Finding HopeNovember 2023 in Photos
Posted on November 30, 2023
I really enjoyed doing the photo challenge in September so I couldn’t resist doing another one. It’s been a weird month though; I don’t know if I would’ve committed to it had I known what the month would hold, how exhausted and burned out I’d feel, but once I’d decided to do it, I had to follow through. Between how tired and how focussed on my current writing I’ve been, there haven’t been many opportunities to take unique or exciting photos but I’ve done my best. So here is my November 2023 in photos, as prompted by the Planner & Paper photo challenge on Instagram, Life in Pockets…
1. Thankful for…
How could I not be thankful for this gorgeous little bean? She’s soft and warm and snuggly and she adores me as much as I adore her.
2. Home Decor
My favourite room in my house is the living room and that is largely due to the fairy lights that we hung around the room a few years ago. They give the room a soft, warm glow and it always feel inviting and safe. Sometimes I put them on during the day, regardless of the light level, because it just gives me a little boost to look at them.
3. Selfie
I rarely take selfies anymore, especially alone. I just really don’t like looking at myself if I’m completely honest. But I have taken a few while holding Izzy, if she’s doing something particularly cute, like she did in this moment: falling asleep on my chest and tucking her face into my neck. It was too adorable not to take a photo of.
6. Home Project
I don’t have a home project exactly but my current self-care-craft-project-sort-of-thing is making bracelets, inspired by The Eras Tour. There’s just something really soothing about the repetitive motion, about making something – even something this simple – with my hands.
8. While I’m At Work
If I flip down the lid of my laptop where it sits on my little sofa table, this is my view: Izzy curled up on or against me, a cat or two on various soft surfaces, and sometimes my Mum working similarly. It’s a very companionable, pleasant way to work.
9. Something Not So Fun
After several days of feeling pretty unwell, I took a COVID test. I’d thought it was just exhaustion and over-exertion after a very intense week with a lot of travel and late nights but then I developed a sore throat so I took a test straight away. I don’t love the sensations involved with taking a test – I’m pretty used to them at this point – but then the first test came back void and I had to do it all again; I was not impressed by that and neither were my sore throat and sinuses. It was, of course, worth it: I was negative and while I still had to be careful – I was still sick after all – I was relieved that it wasn’t anything as serious as COVID.
10. Out The Window
Okay, I’m cheating a bit because I didn’t take this photo on the tenth but it is honestly the greatest thing I’ve ever seen outside of my house. How could I not share it?! Not only is the name hilarious for a waste clearance company, but the tag followed by the phone numbers is so fucking funny. Apparently The Lord of the Rings franchise have sent them cease and desist letters and they’re now in litigation: they have to change the colour if they want to keep everything else. That seems ridiculously petty – and pretty pathetic, lacking all sense of humour – for such a wealthy franchise. I’m glad they’re getting to keep everything but the colour because it genuinely made my day.
12. Your Choice!
We had our first evening at puppy school! We met some gorgeous puppies (I’m pretty sure Izzy is still the smallest though) and learned some basic skills, including settling on a blanket, recall training, and the beginnings of walking on a lead. Izzy was picking it up very quickly but she was definitely ready to go home at the end: concentrating for that long was understandably hard for a young puppy and she was quite clearly getting overwhelmed by all of the other dogs. She’s really good at meeting new people but meeting dogs makes her anxious, which doesn’t really surprise me since almost all of them are bigger than her. Anyway, she did well and we have some exercises to practice before next week’s class.
15. A Hug
That day I was working at home, alone, all day so there was no one to hug. Well, no people. Izzy was very snuggly and, as afternoon turned into evening, she climbed on top of me – while I was sitting at my laptop – and curled up on my shoulder. I ended up sliding down to accommodate her and she fell asleep like that. It was so cute that I couldn’t help myself: I stopped working and just stroked her, almost drifting off myself.
17. Your Choice!
I had a session with Richard – Richard Marc, one of my best friends and favourite cowriters, as well as my producer – and we worked on some of the songs for my next project. I’m so excited about it and so keen to get it out in the world; I’m trying my hardest not to let my passion for it burn me out before that point BUT I’M JUST SO EXCITED.
