To the margins and taking risks

GETTING A GRIP

Having embarked on my a-n Re:view and crashed to a halt with my fractured ankle, I am at last getting back on track. It’s been an uphill struggle after the boot was removed, my inactive leg muscles having stiffened up and my other leg thinking ‘I’ve had enough’. Is that how life is? Ok when fully supported, then when that support is removed, a whole different ball game emerges.

Anyway, stretch, stretch and more stretches, here I am today. Off to see Hen Norton on Monday for the second Bursary session. How much have I moved on since the first one?

Thinking broader, wider, higher at least. I’ve changed my statement from addressing social issues to critical engagement with social issues and have ditched a whole load of guilt about not actually achieving any addressing. What did I mean by addressing anyway? Changing? That’s a big ask.

So now off to some more critical engagement. Sophie Cullinan and I, collaborating as SSoCiaL, have been commissioned for a residency at the Arts Development Conference in November, a partnership between Arts Development UK and a-n The Artists Information Company. We are on a roll with that: www.a-n.co.uk/p/3800369/

NEGOTIATING SYSTEMS

As an aside to making connections and traversing cracks, I am reading Foundations by The Free University of Liverpool: the bit about negotiating systems, making them visible and accountable in a fair and clear manner. My own words are inside this book, I am the meandering outsider revelling in truths and fantasies; and I am reading it from the outside.

The a-n Re:view bursary, conversations with Gareth about the fundamentals of money systems and a fractured ankle are leading me somewhere. A space of words but actions too. It is not enough for me to talk about this, doing is desirable, essential and inevitable. Until my Aircast boot is removed, hopefully today, I am in a liminal space between reflection and action. It is increasingly hard to be still.

CRACKS IN TEAPOTS AND LIMINAL SPACES

Ah but cracks in teapots or otherwise are liminal spaces inhabited by who knows what. Did you ever avoid the cracks in the pavements when you were a child? Was a bear going to grab you if you did. My Mother always said ‘look where you are going, pick your feet up’, because I was always falling over. She was right – I didn’t pick my feet up or look where I was going and now have a fractured ankle.

But maybe then as now, I was looking out for the cracks, the liminal spaces, maybe I was traversing a terrain inside my head that is full of liminal spaces, full of potentials that I could pursue. Yes, I think those are the ‘bears’ and they are big and amazing and it’s full of risks but that is what my practice is all about here on the margins.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Now I’m reflecting on marginalisation and how to resist that. I’m not always clear how to do it. Wading through the media, it looks as though our daily lives are homogenous, banal, white middle class male orientated. How to change this facade? How to colour perceptions to include what is happening at the margins, how to highlight the genuine, exciting risk-taking by other non-w/mc/m groups or individuals.

What is clear is the importance of connecting, collaborating and conversing thoughtfully with others who want to resist the homogenousity. Is that the right word? It is for how I feel today. It may not be in the dictionary but then it’s not so long ago that people spelled words however they wanted till someone came along and homogenised spelling. Was it the advent of the printing press that fixed spelling? I rest my case.

ANGRY ANKLE

I’m feeling very angry this morning, mainly at myself for being in this disabled position but also at what I am learning about the world while I am in this situation. What am I learning?

People will readily offer to help and this is in several different ways:

those who readily help and come and ask me if there is anything they can do.

those who offer to do shopping for me.

those who take me out

those who telephone and text me.

But then there are people who:

help when I ask for help- this is hard for an independent person- hanging my washing on the line but leaving it to someone else to bring it in

people who say they will help but forget to do it e.g. putting out stinking dustbin

those who are reluctant to help even when asked.

Then there is the advice and platitudes that are handed out patronisingly:

it’ll do you good to slow down

it’ll stop you rushing round like a mad thing

it’ll make you relax

it’ll stop you doing too much (My grandmother was very hardworking and lived to 102 years old. My mother was 96 when she died after a busy life; my Dad is 91 and is still very active and independent.)

All, this throws me back into being a helpless child unable to direct my own life, have choices, do things my way. It smacks me in the face with ‘We know best for you, do as you are told’.

Last Sunday I went to church with Stella and Mark to hear the first reading of their wedding banns. The sermon was about God saying ‘DO AS YOU ARE TOLD, OBEY ME. IF YOU DON’T, THEN WOE BETIDE YOU’. The story was of a tribe going to conquer another tribe sure that it would be easy, and God saying I am on your side so long as you obey me. However, someone stole something and the tribe weren’t successful in battle. When the thief was discovered, he and his family were stoned to death as retribution and then God was on the tribe’s side again.

And if that is a metaphor rather than a truth, it says to me, the powerful will always keep their power. Step out of line and you don’t stand a chance.

So what would I like from this situation?

people to offer to help within their own time/space limitations

people to ring me to talk about life, adventures and the significant, not ankles

people to come and see me just because I am a friend/relative.

I think it is confirming that the people I live near are as important as the place. I realised this when we were cut off in the snow in 2011. Now I am cut off again though others can come here. The next step is finding my people. The first session on my a-n Re:view bursary round Britain revealed ‘FIND YOUR PEOPLE’.

Who are these people?

those who care about each other especially the vulnerable

those who care about the environment and how we live side by side

those who are prepared to take risks, have adventures and try doing things differently

those who don’t accept the status quo

those who think critically about what they are doing most of the time.

those who do, rather than just mutter in corners.

In other words, those who live at the margins and take risks. Where are you? I’d like to hear from you.