Thread by @IAMKP

I embrace my pals when we meet, even if in a slightly Presbyterian fashion.

I cuddle my bairns a lot on the days they live with me.

Occasionally strangers hug me after gigs, when their shells are broken & their hearts are soft.

I shake lots of hands in my line of work.

contd.

And once every few months I pay someone to manipulate some aspect of my ageing body. Crooked hips. Tight shoulders.
These are transaction all about fixing.

And then there’s feet on wet sand, or damp moss, or elbows deep in fairy liquid.

contd

This is touch in my life.

Yesterday afternoon I hosted a voice/song workshop - Awaking The Lullabies - led by my friend Katarina Juvancic, by her own description “a crazy Balkan lady”. A cynical comic with a peek hole could rip the utter pish out of this kinda thing ...

contd.

Fuck cynical comics. Really.

There were women - all women - many ages, personalities, memories, stories, losses, longings, anxieties & laughter bundled into flesh - women on their bellies being touched by other women - rolled, pummelled, rocked, stroked, held ...

contd

contd

This the bit in the fictional cynical sketch in my head where we’re being mocked for being, well, women. Or (mostly) middle aged. Or (mostly) a bit middle class. Or obviously self obsessed.

Here’s the thing: my cells shifted. I’ve woken up weeping just recalling it.

contd.

When do we get touched this way? Or, for some of us, too many of us, touched at all? Not to fix anything. Or seek anything. Or prove anything. But with curiosity, tenderness, confidence.

And SOUND! Responding to the hands of someone else with sound.

Have I lost you?

Contd.

It was beautiful.

We were beautiful.

And when we sang after this business of touching and making weird noise, well, shit, it was mighty.

What’s it got to do with anything? The horror of news. The pain of others.

contd.

The power of touch and the power of sound.

The personal, cultural, planetary chaos and carnage wreaked for the want of being touched in this way and the immense cellular level effort of stifling whatever sound longs to be released.

contd.

Ocht.

Whatever change needs to come in these brutal, scary days, and shit, please let it come, it’s going to involve our skins and our voices.

So I’m away off to practice.

C’mon the revolution.