Seven Days in the Park #1

For everybody else, this is a place you come to for your lunch, or to walk the dog, or maybe to simply get away from the chaos of reality. This is now my home until 10am on June 8th. It’s a house a remarkable number of people have no idea actually exists. I thought it was Edwardian but no, it was originally built in 1830, with a long and glorious history stretching back pre-1500’s.

I’m at what the Arts Organisation call a Time and Space residency, which is typically arse about face. The Dr Who fan in me demands the juxtaposition, so here we are in Space and Time for seven whole days of being able to just be the thing I pretended to be for years. Now I REALLY AM a published author, a volunteer, an advocate helping other people fulfil their dreams whilst doing the same myself.

Except now I’m absolutely watching the guy mow the grass outside on a tractor.

I suppose, if I’m going to be honest with myself here, this is now the most ‘successful’ I have ever been. Normally I have had to apply for opportunities like this and to have been offered this week, at this time, is a significant indicator that someone else considers me as worthwhile. Then we have to think past successful and be looking to what happens next, which mostly includes wondering how I get other people to take me seriously.

It turns out that turning up and continually doing the work does, indeed, have benefits. Two of the many people working here today on their own writing projects knew me, and were surprisingly aware of what I’m doing. Neither of these people read my socials, of that I can be absolutely confident. It has to be the process that is producing results. So, that means we’re gonna do more of that, and try and keep the stress and anxiety to a minimum.

The guy doing the lawn has made an incredibly neat job of the space outside.

Between you and me though, I’m kind of looking forward to a rest. It’s been full on over the last two months and a lot of what I do is only possibly because I am a full-time domestic individual for three other people living full and busy lives. Doing that plus my own work is wearing. Being able to sit here and take 20 minutes between sentences is fabulous. Not having to be anywhere but here is also pretty damn immense right now.

There are things I’ve wanted to do for a while but there is literally not the time to imagine them, but there’s also lots of things that need to be done which can now be somebody else’s problem for a wee while. To sit here looking out across the Estuary on a beautiful afternoon is, it is fair to say, very much enough. I can feel doubt and anxiety leaving my body, being gently blown from my face. My jaw is relaxing. I am returning to a state of calm.

Words are beginning to ask questions of me once more.