I've been to see Patti Smith and Sam Shepard at The Abbey tonight. It was an amazing experience to see them both on stage but Patti Smith got me crying, proper tears coming out, not without a context, but without warning, when she sang Pissin in a River. I had brief chats with people and then I left, a bit overcome by the emotions. I walked out of the Abbey zipping up my coat, it's cold tonight. Turned left onto the quay and looked across at the barricade, I'm barricaded from that space now, it's out of bounds. Not that it's a particularly pleasant memory or anything, just that it's a space I occupied one night, for a few hours and it doesn't feel right not to be able to occupy it now.
Walked up and across O'Connell Bridge, looked for the moon, found a star as I walked down the south side of the quay, decided to turn at Capel Street Bridge, like when I was on the camino, I'd be told the route to take, when there were options of two treks, I'd be told in my head which way to go, and I always listened because the camino knows what she's doing. My Spanish friend tells me that the camino is masculine, caminO...I refuse to believe it! My camino was female! I thought about locations to meet with people for the exchanges, I looked at the far side of Capel Street Bridge, walked up East Essex Street, passing the hoarding with 'The Loss of our Souls' up onto Fishambe St. Went to Burdocks, got fish n chips, thought about what I'll eat every day. Looked across at the railings of Christchurch, thought about the footpath round the back before the lane, thought about mapping. Mapping something else in the locations, mapping another journey while I'm living this one. I wondered why? But I like the initial idea of it. Because I can't ignore that that's all going on too in my soul right now, as I'm thinking about this work and how to make it. On Saturday night I gave my friend a sketch so she can design my new tattoo, it's time to mark it on the body. All of it up to this point, all the changes from the last year, all the experience, all the learning, growing up, letting go, beginning again, the potential of The Life.
Today I read about women artists walking, after my friend suggested I look at the recent work of Dee Heddon whose collaborating with Cathy Turner. One of the artsits, Elspeth Owen slept out for the cycle of the moon, in an orbit around where she lives, spending the night with different people each time. She had what she termed 'Docking reports' which were texted/tweeted to the site everyday giving a brief account of what happened. I had been thinking about 'check ins' which would be texting the person on standby each night with my location and status, maybe there's a way to 'check in' publicly each day without the location though.
Tonight Patti Smith read a Yeats poem 'Easter 1916' and in it is the line I ended my camino notebook with "All changed, changed utterly" and it reminded me that every thing is changed, again, here and now, again. I'm some where else now.
I looked at the remnants of an old doorway attached to new apartments at Christchurch, and thought it was an interesting frame to stand in front of, again I wondered why? I'm thinking I suppose, a lot about remnants of spaces I occupied, significant spaces I've occupied, where I spoke with someone, spent time in for various reasons, and I wonder if that's important, or at least why that's important.
Why am I writing this down, and am I writing the full story? No, I'm not. Not really. 'The Love is in the Space Between' perhaps. Patti Smith said tonight, "Time, Time is a wonderful thing, if you live long enough you'll get to have many great adventures" then after she sang Because the Night as a bonus at the end, she said "Love, Love is the last word" and I loved that! I'm not ready to tell the full story yet, I'm still figuring out the narrative retrospectively, and to be honest my soul is still in it.
Potential is what I'm thinking about all the time, that's the sadness and the joy, and love infuses that idea, and when The Love infuses everything in The Life the potential thrives. I don't want to loose sight of that, ever, and particularly within this project. It's awful, what's happening, terrible things are happening to people out there, tonight as I sit comfortably in my sisters apartment using her laptop, out there in the cold, wet this, our city, people are sleeping outside, there's nothing good about that.
If I stay with that thought though, there is no potential for me, there's no forward momentum, it negates the potential for change. So I have to stay in The Love, in the Potential of The Life for every one, because every one deserves it. Equally.
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