Had to call access to work 7 times today and then wait 35 minutes on hold to speak to someone.
SO I USED THE TIME PRODUCTIVELY TO MAKE THIS.
🔉 SOUND ON IYKYK
My thanks goes out to all my Crip friends who I know know my fucking pain, and the allys too. And to Teresa from real housewives for supplying me with the gif that perfectly sums up my feelings... If I was not too physically Crip to flip a table I would go right on into the DWP and do just that.
#productivity #accesstowork #FML
We will be hosting an event to celebrate the life of Ali Pearson in the UK on Saturday 3rd of January. Open to all who knew and loved her. If you would like details please drop me a what's app / DM / email and I can send you the details x
For those of us lucky enough to have a good big sister they are people who shape us. Someone to grow up and be like, someone to learn what becoming an adult looks like from, someone to trust and ask questions about what might be coming next and how on earth to handle things. Someone to steal music albums and clothes and phrases and ideas from, as you find your way through the world and work out what kind of adult you will be.
And once you grow up that big sister becomes one of your best friends. Your confidants. You are each others champions and supporters through life. There is an evening out of things, you become equals, fiercely proud of one another, and the person the other has become.
When things get hard you hold each other with love and care and stupid in-jokes that only you really understand. You find the hope together in the bleakest of times. You hold memories of a whole life between you. She is your check back, your source of truth when you can't quite remember that place, that story, that person, that memory...
And when your parents aren't here anymore you become each other's rudder. You step into the space of care held by mothers in times of sickness and sorrow and grief.
So to find myself rudderless, without my big sister is frankly bewildering. I'm trying to hold onto the gratitude of ever having known you, but the gap you leave is vast, and it's hard to really know how to keep on swimming without you.
I will carry you in my heart forever Ali. Always my big sister. Rest easy. Love always, your little sister. xxx
📣 UPCOMING SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT 📣
it's actually been a few years since I've directly full produced a show...had to check I could still do it!
Feeling super proud of the care and support and the beautiful creative fuel that is being poured into this right now as we hurtle towards its preview at @southbankcentre (as part of @aaronzimbra cracking Kuntsy festival) on 5th NOVEMBER. LDN FRIENDS I WILL BE THERE, please come on down and see the show and my little face? I'll put a link in the bio. Thanks @raidenecarte for inviting me on the ride.
We've got a fuck crack team on the job:
Created, written and performed by @tinkflaherty and Abra Flaherty @abra.pearl
Creative collaborator: El Perry (@thicktightdance )
Co-devisers: Sarah Frankcom, Rosana Cade, Daniel Hay-Gordon (@thicktightdance )
Script consultants: @librolevibridgeman , @cath_hoffmann , @krishnaistha , Charlie Josephine
Sound design: El Perry and Jan Brzezinski
Production manager: Meg Hodgson
Design: @tspooner0
Access support: Jen Smerthurst
Audio description consultant: Shivaangee Agrawal
Produced by me for @artsadm (special mention to Benji Wright for being a total don!)
Commissioned by @weareunltd
Today is mums birthday and Monday will mark 10 years since she died.
10 years without her and my dad both. So much has happened since then, in the world, in my life, in my families life. It's hard to imagine what she would make of things now. She was, at her very heart a person who put kindness to the front. Always wanting to help others. Always opening her home to folks. She came at the world with a sense of openness to others that I only hope I can step up to.
I visited Coventry cathedral earlier. I'm not religious. But she was. She loved to visit a church, so churches often feel like the places the space between me and her is at its thinnest. This building with its mix of old and new is also literally awesome and always feels welcoming. Probably a little grand for her tastes tbh, but I think she would have liked it all the same.
I lit a candle for her, and another for others we have lost dear to us, both recently and not. At the invitation of the cathedral I also lit one for people around the world suffering. That candle has a long way to go right now...
Be open. Be kind. Will continue to try and take those characteristics forward for you mum.
🤍🕯️🕯️🕯️🤍
The nicest of times on a flying visit to Cornwall to see some of the oldest and the bestest @ohhaysunshine@shanelad@caitlinmogridge
Featuring dogs, Laif, the lushest of spas,donkeys and of course my old friend the sea x
📸 @manuelvason@fiercefestival
Half way through @fiercefestival I demanded the talent that is Manuel snapped me and @franmillicans and this was the result. Manuel you captured the full hearts of us in this moment, mid festival, exhausted but art cups full. Love you for that my friend.
This women, who has been part of my life for 40+ years, truly a sister, truly a best friend, truly the person I will sit up latest with, have one more drink with, chat endless shit with, stand along side with always, remind how fucking great she is, be fully truthful with, do art with, make art with, drink with, cry with, laugh with, rage with, be sick with, swim with, do basically anything with.
The friendship is so solid that sometimes I can take it for granted. So here is a rare appreciation post. Mate. You are the fucking best, and I cannot imagine a version of my life without you being central in it.
Had to wait till you left the house before I posted this, coz yknow, can't be soppy in your presence!
10 years this month (a few weeks or so ago in fact) marks my first cancer diagnosis. The slow beginnings of an unrevaling of the body that holds my soul, it's fragility, it's complexity of genes and hidden conditions slowly unvailing themselves like a slightly inevitable parade... Whilst simultaneously proving itself to be some kind of miracle vessel keeping me alive despite the unlikeness.
A furious journey with my sister belting out the words to the jagged little pill album as we hurtled to break the news to my parents, my dear mum recieving her own diagnosis that very same day.
The beginnings of a lifetime of appointments, medications. Of change. Of grief and acceptance. Of understanding mortality. Of losing people. Of missing them, of carrying them in my heart.
But 10 years, and a second bite of the cherry from my old foe cancer down, and through a myriad of other things, I'm still here. And standing (or sitting preferably) in the gratitude for the people who have been so close by, holding me when I could not hold myself. Literally. Figuratively. I would not be here without the village around me. Thank you.
A sense of borrowed time will always be with me, beating my pathway, reminding me to enjoy life, to love hard, to move with an open heart, with generosity and kindness. Without sounding like a clichéd little bitch, life is for the living my friends. We all need to scream into a pillow from time to time, but live to the best version of you life allows. Love hard. Seek out the sunshine. All our circles will be completed someday. All our circumferences walked. I hope you can find ways to enjoy yours xx
Ps I'm not one for surviver narratives, it's not my angle of choice, so I don't post much about cancer, but seriously, seeing as I'm here, it would be rude not to say FUCK YOU cancer! x
This pic was taken about 8 years ago. Somewhere between cancer one and cancer two, and before the full unravelling. But I think it sums up my energy on the matter somehow.
Image description: I'm staring at the camera giving the photographer the middle finger with a red party hat on and a blue and white stripped bag on my shoulder.
