A mother's journey into abstraction
Using art as a writing prompt, plus my night as a performance poet (and the piece to read yourself)
Having children has been the greatest disruption to my sense of identity – an ongoing reconfiguration of who I am, what I do and where I fit into this world. But there’s one identity I never thought would factor under the shape-shifting bracket of ‘me’ – and that is ‘performance poet’.
Yet, last weekend, I became one. For a night only. For an audience of around 80 people, I took to a microphone and shared a textual response to the work of artist Gail Seres-Woolfson at her solo exhibition in Highbury, London.
I am a writer, yes, but I normally write words to be read by others. Rarely – in fact, never – have I written spoken word. But when Gail invited me to contribute a five-minute reading for her gallery event, it felt too intriguing to pass up. The brief? Write and perform something in response to her artwork and exhibition theme ‘Journey into abstraction’.
Her art is focused on the urban landscape, rhythm and space, and her studio mantra is: ‘Nothing is fixed, everything is possible.’ Something that feels relevant given the limitations we can put on ourselves when it comes to our abilities and identities as creatives as well as mothers (and many other things).
‘I am this’ – we tell ourselves, yet how often do we allow ourselves to ask (or indeed to dream): ‘But could I also be that?’
The artist is a dear friend of mine, so I’ve long been familiar and fascinated by her work – and in fact, three months ago, I sent Gail this compelling essay by Kate Jones from
about the relationship women have with the urban landscape and Lauren Elkin’s wonderful book Flâneuse: Women Walk The City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London.‘This made me think of your work,’ I wrote to Gail, who was, unsurprisingly, already familiar with Elkin’s work.
For me, having children altered not just my own sense of self in this world, but also how I fitted into it, how I navigated space, the city, how accessible/inaccessible places became, how aspects of life grew more distanced the deeper I hunkered down in the domestic.
So when Gail invited me to write something, I knew I had to explore this dichotomy of city/domesticity and what the city can represent when you feel far from it, literally or circumstantially.
It was an interesting challenge – a rapid response too: I had around a week to create something (but of course, a week usually gets reduced to about four hours when you have two children as well as a job as a journalist) but it was an excellent prompt, and Gail’s love of cross-collaboration culminated in a really special evening that also featured dance and music.
As a consequence of the event, people have asked for the text to read (I am interpreting this as a good sign). And because I know so many of you related deeply to my piece Am I falling apart or am I just a tired mother?, which has drawn many recent subscribers here (hello!), I thought I would share this new work in this space too. It is a shift in my writing style, but familiar themes endure.
And if you would like to hear it performed, scroll to the bottom to hear me read it – which I might paywall at some point, because I feel a bit vulnerable about it, but shall leave open for now.
I hope you enjoy it. And do share your thoughts in the comments below on the piece or, more generally, art as a writing prompt – perhaps you might like to try something similar yourself?
Gail Seres-Woolfson’s exhibition runs until 3 December at Art@111, 111 Highbury Park, N5 1UB, and you can find out more about her work here and on Instagram.
Journey into Abstraction
It begins with a fantasy, in green.
My mind curves around the tabletop,
past the thrown fork
and cold coil of spaghetti
that twitches like an eel when poked.
Beyond the towering tasks of unappealing uninteresting unrewarding –
The tenements of laundry, skyscrapers of soiled –
Then I find myself below an old grey sock.
Not literally, but as I bend down
groan
reach,
I remember there was a time once
when I existed solely for me.
I think I wasted it.
And so I return to this fantasy of escape,
the making of me,
the remaking, reminding of
who I am – the re-finding – refining –
and I know she can only be found in the city.
Venturing out to the great beyond –
the beyond, beyond my postcode –
from N2…
perhaps all the way to N1.
From this:
Tired mum with baby, then babies,
now small children in tow
Bloody buggies, says man in Gail’s, eating a bun, as I squeeze past –
red tracks in my eyes,
vessels dilated from sleepless nights,
My body a topography of motherhood –
ravines and mountains,
private landscape granted right to roam
But
the years go fast
Make them count,
say all the people I don't know on Instagram.
