Thanks James,

I remember that feeling in my 40's of going over the hill.  You go over the hill and your young adulthood is over, it's a real thing.  I remember thinking I don't want to change things, I have my studio - it was a separate building at the end of the garden with a kiln house attached and a verandah on the front.  I was reconstituting myself there.  I'd picked up my clay.  Those feelings of sexual intimacy coming up, explored and expressed in clay.  It might not sound like much but it meant the world to me.  I started coiling pots and it wasn't long before I was making 3ft terracotta statues.

By the time I was 50 I had come to realise there's still a lot of living to do even when you are over the hill.  But it was my cat who led the way.  In the living room, I am sitting on the sofa with my cat and he is sitting in the armchair and the tv is on.  My cat gets up suddenly, walks into the middle of the room, turns round and looks at me and she looks towards him and looks back at me and it's like I can hear her saying how can you stand to sit next to that!  and then she turns round, back towards the door and tail held high marches out of the house, sails down the verandah stairs across the garden and into the studio and I followed her.    





 

Lily:

"my next realisation was that I was the only adult in the room - it was going to be up to me to make a divorce happen."

This rings familiar for me too.