So… the website Permission.Cards is live. I can tick that off the must do list and move it to the must improve list. I’m not great at focusing on one thing at a time so it might seem logical to believe that I would jump from one thing to the next easily. And I do. And in case you didn’t know, it doesn’t work very well. I get less done. I’ve had to teach myself to focus on one thing until I have gone as far as I can go with it and then move to the next thing and focus only on that until it’s time to stop and move on to the next thing. I’ve been working on this strategy for years but it is only in this last strange year that I have made progress. And again the cards are helping me.
The Permission to slow down one has been huge for me. I’m not sure what the rush was? For example I’ve been doing the bookkeeping for Denis for the last 13 years. For the first 12 years I hated it. Then last year somehow I realised there was no rush. I could slow down and do it right. Seems like common sense. But it was news to me. When there was a mistake in the past I was stressed and panicked! How was I going to solve this and what if I didn’t get everything finished in time?
We saw this on a beach at Skreen, Co. Sligo last August.
When I slowed down I could see there are always mistakes, I’m always making mistakes and so is everyone else (whether they realise it or not) it’s only human. But when I started slowing down I made less mistakes and my understanding of the process improved.
The Slow Down Packs
That’s one of the reasons I wanted to make a Slow Down pack. The other reason is I have a lot of friends and family who are run off their feet busy. I would love to know if intentionally slowing down is possible or even helpful for people who have a lot on their plates and live a very busy life. Or would it just put extra pressure on them?
I didn’t expect to be back to you so soon with this news – Denis made the website! For the Permission Cards. Click here to visit! If you have any ideas about what I should do to make it better let me know. For instance, I changed postage because there were so many options and was struggling to make it clear. Now postage is included in the price. And then there’s customs – can anyone explain that in one sentence? And Brexit, does that add another dimension?
I’ve decided to journal my journey here on the blog because I’m learning a lot and I’d really like to share that with you and get your input. Also, I don’t want to forget what I’ve learned or to forget that it takes a long time and what confuses or frustrates me today will be forgotten next month. Generally I’m not excited to learn new things and that’s not good for a human who wants to live to be 105 (at least!) I get very frustrated when I don’t understanding something. Not helpful. But that’s changing and the cards are helping. I have two sitting in front of me now.
They are, Permission to make mistakes and Permission to take baby steps. Babies don’t get frustrated when they’re learning to walk. They don’t get upset about mistakes. They just get on with it, no self judgement. This baby-step-accept-mistakes-as-normal process is slow but you still get the learning done, it lasts and you’re not in danger of being overwhelmed.
Being overwhelmed is not helpful. Taking baby steps is, Mairead.
Edited 5th December 2021… If you landed here looking for Permission Cards, this is a blog post from the time I was making the prototypes for the actual cards you can find at https://permission.cards. Have a grand day♥️
Well… it looks like we won’t be travelling anywhere soon. I thought that would upset me more than it does. But it doesn’t, I am very happy pottering away inside my home with the odd excursion to collect groceries. (An experience exciting for all the senses and not as insignificant as I used to think. But I’m getting sidetracked.) Instead of travelling to other countries or even counties, we walk around the neighbourhood – separately, he walks too fast, I talk too much… We also work separately, he has a very organized workspace, I’m a bit messy. Other than that we are together every single moment, eating, watching stories on the big (enough) screen, sleeping and arguing. Yes we do argue. But as we only have each other we can’t be bothered keeping an argument going, it turns out life’s too short. Denis taught me that, I used to love keeping an argument going. I’m right, how can I stop before he understands that? Turns out everyone thinks they’re right – understanding is overrated.
Little box of Permission Cards
I’m working on a new creative project. It all started pre-2020 when Denis was putting a board game in the recycling bin. (Remind me to tell you the name of the board game.) To be clear that doesn’t happen, ever, but this was a unique board game. It was designed to be used for one long game over the period of a year and then not reused… Seeing the cards in the recycle bin made me sad. I love paper and card and these were still fully functioning pieces of card, how could anyone throw them out? Maybe I could save them. I did. I already have lots of saved paper and card and at that time I had no organisation, just one big box. In the cards went, never to be seen again… until 2020.
