Curating a Life

Posted by geoffmead on July 9, 2015
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Picture of Chris

What does it mean to curate a life? I ask the question because that’s what I think a small group of us have been doing in recent weeks as we first conceived and then convened the celebration of Chris Seeley’s life, at Matara on 29-30 June.

I seem to remember that the term “curate” has ecclesiastical origins: the title given to a priest charged with the “cure” or care of souls in a parish. It comes from a time when caring for souls was taken seriously and it implies both a significant responsibility for others and a relationship with something greater than ourselves.

Curating, in this sense, we discovered, requires much more than aesthetic judgement (though that was certainly involved). If all we had done was to display the artifacts emanating from a lifetime of artful practice the event would have been a mere exhibition: the ultimate retrospective. Instead, we invited folk to come together in an artful community inspired by Chris’s work and life.

Looking back on those two days of convivial conversation, cooking, singing, poetry, dancing, drumming, sharing memories, telling stories, clowning, painting, drawing, looking, reading, meditating, walking, laughing, and weeping, I see them rather as a collective act of love: a deepening and renewal of our relationships with Chris and with each other.

With our help, Chris finally claimed her identity as an artist. In doing so, she implicitly demanded that we also consider what we are making of our lives. And surely that is the measure of great art.

In his wonderful poem Archaic Torso of Apollo, Rilke stands in front of a fragment of a classical Greek statue and is confronted by its power and beauty. It appears to him to be suffused with light coming from inside; it must be alive he says in the final verse, otherwise the stone…

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

I read this and see a portrait of Chris: bursting like a star from the borders of herself; no part of her that does not see me; and the unspoken challenge that was her gift to so many of us…

You must change your life.

Time bids be gone

Posted by geoffmead on July 5, 2015
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We are time’s subjects and time bids be gone. [Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2]

I took this picture when I went to Andalucía in February. I walked the same mountain trail several times. Clinging to a ledge at its highest point, was the twisted remnant of a tree, blasted by lightning. The sunlight glinted on its stark beauty; its limbs framed the living mountains. But its hollowed trunk was quite empty. Its charred branches would never bud or blossom again.

Until Matara, I felt alive, though living in a kind of void. I poured my love and energy into creating a glorious celebration of Chris’s life. What I hadn’t realised was that when it ended, so too would the magical thinking that was keeping Chris alive inside me.

When all her pictures were taken down, her journals packed away, and the stuff of her life disassembled, the void in which I had been living entered my body and hollowed me out.

For the first time, I felt empty inside.

When I realise that she has truly gone, I can’t stand up. I fall to the kitchen floor and howl like a wounded animal. Words escape my mouth, unbidden: “What’s the point? What’s the fucking point?”

Teddy rushes over and shoves his chops in mine. He licks the snot and tears from my face, bathes me in his hot sweet breath, and worms his furry body as close to mine as possible. I put my arms around him and weep into his neck. He wuffles and grunts as if to say: “It’s OK boss. I’m here.”

We’re a pack (albeit a pack of two) and he knows that’s what you do when a member of your pack is in that kind of trouble. The emptiness recedes and I slowly come back to life.

I give Teddy a hug and rub his coat. He slips out of my arms and wanders off into the garden to lie in wait for the postman. The kettle boils. I make a cup of tea and sit at the table, cradling the mug in both hands.

“I’m still here,” I think. “She’s gone but I’m still here.”

It’s enough for now.

Light Breaks Through

Posted by geoffmead on July 2, 2015
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It rained on Sunday; on Wednesday it was overcast and humid.

But on Monday and Tuesday the weather was perfect.

Kingscote basked in bright sunlight as we gathered at the Matara Centre to celebrate Chris Seeley’s amazingly creative life. We danced, drummed and sang. We shared stories; listened to music; read her journals, dived into her gloriously iconoclastic academic writing; gazed in wonder at her pictures and sketch books; enjoyed displays of her iconic outfits; talked about cosmology; cuddled teddy bears; looked at pictures from Chris’s childhood; wrote poetry; explored deep time; painted and drew; sat with old friends; made new connections; laughed, cried, and ate cake.

