About

Welcome to my blog….

I’m Emma-Jane, aka The Kintsugi Girl from Scotland, in the UK. I live with my partner Spooky (not his real name obviously, no parent would be that cruel) in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. I did work in marketing, mostly arts and tourism but I’m now a true lady of leisure, unofficially retired due to an ongoing and rather tiresome entanglement with some cancer cells.  I have metastatic or secondary breast cancer. It is Stage IV and there is no Stage V. These annoying squatters, who originated in my breast but have now set up home in my bones and liver, keep inviting more of their friends to the party when they know they’ve already outstayed their welcome.  I won’t ever be cured…it’s more case of keeping them under control and trying various things to stop them running rampant.Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  One day they’ll take over though and I’ll be the one that has to check out although it pleases me to know in a blackhearted way that when I do go, may be months, hopefully will be years, I get to take them out with me! Ha! Take that stupid cancer!

This is my first venture into the blogosphere as either a reader or writer, and at the moment it seems to have taken a slightly poetic slant.   I rather foolishly set myself the task of  writing a haiku a day, for the whole of 2015. As you can see that’s not quite gone to plan and my postings are a bit more sporadic than that. But writing (however infrequently) allows me to take inspiration from the things going on around me, good and bad, and the thoughts running round my head, again good and bad, and somehow distill them into a little nugget 5 syllables-by 7 syllables-by 5 syllables (yes, I’m sort of attempting to stick to the traditional format but in a half-arsed sort of way). It distracts me from the dark thoughts that can come with dealing with at what will some point be a terminal illness. It makes me focus on the beauty around me… it makes me more mindful.  It makes me appreciate and value the everyday and see the extraordinary in the ordinary.  I see the world through the eyes of a dead girl walking and it seems all the more wonderful for it. Mainly though I think it is about me trying to find the happy in life and hopefully spreading a little joy to yours too!

Dealing with all this rubbishness has given me a new outlook on life – its preciousness, its beauty and its fleetingness.  I am determined to make the most of my days. Not in the travelling-round-the world, creating-a-huge-bucket-list (or fucket list as I like to call it) and grand-gestures-sort-of-way, although some of that will hopefully happen,  but just focusing on what makes me truly happy, and doing more of it, and celebrating the small things. As the saying goes, you’ll no doubt look back at the end of your life and realise that they were the big things after all!

One of the things I enjoyed doing was writing and so decided, now I didn’t have work to distract me, to try and do more of it. Hence this blog.

When I’m not writing tiny poems I enjoy not painting, not reading enough, never cooking delicious, nutritious, veganesque meals, not going on long, romantic strolls, hugging trees and getting my fix of nature, not having a wonderfully tidy, mid-century modern shrine of a house and not sitting in my beautiful wee summerhouse that I swore I would use every day and lounge about in with cups of herbal tea and good intentions, surrounded by books, magazines and knick-knacks.

I have an interest in wellbeing and nutrition and healthy eating, and reading about healthy eating but possibly falling short of the actual healthy eating. I have been known to sit reading these sort of nutritional, lifestyle-type tomes with a big mug of tea in one hand and a cookie or cake within easy reach or knocking back vitamins and supplements with a large glass of red ;).

I love shopping (especially thrift store / charity shop shopping), and then having clear outs in an attempt to downsize and declutter, taking items back to said charity shops and then going back out to by things to fill up my wardrobes again.  I am however trying to be a bit less materialistic and repeat the mantra ‘experiences not things, experiences not things’ constantly every time I place items in a basket, virtually or in real life.

I love all things 1960s  be they clothes, design, architecture, furniture, films or music. I collect things (like Viewmasters and snowglobes)  and I am a bit of a beauty product junky (albeit natural beauty products as I’m all about reducing the number of nasty chemicals on me, in me and around me). But mostly I potter about doing not much, somehow filling my hours and days very easily and spending waaaayyyy too much time internetting and Facebooking (and now blogging about haikus – amazing how long it takes you to write something so small). I do escape the Mac occasionally and go pootling about libraries, galleries and museums, or go wandering round the Botanic Gardens or local parks or eat and drink out in many of Edinburgh’s wonderful bars and restaurants (although not as often as I’d like!).  I also take notepads out to cafes and pretend I’m a proper writer. I try to plan nice experiences and trips away when treatment regimes will let me.  So in a way I’m living my dream life, just a shame it’s come about for rotten reasons. So I’d be delighted if you were to follow my blog – be good to have you along for the ride – help me up the happy and find beauty in the broken. It’s everywhere you just need to know where to look…

EJ
AKA The Kintsugi Girl
x

PS You can also see my art at The Kintsugi Girl Gallery pages