That’s what the media is saying. The numbers. Numbers can be made to say or do anything if people are clever with numbers, though.
Monday afternoon at St Pancras, with muscular arms either side of me. I’m looking ahead at a week of freedom. I’m not sure if that is the right word, I haven’t been incarcerated, I’ve been working again, which some would say enables freedom, aspiration, the capitalist American dream (I’m not American). Next week is a surprise whole week with no work booked, and time to reverse the mind control, to reset head space, to resume practise. Hand-written text is appealing, printed over images. I thought briefly this morning about palimpsests, layers, text, maps, transfer printing, scanning, form and line to build imaginary forms.
I’m not especially coherent or articulate now. Words are coming slowly. I started this segment yesterday afternoon after work. I managed the first sentence, then didn’t know what to say. I was shellshocked after an horrific experience at work, and stood helplessly at Charing Cross station, as trains were not running. I walked around Trafalgar Square listening to odd renditions of show tunes emerging from an enclosure filled with excitable people in glittery clothes. Slightly surreal, discordant, and fun. I eventually got home after a journey on a crowded train, with strangers sitting next to each other. Liberating, like old times. I felt tired, continued to think about the work trauma, which, whilst wasn’t horrific in ways, reinforced my view that I am good, better than some, and that that theatre doesn’t deserve me. I’m tired today, too. I have to learn to manage time commitments and energy levels, to put myself first.
Andrew Stevenson 