All this came about through the efforts of Chris’s family and friends, sparked by their love for this remarkable woman and gratitude for a life lived with such generosity and brilliance. Convening and preparing for the celebration was a source of great joy, though I sometimes found it a bit overwhelming and difficult to stay present during the event itself.

On Monday afternoon I needed to escape for a while so I went to the meditation room with Teddie and slept for an hour, until a friend came in and hugged us both awake as if we had been Sleeping Beauties. In that moment, I felt a surge of erotic energy returning to my body and I began to imagine the concrete possibility of life beyond the celebration for the first time since Chris died.

I realised that the energy I’d poured into making the event happen was a way of keeping her alive. Now it’s over, I have to let her go. It’s hard and the way ahead looks dark. But as our friend Fergal O’Connor says in the title track of his new album: light has a habit of breaking through.

Stand by me

Posted by geoffmead on June 28, 2015
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On the evening before our wedding, Chris and I hosted a dinner for 20 of our closest “soul buddies” at Matara. After we’d eaten, William Ayot – our Master of Ceremonies – declared that it was time for the Groom’s Ordeal. “Chris and Geoff have already said ‘Yes’ to each other,” he declared. “But they’re in love. What do they know? Getting married is much too important a business to leave up to the bride and groom.”

“In some cultures,” he continued. “The groom has to persuade all the women of the village that he is worthy of his bride. That’s what Geoff has to do tonight.” He looked across the room to me. “Don’t worry Geoff. You won’t be on your own because – men – it’s our job to coach him for this ordeal and to be his champions.”

Leaving the women in the Library with the port and cheese (a serious oversight on our part) we men retired to the Drawing Room and pondered our strategy. For half an hour, I kept a low profile while fantastical and ribald suggestions were batted back and forth. Before we could agree what we were going to do, there was a knock at the door and we were politely but firmly requested to return.

As we trouped along the corridor, Peter Neall turned to our musician friend Jed Milroy and said, “I’m sure there’s a song that wants to be sung. If I can think of it, will you sing it with me?”

“Sure,” Jed replied.

As we went in, I could see Chris sitting in the middle of a sofa at the far end of the room. The other women sat around her in a protective phalanx of satin and crepe. Husbands, wives, lovers and friends looked at each other across the room with desire and delight.

It was at that moment that Peter and Jed led the men in a rousing serenade of Ben E. King’s classic soul anthem Stand By Me. I must have heard the song a hundred times before but it was only then that I realised just how appropriate the lyrics were for Chris and me. It was the perfect start to the Groom’s Ordeal.

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we’ll see
No I won’t be afraid
Oh, I won’t be afraid

Just as long as you stand, stand by me
So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me
Stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
All the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won’t cry, I won’t cry
No, I won’t shed a tear

Just as long as you stand, stand by me
And darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand now, stand by me
Stand by me

Of what happened next I shall say no more here, except that I must have done a good enough job because the next day Chris and I did indeed get married with the whole-hearted support of all the men and women of our “village.”

Matara

Posted by geoffmead on June 25, 2015
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Matara

In a few days time, Matara will be bustling with 200 guests, coming from many parts of the world, to celebrate the life of Chris Seeley. It will be just 18 months since we got married at the same venue, which is just a few hundred yards from Chris’s house in Kingscote, Gloucestershire, and six months since she died.

Her memorial now stands in the gardens in which we and our soul buddies walked and talked as we prepared for our wedding. Her pictures, journals, and sketchbooks will be displayed in the room in which we were hand-fasted. Clowns will clown, musicians will play, and stories will be told where we sang and danced together for the first time as husband and wife.

A year of marriage was long enough for us to know that it was the best thing we ever did. As Chris wrote in her blog a fortnight after the wedding:

I’d been with my partner for a dozen years until this summer when I fell ill and it became obvious to both of us that the public declaration and private ongoing commitments of marriage would now be an exploration that we would both want.

I love that phrase “the public declaration and private ongoing commitments of marriage.” We needed the strength and resolve of both as the ferocious tumours in her brain began to consume her. Those bonds held us together when we were falling apart.

