Time changes density.

Maybe this is the trick of being on tour. A tour of sorts. Changing locations and activities so dramatically on a regular and random basis. A constant “Switch” to keep exploring contrasting extremities in the hopes of finding a balanced centre. A somewhat apt metaphor.

 

What have I been doing while the world continues to spin in a certain way.

 

Searching for maybe not a balanced centre but a sustainable one on a personal level and a truth in the face of such madness.

 

In the face of violence, sing.

In the face of madness, dance.

In the face of deceit, speak truth. And if it isn’t safe to speak truth then dance.

These are half baked ideas.

These are emotional truths that while they may resonate will not save the world in the moment we find ourselves in. I am playing the long game. In the face of the short and very dangerous game who are the warriors? We all are. As one of the millions upon millions of women who marched in Washington and elsewhere in January we are a part of a resistance.

 

It seems that every time I release my fingers to write, this is what appears on the page. What did I think I was going to write about? A travel blog? My favourite new dance step? Ok. I never do those things without referencing them back to the bigger idea. But yes, this is it. I am in the midst of something – a long game of sorts and I don’t know how I am a part of the fight right now. I do. I just don’t feel it. This is challenging. How to best situate oneself even if in the moment the action one is taking doesn’t feel right.

 

So engaging with the complexities and hypocrisy of the world. Right. I do that. I do that in my own life and in my own work. I am a hero to the children. They don’t’ know it. They do, but they don’t know how or why.

 

I have been doing the behind the scenes work, the under cover work, the subconscious and collective unconscious work for the last while. It’s been dark. Leonard Cohen’s So You Want It Darker keeps playing in my mind.

 

Soundtrack for Hard Times

So You Want It Darker

Evil Times

Wicked Games

Say Something I’m Giving Up On You

Trying to throw your arms around the world

 

So now I am in the light again. And as I move into the light I see some of my people move into dark places and do battle with themselves and other forces out of their control. It just is.

 

So, now, I feel my luck, my privilege. I have a 4 week residency in Catalunia, Spain. There are 8 of us. We are accommodated and fed in a lovely hotel in the countryside in Northern Spain. We look out onto green fields and to the snow capped mountains in the distance. We hail from Spain (all the different parts), Brazil, Canada, Lithuania and Israel. As always I feel my privilege as the only first language English speaker where the common language is English.

 

It seems I cannot solve these problems here at my computer. I have to make action. I am working on the intersections of these ideas: rape culture, hero worship and the inheritance of secrecy in our culture with the ism’s of James Bond.

 

Not the “I watched the James Bond movies and read the books for a year” but tried to live this way for a year. Or a day. Always on the lookout. Assuming the worst but always falling for the girl, or woman. Or man in this flip. Oh yes, there’s always a man. Sometimes many. The archetypes. How many? Archetype isn’t really a thing. There are some but you can create new ones at will. This undermines the concept for me.

 

The difference here is that while I sometimes fall for the guy I never trust them. This is one of the core issues of the character of James Bond. Trust.

 

Musings from a crazy day.