My 2020 started with a lot of excitement (our son got engaged!) followed by a lot of fear (no explanations necessary) followed by a lot of gardening (thank you, Eilish!) followed by a lot of card making. I made cards to remind myself I could say, NO. I made thank you cards, to remind me that the small things are actually big things. Small things like getting groceries and garden supplies were very, very big things. Small things like getting post in the post box, were very, very big things. Small things like receiving offers of help were enormously big things. And then there’s the overwhelmingly big things like front line staff and especially for my family, the nursing home staff who have been going above and beyond to take care of the most vulnerable, including my mother. I had a lot to be thankful for so I made a lot of thank you cards.
It felt like I was reorganising my inner space and so naturally I started to reorganise my outer space too. And that turned out to be very freeing. I dumped loads and gained empty space and found the cards and paper I had been saving. What had I been saving it for? I didn’t know at the time but it turns out I was saving it for now. In amongst all the paper was Denis’ board game cards, looking just as lovely as they had when I first met them. I gave them their own place on a shelf. In November we (the cards and I) started working together. I worked on them and they worked on me.
The Permission Cards began when I was chatting with a friend and she said something mean to herself and it just popped out of my mouth, how about if you give yourself permission to be kind to yourself for the rest of the day? Then I promised to make her a permission card to remind her and we went on to talk about something else. I’ve been hard on myself my entire adult life, it’s a habit that I don’t hear but as soon as I hear someone else being hard on themselves, I notice. I needed this Permission to be kind to myself, too.
Later that day I took one of the recycled cards off the shelf and made a permission card for my friend… and it was for me too. As I made it I read it. Over and over again. I was reading that I had permission to be kind. To myself. My first thought was, “…that’s a bit selfish isn’t it?!” My second thought was, “who said that?” Something I’d heard long ago made sense: We are not our thoughts. Some thoughts are part of a flawed belief system and it’s not always possible to spot them before obeying them. So in this case, I thought that being kind to myself was a bad thing. What if it wasn’t a bad thing? What if it was okay to be kind to myself. Maybe even for the whole day? It’s a big ask so I’m taking baby steps.
With every card I make I am being kinder to myself. Even when I make mistakes! And I’m creating even when it’s ugly. I’m ignoring what does not serve me. I’m making the right decisions for me… on and on these little cards are working on me.
And now I’m selling them! Denis has promised to set up a sales website when he’s less busy (I recognise potential for a future argument here but life’s too short, right?) In the meantime it’s just via email (mairead@hennessynet.com) and instagram (@creativecalm_cards). Get in contact if you want to see the full list of Permissions and I’ll send you an order form and prices. They are handmade so they take a long time to make but fortunately the cards give me permission to take my time – so all good.
Tiny Handmade Permission Cards made from recycled playing cards
Oh and the name of board game? Pandemic. Yup, that’s what it was called. Twilight Zone stuff. Mairead.
Ps He set up the website, it’s called Permission.Cards Tap or maybe Click to have a look!
There was a slight chill in the air this morning. Does that mean it’s autumn? Then it must be nearly time for us to get back on the road.
But first… my crafty pal, Linda and I are running a weekend workshop in the gorgeous Bobbio center near Magheramore beach, Co.Wicklow on the last weekend in August. There’ll be nature, crafting, swimming (in the sea!) and loads more but mainly it will be about slowing down in natural surroundings. We are calling it a retreat but it’s not a religious retreat, more a retreat from busy and stress, a retreat into nature. A retreat with play. We are really enjoying this planning stage and can’t wait to share it.
(Magheramore Beach)
We would love you to join us. There are some places available and you’ll find all the details on Mindcraft.com (click to have a look!)
So to continue from yesterday’s post… So if I realise the doing of a craft makes the difference how come here in Portugal I’m not doing any crafting?
