no? Enjoy your much-deserved break, and we will be here when (or if) you return!
Dear Hanna, I have also enjoyed your blog for some time now – I love your craft and I love your writing. Wish you all the best!
Hanna, I will miss my daily visits to you but totally understand your need to take a break. Enjoy your creativity, enjoy your soul writing, enjoy your time away, enjoy your life!
You spoke right to my heart, right to that writing I’ve just started getting, fighting, struggling back to.
The notebook is pink and the dream, big. Let’s make some of those dreams the reality. Follow the passion.
Lycka till, jag ?r s?ker p? att du kommer att g?ra r?tt val.
Hanna,
Balance is good. I’ll drop you notes and fun, artsy things in the mail for you to play with. Enjoy your time away!
Amy
Hi Hanna
Have a lovely inspirational break and I hope that you will find what you’re looking for. I have only recently come across this blog and have enjoyed it immensely – ideas, colours, Smilla and you. All fabulous.
I have a crate of empty notebooks and have a morbid fear of filling them so I hear what you are saying. I hope you fill many lovely red moleskines! Take care and come back soon. Kram, Ellie x
Hi Hanna, Reading your post reminded me how difficult it can be to make the time to write, and then I recalled this poem that I wrote a long time ago about
Wanting to Write…….
Wanting to write/ you’ve a feeling of 49 percent/ the prompting of guilt?
Wanting to write/you’re hanging suspended/ in silence as before thunder/ you don’t breathe and you can’t hear
Wanting to write/ you go for the warmth of wood/ in the familiar kitchen/ carpeted with heather and damp grass
Wanting to write / in the brown desert / you worry about the ducklings/ the eggs cracking / the placentas
Wanting to write / you lack rigidity / you let yourself go/ crooked, fractured / in the washouse like a stage set /over it’s dark edge you / send your working cries
Wanting to write / your body is laughing/ you survive and emerge/ with rotary blades / whirring on your heels.
i had forgotten about this poem until I read your post, about how all the feelings and emotions that emerge each time I write, and how some are wonderful, and some are difficult and sometimes painful.
Go for it, have a writing holiday, as long as you need, fill those notebooks, I wish you will find your passion on those now, but soon to be filled blank pages.
I’m glad that you pulled this from your archives for Seth’s Buried Treasure. Passion, balance, writing from the heart…I’m stumbling a bit these days in my personal writing and I’m finding myself shortening my thoughts as a result. But a red journal…what a creative and brilliant idea. I know just what I’m setting out to find today. And if I can’t find one that is red to purchase I’ll create a red, vibrant, passionate cover and devote myself to filling it. Thanks for the inspiration Hanna!