Late Night/Early Morning Blog - 149

So here I am on the patio at 2am - that's a departure! Back from my short virtual break in St Vincent in the Carribean. It was hot - well it was helpful to my imagination that it was hot here too in Barking!

Me on July 7th at my Jasmine Street lunch

Is it late yesterday or early today - not sure really and it doesn't matter. I am always up for the new and this is new. Its a momentary break with my usual early morning blogging habit. And to boot, I bought three patio lights at B&Q on Sunday - and this is the first time I have lit the tea lights that stand in them. And here some pictures of them and my trusty friend - my Macbook Air and a couple of my blogger editing page as I write now.

Its very quiet here, just the sound of the traffic on the A13 as a back drop soundscape. I rather like it. A bit of a secret haven really.

The last couple of days have been strange, tough in many ways as I put the final pieces together of my life at Arc. A series of big and small leavings. Thirty years - girl to woman, actor to director/Chief Exec. So many mixed feelings - sadness, loss, grief and simultaneously hope, excitement and imagination. The King is dead, long live the King. 

As Arc gears up for its new era, my era wanes. I am still officially in post until the end of September, but in discussion with the Chair of my Arc board I have been asked to step back in my role, effectively invited to take gardening leave. And here I am in the night - gardening!  I didn't know how hard it would be to let go. But I am getting there. 

The icing on the cake today was that at 4.30pm I got a call to say that my application for £179,000 to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for a three year 'leadership through the arts' programme for young women has been successful! Don't you just love the synchronicity of life sometimes? That on this very day when I pick up my shovel and fork this news arrives, my final work and gift to my beloved child - Arc. Let go and let life. I am so pleased that securing this programme is part of my legacy, and I can get sowing and planting now in Jasmine Street in the sure knowledge that I did my best. What more can any of us do? 

And Jasmine Street is gearing up, open for business. Indeed people keep pitching up - putting their heads round the door to say hi and what's going on here? 

Isn't it obvious? This is a creative lab....? 'Oh yes' they say 'What else could it be?' and we usually laugh as they enter my fifties studio - a repository for ideas. 

Tim Major

And today the, the best bit really (apart from the news of the funding) was working with my new collaborator Tim Major on our new one-man show. We had a great exploratory session - working on Ian McEwan's short story Conversations with a cupboard man - a fine piece of writing, suitably dark in McEwan fashion. I started with the archetype cards, a now usual portal for character exploration. We talk about them, about Jung, about Caroline Myss and my friend Amari who introduced me to them. They aren't rocket science, simply a tool to uncover universal characteristics that imbue most good stories and all myths. But they are an exquisite tool for unlocking the unconscious and the fertile imagination. So we got a wiggle on with it and will do more next week. 

Tim is a thoughtful and authentic actor and brings to this excavation his skills as a director also. These mean, that like me, he is forensic in his interrogation of narrative and character. It does mean too though that he has to step back from the dualty of the two roles - actor and director - in order to immerse himself fully in the character. That's always a bit of a control thing. Tim recognises it immediately and welcomes the opportunity to put his director in the corner of the room with a good book to read. Tim has a history of directing himself in shows, in particular the Broadway Theatre pantomimes for many years before my brief flirtation with Cinderella last Christmas. Above all its startlingly honest work - messy, swampy, and appropriately human! I loved it, and it was renewing for me in the middle of a tough few days. Thanks Tim, I look forward to next Monday - and please do feel free to write your response in a guest blog. I hear that actors find it interesting.

So its almost 3am and that's me for the night/morning and fittingly the last tea light is flickering its last moment - experimenting with the Owl hours has been fun - a  nice departure from my norm. And in just an hour or so the lark dawn will be here once again and the new dawn for me will begin. See you tomorrow/today. Sweet dreams, asleep or wake y'all.