january round up
Happy New Year? Um is that how we start this? I was so excited to hit the ground running this year but the universe had some other ideas. I am off to a good start in some ways regardless, if a little different looking!
What I Read This Month
1. Coming Undone: A Memoir by Terri White
2. Motherwell: A Girlhood by Deborah Orr
3. Luster by Raven Leilani
4. We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
I wanted to start the year with some autobiographies as they are my ultimate idea of escapism. These two took me on journeys to rehab in New York and the poverty of 1980’s housing estates in Scotland. Overall from the books I read this month what I really want to say is that I want to get into Raven Leilani’s brain! The way she writes sentences and her take on the world is magic. If I told you the premise of Luster you wouldn’t read it so I won’t. Instead listen to Elizabeth Day chat with Raven here.
I also really enjoyed Zayyan’s debut novel set between London, Leicester and Kampala. I went to Uganda when I was 17 on an organised trip with my school. I had had a really hard few years and it changed me and fixed me in many ways. The protagonist has a very different experience but comes out with the same results. The BBC says about it: ‘The issues and subjects it takes on are big: British, South Asian and African racism, religion, the past, acceptance and belonging, identity, immigration, capitalism, multiculturalism, family values, generational differences, the notion of success. All are explored with great intelligence and sensitivity.’ I loved it.
MONTHLY FAVOURITES
Turned Up Online For… Your Powerful Self with Andrea Anderson, which was a group zoom session with Andrea who is a creative careers coach. Andrea did a guided visualisation to meet our POWERFUL SELF. It was such an amazing exercise, which helped me clarify which direction I want to take my little design business and how I want to get there. I was put in a zoom breakout room with the also fabulous @beckys.wardrobe who I am going to have a session with next month. She spoke about her favourite place, South Africa and her business and confidence and charging enough and everything that goes with being a working female and taking up space and I felt very seen and heard when I shared my stuff too.
It was really good to talk to these ladies and I felt so happy when I got off the call. There are so many women doing good things. Off the back of the session I am now getting myself ready to gift someone who is just starting up their business and has a social mission I admire, with a branding package. I'm excited.
PS Thanks to @thewomen_hood for the free session love you @missjessrad who seems to push me towards all the good things I do in life!
Watched… Pieces Of A Woman. Wow, I loved this film, a moving and stunningly made depiction of a woman who looses her baby and what her grief looks like. Vanessa Kirby blew me away and I hope it gets all it deserves despite the allegations against Shia leBeouf. Quebec is the snowy backdrop in the film and I can’t get the apple tree out of my mind from the closing credits. Chipped nailpolish, dead plants, melting snow, birds taking flight; the details are breath taking.
I also adored It’s A Sin an important and incredible watch by Russell T Davies, who made Queer As Folk all those years ago. I loved the cast in this, Olly Alexander from Years & Years and Lydia West as well as every single other one. The characters are adorable and flawed and brilliant as they enjoy the 80’s party culture. We can especially empathise in a time of covid, with all fun suddenly grinding to a stop and an incapable government who is not responding adequately. Familiar!
