so this is the first week i actually feel i am not constantly attached to Moses, Delia or the washing..and that i can begin to contemplate re-occupying other parts of my identity..the artist for example. helen sent me an email reminding me that the Louise Bourgeois is closing next week, that its really tempting to stay in the comfortable womb of lewes but i will love it if i come up..and that triggered something, woke me up....then Janis from goldsmths asked me when i wanted to start the project and i realised that i actually have made a commitment this year to move my work forward-paid! - and its real, it has to happen. Thank god for the arts council money as without that it may have been easy to slip into semi-domesticated haze and feel rather lost and questioning. I can still be lost and questioning but with a purpose now!
There have been two post-natal events to date re my two projects- the Loom textile show and symposium at Goldsmiths which has helped create a team to work with and a start to the profile of the project and on monday the Mother to Mother feature finally went out on womans hour, over a year after it was made! a nice piece though rather without context- it wasnt made at all clear that the online piece is open to audience participation so i rather lost out on an opportunity there. But taking the attitude that everything happens as it should, there is still plenty of space for future growth...
I have no idea how these two projects will develop as I have never done this before- ie, continued to work with a project in order to expand it and create a touring model, but at least i am clear on the kind of people i want o engage with. also, it struck me yesterday that , contrary to the last three years where i have drawn directly on my life experiences to inform the central questions in the work with the audience and ask them to respond to those questions themselves, now my life is pretty calm and un-extraordinary from a presonal point of view-ie free of drama- that this time i should look beyond the inner circle to drawing on experiences and questions that are a step away from me, so that i am forced to move out of my comfort zone to understand how people who are in /have been in extraordinary states , such as in refuge/asylum or post natally depressed process and overcome or can be promoted to overcome through the work itself. Maybe if i didnt have the background of an artist i might have become a therapist or something but i realise my work has a healing purpose but needs to remain as art, to take people by surprise and also to give me and them the satisfaction of a persistent artefact tha can be shared with others long after the communal expereince of interaction with an audience has faded.
I think another thing i need to do is to learn a new skill, this maybe performance, weavng or something totally different, and also to use this year to set up my practice for the next five, in terms of approach to audience, contacts, representation , profile and real and beautiful 'things' that can circulate in a market or museum/gallery circuit.
thankyou universe for this great opportunity which i know given the present climate is a unique one-to be funded for a year to reasearch and develop work as an individual , is certainly a gift, and will require both focus and surrender to new , unexplored territories. And the courage to leave the comfortable womb of lewes more often than i might feel like..!having two children has changed everything and i must acknowledge that I am pushing boundaries and creating a very contemporary way of dealing with the working/living balance..i am blessed

It's autumn now...and i am almost fully pregnant...we planted a pomegranate tree in the front garden, it was like planting my mother as i have such strong associations with her and that fruit. Her story of picking them from their orchard in Namin, throwing one against the wall to soften it and then piercing it to suck out the juice, feeling it hit the back of the neck..delicious...a ritual i try to pass on whenever i can..(the method of eating, rather than the picking of course..)
On Saturday there was a Birth Blessing Circle for me here with about 20 of my female friends,(mainly local) facilitated by Maria. We began by drinking pomegranate and rosewater. I had never heard of Birth blessings (or Blessingways as they are called in the US) but I knew i needed to be encircled by a loving community of women, as mum is not here this time around to encircle me like she did in 2004.
It was an extraordinary experience and enabled me to let go of my last birth experience, acknowledge my mum and my ancestors as present in the process, create a way of being for this birth - abandon and acceptance! And, while being pampered and sung to by everyone, open up to the support and love of a warm gathering of great women from all eras of my life. It took place in the front room, where i will be labouring, which now feels like a very powerful and ready space. We feasted afterwards together with the men and children who joined us and I had made salmon with dill and rice, the dish mum used to make at large gatherings. It will soon be three years since she left this world and Delia arrived.

We spent Saturday on Camber Sands. It's a childhood summer haunt of mine, but Leo and Delia's first visit. It was sunny and blissful, being on a vast expanse of sand. dunes behind us, sea far ahead in front. We had a windbreak and a picnic and felt like a real little family growing, my belly ripening under the sun.
The sea was miles out so we took a long walk to meet it and splashed around in the cool shallow water, squinting our eyes and mashing the sand between our toes. I got hit by pregnancy fatigue and decided to walk back, leaving Leo an Delia to paddle and run through the waves. A few minutes later, with my back turned to them, and the thunderous sound of the wind in my ears, I had a deja vue and felt panic. The sound of the wind could have been the sound of a wave and I turned to check they were still there. I think the fact that there had been an earthquake just along this coast in Folkestone the day before had some influence! I suddenly got - to a small degree - what it must have been like for Reg to have seen Mum for the last time on that beach in Phuket and then turn and never see her again. I started to shake, then reminded myself it wasn't real, and walked away from the past back to the shore.

