13-14 February 2004

A piece from the Deeming Dreaming Archive

This marks my first fiction post for my Substack and my first post from my Deeming Dreaming Archive.

13-14 February 2004 - was - as the title suggests - created between the 13th and 14th of February 2004. With Valentines Day on the horizon I decided to stage my own ‘love intervention’.

On the 13th of February I set myself the task of writing continuously on the subject of love. I purchased a black cloth journal with gold edged pages. After spending some hours forcing myself to think, to meditate on the subject, I set myself the task of writing continuously in the journal without stopping or editing. What evolved is a sort of continuous story, love poem, prose.  

On Saturday the 14th February 2004 I ripped the pages out of the journal, 50 all told, got an all day bus pass and from 8:30am dropped the individual leaves on 50 different buses.  I wanted people to find these snapshots of love, something mysterious for them to think about and ponder.

50 pages of a ‘story’ and 50 buses for Valentines Day 2004.

In the beginning of the day I was more trepidatious - I didn't want people to know that I was intentionally dropping these ‘leaves of love’. I was very sneaky about it.  But when, by 4 o'clock I still had 30 more sheets and was bored out of my SKULL-  I knew I needed to pick up the pace and release myself to the activity with abandon. Leaving these snapshots to be found, and perhaps helping people to find something else of themselves in the process. To become more aware of the environment and to feel the possibility of life.

When I did allow myself to go with the flow, the experience became transcendent- I was in hands beyond my own- it wasn't so much as me getting on those buses as those buses enfolding me. And people seemed more magical to me. Everyone was more, the colours of life more vibrant, the sounds around me had more depth and resonance. The world felt magic.  All those sensory aspects we close down, we numb, seemed to open. This is our inheritance, if we accept it.  I don't know if anyone read my pages, maybe they were all binned.  But the intention was there.  And that is a start.

Following, for the first time ever for public view is those pages in their entirety. Imagine how it might have been for you, on a dreary Scottish day, hurrying onto the bus, to find such a fragment.

These archival posts will only be available to paid subscribers. Though I am known to many for my ‘viral’ dance works, what is lesser know is that I did dozens of self initiated performance pieces like this one since the mid-1990s, with no fanfare and no official support. I have kept copies of these works, but their only true existence is in the imagination of those who happened to see them.

I will aim to publish one a week, in addition to my current musings on the state of the world, Scotland, and the need to honour childhood.