When you cannot string words together as a narrative, turn to textile art
My last post (one of only two since my oldest son Dan Bell died on 1 July 2021) was Loosely connected thoughts on the anniversary of the death of my son Dan Bell – Part 1 , where I wrote about writing, including academic writing (from which I had quickly stepped away when Dan was injured) and then sadly, writing for the bureaucracy of death, as I said in that post. Part 2 of that post never materialised.
I had managed to limp back into academic writing: making a small contribution to the final stages of LMT Special Issue: Feminist Perspectives on Learning, Media and Technology; and made a writing recovery working with lovely co-authors on a chapter: HE4Good assemblages: FemEdTech Quilt of Care and Justice in Open Education in the recent Open Access book Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures Laura Czerniewicz (editor) Catherine Cronin (editor). By November, I had even managed to submit a Gasta abstract (now accepted) for OER24 in Cork.
As the book launches started, as well as writing about other chapters, I had great plans to write more about my writing journey in relation to practices of hope and joy. And then an event in the bureaucracy of death came to my attention in late November. My academic writing became once more replaced by writing for the bureaucracy of death. I cannot communicate this (for practical reasons and reasons of self-care) by any way except the textile art-therapy piece below.
When you cannot string words together as a narrative, turn to textile art
Take your own meaning from this: I’ll be back dear friends.
