Intimate Gestures

Seville – Semana Santa – so much is about the processions and the masks, the deliberate concealment of individuality.

But within the crowds and the pageant I find myself always drawn to intimate gestures – the small expressions of ‘myself’ that make such a difference to us all.

I look for these everywhere, and that’s only natural. We are all looking for connections, and meaningful relationships can only be made with individuals who have the courage and integrity to express themselves in a world that so often presents easier options.

Personally I am now on a journey to find that sense of who I am in so may different areas. It is one of the most rewarding and fascinating journeys anyone can take – getting to some basic level of competency in fields that then have enough depth to turn everything back on you – suddenly you are not learning the basics of a discipline, but instead immersed in what that passion can teach you about yourself. There are so many areas of life that are deep enough – art, dance, yoga, writing.. so many creative arts..

Or perhaps teach is the wrong word – it seems to be that you and the discipline move together, illuminating each other – dancing around each other in an intimate circle of discovery.

Religion in Seville

Visiting Seville for the Easter Week ( Semana Santa ) is going to force anyone to confront their impressions of the power of the church here, and their influence on ordinary lives. 

I worry at seeing masked children being led to the parades by devout looking parents. What kind of impact does all this have on such impressionable minds?

How wonderful to see that when the mask slips, children are still children.

I think it is always difficult to be fair and balanced as an outsider – we just have our fleeting impressions. But I can’t help feeling saddened by these dark churches sheltering anonymous, guilt-ridden people, particularly when they make signs of the cross to wax figures draped in gold..

 

 

Another day in Seville

Spent some more time in the twisting and turning streets of Seville.

I am going to post separately on the Semana Santa parades, and the general mixed up emotions the religious side of Seville causes me, so here are just a few images on reflections, thoughts, humour and music to keep things light.

 

 

 

First Impressions of Seville

After my first 24 hours here this is one of the best places I have found in which to get enjoyably lost!

The place is a maze of alleys and sights – images are everywhere. With Semana Santa starting on Sunday – street parades every day for next week – it should be a great chance to get some fascinating shots.

I will also try to get some images from my efforts to continue my beginners Tango lessons – it was great to drop in on an advanced class last night just to say hello and meet the teacher. It’s in a great urban space – I added one image to the set above – which somehow really suits the kind of Tango I would so love to dance one day – but for now it’s all about trying to find a way to learn fast enough, so I can stop laughing at myself every minute ..

Street Photography Workshop

I spent Saturday morning in a rainy Brighton on a street photography workshop with Natasha Lythgoe

The workshop was fun and informative – some interesting exercises were

  • Asking 20 people in 20 minutes if I could take their picture
  • Looking for inside out shots ( from inside an environment through to the outside world )
  • Looking for architectural elements combined with Street – so not so much about people
  • Taking 20 steps, shoot, another 20 steps, shoot – to encourage you to look for images from wherever you are

These are some of the shots I took – despite the rain Brighton is always a source of great ideas.

Thanks very mush to Natasha for the course – I certainly plan to attend more of her workshops if I can.

 

 

 

Shadow

There is a heightened atmosphere when it starts. I always miss the build up – somehow my appearance seems part of the collective first breath out. I never hear the lights come on but an electrical discharge hangs in the air and collects in small pockets around the stage.

This evening the start is gentle, which helps me get into the flow. It’s hard without anything to go on. The dislocation from nothing to this is so demanding.

Your early moves are complex, fluid and full of grace – my instant replication is always simpler, two dimensional. I am warmed up now and I follow you effortlessly. I enlarge and contract, flow along the surfaces. I am thrown to the side and impossibly stretched along the wall, it is no effort for me, just a slightly annoying lack of definition at the edges.

I sense the audience over your shoulder, I enjoy their focus on us.

I wonder about myself. No volition, no apparent history. Yet there is a sense that I am your shadow again, just as I was before. For a short while our relationship is perfectly complimentary – we share the same body until the coming darkness separates us once again.

