Skip to main content

AMICI: Amazing Grace

It was quite the highlight of my weekend.  I had been looking forward to the evening since Charlotte booked our tickets.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  So I expected nothing, and looked forward with tremendous anticipation nonetheless.  Expectations are rarely helpful.

The performance was like nothing I have seen before.  It was beautiful.  It was harrowing.  It made me think.  It forced me to feel.  It challenged me.  It humbled me.  It reminded me what a privilege it is to be alive.  

Their wonderful show was about difference.  And it was about commonality.  There in front of us were a cast united in their mission.  They entertained us.  But they did so much more besides.  They invited us to look beyond physical ability.  And there it was.  Talent in abundance.

Each one of us is so much more than a physical being.  And that was what I was reminded of by Amici.  In their humanity they made magic.  In their embodiment of aliveness they prompted me to rethink my values, and my priorities.

Their movements encouraged a subtle yet profound movement within me.  Today I recognise that that movement was an alteration in my attitude.  A shift in my perspective.  A dose of gratitude. 

I am alive.  This is a privilege.  Not a right.  I have mobility.  When I think about what this means to me, I can choose to celebrate it.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Table. Apple. Penny.

Whilst there were several places I might have been that morning, I wouldn't have been anywhere else.  The practitioner from the Memory Service arrived promptly.  I liked her instantly.    Mum was nervous.  I think I was a little, too.  It's been a difficult year.   "It's Friday, it's the fourteenth of December and I'm at home..."   No problems there.  CAMCOG, or the Cambridge Cognitive Examination is a thorough assessment tool used to assess the extent of extent of dementia, and to assess the level of cognitive impairment.  The standardised  measure assesses orientation, language, memory, praxis, attention, abstract thinking, perception and calculation.    "Table.  Apple.  Penny."   Three everyday items that were introduced at one point, and then referred to again later on.  Again, Mum was able to recall each.      I am reminded that the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Glass half full? Glass half empty? Or perhaps the glass is broken

I am, constitutionally, a glass half empty gal.  I will always first acknowledge what I don't have, what I have lost, and what it is that I am seeking.  I tend to overlook my strengths, concentrating only on those bits of me that are underdeveloped or weak.  I refer to myself as a realist, but in doing so compliment myself and insult those who genuinely are simply realistic.  My modus operandi is to identify what's not working and acknowledge this before seeing more clearly what functions perfectly well.  This has its place: I edit others' written work pretty well.  My fastidious attention to detail serves me, and the author.  Accuracy counts, for me and I have an excellent memory.  I can remember a great many of my sessions with clients verbatim.  Even this asset is something I can, and do, diminish the true value of, by concentrating on 'I should have said...' or 'why didn't....  occur to me during the session?' Earlier this we...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joan Miro: Emotional Art

"Painting and poetry are like love; an exchange of blood, a passionate embrace, without restraint, without defence.  The picture is born of an overflow of emotions and feelings." Miro, The Farm 'La Masia' (1921-22) I learnt a great deal about Miro on a recent visit to the Tate.  I learnt a great deal about a lot more too. Miro wanted to discover the sources of human feeling.  He described his method of creating poetry by way of painting, using a vocabulary of signs and symbols, metaphors and dream images to express definite themes he believed to be fundamental to human existence.  The exhibition displays his sense of humor and lively wit.  His chief concern was a social one; he wanted to get close to the great masses of humanity, and he was convinced that art can only truly appeal when it resonates with roots of lived experience.  "Wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly.  Courage cons...
Post a Comment
Read more