A stand-in for transcendence

On the search for freedom after care

Forthcoming appearances:

29th October: I’ll be chairing Alice Vincent and Raymond Antrobus as they talk about hearing, sound and listening at the Canterbury Festival.

22nd & 23rd November: Excitingly, the Ryedale Festival has commissioned a Community Song Cycle based on Wintering! I’ll be appearing to discuss my book with Jeffry Boakye on 22nd November, and then I can’t wait to be there for the performance, led by Roderick Williams (baritone) and Ethan Loch (piano) on 23rd November.

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My brain craves art at the moment - a deep longing for something transcendent, something complex, like my craving for coffee mid-morning. It is as though my entire mind itches and is seeking a rough surface to chafe against. All part of the healing process, I suppose. It manifests itself in an explosive desire for freedom, an urge to escape the ordinary domestic routines - which feel unnervingly close to care - to get up and out, to see things.

Yesterday, amid one of these bodily uprisings, I caught the train to London to see the Ithell Colquohon show at Tate Britain, having noticed it was nearly over. I didn’t want it to become another one of those things that have sailed serenely past my view this year.

I am thrilled by pretty much anything that takes me out of the house right now. I sit on the train, slightly overjoyed at the scenery rushing past, the sense of movement. Halway across the county, we are delayed for 20 minutes by a technical fault, and I realise I even secretly like that. I have nowhere to be except on this journey. It is delightful to sit here, wondering when we will move again. When I arrive, I eat concourse sushi and consider it a banquet.

Funny how we run on old tracks in times of change. Tate Britain has exactly the same leathery smell as when I worked there. Its floorboards still creak in the same places. I don’t mean to, but I find myself seeking out all the paintings that I used to show to school parties. Younger groups used to love The Cholmondeley Ladies, twin sisters holding their matching babies, a spot-the-difference of starched maternity. If only it were all that ordered.