When mum died, a whole world died with her.
Last week, I visited what remains of part of her world - her friends - and I took Delia to meet some of her dearest Iranian friends at Jila's house. Jila knew Mum since before i was born and I always liked her . I think she was one of the few who didn't squeeze our cheeks till they were red...
We sat and had gorgeous Iranian food, while Delia ran around on the grass with bluebells as her backdrop. I let the music of a language that I only half know soothe me...and Delia to get that passionate kind of loving attention only Iranian women know how to give in that totally expressive way. I had some moments of overwhelming pain come in through the soothing feeling of being there, and could almost hear her voice among the melee of voices telling jokes, stories, gossip - all the juicy stuff Mum liked, which would have been spiced up with a good dose of political argument if she had been there.
Sometimes it's so easy to feel her around us, and at others she feels so far gone on her journey it's hard not to feel totally alone, like a child waiting for the sound of her mothers voice to make its way round the corner, accompanied by the smell of saffron and lilies.

Dear Mama,
It was your birthday yesterday and today is the eve of Nowruz (Persian New Year), your absolute favourite time of year. I have made a Haft Seen in the corner of the front room, using your red and gold cloth and the silver dishes with the seven 'seen' things-except I cheated a bit, it's got an English bent to it which you would probably smile at. My Nanny and Aunt spent the day here, I needed that female family connection to get me through - four generations in the front room, it felt good and safe somehow.
It's been a triple one because Sunday, the day before your birthday, was also Mothers Day. I sat having breakfast with Delia and found myself weeping. She looked at me, your two year old grand-daughter, and asked for a hug. Then she sat stroking my face and kissing me as I explained why I was so sad and how you were in the sea now. 'It's ok mummy, it's alright' were the healing words she spoke, amazing how it lightened things up. Feels right to be honest with her, and authentic about my grief when it arises. Later on she looked at me and asked 'Your mummy?' as if to say, are you ok about your mummy now? Children know everything. Happy New Year Mama.

Boxing Day-second anniversary of your death. We did a latihan (spiritual exercise we do in subud) for you...I sang out the sorrow of a thousand deaths, it was deep and almost unbearably, sublimely sad. But withpow erful and beautiful passages. Raphaella felt you had transformed from a fish into a bird...free, in a good space. We did the latihan on a sunflower rug that Tuti had knotted herself, the same one from two years ago , when we happened to be in Brighton and Lewes for the holidays when the Tsunami struck and before we moved back here. A kind of preview of the life we were coming to, in this same street, enabled by your passing and the resources you left us to be able to buy this house and live in this loving community. Sunflowers were your absolute favourite flower.
We all met (the Iranian side of the family and Sue, one of your favourite friends of mine) at Birling Gap, where we scattered your ashes in the sea, as you requested, flown over from Thailand. It's a gorgeous place, you chose well. Even the cafe where we sat and had tea and crisps, so completely 1960's england, like it must have been when you lived in that area. Delia tried to make sandcastles in the freezing wind, and we cast a flower Sue gave me for you and a crown of ivy from Raphaella, into the waves. I didn't sense you there, its like you are very faraway now, you're spread far and wide or something, not so connected to one place but everywhere and in everything, I felt your embrace in my imagination and heard your voice, and cheeky laugh of reassurance that everything will be ok
I cooked Fesinjan for Khaleh Goli, Koosha, Sanaz, Fariba Leo and Delia. Never as delicious as yours, but you did have 30 years more practice . We ate and joked in our cosy kitchen and drank champagne on your honour. We didn't talk about you much directly , but you were present.Khaleh Goli's hair is an amazing white gold colour now, you would like it. Strange I will never get to see what you look like as an old woman, say 80 or something. Just as you wanted.
I got so many texts and messages today, felt a lot of love coming to me and us from all over the world.
I was helped to see today that I don't need to fill a space left by you, because the whole landscape has changed and there is nothing to be done about that, except be fully myself within it and embrace what comes.
More and more I sense myself growing up with this. I will always be your child. I will always feel waves of sadness come and go, but I know what works is to live a life full of the qualites i most loved in you: generosity, freedom of spirit, love , creativity, passion. Sometimes it will be like that and sometimes it won't. And thats ok.