18. Comfy
I feel so lucky that Izzy and I have such a strong, close bond and that she wants to spend so much time as close to me as possible. It’s so cute and I always feel better for it. An extra joy of it is that I catch every adorable or ridiculous position that she adopts, like this snuggle with her toy elephant, Nellie.
21. Preparation
While I love the flexibility of my bullet journal – how I can customise it to exactly what I want or need – drawing it out every month can get a bit tedious. And it doesn’t help that Izzy keeps stealing my pens and then chewing them to death. But it can be quite meditative, if I haven’t left it to the absolute last minute that is.
23. Thankful
The night before, I played a set at a local gig and I had such a good time. As anxious as I can get beforehand and despite how much pain I tend to find myself in afterwards, I love performing so much. I love playing the songs I’ve written – songs that I love so deeply – and sharing them with new people. And it’s so special when people reach out to tell me why they connect to them. Even though I often struggle with not being further along the path than I am, I’m so thankful that I get to do this at all. There’s nothing I love more.
24. Family
Given that my actual family is somewhat scattered at the moment, I thought I’d post about my cats, my gorgeous family of cats. I haven’t seen as much of them as usual because all but Lucy are keeping their distance, still wary of Izzy; Lucy isn’t phased but then she has already bent Izzy to her will. The others are getting bolder but it’s a slow process. At this time of year, they’d usually be draped around the living room so I am really missing them, just having them around. So this little moment with all of them was very nice.
25. Sleep
God, I’ve been so tired this month. I’ve been falling asleep constantly, regardless of where I’m sitting or what I’m doing (now if only I could sleep properly at night). And Izzy, the little sweetheart that she is, is always desperate to snuggle up, to get as close as possible. Hence these pictures. And while they’re very cute, she does actually help me sleep; soft and warm and breathing steadily, she’s better than any weighted blanket.
26. Self Care
While going to the pool for a swim and my hydrotherapy exercises is good for my body, it’s also really good for my mental state. I know that a big part of that will be due to the endorphins from the exercise but I do think that there’s more to it: I’ve always loved the feeling of being in the water but it’s also such a relief to be able to move around without pain, something that just feels so glorious and freeing. I think there’s also some self esteem stuff going on, being able to exercise and get stronger after feeling so physically incapable and broken. But now I’m actually getting fitter and stronger, which I feared I would never be able to do without serious discomfort, pain, and distress. So the pool represents a lot of things to me and swimming really lifts my mood.
27. Weather
We’ve had some amazing weather recently, from glorious sunshine to torrential rain. I’ve seen multiple rainbows and several beautiful sunsets. It’s been a stunning November. This was my second favourite sunset, recently at least.
30. Self Care
While spending time with my cats is always good for my soul, it’s particularly special right now: the cats have – unsurprisingly – been avoiding the whirlwind that is Izzy and, since she’s usually with me, I haven’t been seeing them much. Not to snuggle with, at least. But they are getting braver and although Lucy doesn’t take any shit from her, she’s reluctant to get close enough to me to cuddle if Izzy’s around. But there have been a couple of occasions recently – when Izzy has been hanging out with Mum – where Lucy has taken advantage of the moment and curled up with me, which have just been gorgeous. Running my hands through her fur and listening to her purring, I can feel an internal meter filling up.
* Bonus: In The Distance
Up in London, I was walking back along the Southbank and everything was lit up and beautiful. The London Eye usually is, as far as I know but the lights in the trees and between buildings were stunning and there’s different pieces of art and installations everywhere. I love it.
As well as the lights in these pictures, there was a strip of rainbow neon along the bridge and there were lights spelling out ‘PROUD’ underneath, visible to boats and people walking by. I tried to get a picture but I couldn’t get anything unobstructed by various parts of the bridge.
Unsurprisingly, this month’s photos feature Izzy heavily: between all of the time I’ve spent writing, sitting at my laptop with Izzy curled up against me, and the fact that she’s still very young and thus needs a lot of supervision, she’s been a very obvious subject for my photos. I also haven’t done much outside my normal routine this month – having had so much work to do and having felt so tired and burned out – so there haven’t been many exciting opportunities for new and interesting pictures. But, as I said, I tried my best and hopefully the adorable puppy pictures make up for the lack of variation…
A Week in My Life (Reading Week)
Posted on April 4, 2020
A while back, I had a reading week as part of my university semester, where classes don’t happen and we stay home to focus on our studying. Being a part time student meant that it wasn’t much of a change as I’m only at uni one day a week but not having to expend the energy that that requires allowed me to do more, both in terms of uni work and in other areas. Yes, I researched for my essay, prepared for a presentation, and wrote songs, but I also did a whole bunch of things for my job as a singersongwriter.