 

[Image is of David Hughes found on a Scottish Arts Council Archive]

Another day

I pause with the toothbrush in one hand. She stands next to me, draped in one of my tee shirts, playing with the old small vase, her smooth finger delicately tracing circles over the worn surface.

My eyes are alive, yesterday she said they sparkle when I smile, laughing with me, her fingers playfully teasing my cheek – but now in the harsh light of the mirror the flaws and lines in my ashen skin are everywhere. On even this first morning the end already seems inevitable. I will mentor her, be interesting for her, but I cannot in the end fulfil her. She will move forwards while I continue to decay, to soften at the edges. I am trapped in what I am, the vessel is as it is.

I turn and get into the shower, grateful for the time alone in the soothing warmth before my optimistic pretence continues.

Behind me the girl gently puts the old vase back on the shelf, and turns to go back to the bedroom.

Context

During todays flash fiction workshop with Wendy Ann Greenhalgh we were set several tasks. This one was to write a flash fiction piece inspired by an image to push us to incorporate images into our work. I chose an image of an old bronze pot. The workshop was my first experience of flash fiction and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

February 2013 Highlights

Feb was a weird month for me.

On the writing front I am continuing with my second creative writing course, working on the weekly exercises and the general assignment of completing a short story in the 10 weeks that the course lasts for.

Photography has been a bit of a none-event due to a combination of a lack of visits and pretty rotten weather. However I really enjoyed a Lightroom course with Anthony Sinfield at Park Cameras.

My basic problem is that I have added learning Tango to my interests – and that has taken some time away from my other passions. I have always loved dance, and adding Tango to my creative spectrum is wholly appropriate – but it is a time consuming activity, especially for the first year when of course I am a hopeless beginner facing a steep learning curve.

March is domonated by my exciting trip to Seville – to catch the Semana Santa. This is realy exciting for me, I am hoping to have over a week of photography and writing inspired by such a significant week in a beautiful city. I hope to make a lot of progress with my first novel – ‘Third Angel’ – which is passed the first 10 percent at almost 9,000 words and is looking interesting.

I also will be finalising the June trip in the next week or so – it looks very much like Istanbul as that fits with all my criteria – unknown, interesting, historic – but part of me woud like to bury myself in France and learn the language again – so some remote language schools there are looking interesting..

The Suitcase

I enter the cupboard under the stairs and flick the switch. There is that familiar smell, a slight mustiness. It sits there on the floor, waiting, exactly as I knew it would. It is always there. Quiet, passive, expecting, it somehow challenges me. It teases me – what have I been doing? Where have I been? So much wasted time. Fool.

­­

I study the case, refreshing my memory, my breathing shallow. I have always felt that it appreciates me, that it senses me. We are less when apart from each other, we have travelled together for well over two decades. Disrespectfully I store it here, then for whatever reason the time comes around and our intermittent friendship is renewed.

There is the ornate worn brass on the corner. A kind of ridiculous fleur-de-lis that somehow works against the dark redness of the leather. I bend down and gently stroke at the dust with the back of my index finger. I remember admiring it in the soft light of a Florence evening, seeing distorted fragments of my reflections in the burnished metal as I knelt on the floor to unlock the lid. Memories flood back, I hear voices, animated Italian from the street outside.

The key is, as always, loosely tied to the handle with an old shoelace. The oversized brass lock that I found in a cobblers shop in a Parisian alley, a flamboyant adornment that suits the bag. It makes me smile.

I remember sitting on the suitcase at the back of a small river taxi on Lake Dal, watching the houseboats slip past and the jetty receding behind me into the evening. Images of the dark waters of Kashmir wash around my mind and blend into warm evenings in hilltop villages of Provence. Memories of endless hotel rooms, heat and rain, disappointments and expectation. Waiting at luggage belts at airports, smiling at the spectacle of the arrival of my always uniquely identifiable bag amongst the sea of anonymous dark plastic.

