Dancing in the rain

Audience participation, the two words I used to cringe at when someone uttered them or eluded to them. I would start to slouch down in my seat and pray that my eyes would not connect with the torturer.

Something in me has changed, I don't know if it is blogging or the direction my working life is taking (I employ audience participation on a frequent basis) but the words kind of fill me with excitement now. Although I am not sure I could get up in front of hundreds of people and karate chop a lump of wood (I saw that once in a Shaoulin Warriors show!). So when Tangled Lou at Periphery shouted audience participation I got all excited and shouted how high (ok whimpered I'll have a think).

Cliché's love them or hate them they have become ingrained in the way we communicate. They are useful in some circumstances, but to tell someone with short or no hair to 'let their hair down' is absurd. That is about as insightful as I seem to be getting on this subject. However, my mind does work in very mysterious ways and this is what I did come up with, I hope you like it:

 

It's time I kicked these shoes off

and go dancing in the rain

It's time I let my hair down

and live life with no shame.

 

It's time I stood on my own two feet

not wait for a hand to hold

It's time I opened the other door myself

and get used to feeling alone.

 

I'm tired of walking a mile

in someonelse's shoes

It's time I put my own back on

and enjoyed my slice of now.

 

 

If you read my post on Tuesday you will know I was dithering over doing something that scared me a little, something just for me. Please don't think any worse of me, remember I did say I am a wus, I was scared of driving. I know, I know stupid right. I was going to avoid something I enjoy just because it meant driving to a city that I have never driven in before and worse still having to do it alone!

 

Well I 'bit the bullet' (sorry Lou) and I went. I took myself to Liverpool and had a morning all to myself. I had a danish and a coffee walking through the city shops. I wandered down to the dock side buildings and stood for a moment; the breeze on my face, the taste of salt in the air, the sound of seagulls drifting around. Relaxed and energised I enjoyed an hour of beautiful art work at the Tate Liverpool. An exhibition of impressionist art work was what I had gone to see. The later paintings of my favourite artist Monet, mentioned before here, were on display along with some work from Turner and Twombly.

 

 

I may post about the exhibition and the thoughts it stirred in me at a later date. I will however say that; I smiled, I laughed (quietly to myself), I sat and floated with the waterlilies, I cried (see definitely a wus) yes a painting brought me to tears! I don't know if it is the memories I have attached to the Monet pieces, or the way the Twombly works seem to depict the turmoil I feel of the here and now but I have become an emotional wreck in the space of one day. It is as if someone has messed with my emotional switch. I have felt more creatively alive in the last 24 hours, I am just not sure why it has to come with an emotional roller coaster ride!