So it feels absolutely fitting to be returning to Matara for the celebration. Old friends will come together; new friendships will be made; memories will be shared and hopes for the future exchanged. We’ll express our gratitude for being part of Chris’s extraordinary life as artfully and joyfully as we can.

There will be laughter and tears and, above all, there will be love.

 

Raku

Posted by geoffmead on June 23, 2015
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raku bowl

People living deeply have no fear of death (Anaïs Nin)

Chris did not want to die but once it became clear that her cancer was incurable, she accepted dying as part of life. “There is a privilege in being able to live this…” she said, whilst in hospital. She was determined to die as she had lived, artfully. And she continued to make, draw, paint, write and converse with great energy until her last few days.

With the help of friends, I’ve been going through her journals, sketch-books, drawings and paintings to select some to display at the celebration in June. It has been both exciting and immensely poignant to see how in recent years her work became freer and freer as she claimed her place in the “wild margins” as a thinker and artist.

Chris’s desire to learn never diminished. If anything, it accelerated toward the end, branching out into poetry, cosmology, archetypal psychology, food-as-inquiry, make-up, and iconography. Faced with her imminent death, she placed no limits on her curiosity and her spirit burned all the brighter.

Thinking of her in this way, reminds me that she once gave me a raku pottery bowl for my birthday. With it, she enclosed a piece of hand-made paper with a Japanese story she had printed on it about the potter who first created the precious raku-glaze when she stepped into the kiln along with the pots and was consumed in the fire, becoming one with her creation.

Chris’s life was her greatest work of art and the example she gave us in the manner of her dying, it’s crowning glory.

Paddington

Posted by geoffmead on June 21, 2015
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Paddington loomed large in our lives. Both the station and the bear.

Scores of times, Chris and I travelled together into and out of Paddington for London treats – dinner, theatre, ballet, or opera – Chris sleeping on my shoulder on the way home. Once we caught the Cornish Riviera Express, tucked up in twin bunks overnight, arriving in Penzance in time for a stonking fried breakfast at the Seagull Café.

More often, we were passing through separately, either on the way to or the way home from client meetings and assignments. Too many solitary glasses of warm white wine, M&S sandwiches, and Yo Sushi bento boxes. Too many irksome delays and signal failures. Too many evenings spent apart when we should have been together.

The great glory of Paddington, of course, is neither its trains nor its splendid Victorian ironwork, but the statue of Paddington Bear (after whom the station is named, Chris insisted).

I always thought it was the other way round.

But what do I know?

After all, it was Chris and not me who won the Young Observer competition to write a Paddington Bear story, in 1981.

Sadly there is no longer any record of the story itself (apparently it was about Paddington’s Uncle Pastuzo and the Marmalade Mines) although I have found proof of her triumph in a scrap book containing a letter from Collins Publishers and faded photographs of a 15 year old Chris with the author Michael Bond.

The picture above is of Chris’s own Paddington Bear who – according to her mum Joan – arrived on the doorstep one Christmas when Chris was 11 or 12 years old. He has a passport in his pocket complete with a visa from the US Embassy and his suitcase (notice the genuine AeroPeru sticker – Chris’s Dad worked for an airline) contains a miniature pair of pyjamas and several jars of marmalade.

Paddington Bear, along with Aunt Lucy and a whole picnic of much-loved Teddy Bears are waiting excitedly to welcome you to the celebration of Chris’s life at Matara on 29-30 June.

They’ll be pleased to see you.

So will Chris.

So will I.

It’s All Right Now

Posted by geoffmead on June 17, 2015
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ram dass here and now

Chris chose these words of Ram Dass to frame the mortbrod she made with the help of local artist Nicola Clarke. They finished it just two days before she died.

NOW IS
NOW
ARE YOU GOING TO
BE HERE
OR NOT?

Chris was not without dreams of the future (nor some regrets for the past) but she lived her life with an exquisite regard for the present moment. There was a certain quality of attention in her gaze that was captivating: she looked life straight in the eye, whether in the classrooms in which she taught, the studios in which she painted, or the hospital consulting rooms in which she received her own death sentence, and said “Yes” to it all.

