Being in process: dreams, infinity + honouring homelands 📼
doing the best you can with what you've GHAT!
It’s a mantra, baybee!
And as i’ve probably “toot-toot”-ed so many times over the years, i truly believe that allowing ourselves to be where we’re at, offers us a portal to compassionate spaciousness, magical homecoming, and infinite possibilities (thanks forever, Amel, and yes, there’s a playlist to honour this journey below!)
One song of particular symbolism for me, it’s one of my favourite Björk songs, Hyper-ballad, and the video (which you can watch here if you like) started my love affair for Gondry’s work and inspired me as i was making films myself…shoutout to anyone else who also lived for the Director's Label Series Boxed Set! 🎬
But the song itself spoke to my heart in so many ways, in so many chapters of my life. One in particular, years after its release, when i was living in Barcelona and treading streets, parklands, mountains, walking for hours to find a place to sit and write and log my noticings, then into internet cafes i went (remember the days?) passing through the thicket of smoke to arrive at a flaking leather chair, huge desktop with jaunty sometimes-working webcam with hesitant bitrate, Pandora or Last.fm or equivalent for aural company, so i could write some more, and connect to friends around the world using MSN messenger, the plonky alert drip-dripping nectar of connection into my goblet, which also reminded me to make sure i logged out because it was always a potential hazard. I was in the depths of daily adventures, had met some lovely strangers and was also living in a precarious and to be honest, pretty risky situation, and was trying to figure out how to be safe and free
🧚🏽 always trying to be free 🧚🏽
At that time, almost 20 years ago now, this looked like being self sufficient as a ‘weirdo’ who didn’t ‘fit’ the mould. belonging to myself. making art. but also being able to live. and be amongst an interdependent community of souls who also had visions for Other ways of Being.
And at that time, it was tricky (unless you have some support), so ever-hyper-independent, i knew i had to give up this life in Barcelona for the time being, ‘to get a proper job’ and ‘hustle on the side’ keeping my dreams alive in other ways, through the twilight hours and in secret passages, a necessity so i could still be myself. I was contemplating a move to London, and probably multiple other places because, such is my life, ever-seeking, searching for ways to be free to be myself.
My practices in art, embodiment and special interests kept me here, in-process with hard things, whilst also in moments with the sweet succulence. To this day, this song holds a bitter-sweetness in its storytelling. A swell of feelings for the many lives i’ve lived, but also, a remembering of the things we do to stay. A portal into ways it’s possible to touch the now.