I like this bag, which is for rubbish, on the Danish trains. It reads: Rubbish in the bag. Bag in the hand. Hand on the heart. Where will it end? On the platform. In the rubbish bin. Thanks.
Sometimes I find myself wondering the same about House of Cards. How did I get involved in this, I think. What on earth am I doing? It just gets bigger and bigger, absorbing more and more time, energy, money, attention. And I think why????! Many times I have wondered is it just one massive ego trip.
Then today I had a moment where I thought, it’s just like marathon running (I imagine; I mean, I’ve never run one!). It’s like the loneliness of the long distance runner. Something in my character urges me to present myself with challenges like this one, to endure the stretches of uncertainty where you are not sure what you are doing, and certainly not sure it will work out, to endure the physical challenges of holding up heavy sanding machines, of the noise of paint guns and extractor fans, of dirty chapped hands – workman’s not lady’s – hands, for the immense satisfaction you feel if you do emerge on the other side.
Although I certainly haven’t yet, with this project, I do get glimmers, or I did today, of just starting to see form begin to emerge out of chaos. And I reflect on the fact that my character, perhaps selfishly, also needs to face up to these lonely challenges myself, to prove something to myself, in a way that was not satisfied when I worked on programmes at the BBC. That environment ended up competitively pitting producer against producer, vying with each other to prove themselves to an editor. But I needed to prove myself to myself and I think that is what I am doing with projects like these, among other things (hopefully) ..like making art, most importantly.
Anyway, there’s no doubt that having a whole day to work on it, as I will tomorrow also (thank you Radu) means I get into more of a meditative state of mind!
