Well this is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been talking about isn’t it? The affect one person has on another, and the different ways to express that.
Spoons.
Some people are “spoon neutral” in that they don’t rub off on you in any way. Some people use up all your spoons in a very short time. Negativity has to be guarded against. Deflect it with spoons!
Some people give you more. In their company you relax. Your mind is stimulated. Ideas flow. Connections are made.
It’s not difficult to understand why I went straight into the studio and made a little something on Tuesday.
On Tuesday I met Sonia Boué for the first time after about a year of online conversation and mutual blog reading, and subsequent discussion.
Sonia’s post about the meeting can be found here….
Sonia Boué is the sort of person who puts me in a positive spoon situation.
(Spoon theory, one of the topics of our conversation, can be found here if you’re not familiar with it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory)
I didn’t feel I had to put on the mask, or try to be something I’m not. Probably because of online discussions and reading about her work with neurodiversity, I went in knowing that she would accept whatever I was. I don’t want to make that sound like I’m a difficult person to get on with, I don’t think I am. But knowing that someone is accepting of difference means that you don’t need to shut the weird stuff away until you know them better. There was always the risk I suppose that we wouldn’t get on. But I also felt, going into this long anticipated meeting, that that eventuality would be accepted too, without animosity.
And that is a gift.
It was funny we ordered the same food and the same tea. It was funny we both pulled a face at the discarded gherkin!
We laughed. We talked about some serious stuff. We made connections in our thoughts. Talking about your thoughts on your art is the best way to move it forward. Finding ways to express yourself out loud gives rise to clearer understanding.
My mind went *ping* as I talked about an acquaintance who used up all my spoons, and whose conversation worried away at me and wore holes through the cloth like little beads… I made a pinched up face and rubbed my thumbs and forefingers together…. And this little piece had to be made.
I wrote in the previous post about how the work was feeling way too “nice”…. We talked about what the visual effects of the negative spoon people. We mentioned razor blades. On the way to the studio I thought about sandpaper and cheese graters… Rasps and files… I’ve been very delicately withdrawing threads. It’s time to get nasty!
Thank you for a very wonderful afternoon Sonia… I’m sure it will happen again now we have found this mutual meeting place. While I sat waiting, I thought “we can always walk around the park or look at the exhibition if conversation seems awkward” haha!!!! We didn’t shut up for about three and a half hours!
(We did look at the exhibition, but not out of social necessity)
We also talked about family, education, parenting… Discovered we had similar philosophies. We pulled horrified faces and went “oh no!” At all the right places in each other’s monologues of interpersonal disaster.
Both of us being performers of one sort or another, it feels good to have an appreciative audience for life’s tales. I feel a song coming on ….
Here’s to the next verse!
