This particular dance seems to have a different rhythm. I have had to take another look at the question of pace. Firstly, the pace of ageing which varies such a lot from person to person, secondly the pace at which learning and hence change can be absorbed and thirdly how creative work – mine and others impacts on this.
Fudo and I have had to get plaiting on this one….
Strand one – my body is giving me grief at the moment and although its not pleasant I feel such a relief that its not dementia. Friends and I went to see ‘Still Alice’ such a well researched piece of work, taught me more than the Alzheimers Society and my little personal experience had managed to impart. Sort of comforting and scary to see most of the afternoon’s audience were the silver haired variety !!!
Back to the plait
For my very few friends whose lives are getting smaller and more domestic I am learning to share that focus when they call, (rather like looking at spring violets and take my pleasure with them in the detail) How different my pleasure for a best mate who found that she wanted to paint, draw and celebrate the visual – I celebrate too. I know now she shares my gourmet style appreciation of that moment when you open a new box of oil pastels or to look along the range of colours in a box of pencils or tubes of paints. Giving herself an artists treat indeed, straight from ‘the Artists Way’. So does this visual or artistic response stay all your life? How long before it is destroyed if you get dementia ? ‘Still Alice’ did not answer these questions but I do remember my mother being frustrated in her nineties that she could still ‘see’ the picture she wanted to paint but not being able to execute it. Her brushes would not do what her brain told them any more…
Strand two: The media seems to think that younger people can only learn through the use of sound bites – ‘that’s all they can manage’ – completely forgetting the hours of concentration people use up on games and on composing music or lyrics. Yes of course there is a place for quick, clear Ted Talks just in the same way as there should be space for juggling and durational performance pieces. I can’t resist a plug for Liz Clarkes’ latest piece. She is an artist who understands the pace of the performance for the audience supremely well. I also enjoyed the more considered recent tv documentary Hockney. Called feature length two whole hours, it was the pace which allowed one to see his artistic development over a number of decades.
The Punch
no reliable statistics are kept nationally on domestic violence
Strand three: Deadlines, the creative ‘cooking’1 process, revision, editing, self assessment, waiting for inspiration to strike, slightly (or more than slightly) ritualistic preparation , – all those things that affect the pace of how one works. I happily find tips on face book and other media about how to deal with these and sure you can ‘trick’ yourself into changing your habits….
I have found these tricks work temporarily but the deepest change for me has come from considering tattoos and kintsugi. Tattoos because they are permanent and made me recognise that the only way to experience time is forward, you cannot erase experience.
The Japanese art of Kintsugi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi because it acknowledges this and shows how something can be beautiful even after a life changing trauma…can acknowledge its past. I made a series of memorial tea cups last year to (female) victims of domestic violence. These were shown at the Easton Arts Trail last year alongside poems on the same theme. The one above was made in response to a poem by Andi Langford – Woods’ ‘She Burns’ .The glaze in the cup looked to me like the dirty bubbles referred to in the poem.
SHE BURNS
The kids have done their worst and
all the neighbours give her grief
when she comes home from the fields —
from chasing cows, catching sheep…
the ragamuffins down the lane have scratched
and scarred their gang name
on the side of her brothers car
the cash she made at the Boot Sale
won’t get them very far
The TV’s on the blink again, the dish is
falling off the roof
The Ann Summers party was a flop
now her only friend from the village
is being quite aloof…
Her mothers coming down for Christmas
there’ll be no sex that week
‘cos her mum can’t stand her latest bloke
calls him a bloody hippy freak
Her lips are dry and cracking with
the winter air doing it’s best to bite
Her lack of motivation leaves her
finished for the night.
The kids are in bed after shredding her
with normal childlike needs
she hardly feels the innocence
under voices shrill as reeds
Wiped out before she hits the sack
body and mind unconnected
Auto-pilot gets her there
thoughts senselessly directed
Almost asleep as she climbs the stairs
legs stiff and stained with dirt and grease
her prize, her bath, her moment
warmth, silence, sanctuary, peace
The sky is burnt in violent red and
clouds explode in purple anger overhead
Her night time world a battlefield played
out inside her head
Joan of Arc, and Xena, Boudicea too
all stand beside her rage her passion
shrieking banshees mourning justice
furious powerful full of fire
she burns pianos in her dreams
in protest at banality
the only way she ever sees
to change the sound of vanity
the loss of rhythm in city life
the absence of a friendly smile
the war, the greed, the poverty
integrity reviled
she burns pianos in her dreams
she can’t think of anything worse
I was lucky to have poems from other local poets too including Deborah Harvey, Jo Bell and others too as well as my own poem about the Vodoun Goddess Erzulie Dantor – patron of Lesbians and battered women https://thefggoddessprinciple.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/ezili-dantor-or-erzulie-den-tort among her aspects. I will be writing more about her in other posts.
DANCING WITH RED FUDO AGAIN 