Personal #6

Person at an Exhibition

Here we sit in a fire station that is now an arts venue, creating quietly and revealing in the satisfaction of a job well done. Old Me would not be as relaxed or unphased as I am now, with a solitary visitor since the hour and a half it took to set everything up. There will be people here for two poetry events (2pm, 6pm) so if my plan was to have at least some eyes on the work, that will happen.

It has taken a year to accept my idea of successful was previously corrupted. OF COURSE we would all like everything we do to be universally lauded and always complimented, for humans are vain and often arrogant creatures. Success in relative terms is never simply one moment, it should become an increasingly unbroken chain made stronger by determination and belief.

This particular link is probably the strongest one I have forged for several years.

Here is a one day concession to my desire not simply put poems into books. I would also like to make my own books, and art with poetry, and poetry as art. This has successfully taken place in various ways across the seven years of my existence in this sphere: putting all those moments up on a self-made stand and sticking it in a venue now ticks a LOT of different ‘ completed’ boxes.

There is no certainty past this point, when it comes to ‘traditional’ poetry acceptance or progression. The Ways of Seeing project is locked in and in motion until June, by which time I will have formalised my plans for Crowdfunding. There is a PHENOMENAL amount of space now in-between, which has nothing tangible connected to it. I needed to draw a line under the year here.

I’m absolutely not waiting until January to reset my existence.

The time for a shift in direction is now, not in a month or at the beginning of 2027. I am a slow mover and momentum is really tough to maintain during the darker and colder months. We have some loose ends to tie up, of course, because nothing is ever really a clean break, but I’d like to make some physical changes to the office space to accommodate some new equipment I was gifted for my birthday.

After that, it is all possibility, which is always a glorious and exciting horizon.