Show and Tell (or slow and tell?)

Dear Jo,
​
I’m looking forward to meeting you on the 19th, hope you don’t mind missing a bit of the wedding....
We will have 45 minutes together, it’s not a lot of time, but we have all the time.

You said you were worried about taking things out of your bag in public, and I know how you feel. One of my students asked the other day “but what are you doing it for?” They should see me now, amid this muddled mess of paper on my floor as I scribble and scratch for the answers. I mean, the sorting part is easy:  I find it  calming, it’s a ritual. So there is a beauty in my chaos in getting ready, because this is exactly the point of us meeting: once our bags are emptied we signify the beginning of an order. 

And please don’t worry, I will not be asking for specific things you don’t want to show me. I am saying, bring whatever you like! But I don’t know, we may not even think of our stuff by the end. I’m actually thinking of re-naming it Slow and Tell. And the whole event is the script really, and we can change any parts of it that we want to. Give up and go and get a coffee, if we want to. I think I may need your help to stay entirely focused on our actions. 

People might watch us, they might not. My experience is that people don’t have time to stop and be curious. But if they are, I’ll talk to them. It’s a workshop in public navigation, that’s my part of the work. 

​The  “work”...? Ha!. It’s 45 minutes of playtime, using our stuff to start a game.  I mean, does it have to be this serious? I’m playing with the weight of the things that I think this is meant to be. I think I may need your help to loosen up.

I’ll be emailing you soon with some final bits of information, some instructions to gently lay around us. 

I’m looking forward to meeting you to play this out,  the waiting and uncertainty, the bodies in time and in public.

We should both feel that we have the right to stop.

And don’t worry, I will not be asking to take anything from you, I am heavy enough.

Best,

Anita 

Written by Anita Wadsworth