Down to the windy coast. Stanmer Park again and mud. It has been raining. The roads are flooded, huge puddles along the riverside out of London. Still too cold for my tastes, but things are improving. This is a rushed visit this time. I last saw Lou in Majorca. I’m about to be very very busy until the end of the month. For one night, a moment to switch out and down. To unpick the confused longings and concerns that constantly fight each other in my disordered head. To align with the sea and the silence and peace. To breathe out again without talking.
All the thinking and moving things and worrying about detail and writing and making up and ordering and laughing and talking and improvising and auditioning and learning and operating and booking and offering and emailing – that can all switch back on with the week. Here now it is peace and wind and cat and good food.
Mud at Stanmer though, but still we walked, sliding through it as we yomped towards equinox in a wind a bit less icy than it was a month ago. Then back to this seaside flat, with a characterful and eloquent cat and the chance of food that is mostly green and no incredible bottles of cheap Bordeaux screaming “You could open me!” The wind is still up, battering the window directly from the sea, but we are warm and companionable. We tried to watch some mawkish Braveheart tribute but we ended up switching over to a more predictably happy movie about some overoptimistic Pole in Pennsylvania stumbling into a multi-million pound Ponzi Scheme. Jack Black can’t really help but be charming, and it’s a very kind account of a man who must have accidentally attracted a great deal of hatred from people who were perhaps a bit too greedy. The power of the way a story is told… I’m sure there’s a documentary that paints a darker picture of the man but I was happy to get my facts processed through a bright and colourful and mostly kind telling of The Polka King.
Now it’s bedtime. It isn’t bedtime at all, it’s just gone nine. This always happens when I’m here – I get sleepy early. Lou has the lights low while my place is always studio bright. My brain goes into night mode. I’ll sleep soon and feel better for it.
I’ve got so much to think about, so much to do. Jobs are piling up again. Even through this mess, I find myself tangled about an audition I sent too rushed, where I didn’t challenge myself as much as I should have. Letting go is hard when we desire we desire we desire. This strange obsession of mine has deep roots into my heart.
But I can stop for a night and a day. And I will. And I am.
AlBarclay 