Day 6: '40 Until 40' Winter’s Retreat

When the spring day you can put your washing out on the line arrives…

---

‘40 Until 40’ is a poetry project to keep me creative over the forty days that lead up to my big 4-0 birthday. A gift to myself of time to write in the whirlwind of new motherhood. Each day I choose a 35mm photo I have taken over the last decade and see what words want to be with it. Process wise I’m open to whatever works on a given day, but I have some new methods I’m keen to try so let’s see where they lead me…

---

Day 6

The Photo

This photograph was taken on a visit to stay with my friend Lucy. We met on a yoga retreat in 2018 and I’ve regularly gone to stay with her since. We like to do mini retreats when I visit—with good food (if it’s the right time of year a lot of it picked from her garden) yoga, meditation, fireside journaling, and walking her two dachshunds Mabel and Myrtle in the Wiltshire countryside. I always enjoyed the respite her hospitality offered me during my years struggling to conceive.

The Poem

The Process

I picked the photo with the idea in mind of how nice it is on that first day you can hang washing outside in the UK — that it signifies the disarmament of winter. This then led me to think of the clothes on the line as white flags of surrender and I got going from there.

I changed my mind a lot with this poem. For a long time I had only two lines about clothing items, the king-size linen and the jeans, but it felt unfinished.

I decided to rhyme the last section as I was struggling with feeling like the poem was complete any other way. And to be honest I’d had enough of working on it. It’s not a piece with any pertinent message so I wanted to stop agonising over every decision.

I think my perfectionism is being highlighted with this project. I’m busy all day with my young son so have very little time to write. I write when he naps but that varies wildly at the moment. Some days I get nearly 2 hours, others just 30 minutes. Although I’m learning to write quickly, at times I’m not convinced it’s the best it can be, but I’m still sharing, which is the only way to not let perfectionism get the better of me.

---

My writing is free to access but if you wanted to show a small sign of appreciation, hot drinks on maternity leave are always welcome!

Jade x

---