The train window next to me reads EMERGENCY EXIT. It’s written on the outside of the glass, and from in here it’s backwards even though we’re the ones who’d need to exit. But it isn’t an exit at all – it’s a fixed pane with glass that looks very very strong. You wouldn’t want to try and break it without a very serious emergency on your hands. My back aches. It’s lovely, out the window, it’s getting Scottish. And there’s a telecom tower taller than the clouds.
But today has been shaken and damaged by things not working. Complicated and uninteresting administrative things variously involving a touring exhibition, a text submission, a contract to sign, a scheduling difficulty, and most of all the vinyl lettering for tomorrow’s show, heartbreakingly lost in the post for the second time in a fortnight. The guaranteed overnight courier didn’t materialize, and the artwork doesn’t work without the vinyl. All this and no proper internet access to monitor things and try to get them straight. I slept very little last night, I couldn’t concentrate on getting sleepy.
Standing at the station earlier today with my coat falling down its own sleeves dragged by heavy bags badly packed, my suitcase toppling at every move, tapping emails into my phone and getting all the touchscreen spellings wrong, I thought it was probably time to slow down.
When everything works, the breakneck speed feels good, like the quiet rustle of apparatus working smoothly. When things break, all the speed catches up with itself and trips over. I do worry about the long-term effects of trying to fit too many things into the month, the week, the day, especially when I know blank time is the most productive. People need to be slow sometimes.
Then I got an email from a friend saying hello. We met up last week, and I described to her the work for the Edinburgh show. She feels, incredibly to me on days like this, that what I’m trying to do is worthwhile. I’d told her it sometimes feels like pretending. She told me about floatation devices in the sea, viewed from the shore.
I’ve just noticed the EMERGENCY EXIT is in vinyl lettering. Lucky train.