Homeschooling mom smiles while cracking eggs on a knife edge
You’ll miss them when they’re grown, she says.
And I miss them every day, every minute, I do.
Even when I’m with them, I miss them.
Versions of them pass in an instant, constant upgrades,
smaller selves as containable as shadows.
And yet.
I fantasise about escape,
past the pram in the hall,
towards green space fenced off with iron spikes,
white sun erasing plain streets,
notebook in bag,
squint, squeeze through,
turn, tap in,
step up, step on…
Wheels on tracks shriek like banshees
announce the death of my suburban self,
because soon, in seven stops, I step out –
I step into –
the city.
Part II.
First… a moment, the recalibration of a self imposed into new space.
See diplodocid cranes and monsters of construction build parks for cars in the sky
Some tourists speak of shock – the wall of noise and light – and I felt that in Shinjuku, toppled momentarily by neon unfamiliarity.
But not my London.
She opens wide.
I want to lose myself in her angles.
I want to lose myself
It is an unburdening. Weight off my back.
Not just metaphorically –
no longer carrying things not mine, spare clothes or snacks or sacred sticks I dare not throw for fear of meltdown.
A chance to think in wide streets, shake off demands, decisions, responsibility –
Let the city chisel worries
that layer inside of me
like sedimentary rock,
Use the edges of urbanity
to erode what’s fossilised,
institutionalised,
in the daily business of
simply getting on with it.
Walking lighter, faster, no waiting – untethered,
distance cuts the cord, severs apron strings
I can be anyone here.
I can be nobody.
Slip inside the stream, merge into the many.
Then slower
Smaller steps
Savour the stone beneath my boots,
the beat beats out inertia
I choose to sit.
Then sip.
Opposite, red railings line concrete steps – above them, a doorway.
Wooden slab ajar,
light leaks out,
the coolest white tinged with blue the colour of veins.
A statue by its threshold – in silhouette.
Which moves. She moves.
Cigarette flicks between fine fingers.
And our eyes meet,
not so much lock across the crowded street, more like repel –
I am not the only one who longs for anonymity here.
I look down, fast.
See spectres swirling on the surface of my coffee.
Virginia Woolf called this walking, this watching, this freedom within the city,
the shaking off of self from the confines of domesticity
‘street
haunting’.
I pick up, set off –
Invisible yet never truly unseen,
Women who wander
feel a thousand eyes
But in the day, the city’s stares feel softer.
Then the light shifts. Sunny corners begin to grey.
The idyll turns idle –
Vista off-kilter –
Rows of rooms from empty office blocks beam bright
as if teeth bared in the night sky.
I shift my pace, see my breath, head underground
I remember the first time I took my firstborn newborn down the Finchley Road.
As I pushed his pram, I imagined his lungs –
the inhale and exhale of these determined little organs –
I felt panicked by the fact I was unable to preserve their purity –
The filth from this duel carriageway the quickest way to anoint my child a holy son of the city,
A strange birthright for those who find themselves enthralled to a certain pace,
find wild open space a little… creepy.
But now –
Through a portal
Here I am
Scraping plates
Wiping cutlery clean
The fantasy by its nature
Is an unreality,
Some small irony (for me) of its etymology
in ancient Greek to ‘bring to light’
to ‘make something seen’
I feel soft palms wrap around my knee
Tug gently – not so gently –
in need of company
They pull me past the island,
I moor upon the mat.
Click below to hear me read the piece:
I want to quote this whole thing. I was literally just thinking the other day about how in high school and college you are told the sky is the limit - life is full of adventure! And yet no one really talks about or prepares you for the “tenements of laundry” and “scraping of dishes” and the general drudgery of getting by. This was magical how it this whole collaboration came together, Amy. Thank you for sharing.
I absolutely LOVE this! You look so cool up there!