MONDAY
I got up, did my hair and makeup, and caught a train to London. I’d booked a slot at the Selfie Factory at The O2 Arena, thinking that Richard (Richard Marc, who also does all my photography – he’s a photographer as well as a writer, musician, and producer) and I might get some good social media content. I get very self conscious having my photo taken but I’m trying to get over that anxiety and it looked like fun.
I used the train journey to send a load of emails, which made good use of the time, and then I met Richard at The O2. The Selfie Factory was small but it had some really fun set ups and we had great fun, especially in the ballpit.
We got some nice photos and when our time ran out, we headed home. Again, I used the train journey to be productive and worked on a rough script for my university presentation – we all had to give presentations on our essay subjects the next week when we were back in regular classes. I’d already made the slides with the information but I wanted a rough script to keep me on track and provide extra information.
I got home and, even though I was exhausted, I practiced several of my songs as I had a recording session coming up later in the week that I needed to be prepared for. I wasn’t super familiar with the arrangements of the songs I was singing so it was quite hard work but I definitely made progress, getting used to the rhythm and melody. It was a good practice.
TUESDAY
I started the day with another big batch of emails: uni stuff, music stuff, gigging stuff.
That took an hour or so and then I spent the rest of the day doing research for my assessment essay. There’s not much to write about here really; I just read relevant sections of books, read articles, and pulled useful quotes, putting them in separate documents to keep everything organised. This session was focussed on imagery, specifically in songwriting, obviously. It’s surprising how few books on songwriting go into any detail around imagery.
At least I had some good company (and entertainment).
I had a gentle evening, working on a blog post and watching old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. There’s something very comforting about the familiarity of them and the time when I first watched them.
WEDNESDAY
I spent the morning practicing for the recording session, going over the songs, and then, after lunch, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist.
The practice had moved since my last appointment so there was an element of anxiety about going but it was okay and turned out to be a really productive session. My psychiatrist agreed with my decision to come off the Aripiprazole, since it clearly wasn’t working, and we discussed what else we could try to help with my anxiety. We also talked about what could be causing my drowsiness and decided to try reducing my Pregablin as it’s clearly the current medication situation that’s causing it. So we’ll see how that goes. And considering we’re changing that, we decided to stick with the Diazepam for my anxiety so that we’re only changing one thing at a time and can clearly see the results. Otherwise you can’t tell what’s causing what. So that’s progress and we’ll just have to see what the effects are.
Late in the afternoon, I caught a train up to London in preparation for the recording session the next day, using the time to do some more reading for my essay. My frequent train journeys are great for any reading I have to do for my course. From Victoria, I made my way to where I stay in London: the flat belonging to one of my parents. I was suddenly, out of nowhere, overwhelmed with anxiety and although I took Diazepam as soon as the feeling started, it obviously doesn’t kick in straight away so I spent most of the journey talking to said parent, a mix of distraction and reassurance. I’d just started to feel calmer when I got there.
We had dinner together and then I spent the evening in the pursuit of catching up with my diary. It feels like a hopeless task; I’m so behind, what with the time taken up by uni work and managing my mental health. I’m hoping to catch up once I’ve submitted my essay. It’ll take a while though.
THURSDAY
I slept terribly. So terribly that I barely got any sleep at all, the worst I’ve slept in years. Maybe I was nervous about the recording. I finally got a solid hour or so just before my alarm went off. But it was an important day so I dragged myself up, got ready, and headed to the University of West London where we were using one of their studios to do the recording.
It was a beautiful studio and we had a lot of fun. Having said that, we worked bloody hard. We worked from about eleven until six, filming and recording for a project that I’m not going to talk about yet. It’s a surprise. It does mean there’s not a lot for me to write about, other than the fact that I’m super grateful to everyone (all tagged below) for the work they put in. I really, really appreciate it.
