30th August 2020

Lockdown vs Isolation

I love being at home, I’m safe I don’t have the worry of others, being judged, having to be something I’m not.

I can be me, and I can do things……..make things.

So how many months have I had the privilege of giving, giving out.  As soon as lockdown was given the ‘red’ light.  I see red, I saw red. I watched white male politicians smirking as they told us to wash our hands to the Happy Birthday song.  Why? How? When we were given the opportunity to prepare, as our cousins, in Italy demonstrated how this virus could spread and attack the wisest of our ones.

The elders, those in our human race who we want to show our respects for the most.  My Mum at 95 is the most precious soul.  During lockdown we had the nightmare of her falling, the third time needing a hospital stay…….Her ability to fight back and get better, stronger has impressed on me our ability to survive is strong.  Our unwillingness to let life go, to hold on.  

I asked her to name 25 things she loves.  No 1. Strawberry Picking!  Lets just go there: Strawberries plump and soft, sweet and ripe…..alone, hiding your greed in a field, warm with a blue sky and soft white clouds to make up stories about.  This has now reminded me of a performance dance piece, ‘Wish You Were Here’ at the Bournemouth Arts by the Sea festival 2011, where I wore headphones and a video eye set….. virtual reality goggles……a strawberry was placed under my nose and then on my lips, I was invited to eat it and it was all so sensual. How I love that we can go anywhere, be anywhere in our imaginations.  Is this my go-to coping mechanism when in crisis?  

I have memories of skipping school and staring out of windows….the need to be away from troubles, difficult situations.

Back to recording, what has happened and how to celebrate what I have made during this period.  My first thought was to make sure our organisation Babigloo Music for Babies, could stay connected with the very youngest who’s lives were to be suddenly very different.  To be a constant for them felt urgent! So we ‘Facebook lived’. And that drove us through Monday to Thursday.  

Lighthouse Poole our local Arts venue with whom I was hoping to show The Ark and Dove - a new show written by David Howarth and directed by Lucy Phillips from Forest Forge Theatre Company, where I am an associate artist, was supposed to be performed on July 4th, postponed from February.  The show is one I am really proud of.  It tells, in an engaging and accessible way the story of the Catholic refugees fleeing England to create a new life in the Americas in 1633.  How history makes us reflect our own situations.  I wanted to explore what it means to be accepted, as the Calverts were by the first nation tribes but also to reflect that once trust has been established how easily we humans can corrupt a relationship and use it for gain.  

Disease plays it’s part in the story, eliminating whole tribes and many of the colonial settlers.

Anyway I wanted funny, I wanted to laugh..not cry, not to swell with the pull of grief that washed in like a tsunami, because that was the state I spent most of my time trying to fathom.  

Terry Jones stories are funny and I could bear being sat still telling a story into a mobile phone - getting it wrong, being too big, my eyes trying to find the lines……trying not to lose my temper with the one I love…after all it was the only way to stay financially above water and as I paddled like the white swan song I long to be.  I carried on.  

The day when National Heritage Lottery pulled all new projects….. days spent preparing, the contacts with schools and organisations, museums, writing the bid - GONE!

But when everything is taken away from you-what a gift time is……..I loved the moment I ran down the middle of the road, I loved the cycle ride that followed a path last ridden when I was 16, I loved that I was stopped, paused.  The Relief!!!!!! We had to stop, no politicians shaking hands, sitting too close could convince me that we could just carry on.

I am fitter, my relationship with my surroundings is stronger, cleaner. The project Babigloo starts with a touch when we meet parent and baby, I touch both of them.  This is a privilege and creates a deep connection, showing trust and care.

My family have always washed their hands, to the point of too much. Touching, hugging is feeling.  Babies reach out with their hands to feel. How will we feel…….in the future? The government is even working out how far away we need to be from each other if one of us sings, blows a musical instrument.

So now I spend my time suffering from ‘comment envy’ like anyone who spends their life wanting, observing others reactions and the sounds made, the applause. Receiving a video of a baby imitating our actions by reaching their little hand up high for the note, fills me with joy.  It takes me back to the fact that it’s the little things that matter.

Oh and my neighbour emailed me to say her nephew loved the Bedtime stories, a fan, a completely random connection. The heat.

And as I look up Kurt Weill to find inspiration for a Babigloo ‘Germany’ session, I haven’t to wonder why I am doing what I do. I am drawing on the love I have of music, story, theatre, play, spectacle. I am not isolated I am one of many talented creative individuals that it feels difficult to be isolated from.