Fully coming back is work in progress; the journey took its toll, energies depleted, muscles slack and sore, head faithless and fickle. My suitcase, laden with clothes, art-books and gifts, sat in the hallway for days and was unpacked ever so slowly, whenever the fatigue relented. Gorgeous gifts: a coral necklace, a ceramic vase from my favourite South African shop, a little red notebook, and money, some of which I spent on a burnt orange dress and a children’s sewing machine. The latter waiting to be tried out, which is not something you can do in the horizontal…
Funny how I still expect to feel better in just a few more days. Unfortunately no amount of good spirits or willpower overrides the fatigue. So I haven’t left the house in two weeks and a day, grumble, grumble, have been laid up while remaining a fully paid up member of the maybe tomorrow-club. But: I’ve managed to read through the Grant for the Arts-application which the wonderful Arthouse has been developing with me. A drawn-out process, but we’re almost there. And a great way to pull me into the new year – the application is the hook on which I’m hanging my aspirations, towards a professional future, a future that isn’t completely on the sidelines. Or – doesn’t this sound better? – the saddle I put on the magic bird that will fly me and my work to far-off shores of the art-world, known and unknown.
In the meantime my body keeps me on my metaphorical toes. After over-exertion I often get what I call my pain-review, with pains flaring up at points that were affected years ago, by a childhood ear infection say, kidney troubles, a broken leg, a root canal, a concussion… Pains logged in the body’s memory which a certain level of M.E-fatigue reactivates. But it also keeps inventing new ones. A few nights ago something befell my hands, very unpleasant though not excruciatingly so: generating an exterior layer of pain, a reverse pain poultice on top of my hands, leaving the palms untouched. It was a strong burning sensation, and when I tried to enter in so I might extract something that I could put into words, which is a kind of fantastical, counter-intuitive process, an image of huge hirsute hands came, furry hands, a Neanderthal woman’s hands. No, image is the wrong word, my hands felt like that, inflicted with a thicket of dark brown hair, about an inch in length. I’ve had pains in my hands before, in sharply attenuated finger tips which seem about to shoot off like bullets, all at the same time; or, also strangely beyond the physical boundaries, emanating from those flaps of skin connecting one finger to the next, making the triangular spaces between my fingers hurt. Why am I telling you this? Apart from wanting to wrestle something from the daily grind of M.E., make it productive in some way, it also seems to link up with the making of art in ways that I can’t quite formulate yet. Maybe a kind of gift too: a very practical way of exploring issues around embodiment.
Yes: art, artwork, arthope, artpleasure: two pieces on the go, a foundling and a new piece, which, as I can see now, sprang directly from the conversations I had with my mother, working title: making do. No photos yet, but soon… And soon I’ll be able to read your posts more regularly – I’m about to order my tablet-thingy, ha!
