It all starts with
madness.
Stuck in a big city many
miles from home, so full of panic that I can't decide what clothes to
wear in a morning. It's frequently too much, so difficult a decision
that I crawl trembling back to bed to hide from the wardrobe's
discarded pile of clothes.
Serendipity rescues me.
Melvyn Bragg becomes an
unknowing saviour.
A South Bank Show
featuring Gilbert & George reveals a special way of coping. To
prevent unnecessary distraction from their art those genius chaps
have wardrobes full of identical suits; everything is the same, they
don't have to bother themselves with making a decision, they don't
have to worry. The next day I dash out to hit the charity shops. I
buy three suits & alter them to fit. One part of the day gets
easier.
So begins a love affair
with the elderly & forgotten. Garments are abandoned despite
their beauty, their former occupants dead or ready to move on to
something more now. Charity shops become boutiques & I scour them
regularly. I seek out new ones in unfamiliar territories & I
navigate the city with these second hand citadels as my landmarks. I
discover that fabric, like art can move me. I find some tweed that is
so beautiful that when I wear it I want to cry.
Years pass & I feign
wellness. Jobs come & go & people are helped & some are
healed. My self deceit is reinforced by the professional progress I
make & it can't last. Incongruence & dissonance are things
you can't run from forever. It's a truth I use help others get well.
I forget to use it on myself.
This latest madness. This
lacking. This hopeless mood. This wanting to leave the world. It
comes from pain, this stabbing, kicking, pain in my chest that makes
me curse & cry out. Makes the breath unwilling to come & go.
I can't go out, I can't walk, I can't work, I can't breathe.
There's a dream I have. A
dream where I sew & sew all day & it makes people give me
money. It makes people feel good about themselves. It makes people
feel the same pride as I when I'm in my dead man’s finery.
Jato La Snoot smacked me
in the face as I was wheezing while watching my son whiz ever faster
round & round. It seemed a fine way to do something, to fill the
long dismal days & make them much brighter.
I discover on my raspy
breathed walks around desolate places that I can take photographs
that become different ways of looking at the world, my way of
looking at the world; digital visions of a beautiful dystopia that
has been a place I've visited in slumbering travels for years,
finally dragged from my dream-world & made tangible.
So now I see & I
alter & I make & I sew & people like it & I feel a
lot better. It feels like living & the sewing machine makes my
heart sing to its rhythm. It seems a fine way to make a living &
to be living.
I thought long & hard
about how much my recovery should be a part of this venture, thought
about how much I should expose & I decided they had to be
absolutely linked, intertwined, exhibited, displayed & sold
together as progress with one naturally enhances the other. I also
feel it needs to be an example so others can see. I dared to inspire
in my other role, dared to allow people to use me as an example so it
will be the same with this adventure & this shall be its place.
