My friend is doing an installation that I think is a really great idea. It’s basically this: you, by yourself, go into a room for 45 minutes, no one does a performance at you, no one watches you, you are by yourself, there are nice good quality things in the room, what you do/write/think/make/etc while you are there is completely up to you and no one will ask you afterwards. It’s called ‘A room to say goodbye in’. You interpret it. You do it. It’s your thing.
I want to do it but I’m working on the day it’s on so I’m going to go to John Ryland’s and do it by myself there. I was going to do it at home but you know what it’s like doing anything at home, you always end up watching Come Dine With Me or doing a quiz on facebook to fid out what type of bagel you are and feeling that lazy procrastination guilt that isn’t quite painful enough to get you off your arse (clove oil helps, oh no that’s toothache). Plus I like John Ryland’s, it feels chunky and important and appropriate, even though I did get a right telling off in there once for leaving a treasure trail for my friend (it was a really good treasure trail, the security man said it made the place look scruffy and weird. Then he looked at me. “I don’t see the problem with scruffy and weird Sir”. Cue big flirty Hagan grin. Cue Jackie out on her ear.)
Obviously the stuff that came to me first when I thought about it ‘A room to say goodbye in’ was grief. Most of my friends are at least 30 now and by our age it seems most of us have at least one parent we can’t quite talk about without choking up/being overly scously defensive/gritting our teeth and coping realllly hard and mine’s my Dad, but to be honest if I give myself 45 minutes I can see myself adamantly ignoring the grief thing till the last 3 minutes then writing the word dad in tiny 7yr old girl letters on the corner of a page then running away. Not. Good. At. Grief. (yet). But clearly there’s lots of other stuff to say goodbye to; old silly coping mechanisms that are no longer useful, homes, friends, abilities and places, and all that stuff you do in your twenties to make sure you well and truly get in the way of your own life (I’ve just turned 30 and decided to get over myself, it’s liberating, liberating and embarrassing), some things I’d like to kick up the arse on their way out and some I’d hold tight for a minute before letting them go.
Possibly, having a 45min limit on it may tackle the whole issue of people’s high radar for being self indulgent and wanky (in the same way that scousers have to try not to wear shell suits and have perms, artists have a fear of being wanky). I’m definitely in that category of people who go on about not taking life to seriously and if I can add the words fuck and cunt to a sentence to roughen them up a bit I feel much more comfortable. It’s possibly a working class thing. It’s probably a British thing. But it’s definitely a thing. It can be hard to get the balance right on self indulgence and ignoring yourself. I tend try to head for gumption: a down to earth level of practicality that doesn’t ignore my own actual needs, like a mum who tells you to get on with it but gives you a knee squeeze when you need it. I’ve had my Susan Jeffers phase, I’ve had my Buddhist phase, I’ve had my romanticize the fraggles phase (oh hang on, no that’s the one I’m in now), sometimes you just have to get out of your own way and get on with life, and sometimes sitting in a room figuring yourself out for 45 minutes is a good idea, anyway, I’m going to do it, if anyone else is too then drop me an email if you fancy chatting about it, possibly making something together or a workshop or…something.
A Room to Say Goodbye In.
Saturday 11th June
Contact Theatre
ring 0161 274 0600 to book a 45 min slot
