'You need to think, and thinking well is the hardest thing in the world to do.' —Vivian Gornick 'Paradise' by Cecilia Parades; image via Lens Culture I was sitting on a balcony above a sea of heads, close to the edge, looking down on a lit stage. The speakers were going to come on soon, one after the other, to tell stories without notes or prompts. Good storytelling means being unguarded now. Audiences want to witness people unfurling all of their vulnerabilities so that they seem to bloom right there on the stage. Sitting beside me were two women – I think a mother and daughter – who were making each other laugh so hard they were rocking back and forth and sometimes the knee of the woman sitting directly beside me touched mine. Even though they were sitting right there and speaking English I couldn't grasp what they were saying. I felt far away, and getting farther. Something wasn't right. I felt as though my brain had sprung a leak and sense was draining out; I was draining out. I remembered how, the previous week when I was over in London, I was at my brother's flat, and a plumber was there trying to find where a leak was in the water pipes. He started prying up floor tiles in a corner of the house, uncovering dirt and metal bits underneath, and as he was crouching there the back of his pants slid down and exposed this amazing, picture-perfect view of his butt crack. At the exact same moment there was a flood in the kitchen, water bubbling up, rippling brazenly all over the floor. The plumber, James, leapt up and hitched up his pants, and shouted with delight, 'There it is.' (He'd been here for hours, searching, and talking to me, and just before he finally left he shook my hand and said, 'Come back to England!') Anyway – I wished I, or someone, could find where the leak was in my head, let it bubble dramatically for a moment so that we could shout about the volume of stuff coming out, and then plug it, even temporarily, at least until I got off this balcony and wove my way through the crowd, out of this event, towards a benzo and bed.
Balcony
Balcony
Balcony
'You need to think, and thinking well is the hardest thing in the world to do.' —Vivian Gornick 'Paradise' by Cecilia Parades; image via Lens Culture I was sitting on a balcony above a sea of heads, close to the edge, looking down on a lit stage. The speakers were going to come on soon, one after the other, to tell stories without notes or prompts. Good storytelling means being unguarded now. Audiences want to witness people unfurling all of their vulnerabilities so that they seem to bloom right there on the stage. Sitting beside me were two women – I think a mother and daughter – who were making each other laugh so hard they were rocking back and forth and sometimes the knee of the woman sitting directly beside me touched mine. Even though they were sitting right there and speaking English I couldn't grasp what they were saying. I felt far away, and getting farther. Something wasn't right. I felt as though my brain had sprung a leak and sense was draining out; I was draining out. I remembered how, the previous week when I was over in London, I was at my brother's flat, and a plumber was there trying to find where a leak was in the water pipes. He started prying up floor tiles in a corner of the house, uncovering dirt and metal bits underneath, and as he was crouching there the back of his pants slid down and exposed this amazing, picture-perfect view of his butt crack. At the exact same moment there was a flood in the kitchen, water bubbling up, rippling brazenly all over the floor. The plumber, James, leapt up and hitched up his pants, and shouted with delight, 'There it is.' (He'd been here for hours, searching, and talking to me, and just before he finally left he shook my hand and said, 'Come back to England!') Anyway – I wished I, or someone, could find where the leak was in my head, let it bubble dramatically for a moment so that we could shout about the volume of stuff coming out, and then plug it, even temporarily, at least until I got off this balcony and wove my way through the crowd, out of this event, towards a benzo and bed.