A touch of class? A foible? Either way it is always a part of my travels.

“Hello. That time again.”

I stand up and respectfully pull the old case out. I turn out the light behind me.

That time again indeed.

 

Thoughts on the 38 Bus

Not much traffic this late in the evening, and the bus surges forwards impatiently. Reflections, warmth, mind buzzing from the class. Breathe for a while, just sit here, let my mind go. Only a few of us, but enough to think about. A besotted couple staring into each others eyes, a young black girl engrossed in her iPhone,  a few old dears and a family with a young boy who is excited to be sitting up there in the front.

This is where we turn up to the station, round we go, she’s a bit off balance, nearly, – that was close – you could see that coming, too much texting – she should sit down it’s not as if we’re short of seats, dangerous texting is, gets taken out of context, too many interpretations, strange how so few words can go so wrong. Not like this evening, I thought that was all right really, not a bad group  – except I always seem to talk too much. Every time I promise myself I’ll keep quite, then before I know it I’m asking questions. Not like some of them they don’t say a word, don’t take any notes either. Just kind of sit there like lemons, not that lemons sit anywhere but I know what I mean.

Did I mean lemmings? No – definitely not.

Talking of jumping off cliffs it should be more of an adventure to throw yourself into  things you don’t normally do just to see what happens, how you will react. But it’s not that strange at all once you actually start, everything has its own props, it’s own gear – there’s Lycra for cycling, thoughtful expressions for creative writing, special shoes for Tango – dress up right, look the part, and then it’s just a matter of learning the rules. Real shame when I’m trying to push myself into the great unknown, as opposed to the slightly less familiar – it would be great to do something totally unpredictable, with no rules at all, but I know that isn’t me, not really. Woah she almost fell again, she really should stop that. Its not her I worry about, its that old lady under her elbow, blissfully unaware she is. Both almost deaf and not seeing clearly, for very different reasons. Opposite ends of a curve, same experience separated by decades, barely touching each other, a little intersection just for a moment, blissfully unaware of each other, it’s only me that notices.

Voice. It’s all about voice. Problem is I can’t find mine, not consistently, not like her. Really consistent that one, a hundred percent softness. Floods of emotions interrupted by little bits of writing. But me – I just seem to be all over the place. Great at night, there’s almost no cars at all, hence the violent turns and the black spots for off balance texters, she’s off again, world of her own, white headphones and flashing thumbs. At least she’s sat down though.  Should be able to find all of the worlds great literature by listening to people on a 38 bus, that’s what he says anyway, just look at her with Michael Jackson’s Thriller  and a messaging system, totally lost, emotional responses echoing across her face, all zoned out and full of concentration.

I do wonder about the feminine girl. So soft and emotional, big and blubbery on the outside. She explains herself yet again, what she was exploring, all the gentle  pictures in her head.  But what’s on the inside? What makes her work?

But to focus – what’s my inside story. What’s my game, I guess that’s what I’m asking. It’s what I would ask in the class, given a chance, but we aren’t going to push each other are we? Not like that, not about ourselves. Supposed to be that what we write is nothing like what we think.. write about the great unknown – but that’s not what I do. I explore myself in real life then I write about it. Push my limits, then make a story – not so creative in the literature department, more on the real life side. More of a documentary,  the writing is. Tell it how it was. Of course I can’t tell them that, you aren’t supposed to do that to people in lifts. Not in real life, not like I do.

So now I’m talking about how it actually is, underneath it all, the only true reveal, a real one, a “real reveal” – that kind of works – or is that a bad example? Its  a fine line, good rhythms and bad ones, just like Tango. Sometimes I think I really can’t stand the music, especially the old stuff, then every so often it  absolutely gets you. Blows you away. Fine line.

