The Dancing Boy & his Shadow.

The Dancing Boy & His Shadow

When I watched Sean from Hijnx Theatre Company and Angharad from Artscare Gofal Celf dancing a shadow improvisation, I was moved to tears. We live in a society that does not empower people with learning disabilities to be leaders, so I found something deeply poignant in the role reversal, not knowing who is the 'teacher', not needing to, just experiencing the human connection of the dancers. And Sean moves so beautifully, his love of dance reaches out from the screen. As soon as I saw them, I put down everything I was doing and responded in story, to encapsulate the emotion of the moment.

The following day, I performed the piece as  reading on facebook live to 200 viewers, including Sean & his Mum who wrote to me saying ...

'I felt every word of your story , it was as though you had knowledge of Sean's life and struggles, his love of music and dancing. He was smiling all the way through . I will treasure this lovely story. It was absolutely wonderful and had me in tears. It's given me a little lift and really encourages me and Sean to embrace his passion and makes things very worthwhile. Thank you so much for making Sean feel very special tonight, from a very emotional Mum.

   

This is the facebook live and at the top of the blog, is the film footage edited with the story. I hope that you enjoy it, feel it.

The photo used in the e-flier and the title page of the film is a painting by Virgina Flemming found at www.disabilitypicturebooks.com

If you would like more information about my stories, why not pop over to my website, The Sleeping Storyteller ...

The Giving Tree : A Story in Draft

Hello friends, what a wonderful thing facebook live is :) This morning, a story winged its way into my heart. All day it was waving its face in mine until at 8pm tonight, when I typed it up and decided to do a facebook live reading of it straight from the printer, in draft, to get feedback before editing. And now, by the wonders of modern technology, I am able to share it here with you, too. Hope you like it. Have a great weekend, folks.

Keeping tinnitus hands busy

One of the best ways that I have found to distract from my tinnitus, particularly in the evenings, is to focus on tactile creativity. Working with wool and felt is perfect. So, tonight I set about making a collection of friendship bracelets from local hand-dyed wool. I made the one above for my partner, Jeff. He loves the Tibetan silver dragon bead because the dragon is our National emblem.

I mention this because I know that many visitors to my blog are from other countries and may not know our National flag , here in Wales.

But my most favourite of all things to make are my little Heartfelt Books within which I write my stories and poems. There is something so sacred about taking so much time to make something so small and yet so loving. And I love the risk of it, that I might make a mistake when handwriting in my poem or very short story ... 

That's one of my top tips for for anyone learning to live with tinnitus. Expand upon your other senses. I quite often have essential oils on in my diffuser whilst creating with wool and felt in the evenings, or combine the two as both wool and felt absorb the essential oils really well.

I hope that is helpful advice. It can be hard to come to terms with tinnitus. By sharing what works for us, we might help others.