art

a rip in the fabric of reality

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I made it to the second summit.

The second summit was, you may recall, the daring act, a conversation with a friend.

It turned out to be very difficult to carry out, and strange.

First the day was very disrupted. I could not find the right thing to wear, the weather being milder than it looked, and the day holding multiple, contradictory-suitable-outfit events. I managed to leave the house to find that the logistics of the day were totally different to that which I had imagined. I could not conceive of how I would be able to do everything that I was responsible for doing and still carry out the daring act. But I must carry it out, of that I was certain. Also, it was classic that circumstances were seemingly to conspire yet again to obstruct the accomplishment of anything remotely important to me.

Breathe in, breathe out; it’s wild near the summit. This is what I told myself.

And this was indeed the precisely correct approach because the circumstances tamed themselves down into a harmony almost poetic in its perfection.

But still, the daring act remained to be done.

The friend arrived, and to my shock, brought along another set of conspiring circumstances. I was totally shocked, having made clear, I was certain, of the need for some space. The slot I was now allocated was almost offensive in its brevity.

As I took in the new reality, I pondered, do I even go ahead now? Could what I had to do even be carried out in such unprepossessing conditions?

Suddenly total conviction took hold of me. It was the day of the summit; who knew when I would get another attempt.

I completed my daring act of sharing in twenty five minutes. My friend looked utterly startled.

And rushed off to the next item on the days agenda.

But the daring act had been accomplished, and perhaps all the more emphatically for the intensity of the conditions.

Now: descent. Something that also needs care.

I also have keys to a new borrowed piano.

summit day

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I am so close to the summit now that I see it all the time, it’s not a glimpse anymore.

I’m working with each step towards something immense. It is my destiny.

Last night I messaged my friends for support. Today I feel it and the extra measure of power, love and reassurance I need for being brave.

I let go of some last things that needed to be left behind. Towards a summit you must not carry anything unnecessary, as you are weaker and energy reserves are depleted. No personal idols can be taken to the summit, nor any false responsibilities nor undue lament.

There are a few final practical things to be done. I will do them steadily, trying to make sure to prioritise them correctly, although my mind is affected by the thin air and intensity.

Thank you for what your own silent watching has meant to this moment.

deplete, replenish

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In the struggle that is this perseverance to hold onto the self that is present in the piano playing, I find myself needfully sensitive to what enables and what undermines my ability to hold and extend this attitude.

It sometimes surprises me how much very small things can have a disproportionate power to boost or to drain. In these days of waking already a little on edge, my very ordinary morning rhythms have an almost mythic quality, so much do they stabilise me on waking. Likewise beautifully written texts, an autumn leaf in the sun, kindness whether to myself or witnessed to others, my favourite tea, perfectly brewed, candlelight.

Anything that jars me looms larger, as an enemy: a minor breakage, yet another lie ushered by a public figure, an angry voice, whether to myself or witnessed to another, not finding an outfit that expresses some highly precise inner feeling, taking longer than expected.

This sensitivity attracts old shame: ‘making a fuss’, ‘overdramatising’, ‘self-absorbed’. Yet it is an expression of something deeply mattering to me, of a kind of protectiveness of a treasure.

There is a high level of personal exposure in my life and artistic practice, modest as it is, in that I try to live very true to what is happening, not numbing myself with the usual hiding places. I can see from old seasons and many acquaintances, that much of life is often lived muffled, a blur. It is easy to lose oneself in Responsibilities, Children, Scrolling and Series.

The tools of my work are the very sensitivity I am protecting, to joy, fear, nuance, significance, tone, mood, gesture and language. And beauty, love, tenderness, mystery and grace.

It is good to remind myself, to strengthen up that I have chosen what I am doing and living, and I embrace the entirety of that choice.

Then also it is only wisdom to address the depletions and accentuate the replenishments, looking out for them as I live the day.

blows and beauty

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I was radiant with hope
delighting in the beauty
the truth, luminous over
my being, my story.

Blows rained down,
as if a cudgel to the heart
yet mere words.

You took my fears
as a script, copied
the old patterns
I thought I had, perhaps
eluded.

You crushed all joy from me
dismissing that it once
was shared, that depth,
the wonder of a true
communion.

Or was it? Certainty you
sowed with doubt, did you?
were you? how could you?
To our dreaming together you said,
no, alone.

An uncanny insistence
growls irritable from deep within me.
Trust your heart; your
own wisdom is truth.
Believe yourself.

What do I say to you now?
Can I undo myself from the
places you have
conveniently assigned for me
not to cause disturbance
not to trouble your
nice new story?
to elude the work
of making ground?

Can I heal from the idol
jailer of your own captivity?

My battle now is yours,
unfought.

I am not ruled by
convenience or comfort.
I seek truth.
Your blows have momentarily discouraged me
My wounds will heal
A mere skirmish, I will announce,
My laughter will return.
I will dance again.

I have lived this story before,
perhaps, yes,
some may say
but now I’m wiser

I untwist the events from your grasp
evil prophet,
I laugh giddy at my freedom, my knowing
this time the story will belong to beauty.

return to the studio

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I have spent the summer tending ‘the studio inside’ after my one week residency in June. The communal garden has been a studio. And my neighbours’ apartment with their piano. But the days are getting colder and soon the neighbours will return to inhabit their city home full time.

I returned from holiday and two absences stared me sternly in the face. Indisputable and unmoveable. One was the absence of a studio.

I am a very joyful person and quite good at smoothing over bumps and being grateful where gratitude can reside, but somehow the absence of a studio is very stern, and immune to substitutions or platitudinous comfort. There is a joy in a studio which literally nothing can replace. This is a mystery to me. I’m somewhat reluctant to concede this ground.

But maybe starkly facing our absences has an importance? So I pondered to myself.

Into this absence I said a fierce prayer. If your commitment to existence is not to control your longings nor to detach from them, both of which constitute a harsh diminishment of human being, and if you refuse to despair, a fierce prayer is mostly what is left. I leave the deeper questions for another time, but in this case I was astonished to find, shortly thereafter, I was sitting in a studio again. A temporary arrangement, but astonishing nonetheless.

I reviewed the writing I did here at the start of the summer. I pondered the renovation of ‘the studio insight’ and now reflecting, this is indeed what has happened. Through piano, plants, play, seaside, parties, festivals and dancing, many of the old broken places have been substantially mended.

The day I heard I would have a studio, a project took shape in my being. Since that day, a series of disruptions have overwhelmed my daily life. This is a recognisable and now almost encouraging pattern showing that I am on to something.

This does mean however that some of the renovating got trashed so now I am attending to that.

But there is a deep thrill in the heart of the project, and its existence cannot be prevented.