Problem with Tango is you need someone else. Like life in general, not much point by yourself, a basic problem for yours truly. Not for her I bet though, that tough one, she never says much either. Hard on the outside, even harder on the inside, not that I’d know, not yet, what’s her game though, really? What would she do if someone pushed hard at her. Tough things break, soft things burst into tears. Same end game,  different routes. Prefer the tough ones, on the whole. Definitely. I like a contest, more of a game, more respect

Ruby – she was a strong one – nothing left unknown about her, I had everything again and again, every little adventure all acted out – her and her avatars and the role playing and all that passion and talent. Once you get invited in you just play in the box, staying  within the walls, their walls, their limits – change little things like how hard, how much rope. How much pain in her case. Fun while you learn, then it’s time to move on – onto the next one. Love the power, whereas that’s exactly what she loved to loose, being helpless, a victim, completely exposed, that’s what she got off on. Wouldn’t catch me doing that – giving yourself to someone, no control..nothing at all… Never. Way too dangerous. Made a great short story that did, just changed the name and used the photos and notes, easy, bashed it out in a couple of evenings.

Oh thank god she’s got off, didn’t see her leave, must have been gazing out the window. She’s gone anyway. There’s only so much second hand Michael Jackson a man can take. The image stays though, at least for a while. People do that don’t they – leave an impression, sometimes. Part of her is still standing there,let’s bring her back. I can  hear the tinny music, see her  black skin between her white tee shirt and indigo jeans, all slim and teasing. Watch her move slightly from side to side. Her frown and hints of smiles as she concentrates on the keys. I can even make her sway as we swing around the bus in front – there she goes, elbow into the old dear, all in my head – wonderful – she’s gone and I never said a word to her, but I’ve been enjoying her company ever since.

Strange how busses have changed so much but the important things are exactly the same. Now they have TV screens and recordings that announce the stop for you. But the experience is still there, the swaying, the best seats, the views into the night, looking down on everything. A sense of progress, lost in the reflections, trust in a competent, invisible driver, in someone who knows where we’re going and how to get us there. The 38 to Clacton Pond. Without the 38 I would never have known, now Clacton Pond is forever a part of my life. I hear it at every stop, every week on the way home from class – the 38 to Clacton Pond.. there it is again, always the same, always surprising. Only me now, and the driver of course, so often like that late at night. Just me and my thoughts, and the sounds and rhythms of it all.

So what is my real reveal then?

People get on, people get off, and me and the bus bounce and sway our way through the night towards an oddly named destination, somewhere I don’t want to get to. But I’ve started so I’ll finish, that’s how it is. I’ve got my creative heels on and I’m playing a strange role. Through to the cross, 6,7 and 8 – resolve. Feel her pause, waiting for guidance, waiting to be lead. That’s a beautiful step that cross, she’s a perfectly responsive woman staring at my chest, feeling every move, sensing my weight, using every hint to attract and deny. So full of watchful passion. I’m not used to all the connection, not at all, not used to someone so much better than me, not used to being clumsy.

The bus carries me onwards. It really is just for me now, there’s absolutely no-one else. On we go, away from the past, all those lost opportunities. Where was I through all that, where was the inner voice? Where was the consistency? What am I really about, behind it all.  There’s nothing special about me, lots of people invest too much and get betrayed. I feel odd, it’s almost like I’m crying, looking out at the world, all mixed up with my own reflection.

But its only a game and I can get off whenever I need to, just like everyone else, can’t I? I can just stop. I thought I could be a good lead, it’s a difficult one, I’m certainly used to just pushing them about, taking control, making them do what I want.

Well my turn now, here we are, here it comes, time to get moving. Shake it all off. Step down into the darkness, and watch the warm bus draw off into the night.

Or I could sit here for a bit, dreaming, looking out through my own reflection and imagining .. just for a while.

 

Context

The monologue exercise for my current course in Creative Writing with Gary at Evolution. Task is just to write a 10 minute monologue.

I broke so many rules with this one – will be interested in feedback. Expect to get panned..

My new creative life