(The street names are tiles)
Most people I know who love to create sometimes stop creating. For no good reason and lots of good reasons: They’re too busy. They’re too tired. They don’t know what they want to create. They don’t realise they have stopped. Whatever the reason the longer they stop the harder it seems to get started again. But starting again has it’s own momentum. Once you’ve started again some kind of creative magic energy kicks in and it’s like you never stopped.
(Ceiling of corridor at convent)
A bit like when I meet my friend, Helena. I have known Helena a long time, we went to the same school and were best friends from the age of twelve. She lived in the country and had to take the bus home so we would say goodbye after school and not be able to see or talk to each other until nine the next day. There were no mobile phones, the one phone in the house was in the hall so everyone could hear what we were saying… so we invented an early version of Facebook and used to write letters to each other each day. (Ok so it was nothing like Facebook, maybe it was like iMessage or.. never mind I’m just trying to say it was hard back then!)
(Clock on…)
I think that’s why I love to write, writing was a way to communicate my best and worst times without judgement, with encouragement. In school writing essays was very difficult for me, so much so my mother used to write them for me! I always had trouble with spelling and stopping to consider the correct way to spell something would mess with my flow and make the whole thing so frustrating. but in those letters I would write my best guess at a spelling and write (spelling!) after my attempt and Helena always seemed to recognise the words. Each morning we’d pass each other our letters and head into our first class reading.
(…Clock tower)
Anyway, time passed, I got married she was one of my bridesmaids and then she went to Australia. She met a lovely man, Henry and had four children. We wrote infrequently. It’s a long way to Australia, I’ve never been but Helena comes home regularly. There’s a lot of people in her Irish family so we don’t always get a chance to meet but we met last year.
(Tiles on the outside of a house)
On a cold and wet July Monday in the Horse and Jockey Hotel we hugged and squealed our “oh my God you look so good”s. Henry found something to do and we set to chat. And it was like we had never been apart, so comfortable and warm. So easy and familiar. How did we ever stop the writing? When Henry arrived back after an hour Helena sent him off again, after the second hour he just sat down nearby and read a newspaper.
(And more tiles)
I know why I stopped writing to Helena. I had started to think it had to be a big production. A long and perfectly structured letter with news about everything and details about the things that had happened. A letter that would take hours to write and never be quite perfect enough…. Doesn’t that sound like what starting a new project feels like? It does to me. Now I email Helena whenever I see something that reminds me of her or when I’m doing something I think she will enjoy. The emails are short, they usually take about two minutes but if I find myself rambling on I don’’t worry because I know Helena won’t mind my imperfect email. She never stopped being encouraging and non-judgemental.
(My small imperfect start…)
So if there’s something you’ve loved doing (creative or not) and you’ve stopped, can we encourage each other to make a little start? It doesn’t have to be a big project. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to take a long time. It could be as quick as it takes to write a two-line email and if we start to ramble that’ll be fine too. There’s no judgement, only encouragement.
Don’t tell anyone but… we’ve come to McDonald’s this morning! Yes I know, how could we? Well… there’s a certain thing that McDonalds do and Starbucks do too that we haven’t found elsewhere here. I promise we will start looking for a Portuguese version soon though, because I am embarrassed to be resorting to something familiar and comforting.
(Stone stairs in the Convent of Nossa Senhora de Conceição)
The things that McDonald’s and Starbucks do? Well there’s the free wifi (actually I don’t know if Starbucks do.) Then there’s the comfy seats – we’re getting fussy about seating as we get older… Then there’s the stay-as-long-as-you-like attitude. If you haven’t darkened the door of a McDonalds for a while you might not be familiar with their less plastic look. It’s more brown and cream now (well it is here) with a modern pretend-wood-kitchen feel. Perfectly fine for an hour or two, plus the staff seem fine with us staying an hour or two with just a couple of coffees (@€1 each!)
