Fraught day today. We’ve got a new lovely person in the room who is known by some but not by all, so the three of us who don’t know her feel slightly on the back foot suddenly as there are preexisting relationships. That’s worth me remembering for when we get to America, as I know and like Scott and Debs and Peter and Grant and many of the people at Notre Dame and Austin. The dynamic between the five of us is precious, and it is important to hold onto that and be sensitive to when people might feel uncomfortable or back footed. The guys dealt with it beautifully but I had my first “moment” almost immediately after the stranger was in the room. I had made a decision to keep being my playful experimental self despite the sudden pressure of the stranger. I got a hard “no” about something I was playing with. It made it look like that was something that keeps happening, and I honestly felt completely isolated for a moment. The group came together quickly, but all my insecurities jumped to the front.
We only have a few days left. This will be a good show, but I want it to be brilliant. And if that involves me noodling up to the wire with things like extendable magic wands then dammit I’m gonna noodle. Annoyingly Benjy fiddled with it when it was primed during check-in and it extended into Grace so now everyone is nervous about it even when it’s fully extended, like… rather than bringing something lovely fun and appropriate into the room I’ve brought in something dangerous and problematic. I saw people flinching around it while out, so I thought that perhaps overusing it might make them less uncomfortable, so … I overused it looking for the right moment to fire it and I ended up having it randomly hard cut by someone who hadn’t seen what I was trying to do with it, before I was able to properly explore it, because Benjy had pushed the button in check-in. Circumstances. It’s annoying. But… we have to make space for this sort of thing. It’s just us on the road. The dynamic is the most important. If someone is scared of spiders we don’t have spider props. insha’Allah. We couldn’t eat peanuts on Twelfth Night. Jono loves Reeses pieces and was mortified. I backed up Katherine.
I’m not gonna drop it yet as nobody is allergic to magic wands. The wand will come with me to America in my personal luggage. It isn’t that it isn’t right, but… my way of just trying things first and discussing them later often results in hard barriers. I should have learnt that by now. (I’m the only one extending my trip. Adventure is not in everybody’s blood.)
I am now gonna have to have a day or two of being doggedly reliable so people can see that’s a part of my jam. Because it is. But only so people relax around me enough that I can try to make magic again.
Sure it might be wrong for the right reasons, I haven’t finished exploring it and couldn’t with our new sixth person. All potential magic is potentially magical, kids.
I’m not looking forward to tomorrow as much as I have looked forward to all previous days. The dynamic has shifted. I’m hoping it’ll be fine … but this has been really precious and suddenly there are alliances.
Best get to bed so I can be solid tomorrow.
AlBarclay 