When we finished, I was so tired that I thought I might throw up. I manage to help pack up a little but eventually I just had to leave. I felt bad for not staying to the very end but everyone was very understanding. I got home and barely made it through dinner before falling asleep at about half past eight.
FRIDAY
I slept for twelve solid hours and woke up feeling like an entirely different person. Still, I had a slow, gentle start. I had breakfast, got showered and dressed, and did some reading for my essay.
Around lunchtime, my Mum arrived, on her way home from visiting her Mum (this was when we still thought we were going to Nashville and she’d obviously wanted to spend some time with her before we went). She’d stopped in London because we had a plan to have lunch with one of my best friends, Sharné, and her Mum, who had come to visit her. The four of us had hoped to spend a little time at the songwriters circle I’d played (the one I mentioned in my previous A Week in My Life post) but it was busy and loud and it just wasn’t the right setting. So we’d planned lunch at this awesome Italian restaurant.
It started out quite stressfully due to pouring rain and terrible traffic but once we were all together, it was lovely. They’re both so lovely. We all got on really well and have a lot in common; it was just unfortunate that we didn’t have longer. Hopefully we’ll get another chance at some point.
We said goodbye and me and Mum headed home to Brighton. When we got in, I curled up on the sofa with a couple of the cats and had some diary time. I was exhausted and really just needed some quiet, rest time.
SATURDAY
Richard came down first thing because we were performing at the Access Open Day at The Brighton Dome. We picked him up from the station and went home so he could drop off his stuff and we could have a quick run-through, especially of the songs that we’ve only just started to perform like ‘Clarity.’
We headed to The Dome and had everything explained to us, where we could store our stuff, hang out between sets, and so on. We were playing once at 12.30pm and again at 2.15pm so we’d have time to kill between sets. There were other talks and activities going on but I’m never able to concentrate when I’m about to perform.
Both sets went really well. I felt like my voice sounded really good, I didn’t make any (obvious) mistakes, and I felt really confident in my body and how I was moving as I performed. I’ve done a few gigs recently but before a couple of months ago, it had been a long time since I’d performed so it’s felt a bit like starting all over again. But this felt completely natural and quite possibly the best I’ve ever performed. I’m just sad more people didn’t see it because they were performances I was really proud of. But I had a great time, telling the stories behind the songs and singing my heart out. It felt so good. And that’s the important thing.
This is a picture from the first time I played there:
When we got home, we were both still buzzing with adrenaline so I suggested we write a song since we’re not getting a whole heap of opportunities to write together at the moment with both of us on Masters courses. So we got to work and managed a track and half a song before we ran out of energy. It was really fun and I’m really excited to finish it.
And before the day was up, I put up a blog post as I always try to do on a Saturday. This one was the one about February Album Writing Month, where I tried to write fourteen songs in the month of February. I’m proud of succeeding in the challenge and proud of the post I wrote about it.
We had an early dinner and were basically falling asleep on the sofa so we dragged ourselves up and went to bed early. I was asleep within minutes.
SUNDAY
We had a gentle morning, watching Friends together and companionably working on different things. I finished a blog post and put it up, #30dayfeb Challenge For Tommy’s. It covered my attempt and completion of Liberty’s Mother‘s challenge to do something positive for your wellbeing from the 1st February to the 1st March. I’d chosen origami.
Richard went home because I had a few things to do, as much as I would’ve liked to have him stay and work on the song and chill out together. So we dropped him at the station, came home, and I got to work, practicing my presentation for the following Tuesday. I was confident with the material and the questions I wanted to ask; I just wanted to make sure it was within the time limit. So I ran that a few times and then spent the rest of the day resting. I also have dinner with some of my family on Sunday nights (when we can manage it) so that was really nice.
So that was my reading week. Not as productive uni work wise as I would’ve hoped – I wanted to have started writing the essay rather than still adding research to my structure – but it was very productive in the working-as-a-singer-songwriter sense. And those opportunities don’t come around super often so I’m really grateful for them. So it was a good, if exhausting week.