(An old street in Beja)
From time to time we both like a change from Ruby when we’re working. I would prefer a shaded spot outdoors with a nice view but it’s a bit too cold to sit outside for long so this is a good second choice. It’s shaded, the sun is shining outside and I can see some green bushes in the play area and of course a big sky full of blue – nice. I’m working on my next ebook! This one will be about Creative Calm and how I think using creativity can nourish our lives. Funny thing is that although I brought lots of creative things with me (embroidery, crochet, paints, pens, glue and scissors) I didn’t even unpack them until I started listening to what I was writing!
(Decorative doorway in the chapel at the convent)
As always, everything I write is for me but sometimes I don’t pay attention to what I write, that’s why I started writing to you. Somehow sharing it makes me pay more attention. I think that’s probably why I started the Monday morning Creative Calm sessions. Sharing the making part made me pay attention and realise that thinking about being creative is not enough, the doing of it makes the difference.
So if I realise the doing of it makes the difference how come here in Portugal I’m not doing it?
Before we got here I was researching Krakow (with help, thank you Magda!) and one of the things I found was a free cafe, called Cafe Fińska. Well, almost free… in return for a cup of coffee or tea you add some art work to the paper tablecloth. I was very interested. Imagine having a place where people could get together, share a tea or coffee and do some art…. it’s probably not surprising I was interested. So I searched for more information about this place and as it wasn’t too far from our apartment, I thought it might be nice to go visit.
(The old (city gate)… and the new (McDonald’s arches)…)
I wasn’t sure what to expect and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to communicate with only one word of Polish. But nothing ventured… so on Friday with a map and google directions (really miss data) scribbled on top we started walking in the direction of the (former) Jewish Ghetto. It took nearly an hour and the weather was very warm so we were a little flushed when we arrived. Denis made sure I went in first…
(A sign…)
The cafe is on the ground floor of a triangular-shaped building at the junction of two streets and it is tiny inside. The walls are covered in art, as is the (paper) table-cloth. There are mugs and a tea-making area in one corner (do you call it a corner if it’s a triangle?) There’s a six seater table down one side and a two person sofa on the other. When we walked in there were two men playing chess at a small table in the middle and one man on his iPad on the sofa.
(Low flying helicopter)
Not knowing the etiquette for this situation I decided to go ahead and announce myself. I spoke as slowly as my nervousness would allow, hi I’m from Ireland and I heard about your cafe, would you be able to tell me something about it, please? Silence. Oh, do you speak English? The older of the men at the chess board pointed to the two others and they laughed sheepishly and said yes. In the end the older man explained the history of the cafe while the younger one translated. The third man made our tea.
(See the bugle peeping out the top window of St Mary’s Church? Every hour on the hour, 24 hours a day (yes someone gets up in the middle of the night to do this) the bugle sounds over Krakow. To commemorate the bugler who was shot with an arrow to the throat as he warned the town of invaders)
It started last year when there was an art festival in Krakow. A guy called Michał Mioduszewski, an artist all the way from Warsaw created it as an art installation in the Grolsch ArtBoom Festival, June 2013. His working title: Revolutions happen in cafes. It was a great success and then the art festival was over and it was time to close everything down. But it didn’t close. The locals loved the cafe so much that they decided they wanted to keep it. They have been paying the rent ever since. They are also donating their time, their tea, their coffee and sometimes their baked goods. It opens six days a week from 4.30pm and sometimes they have concerts and classes. Everything is run on a voluntary basis with donations going towards the rent. No one makes any money out of this venture, except maybe the landlord!
(The foot bridge over the river covered in locks declaring love)
We left after our tea and I thanked the men (in Polish – thank you, Kinga!) All the way back to town I wondered…. is this only possible in Krakow or in Poland?
(Tram tracks through the park)
Maybe… maybe not… Mairead.
P.S. A link to more information about Cafe Fińska.
You might think you haven’t a creativity bone in your body and you might be right!
Creative bones need to be nurtured and what have you been doing to nurture them? Saying things like, “I’m no good at drawing… “, “I’m useless at sewing…”, “I’m not as good as….”, “I have no talent for…”, “I can’t write… ?”
