Apart from further development work on the Four-Play Gaelic Her-storical Mythological Adventure Cycle detailed below, and additional writing work for Stage, Screen and Gaming – much of which involves either long development periods, non-disclosure agreements or both – I am currently unavailable for in-person workshops and performances.
In other wholly related news, like perhaps yourself or your acquaintances by now, I have an immediate family member suffering from 2 of the some 200 medically-documented symptoms of Long Covid – theirs involving severe chronic pain and ‘brain fog’, or more accurately, actual brain damage similar to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Dementia.
One of the main aspects of ‘brain fog’ is ‘forgetting words’.
I’m a Linguistic Professional – now studying my fifth language and have worked in a massive variety of language-related fields for pretty much my entire professional career – so I. have.one.job.
Remembering words.
Prior to the pandemic ending my in-person Gaelic Arts work for now, my schools work primarily consisted of delivering up to 5 back to back, highly physically-interactive and fast-paced solo performative workshops or shows over the course of a day. These would be delivered either bilingually or in Gaelic, and often involve up to three different Performance Storytelling shows in addition to the Circus Skills Workshop. At any one time, I had to be able to remember the entire scripts, in two languages, of four full Performance Storytelling shows and a Circus Skills workshop, exactly how to tailor them to the different learning, concentration and hand-to-eye coordination skills and sensibilities of a wide range of age groups, and then adapt with lightening speed and improvise in response to changing and unexpected circumstances or events within any given class, while cracking jokes and being my own Roadie – shifting and lifting significant amounts of equipment and driving long journeys to schools and venues around Scotland.
There is no amount of Covid-related brain fog, or reduction in lung capacity and energy I could acquire with which I could still do that.
My work mattered and still matters – it brought more industrial amounts of joy and laughter to more children, young people and adults than I could have ever, ever dreamed possible for someone from a background of considerable challenge and sadness. Including the not-insignificant matter of being a Clearances Descendant Returnee creating school halls ringing with laughter to material in Gaelic, in areas of Scotland still heavily scared by the depopulation caused by the Clearances and the resultant lasting loss of Gaelic.
So I know what it’s like to endure suffering, how it often takes many long and painful years to overcome - if at all, and thus how utterly, utterly precious, powerful and wonderful joy and laughter is.
Increasingly common mass climate-related disasters of flood, fire, heatwave, drought, storm and snow are becoming harder to ignore, like their close cousins of crop collapse and food shortages, who invitably and increasingly follow in their wake. In addition to the growing spectre of AI-related unemployment and other digital and societal challenges, our kids face truly serious obstacles to happy futures. It’s all very well to develop an ability to maintain a state of happiness independent of circumstance – the founding premise of the naming of my work’s website going back to 2005 when I still lived in Ireland – but the basics of true and lasting happiness for all, equally, requires broader and more serious foundations.
It took decades of denial of evidence and obstruction before cholera pandemics in the West were tackled and clean water made available to the masses- with an Opinion Article in The Times (London) of 1854 memorably arguing against being 'bullied into health' - and sadly, it’s clear humanity is making the same mistakes with Covid and clean air now.
Our children and in-person workers deserve clean air, good health, a future – and joy.
I will continue do my best to be both here and healthy enough to provide it some day.
Updates will be added to this page as and when.
on Sunday, 19 February 2023.
Photo credit: Digitalpict.com
