A Still LIfe

Liz gave me this book for my birthday "I think you might like it, Mum" she said "She knitted a weather scarf" Josie, like my girls, is in her thirties, also a young Mum. I read the book, cover to cover, and found it thought provoking, interesting, and amazingly positive in the face of so much that was negative. Here's the blurb - which sums up things beautifully. 

"Josie George lives in a tiny terraced house in the urban West Midlands with her son. Since her early childhood, she has lived with the challenge of disabling chronic illness. Her days are watchful and solitary, lived out in the same hundred or so metres around her home.

But Josie’s world is surprising, intricate, dynamic. She has learned what to look for: the patterns of ice on a frozen puddle; the routines of friends at the community centre; the neighbourhood birds; the slow changes in the morning light, in her small garden, in her growing son, in herself.

In January 2018, Josie sets out to tell the story of her still life, over the course of a year. As the seasons shift, and the tides of her body draw in and out, Josie begins to unfurl her history: her childhood bright with promise but shadowed by confinement; her painful adolescence and her hopeful coming of age; the struggle of her marriage, and the triumph of motherhood. And then a most unexpected thing happens in Josie’s quiet present: she falls in love.

A Still Life is a story of illness and pain that rarely sees the light: illness and pain with no end or resolution; illness and pain that we must meet with courage, joy, ingenuity and hope. Against a world which values ‘feel good’ progress and productivity above all else, Josie sets out a quietly radical alternative: to value and treasure life for life itself, with all its defeats and victories, with all its great and small miracles."

She has faced so much adversity, and I really admire her for the way she has come through. Because her illness didn't fit into a neatly defined diagnosis, and has good spells, and bad spells, she was unable to take on regular employment. So she determined to be self-employed and provide for herself and her son in the best ways she could - using writing and photography.

People who complain about their relatively trivial deprivations of lockdown should consider there are others who've been 'locked down' for much longer, and in much worse situations.

You can read her blog on her website [here] and follow her wonderful photography on Instagram [here] at 'Porridge Brain' . Last month she became one of the regular contributors to the Guardian Country Diary feature.  She is so gifted with book the pen and the camera. Check her out

By the way, she never mentions the weather scarf in the book [you can see it on Instagram though]

 I haven't mentioned my scarf for ages. It is finished now, and I just found the box I packed it in. I'll post about that soon. I rate this book ***** - thank you Liz!