What if you were saying “Everyone is Creative”, “Creativity is Good for Me”, “Creativity is fun” instead?
Come along to some Creative Space Sessions. You can exercise your creativity by making stuff, or copying stuff already made, or getting inspiration to make something you never thought of making. You also get loads of encouragement.
Combining Life Coaching with crafts helps you notice how useful Creativity can be in all aspects of your life. You’ll learn how to connect with the less logical,and more playful you, the you that sees lots of possibilities.
You don’t need any previous experience (but if you have ever glued paper together then you’re ahead of the posse!)
Would you love to make stuff? Are you making stuff? Would you like to be making (more) stuff? Coming along to a place that allows you to make stuff sounds like a good thing, right?
If your life is busy, it can be difficult to slow down when you want to, or need to… Creative Space Sessions provide an opportunity to slow down and catch your breath.
Sessions Starting From Monday 20th January 2014 – but you can join anytime….
Where: Greystones, Co. Wicklow
Time: Every Monday 10am to 12.30pm
Cost: €15 per session (includes supplies) Minimum 4 sessions.
(This is where my champion lives… the sign is ceramic… a sign?)
We went to Dublin on Saturday and parked in Merrion Square which is beautiful at this time of year and on a Saturday there’s usually a few parking spaces. Last Saturday there were loads of parking places when we arrived. They have new parking meters that only work with credit cards and in fact don’t work very well. There was a queue of people trying, unsuccessfully to purchase tickets so we joined the queue. Surprisingly the queue was very upbeat, probably a bit of a siege mentality, everyone working together against the common enemy. We were all throwing in our tuppence worth of advice and slowly the queue shortened.
(Detailed drawings…. kinda)
While I was waiting I noticed the meter was right outside the offices of the Craft Council of Ireland. Their website says they are “the main champion of the craft industry in Ireland, fostering its growth and commercial strength, communicating its unique identity and stimulating quality design, innovation and competitiveness.” Well, I thought, wasn’t that synchronicity, here’s me working away on my bag of clay and here’s the offices of my champion. The right place at the right time. I think I’m okay for a champion at the moment but if I do need one…
(Potential Bunting)
So to keep you up to date with that bag of clay, it’s slow, but it’s best if we don’t dwell on that part. The best part is working with the clay. As I was saying I started with a few buttons. There’s a few days work in any endeavour with clay no matter how little I produce. First the clay needs to be in workable form and I’m finding it too wet to work with when it comes out of the bag so on day 1 I rolled out a handful between two sheets of cling film and watched it dry… On day 2 it probably needed to dry some more but I wanted to start so I used my square cutter and cut some potential buttons… yum!
(Buttons with maximum added holes. Slip is like glue for clay, thanks Dei for the recipe!)
On day 3 I was too busy 😦 to do anything so covered the clay with the cling film and a damp cloth. One of the absolutely amazing things about clay is it will wait for you… I mean it will stop drying. Ok not necessarily always or at every point in the damp to dry continuum but enough for me to be excited. And the reason I need it to stop drying is that there will be a point where it is too dry to work with 😦 and in order to make a potential button into an actual button I have to add some holes. Adding holes to a dry square of clay causes the potential button to loose it’s potential and turn into a broken mess. The perfect point of dryness that I’m waiting for is called leather-hard. So now we’re up to day 4 but I forgot to take off the cling film… so…
(Cute little apron)
At this point, to cut a very long and detailed story short, I have some buttons, some bunting triangles and the cutest little apron. All these are experiments as I wonder where to go next, but something unexpected has happened. You might remember I don’t like this stage where I don’t know where I’m going next? Well, yesterday as I was rushing out to an appointment, leaving my clay behind I realised that if I was lucky enough to be able to do stuff with clay everyday for the rest of my life that would be as perfect a life as I could imagine.
Of course I forgot later when I was rushing back to make dinner but I remember again now, Mairead.
Travel stories 