(From journal, 22.3.005)
Dear Delia,
today we drove (You, I, your dad, our friend Brianne who has come to be with us) to Papa Jaaan (my mothers) house for the first time since she died. It was strange, everything was just as it was before she left, except for the piles of mail, the christmas cards still on the mantelpiece and the cold- no heating.

As i sat and fed you on the sofa, feeling sad she was not there, (tho it felt like she might walk in the doorway any moment) , it started to snow. Looking through the panoramic bay windows in front of me, beautiful , huge snowflakes swirling around outside against the green. I felt it was HER - in the snowflakes, visiting us for 10 minutes in a burst of energy, true to style. Fleeting, but reassuring.

Have been away in switzerland and france, travelling on trains with leo and delia. It was quite a journey, inside and out. On returning home, from sunny southern france to the heavy rain of lewes, we noticed some small lilac shoots in the front garden which we overturned ths summer after pulling up a dying rosebush which was taking it over.
Kate next door told me, with a spooky undertone, that they are saffrom crocuses - crocuses in autumn? A small gift from mum: I pulled out the saffron stamen from one and rolled it between my fingers until they went deep yellow then took a deep sniff. They are the exact kind Mum and I saw in Mashad when we travelled to Iran in 1992- a memory of the smell of saffron, burnt crimson bunches in huge, shiny glass jars, lodged on shelves in immaculate white and mirrored stores came back to me. She grows all around me, in nature and through it..

(from journal 19.2.2006)
I dreamt about mum again (what a time..). Me, simon, fariba, farid and Reg (her boyfriend who survived) and Mum were all together in Thailand. I was out there teaching an art class. It was mums birthday, march 19th - and we wanted to celebrate. She was spending time with Simon and i knew it would be her last night and we would find her dead the next morning. She lay down in a round row-boat,very sleepy,and i tried to keep her awake so she would talk and say goodbye. But she was already asleep.
Then , the next day, we went down tot he waterfront and she was in the rowboat spinning around on the water, the size of a tealite candle (she used to love those). she was kneeling with her hands clasped above her head, dead but smiling. I started howling 'mama, mama' and wanted to reach the boat but couldn't, it just kept spinning. I woke up crying 'mama' with you, delia in my arms. You are smiling.And Leo kissing me and crying too.
In the dream, mum died in her sleep.
I suppose that is the closest i may come to seeing her body.They are DNA testing 7000 bodies in Thailand at the moment. It will take 250 days.

But i will keep her alive for you delia. She had so much love and energy to give you and i will honour her by always loving and giving you all i can, taking you to iran when the time is right, and keeping persian culture alive in your life. When she held you in her arms just after you came into the world, Keri your godmother said that she seemed totally, utterly fulfilled-you were a dream of hers for many years, finally manifested. Ina conversation with Simon, your uncle, when he commented that she must be excited at the prospect of seeing you grow up, she said soberly 'the main thing is the see her born'.

(from journal 19.2.2006)
I dreamt about mum again (what a time..). Me, simon, fariba, farid and Reg (her boyfriend who survived) and Mum were all together in Thailand. I was out there teaching an art class. It was mums birthday, march 19th - and we wanted to celebrate. She was spending time with Simon and i knew it would be her last night and we would find her dead the next morning. She lay down in a round row-boat,very sleepy,and i tried to keep her awake so she would talk and say goodbye. But she was already asleep.
Then , the next day, we went down tot he waterfront and she was in the rowboat spinning around on the water, the size of a tealite candle (she used to love those). she was kneeling with her hands clasped above her head, dead but smiling. I started howling 'mama, mama' and wanted to reach the boat but couldn't, it just kept spinning. I woke up crying 'mama' with you, delia in my arms. You are smiling.And Leo kissing me and crying too.
In the dream, mum died in her sleep.
I suppose that is the closest i may come to seeing her body.They are DNA testing 7000 bodies in Thailand at the moment. It will take 250 days.

But i will keep her alive for you delia. She had so much love and energy to give you and i will honour her by always loving and giving you all i can, taking you to iran when the time is right, and keeping persian culture alive in your life. When she held you in her arms just after you came into the world, Keri your godmother said that she seemed totally, utterly fulfilled-you were a dream of hers for many years, finally manifested. Ina conversation with Simon, your uncle, when he commented that she must be excited at the prospect of seeing you grow up, she said soberly 'the main thing is the see her born'.