January 2020
Posted on February 15, 2020
January was tough. A lot of difficult things happened. Normally, I wouldn’t do a monthly round up but there were several things this month that I didn’t think would get properly acknowledged (in my yearly review or otherwise) if I didn’t. So here’s January 2020 and it’s highs and lows…
- Assessments and meltdowns – I began the year working frantically and anxiously on assessments for the module I’d just finished. And as soon as I’d finished the essay, it was onto preparing the presentation, which absolutely terrified me. All of the work with no rest and all of the anxiety caused so, so many meltdowns. So it was a very stressful start to the year.
- Presentation – My final presentation was very stressful. I worked ridiculously hard on a powerpoint presentation and script that described my progress throughout the semester with snippets of the songs I’d written and I thought I’d done okay but I was and am upset with my grade, mainly because the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feedback I got seems to contradict each other. There’s this thing we have called Results Counselling (or something similar) where we can go and discuss it all, which I’m gonna do as soon as I can get through it without crying (not just about the grades – it’ll come up later). Whether that will change the grade or not, I don’t know.
- Choosing my timetable and beginning the new semester – My uni are really helpful about working with me to find a timetable that was best for my health, mental and physical. I really appreciate that they do that. I know that, as a disabled student, they have certain obligations to help me but this is something that causes me a lot of anxiety so I do really appreciate it. Special thanks to Ivy and Aislin for their help. And then the semester began. I’ve swung from overwhelming anxiety to calm and back again so many times that I’m dizzy. Right now, I’m okay. I think.
- ‘Clarity’ came out! – The second track from my EP, Honest, was released on the 10th and for what is essentially a second single from an independent artist, it’s done really well. It was added to several playlists with lots of followers and it’s been played on a handful of independent radio stations, including Get In Her Ears, which I’ve followed for a long time. So that was really cool. It’s also had quite a lot of airplay on a couple of local independent radio stations, which feels very special even if bigger stations are ‘better’ for my career – their support means a lot to me. It’s been a lot less stressful and a lot more exciting than the release of ‘Bad Night’ (although that was probably because it was the first one and so all new and unknown). Having said that, there’s still a lot more to come…
- My First DSA Assessment – As you probably remember from this post, it was a bit of a disaster. It was incredibly upsetting and we were basically told I would get no support as a disabled student. Things have changed a bit since then but I don’t want to talk about it until I actually know what’s happening, until it’s more than just speculation and hope.
- Semester B – We’re only four weeks into the new semester so we haven’t gotten that far yet but it’s definitely difficult. Much like the first semester, the content is really interesting but there’s a new challenge this semester: the academic language. A lot of the time I have no idea what the texts are saying and that’s pretty distressing. It makes me feel stupid and like I’m not smart enough to complete a Masters and ‘what the fuck was I thinking trying to do this?!’ Just as I thought I had a question for my assessment essay, I decided it was too complicated and now I’m waiting to hear from my tutor about it. I feel frozen. It’s hard to research when you don’t know what you’re supposed to be researching, a problem I had last semester although in a different scenario. I’m doing my best though and I’m doing my best not to panic. But I’m keeping up with my writing and I’ve written songs that I like so that’s keeping me grounded even though they don’t get assessed. But it reminds me why I’m doing this: to write better songs.
- Manic by Halsey was released – I love Halsey and I was very excited for this album and (Hurray!) I absolutely love it. It’s so different from Badlands and Hopeless Fountain Kingdom but they were really different from each other; there’s progression and evolution and exploration. This one is particularly emotionally vulnerable and to me, the often acoustic production reinforces that. I love all of Halsey’s albums and I think this one is the perfect next step. I love most of the songs but my absolute favourite are ‘Ashley,’ ‘Graveyard,’ ‘You should be sad,’ ‘More,’ ‘Still Learning,’ and ‘929.’
- Sharné visited – One of my best friends from uni came to visit me (and my cats) and we had such a lovely weekend. We went to the beach at golden hour, made cookies, watched movies, and played with the cats. It was so, so nice. I had such a good time. She’s the best.
- University gig – The full time students on my course put on a show and it was so cool to hear the songs they’d written and it was so, so nice to see my friends play and get the recognition they deserve because they’re such talented, hardworking writers. It was such a good gig and I wish I could’ve stayed to the end but I had to get home to Brighton.
