Let’s Ketch-up 🍅👋🏻

Where Emma ponders lots of stuff

Hello! Thank you for the kind feedback about my artwork! Enjoy this week’s missive.

Having been out of the parky loop for a few weeks I thought I’d do a wee run through some things that have come to my attention.

This debate on Twitter is interesting:

https://twitter.com/RachelHorne19/status/1780221117602443552

I fall on the side of yes, it’s a dark sentiment but thank fuck someone in the public eye has said it. There is plenty of positivity and plaster-the-smile-on advocacy out there and yes, it is great. But I find it completely unrelatable - it uninspires me as I feel SO VERY FAR from the crowd.

The running, the raising money, the exercise, the medical trials, the living best life, the musts, the shoulds, the conquering, the beating, the be stronger…I’m none of those things nor can I do them for so many reasons. The main one being I believe it’s mostly bollox.

But then that’s the Parkinson’s speaking. You know - the apathy, depression, utter exhaustion of living on a few hours of sleep a night, the inability to actually physically make the body move. That can regularly tumble you into the land of wishing you hadn’t been born. It is obfuscating to pretend it’s not a huge part of life with PD.

My final point on this (as it was posted concerning MS) is that there should be no competition on what illness is worse/more deserving. That is exactly the problem with a failing NHS system, somehow we have to pitch like a business on whose illness garners the most cost-effective miserly spend.

Anyway, on the subject of Twitter I am about to do my swansong and finally leave the platform. The Parkinson’s community remains wonderful but the rest is sewage.

So many of you sent me messages of support about my art. I am touched and grateful. Starting anything with PD is an absolute pain in the backside let alone carrying it through to an ongoing fruition! Many of you have expressed a desire to buy work but don’t have the funds, I do offer payment plans on all my work and each month there is an opportunity to win a piece via my newsletter. Pop over here to join in.

A few of you have asked about the impact of starting up a project like this has been. In a word. ARG! The painting bit is relatively easy as it’s just smaller than I used to work. The admin and framing and all that jazz is very hard. Motivation is nil at the best of times so it takes a monumental force of will to do it. Even then I often don’t overcome but as you all know PD can surprise you. So there is a moment on an odd day that for no apparent reason, I have my old ‘do shit, do it now’ self back and I zoom through all the tasks. Can I rely on that? Who the hell knows, but hey gotta try, right?

Right my dearest readers, I shall see you here next week, wine in hand.

with love

E xxx