For Sarah...

That first chance I was rising early, earlier than the sleep deprived might want me so as coffee rich and strident raced through me beckoning me into a day I asked what I might do if I arrived whilst the sun hit the trees side on.

'Take a spade' was the answer, simple and to the point. 'To dig a hole?' was my reply but being so close to the quietness it rolled into this mind and found purchases eloquent and expansive of which I have learned to ride without questioning beyond a vantage of my own simple mindedness, my dumb naivety and a love of tools.

And with that I seek only to find the core, the source where fingers and thumbs learn to feel and my eyes watch with a sense of wonder that my mind can know so little.

So while the others sought to impress the experts with their knowledge of the current currencies I just wondered why must we have coins and what are these notes that allow our conversation.

So that's the first term over and I've found some minor celebrity which somehow allows me to be more obtuse, be seen pointing to dense thickets like brer rabbit knowing he can outwill the fox but the fox unheeding. I can play an even more irrelevant hand because people are curious.

But the march of the making of plans and being careful is full and strong and maybe even see's me as an enemy. Why? I know why because even though we might choose to start from stupid it doesn't mean we aren't allowed to see the map from higher elevations and if you drop that dull little pebbl;e into the wide stagnant waters you are allowed to stay and watch the ripples.

I see the place you choose to put me and I can be my own spy and secretly shine up the dull trinkets we all carry... and move them slightly so notice is thrown into corners.

Second term and madness is a conviction, though free, I am reminded of but threats are always a shining light for me... the jitters are appearing. But I'm enjoying my holiday, the world is a wide wide place and these freedoms given by a government have me playing in parks and discovering alcoves and I'm forgetful of serious intents.

Last minute I'm called to the stage, still in residence of privilege, so I find tools and just paint pretty pictures, old scores not even settled but dug up, possibly tired, for new action. And they yawn and stretch never realising that spinning new lies of consequence again wakes the sleeping giant.

Not even a photo hidden of the plank of wood and the spinny thing never mind the dull lump of mud but the encircling watchers have watched... the giant is waking.

What is the Giant? It's a giant.

It is the bored world with niches carved out and no interest in widening. Dull savant's only interested in their own glory asking for excitement for plunder for their own hordes. Pirates with big treasure laden but grounded ships expecting my little racy yacht to smash into the fatness of their relevance and renew the tired vigilance.

But I have no interest in this, I'm already gone and can see your broken hearts and my choice is even less for I must break them even more. I've tried to show you the tools I use and that's as far as I can go because I think I understand the questions you're unwilling to be seen asking.

So I'm gone but not easily forgotten. Maybe I'll go back... maybe I won't. I have a stash of good mud but it's quiet, it's resting. I'm uncovering the foundations of precious moments which will be the building of walls, not to hide a horde but to glorify and uphold, trinkets glued in and almost hoping the crowning ramparts will see me allowed to be mud frozen by fire... but that's still a future far off.

(That's my story, Sarah, of a year at the ASP, where I found technical stuff so utterly univigorating while I just wanted to play. Matt McLean was a hero, he's cool and Peter Lange had the blarney goin' on but seemed a little tired.)