Over the last 3 years the only place I have been apart from at home is Hastings. We go down there to dog sit for our wonderful friends (yes michelle & chris I am talking about you) when they are away. It is a mutually beneficial relationship as we love being down there and we also love their dog (yes mazzy I am talking about you). Anyway whilst down there I have also been documenting the characterful coastal town and its characterful inhabitants. And as my brain is back in gear a bit I am finally able to go through the photographs and share with you some of my selections, which I will do over the coming weeks…
So I hope you will enjoy this little visit to the seaside. Having been marooned in my local area for such a long time it was great to be taking pictures on a different turf. Hastings has a very unique vibe and doesn’t feel like anywhere else I have been in U.K so was very inspiring to photograph. This week featured captured moments that ignite an imagined story.
Like this dude..a one man walking disco. He actually looked a bit pissed off and quite charged up. He doesn’t look he’s going to bust some moves so I imagined he had just gone round to his ex to take back his disco ball which she had commandeered after the break-up and he had taken back what was rightfully his. “You can have the rowing machine but the glitterball is coming with me! I’m gonna have loads of fun without you..I’m gonna have a party and invite loads of people and it will be amazing and you’ll hear about it and curse the day you broke up with me and now every time you see a disco ball you’ll think what did I do? he was the best thing that ever happened to me..why? WHY??”
ok, I got a bit carried away there but you get the gist..
Splashes of colour this week. Why? Well it’s spring innit? I know for most that would mean arty shots of tulips in bloom but as you know that ain’t how I roll…
This woman seems to have coordinated her outfit with her birthday balloons, which begs the question..which came first? Did she buy the balloons because they matched her clothes or did she go and buy a whole new wardrobe so she could fit in with the inflatable numbers? This is the sort of shot that keeps me up at night..
It wasn’t just the flash of bright orange which attracted me to these two individuals. I mean, come on, that is a serious look..just wow! I rarely engage with my chosen subjects but I just had to have a word and find out what was transpiring. They were putting up fliers for something called the 27club. And I was like oh, where’s that then? Some new local joint to check out? No, said the gents, all these people died at 27. Joplin, Morrison, Winehouse etc. Ok. right…I see..umm..and? Tragic yes but why lump em all together? To what end? And why post em on the wall?They didn’t really care to elaborate and so that was kinda that.
I have obviously veered off the topic of spring but really what else is there to say? Comes round every year. Starts getting warmer. Days get longer. Ok, think we got that all covered..maybe this could be a regular thing..recapping seasons..feels like a vital and important service..
Old geezers, blokes & gents this week. Our neighbourhood is now mostly overrun with tourists so its getting harder to spot the old characters that have always lived in this area. But they are still there and I am sure they must be thinking…what the hell happened to this place? I think that and I’ve only been here since the 90s and I’m considerably younger. (I don’t know what constitutes considerably but I’m going with it)
I’ve tried to take photos of the tourists but they all look the same to me. Walking down Portobello these days is like sailing through a sea of puffer jackets…head to toe in uniqlo. I’m not dissing them it just doesn’t get the creative juices flowing. And then I see a craggy old characterful dude, his entire existence etched in every line in his face and that’s what I want to shoot. (not like kill obvs, that would be murder, I know they’re old but shame on you)
I’ve always been drawn towards characterful faces as anyone who follows this blog will know. I just find symmetrical beauty quite dull. I’m watching Boardwalk Empire at the mo (I know, late to the party) and I just marvel at Steve Buscemi’s face. It’s spectacular. Anyway I digress…
One day I will be one of these old characterful guys shuffling down the street, but the spirit of me will still be encased within the worn exterior. And that will be so for every one of these men this week so we should not judge by external facades. Who knows who might be living inside? Actually that’s sounds quite ominous. It wasn’t meant to be. I don’t mean like an alien or anything. I’m not saying they’re lizard people. Ok, I’m done..
p.s forgot it was good friday but hope you all have a splendid long weekend…
Yes some people are still wearing masks. Not many but I am one of them. This week marks the 4th anniversary since I got Covid and I have been sick ever since. A year in I developed full blown CFS and since then I had 3 or 4 partial recoveries only to relapse further each time. Last year rendered me housebound as my condition continued to deteriorate sending deeper and deeper into the chronic illness hole. And the more I tried to burrow out the further down it sent me, each new depth of hell more horrendous than the last. Bummer huh? Well don’t worry, it gets cheerier..
I tried everything under the sun to get better. And nothing worked. I was starting to give up hope of ever recovering and had become a physical, mental and emotional mess. I lived in fear of doing anything because everything caused my symptoms to flare up. It was pretty grim. And then in October I joined a program called CFS recovery which treats Long covid/M.E/CFS as a hypersensitive nervous system issue and through brain retraining they teach you how to regulate your nervous system which has essentially got stuck in survival mode. In an attempt to keep you safe your brain has signalled the body to shut down and stop you from doing anything. It is not your body attacking you. It is in fact your brain in over-protective mode. It is ultimately an act of love. Ahh, bless.
It’s a shame it’s been such a friggin ball ache as have found it utterly fascinating. And here comes the sciency bit..
Basically you have to convince your brain you are not in danger by not responding with fear and panic to the symptoms that it is actually generating. It’s a difficult thing to get your head around. No wonder it’s such a misunderstood condition. And the symptoms aren’t psychosomatic, they’re very real indeed . The nervous system is in control of most of our bodily functions and when it thinks it’s under attack it renders anything it considers non-essential inoperable. It doesn’t care if it makes your suffer, it doesn’t care if it makes you unhappy. It doesn’t care if you can’t work or see your friends. It just has one mission: to keep you alive and it does not care about anything else.
After a long period of reconditioning your brain you create new neural pathways and it eventually signals the nervous system to come out of fight or flight. This process can take anything between months and years and you have to go through multiple “progress cycles” where your symptoms flare up even more and you have to pull back activity whilst your nervous system recalibrates. It’s completely nuts how it works but it does work.
Since I joined this programme I have gone from being couchbound and unable to do even the most basic things to walking 40 minutes a day. I can socialise again and am back on public transport. I am a long way from being able to live a normal life and there will be lot of ups and downs ahead but eventually I will be fully recovered. So what will I do then?
I can now see my life as I previously lived it was completely unsustainable and I probably would’ve always crashed and burned at some point. Covid pushed me over the edge but it possibly also saved my life and that is the way I am now choosing to see it.
There are specific types of people that get disregulated nervous system disorders. They call them Type A personalities. Perfectionists. People pleasers. People that push themselves till they break. I was one of those people. I only ever stopped when I hit the wall and before that I was always running around like a blue arsed fly. It was exciting but utterly exhausting. And no, flies don’t run. They fly. Obvs.
So even though I had been desperate to return to my previous existence I can now see how unhealthy it was and I now wish for something else. I am for the first time looking forwards instead of backwards. But that is because I now have hope. Thanks to this program I can now see a life ahead of all of this. And I can now see that this will make me a more resilient person than I ever was. Chronic illness will make you weaker but it will also make you stronger.
I know it might not sound like it but I am one of the lucky ones. I found a treatment that is working but I am just one of 65 million worldwide dealing with this debilitating condition and many of them are suffering without help or hope. It was long covid awareness last week, which ironically no-one who didn’t have it would’ve noticed. We are all the forgotten casualties of a war everyone thinks is over but please spare a thought for those who are still on the battlefield, fighting to get their lives back.
