Fear and change: maybe the most dangerous thing creatively is to be comfortable

I have been mid a major move, moves actually, everything in my life seems to be changing. Even the things I don’t want to change have been changed for me, my agent has left, a lover is not showing the attention I want, my lease on my lovely flat has come to an end. And in that light I have decided in my ‘all or nothing’ way that those toys still left in the pram should be thrown out too with gusto.

In the aftermath of putting most of my belongings into storage, I am coming to terms with the fact that whilst I am almost embracing the term ‘gypsy’, many including my family and friends are embracing the idea I may have finally lost the plot. The truth is life is always uncertain, one can lose jobs, their home, their loved ones and in almost embracing what one could argue is the collapse of my life as we know it, there is a curious cutting edge of adrenalin spiced with fear and wonder.
For the first time in 18 years I don’t have a one bedroom flat on my own in the West End, my bags are already packed & I could in theory fly away like a bird. My paintings and lovely furniture is at my parents, other stuff is at my sister’s and at a friend’s, last week I had possessions in 5 different places including my car!

The sudden freedom of expectation is scary, yes I need to look at life differently, yes it is known that change of routes and routines strengthen the brain and make it grow, but I am eating more junk then I have ever known and the summer clothes I laid out 3 weeks ago are now proving to be inadequate for our London August where the heating has been turned on for many.

I don’t know why I am doing this, I may visit friends abroad, i need to get my head sorted, i have projects that need serious one on one time with me. I do just know that I need to have these crazily empty spaces in every area of my life right now. I am not sure what I am filling it with but I do trust that nature abhors a vacuum, that this period of my life is making me look at every aspect and question why I have done what I have done & where I need to change to move forward. The Chinese character for ‘crisis’ is exactly the same as for ‘opportunity’ and whilst I could wail and fall on my knees in a dramatic despairing fashion I have to find the opportunity in all this freedom.

Creatively I want to respond to this loss. I need to find the courage, wisdom, compassion and life force that the Buddhists call ichinen to get fully moving again but at the very root of my heart I think I need this broken moment. What I do now will really dictate my future, far more than daily moments when my routine of living is already set in patterns and habits.

I am reminded of the fabulous Metallica documentary ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ on the making of their ultimately massive album St Anger. Their normal ways of writing an album were destroyed by James Hetfield being unable to work past 4pm due to his rehabilitation methods, the bringing in of an American life coach who stuck yellow stickies all over the studio with ‘Be In The Zone’ written on them and the fact their previous albums based on anger and rage against the machine was very different vis a vis their current lifestyles where Lars Ulrich was about to make millions from the sale of his collected artwork including Basquiat. In the very constraints of new problems a multi million selling album emerged. The documentary is write watching for their bass player auditions alone, the guy who is still in the band was insane from the moment he wanted a 6 string bass!

So maybe we shouldn’t be scared of our worlds collapsing, maybe we should see the clarity and clear spaceness of our own personal Ground Zero’s. I am learning to look at sunsets from different views than my beloved balcony, I am having unexpected calls about possible projects and I have even taken some footage from my balcony to make a mini film, a kind of swansong to the balcony where every night I gazed at London in its magnificence.