Work and play were generally indistinguishable to her (save for the drudgery of meetings and travel) and the products of both were of an astonishing variety and quality: typography, painting, articles, papers, clowning, teaching, running, sewing, home-making, cooking. All of which she was happiest when doing or sharing with others, because what she valued most were the loving relationships and friendships in which her life abounded.

As her family and friends anticipate the forthcoming celebration at Matara at which we will witness and participate in the fruits of a life well-lived, we are chided, challenged and encouraged by her example.

How do we “show up” in our own lives?

Are we really here or not?

It’s as simple as that.

The Sea, The Sea

Posted by geoffmead on June 14, 2015
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Whale

“How are you, Geoff?”

It’s the question everybody asks. Of course they do. They want to know.

“I’m good,” I reply. “If good includes bad.”

I work. I exercise (not enough). I eat and drink (a bit too much). I sit at the keyboard writing and re-writing the story of the past two years to make my sorrow bearable. I pour my energy into creating a celebration of Chris’s life. I fill my days. I numb myself in the evenings with good wine and old movies. I sleep. I worry that two houses, an office, a sports car, a saloon car, and a camper van are not sustainable on one rather dented income but can’t bring myself to let anything go. I laugh sometimes. I cry often. I love my dog.

“How are you, Geoff?”

There are a million ways to answer that one.

The real question is much more difficult. It’s not how it’s who?

“Who are you, Geoff? Who are you now?”

And the truth is that I don’t know who I am. I knew who I was when I was Chris’s lover, then partner, then husband. I have no idea who I am now that she’s gone. In some ways I’m still her husband: we’re still “married” on FaceBook; I still wear my wedding ring; I still love her. That she loved me, I have no doubt. But how can I be her beloved when she isn’t here?

Is this what it is to be widowed? To live in a world where time’s arrow no longer flies true? To know oneself by who one used to be? To bask in the afterglow of having been loved whilst aching for the one who is lost, like a beached whale trying to ease its suffering with memories of the ocean?

You’ve Got the Silver

Posted by geoffmead on June 9, 2015
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The coolest humanoid in the known universe, according to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is Zaphod Beeblebrox. The coolest man on Earth, without a doubt, is Keith Richard. Chris and I (along with Bill and Hilary Clinton) watched him effortlessly out-cooling Mick Jagger on stage at the Beacon Theatre in New York in November 2006.

What?

Alright then, if you insist.

Chris and I weren’t actually in the audience. We sat on our sofa a few years later and watched him effortlessly out-cooling Mick Jagger on stage at the Beacon Theatre, in a DVD of Martin Scorsese’s classic rockumentary Shine a Light.

Our favourite part was when Jagger (perhaps judging that yet more strutting and pouting would not be seemly for a sexagenarian knight of the realm) leaves Keith on stage to sing You’ve Got the Silver.

With a twanging, blowsy, bluesy, slide guitar riff, Keith drops his fag and in a voice more bouldery than gravelly, half sings, half speaks: Hey babe what’s in your eyes… I saw them flashing like airplane lights…You fill my cup babe, that’s for sure… I must come back for a little more… You got my heart you got my soul…

His gnarled fingers caress the guitar like a lover. He sees the audience but he’s lost in the song. Hey baby, what’s in your eyes? Is that the diamonds from the mine? What’s that laughing in your smile? I don’t care, no, I don’t care…

By the end of the number, he’s at the front of the stage on one knee. Oh babe, you got my soul… You got the silver you got the gold… If that’s your love, just leave me blind… I don’t care, no, that’s no big surprise…

I look at Chris beside me on the sofa and the lines echo in my head: You got the silver you got the gold. You got my heart, you got my soul. I fantasise briefly about being a rockstar and writing her a love song but quickly let the idea drop: many people have died trying to be Keith Richard.

When the final chords fade into silence, Keith stands up and turns to the audience. “Cool, huh?” he says. He means the music. For Keith, it’s not about the fame or the money. It’s always about the music.

That’s why he’s so cool.

No doubt about it.