(Luce Barka performing ‘Be More Kind’ – a very beautiful, meaningful song.)
- Richard visited – Richard came down to visit me (and, again, the cats – I’m sensing a theme) and we did some writing and production, which was really fun, especially given that I was trying some new things. We also worked on some stuff for the rest of the ‘Clarity’ release cycle and for the release of the next song. Ooooh…
- BeFries closed – My favourite restaurant in Brighton closed this month temporarily and then permanently and I’m absolutely gutted. I loved that place, I loved the food, and I loved the people. I’m so, so sad that it’s gone and I genuinely don’t know where my new meeting spot will be because that’s where I took everyone.
- Announced ‘Clarity’ music video – I announced via social media (I’m having major problems updating my website for some reason) that the ‘Clarity’ music video would be coming out in early February! I’m so excited for everyone to see it! (It will have gone up by the time I post this but this is where I am right now…)
“I’m so, so excited to announce that the music video for ‘Clarity’ will be coming out Friday 7th February! @rsandersonphoto and I had such so much fun shooting this and there’s a pretty cool surprise in there so we hope you love it as much as we do!” (x)
- Cheer – This might seem small compared to some of the other things on this list but I watched it after hearing all the good press about it and it absolutely held up. It was shot beautifully and the pacing was really good. The stories of all the cheerleaders had me so invested in each of them and their places in the series, and in their futures. I cried in almost every episode.
- The Grammys 2020 – I have many, many opinions about The Grammys, about who should’ve won which awards (*cough* Taylor Swift for Song of the Year with ‘Lover’ *cough*) but mainly I’m just super happy that Natalie Hemby and Sara Bareilles won their first Grammys. I can’t believe that this is a first for both of them, given how freaking talented they are and how successful they’ve been but regardless of that, this is amazing news and I’m so happy for both of them.
- Waitress with Sara Bareilles – The best moment of the month was seeing Sara Bareilles on her first night as Jenna in Waitress the Musical in London. She was incredible. The whole show was amazing but she was a magic all of her own. When she sang ‘She Used To Be Mine,’ (which I know is a special song to her and is a special song to me too) the standing ovation went on for so long that eventually the only way to stop us was to continue with the show and therefore force us to sit down. She was truly awesome and I felt so lucky to be there. I’m fortunate enough to get to see her again before her run finishes and I’m so, so excited.
- Track of the Day – In the interval of Waitress, I discovered that ‘Clarity’ was going to be Track of the Day for BBC Introducing in the South and played on the radio, on a show I haven’t been played on before. So that was massively exciting (apart from some confusion about the date). Fortunately, I wasn’t in class when they played it so I could listen and enjoy the feeling! Hearing yourself on the radio, hearing people introduce you and your song and spread the message you’re trying to spread is so special.
- Lucky – If you follow my social media, you’ll know that we had to have our family dog put to sleep in the last days of January. We first met him when he was a couple of days old and he would’ve been sixteen on the 9th February, so he lived a long and happy life (I hope he was happy – he seemed happy and we did everything to make sure he was). But saying goodbye to him was agonising and there’s been a massive hole in my life ever since. I miss him desperately. I want to write more about him – it just feels like the right thing to do – but I’m just not ready yet.
- #30dayfeb – My tutor, mentor, friend, and super inspiring person, Sophie Daniels, is running a challenge throughout February (1st February – 1st March) under her artist project name, Liberty’s Mother (the name comes from the name of her daughter, Liberty, who tragically died the day before she was born), to raise awareness about baby loss and money for the baby loss charity, Tommy’s. The challenge is all about doing something positive for your wellbeing everyday for 30 days. I know a lot of people are going to the gym everyday, doing yoga, and so on but given my chronic fatigue and chronic pain, I can’t do those things so I’ve decided to focus on relaxing my brain: mindfulness essentially but in a slightly less traditional fashion. I’m going to try and make a piece of origami every day because I can’t think or stress about anything when I’m doing it because I have to concentrate so hard. And I could do with some of that. You can sponsor me to do this, to try and do this everyday. Here are some of my attempts so far.
So that was January. Yeah, 2020 – the new decade – began on a very stressful and sad note. I’m thankful for the moments of light.
Finding Hope 