Sunday 27 May 2007

Crossroads



Sometimes I wonder what I am. Am I an artist or a driver? A live artist or a drive artist? A student or a lecturer? A performer who writes or a writer who performs? I am sitting in a car talking to strangers about a loss I can't expect them to understand. Sometimes I am the only person I know. The problem is the only person who was anything like me is dead and that's the reason for the journey. I don't even know what he would think. I'd like to think that he would approve of the journey I'm going on. That's sometimes the only thought that keeps me on The Long and Winding Road. Sometimes I think he would say it was 'different'. Which is the sort of thing people say when they don't understand what you do but don't know what else to say. I can only hope there is an audience of passengers that want to sit with me for a while and listen to what I want to tell them. I hope there is. I think there is. The steering committee exists to guide me on the journey but I don't even know what they think. A collection of email addresses from a time when I was high on previously locked up emotion. In some ways I have become the car. Broken down. Broken into. Run out of petrol. Parking ticketed. Towed home. When we brought the car back from London I waited for the auto-recovery vehicle like I was waiting to see my brother again. When we pushed the car back into the garage I felt I was tucking my brother in to bed. The driver said 'It's been on its little adventure.' And I smiled. Because that's exactly how it felt. The car has a life of its own. My brother's life. My life. And everywhere it goes, everywhere it sees, everyone who sees it becomes a part of a car history. His story. The breakdown was why it took me two years to work out what to do with the car. The breaking into was how I felt when people told me I was insane. The running out of petrol is how I feel when I lose the will to talk about the project. There are times when it doesn't even make sense to me so I can't make it make sense to other people. Non-believers. Non-drivers. The parking tickets are prescriptions for the anti-depressants I have taken. Penalties for the mistakes I have made. The towing home is the process of auto-recovery I have been undergoing ever since. I have been doubted and I doubt myself. Every day. Is this art or therapy? No pun - no reference to car-tharsis can help me. I am bound to the road. I am making myself do this. Wake up to this. Sleep with this. Live with this. Because if I don't I let my brother die again. Every day. This is how I keep him alive. If art is my religion. This is my candle. Lit every time I take the car out of the garage. Every time I talk to a passenger I am bringing the car and my brother and what we've been through back to life. Back to Liverpool. Back to me. The car is my brother. My brother is me. I am the car.

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