I know a lot of people who would really hate my morning.
I left slower than planned but happy to be slow in company with Lou. It has been so lovely to visit her world for a while. It has been full on for her, and I like being able to put faces to the names. Her Tiktok boys and their mums and the various physically or emotionally eloquent humans who she has covered so much ground with on that bus. The wildly varying personalities that make up this eclectic mix of lovely touring humans who are packing out these big venues with dance, facilitating the dancers, feeding them, dressing them, organising them, massaging them. I had my hotel breakfast and then I jumped in Bergman. Off to Stoke Newington where a friend is waiting to make a cast of my face.
They’ve been practicing and reading up and watching YouTube tutorials. There’s a workshop built in their flat. Yesterday they did it to Jack for practice. Today they are gonna go full on and cast my face. It’s for a MOMENT in Christmas Carol. Just like with the fire last night at Diversity, it is just a moment. But these moments accumulated are the things that build into magic. Every moment cut is a moment of potential wonder lost. Why not have dead Scrooge, I say? Even just for a flash of lightning.
Apparently straws up the nose are frowned upon. They just make sure there are holes. I relaxed my face and took it as a rare opportunity to let myself meditate as they applied alginate all over my face and then waited for it to set. I was in there for about 45 minutes all said. I took the pressure off myself to do anything because I couldn’t. Thankfully I don’t have a cold any more so breathing was easy throughout. It is odd though, having your whole face covered like that. I’m glad it was friends. I allowed myself to trust them, and tried to relax my face so it would cast well.
The time shot by. A little itchy but I’ve always been good at the old mind over matter. Mostly I was in a calm space, although swallowing was a little odd mostly as I didn’t want to do anything inadvertently that would spoil the cast. If I’m gonna have my face covered over I might as well aim for a good result.
I wonder how many of us really know what the shape of our face is. I found myself thinking like I looked like other people I know when I saw what they made of it all. It’s definitely a face.
All in all a very strange morning.
Then I went to Imperial College and had a 2 hour training session to stay up to date with one of my day jobs… Life’s rich tapestry.
AlBarclay 