Completing Your Work Of Creation

Goodbyes . . . so many goodbyes

One year, five days, five hours and that extra cup of tea!

Or two,

later

Mamma Mia! I’ve done it.

Well, still found a spelling mistake at the opening scene.

Horreur!

This Substack post is for all of us who make things: sew clothes, plant gardens, carve puppet’s faces, find bells for Morris dancer's shoes, write a PhD or a poem, a book, have a baby, keep a journal, be a house mum or dad or person, etc.

All creatives finally get to THE END of the veggie patch, the housework, that poem, and those bells and dangles on hand-made Morris dancer’s shoes, and these are works of our inner world which start with dreams.

Joint Morris Organisation Day of Dance, 23 April 2016, 12:45 Source Morris Dancers, York Author Tim Green from Bradford

My dream started with: 

I have an idea. Hey, let’s try this. This is the documentary I want to make.

That was in 1999 and it was called Le Temps des Vignes. It did not happen, as I left for Montreal, Canada, and was never in Tuchan, my village for the Time of the Grapes. (Grapepicking).

Yet, the dream has not left me. I have edited it over and over again in my mind, on the bus, on trains, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and walking in busy city streets and down little twittens. (For Ivan who loves this word: the Oxford Dictionary’s website suggests that it derives from an Anglo-Saxon word, twicen, meaning a place where two roads meet, and twitchel, a word for a forked road used in the north Midlands as early as the 14th century).

I whistle it, and it finds its way deep into my soul a long, long time before I even pick up a camera.

It took me until 2020 to have the time to spend months in Tuchan due to the pandemic, and I was ready. All those images I had dreamed of were there.

It has now become Le Temps des Vendangeurs (The Grape Pickers).

I knew the light I wanted and knew would shine brightly for me. I knew the wetness of the leaves shimmering in the misty mornings, the sounds of the snip, snip, snip and grapes falling into the buckets. I had written it over and over, filmed it over and over in my mind.

I spent four weeks with my friends in the vines and captured gold!

Finally, when I took it all out of the can, so to speak, spread it wide along my timeline, I tingled with joy and delight as I began the huge job of editing it all into a narrative story of fun. A homage to my people of Tuchan.

Majuba at Segur

And now it is done, it starts its journey slowly for the next two years to film festivals around the world.

And I am sad. It is like saying goodbye to my lover, a friend, my family, with whom I have shared many, many dear moments.

Morning mists with sun. Tuchan

I love this photo of Florence - look at her hands, wet with morning dew, wet with grape juice, insect bites on the front of her hand, with a smell of patchouli oil merging with the smell of the earth. (You can’t smell that from this page, but this is her smell.)

Flo in the afternoon n heat

I finished my trailer last week, sent it timidly to my friends in Tuchan, hoping they like it, for one thing is filming and having consent, the other is editing it all into a narrative.

Consensus! They love it

So, here it is:

Le Temps Des Vendangeurs

I aim for a public screening in Tuchan during the grape picking this year!

---

Muma

Also it is goodbye to muma. She is still with us, the 9th June, yet each moment her breath becomes more gentle and her eyes turn towards the other world. It will come gently, as she is comfortable and pain free.

I have gratitude for the chance we have had to bring her home for one month. The most tender moments I have ever lived. We moved in, my daughter, Vivi my granddaughter, and our cat, all sharing mum’s big room which looks out over the garden where naughty fox comes every night to annoy the cat, Zorra.

Like the old ways, the old days. The boys at home too, we niggle at each other, we squabble, make friends again, look at photos, sob some silently. Dry our eyes, walk out in the tangled garden with ancient roses and more wild life than any other garden for it is a jungle out there.

Metaphorically, I find this a beautiful touch, the garden wild with life.

I also give thanks to the amazing team of carers from Poland and Romania. They too are like family.

We are tired now, very tired, and another chapter begins soon. I am less scared, less sad, as this has been transformational, tender and long, long coming, so gently into that good night.

Thank you so much for reading my work and supporting my work.

It means a lot to me. Have a wonderful week ahead, as summer comes along

If you are interested in learning how to make a documentary, digital story or digital/hands-on scrapbook take a look at my website, there is also a doc blog with tips and ideas to get you started on your journey.

Click picture to bring you to the website

And coming soon a Substack documentary Storytelling Journal