“I can’t wait to see what you make next!”
The words of a well-meaning audience member after watching Becoming British stung instead of making my hear sing.
I was there, in the moment, still basking in the feat we had managed to pull off yet they wanted me to already be somewhere else.
I was barely grasping how we got to this very moment when I was already mercilessly thrusted into a future I wasn’t ready for.
My whole body went rigid for a micro-second.
Impossible.
There was no “after”, no “next” for me…
yet.
People often speak about “the calm after the storm” but rarely about the eery quietness after it.
That’s where I am now, after a whirlwind of activity. There is a sense of devastation, even with everything neatly tucked away and all the boxes piled up high in the studio…
I am in an in between that is both familiar (I’ve definitely been here before) and total new (each project transforms you inexorably): suddenly, days are vast. Not necessarily longer just…roomier. I look at my diary and I am excited about the spaciousness I can see in it. It is both terrifying and oddly comforting. No commitment, no deadlines, no external pressures, just…. time.
I need time to digest what just happened and let the muses sing to me, I guess.
I want to write and travel and bumble about aimlessly so that my thoughts can coagulate into proper ideas.
I feel unmoored, à la dérive.
It is scary – it always is. It’s the most exciting and terrifying part of being an independent artist: living with uncertainty, being confident enough (in yourself, in your networks and communities and in the universe) that the next chapter will indeed unfold itself.
It’s a bittersweet in-between. I’ve learned to appreciate it but it still feels… unnerving. Like I am about to gear up to a powerful run along an invisible platform which will launch me into the unknown again.
This moment can feel an eternity but really it is only a bleep in time, a bracket before what comes next; some sort of semi-colon that makes time warp.
If nothing happens, what would I do? What and who will I become? Can I “hold my nerve” and not say yes to whatever pops up first because I feel a need to make, to earn and be “out there”? This is perhaps the most useful skill and a necessity for every freelancer.
This is a delicious and dangerous time. It’s exciting and absolutely soporific. It’s everything I need and yet so bloody uncomfortable. I love it and am enjoying every part of it yet I loathe it and can’t wait for it to run its course.
“I can’t wait to see what you make next…”
Yeah, me neither.