Project Me

There is a wonderful sense of calm about things.

It feels as though everythng has happened the way that it should have.

I think I understand what ‘at peace’ means.

John died the way he wanted – quickly, with me and at home.

We’d had a lovely lazy sunday together. After John had been showered and dressed by his carers we had breakfast listening to the Arches omnibus. John usually then dozes through Desert Island Discs but this week he stayed awake. We were still in the kitchen while we laughed at I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue (and wondered how Humph gets those monologues out!).

In the afternoon we watched a dvd that Shaun and John had started on Saturday (Shaun is John’s ex and has been a great friend through out his illness). John was very patient with me and spelt out some plot lines that were apparent with his second viewing! The evening was of course the Strictly dance off (John followed the show avidly, and tolerated my snide swipes at it), followed by dinner and Cranford – which be both love.

John went to bed and had a good night.

At about seven on Monday morning Dawn (John’s night carer) knocked on the living room door and said that John needed me.

John was sitting up in bed and I could see that he was taking very rapid short breathes – like he was on Saturday morning after his shower. We turned him on his side and called for assistance. I’ve lost track of time but an ambulance came very quickly. It arrived at about the same time as Evelina. Evelina is John’s principle day carer – she was half an hour early for her shift but had woken early and felt ‘unsettled’ at home so set off earlier than usual.

The paramedics were great and after a few checks and tests gave me a minute to get dressed and grab what I needed to accompany John to hospital.

As we lifted John on to the stretcher he gave a loud sigh and closed his eyes.

One of the A&E team was a doctor who knows John through a mutal friend. John did not want to be resuscitated and the team did what they could while respecting John’s wishes.

I sat with him as he took his last breaths.

I spent some time with him in a quiet side room. I cried, held his hand and kissed him goodbye.

Evelina and I walked back to John’s place and by 9.30 were sitting in the kitchen.

It all so happened so quickly and I’m so grateful for that. In my mind John ‘went’ while he was at home, I don’t think he knew anything about the ambulance or hospital.

The last few days have been a mix of tears, relief, sadness, good memories and laughter. I listened to some of John’s favoutire cds and found my self crying and dancing around his kitchen.

He was an amazing man and I will miss him hugely.

There is a wonderful sense of calm about things…

I love you Mr Braddonment

John Anthony Braddon 24 March 1965 – 10 December 2007.

John died this morning.

I’ve called people to withdraw from projects only to regret it minutes later.
I’ve put down one piece of work to pick up another, then another and another.
I’ve spent hours staring at gallery listings.
I’ve started collecting words, images and ideas for a performance.
I’ve purposefully set off to meetings early and killed time wandered the streets.
I’ve emailed people, apologised and asked to be included in their projects again.
I’ve had really strong re-actions to art-works.
I’ve made new embroideries.

My mind as all over the place – in the space of one morning I can range from manic speedy ideas for new projects to bouts of self-doubt and fear, from not being able to concentrate at all to periods of amazing clarity and focus.

I think John might be really poorly.  Or perhaps I saw him with fresh eyes after those few days away.  He seems so much smaller, so much weaker, much more vulnerable.

This morning I cleared out another pile of invites and press releases for openings and exhibitions I didn’t get to.

I come to the studio – it feels like the right place to be.
I make fresh coffee.
I talk and laugh with Jodi.
I sew.
We have tea – it feel like the right place to be.</

De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea

Found a Kjell Torriset catalogue in the shop – I hadn’t seen his work before – really like the installations.
Coffee and cake on the terrace – lots of ideas for new work.

I need a good concentrated period of making. There are so many demands on my time (and distractions) at the moment. I often think of a TV programme that Tracey Emin made a few years ago. She spoke with Maggie Hamlin about art and motherhood – Hamlin said that she made a decision not to have children because choosing between the child was screaming in one room and a canvas was screaming in another was a decision she never wanted to have to make.

Didn’t get the cornwall residency – this time! Continuing to look for residencies that are focussed on artist’s practice and developement.

Looking forward the the AIR Open dialogues event next week.

In 1990 (or possibly 1989) we had a ‘professional development’ session at college. We had to imagine our perfect day.  I was reminded of my perfect day this afternoon as I walked along Hastings’ seafront. I remember that my perfect day took place in a (unnamed) town on the coast. After breakfast over looking the sea, I stroll along the promenade on the way to my to a day at the studio. I stop at a health food shop to get something for lunch and at the florist for flowers.
I grew up a few miles inland from Southend on Sea. I was an unathletic overweight child with a fantasy that if I lived near the seafront I’d run along it every day.
Could I live here?
Would it be my perfect day?

I really like out of season seaside towns. Perhaps it was the time I spent on the seafront during my Foundation Course at Southend Tech. Perhaps I have a tendency towards the melancholy.

I feel comfortable here.

I’m staying in my bosses place – a major major perk of my part-time work in the design/gift shop. Although there’s a smart living room upstairs I’m sitting the basement kitchen. It reminds me of some of the student accommodation friends and I had in Totnes. The kitchen is dug into a steep hillside and it is therefore quite damp and musky – I wonder if it’s this that most evokes the cheap holiday-lets we rented before the tourists arrived in the south Hams.

I have to remember that the life I’m leading in London is far from normal. John has needed care of nearly four years now – since his broken ankle in January 2004. By the time the plaster came off he was limping, stumbling and falling as the result of the MND. Everyone says I’m wonderful for staying with him, especially as we only got together the year before. I’m not sure I’m so wonderful, I feel as though I never had a choice but perhaps that’s just melancholy ….