WE ARE ALIVE AGAIN
Been so tired in the body and mind the last week. A planed couple of days off have turned into a week. No energy, a cold, the to do list in my diary left undone.
For months on end I have been living and breathing WE ARE ALIVE AGAIN. Time not spent reading, writing, making about or around it is spent thinking or talking about it. All consuming.
Then stop.
I don’t resist these sudden periodic bouts of inertia any more. I’ve come to recognise my own patterns and rhythms. Immersion then detachment is my way. I take the retreat. I’m grateful for the internal safety valve which clicks me off to restore. In working with my own photos, stories, memories, there’s an emotional cost. I need time to process and absorb everything. Mostly, I don’t realise this till my body shuts down.
I met musician/artist Bridget Hayden (http://notwavingordrowning.co.uk/) this week for coffee in Hebden Bridge and we talked about this kind of immersion. Listening to Bridget talking about being overtaken by songs, or the need to paint, I was reminded of Kristin Hersch writing of her experience of being possessed by her songs (‘Paradoxical Undressing’ http://somethingtocryfor.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/pa…)
I recognise this possession. We have a joke at home. N says to me:
“You’ve got an obsessive personality” and I shrug, and say ‘I know”.
I’m looking for a trashy drama series to help me switch off. I find this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenthood_%282010_TV…
I am un-nerved to see that the series features an actor who strongly reminds me of my estranged brother. Even more un-nerving, his character has a son with autism. This is not escape. A boy I love and cannot see.
How do I live with this?
I go to the table in my studio and move some of the fragments of images around. I find a photo of another beloved brother, as a boy. I make another story.
After writing a draft of this post, I fall asleep. I dream of a big house. We are all painting it, getting it ready. To move in, or move out? The dream doesn’t say.
C’mon and let me live
http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/54751/
