2nd December

Before the morning’s rehearsal even begin, the training actors start to fill the room and fill the day with Ideas. Creative ideas. Personal ideas. Practical ideas. I was just wondering… Would it be OK if… I was researching…

Before the ideas even get carried by words, their form is tentative. They live between longing to be heard and fear of being misunderstood and excitement. They gently reach the air, softly trying to find a place to land. Hoping they belong.

Tonight I was at a meeting - climbing club planning - a monthly mixture of Making Things Better, Important Money Things, after-work adrenaline-fuelled thrashing Things out and slightly hysterical laughter. Logistics, church-hall lighting, interestingly flavoured popcorn.

I thought about it as I drove home. The way we offered our ideas. Fingertips full, fragile. Playful, too-cold-to-hold, in danger of melting away before we’ve had a chance to share them; sometimes carried into the space too quickly, falling to pieces in mid air, sometimes landing hard or shocking or just a bit damp. Sometimes brilliantly and surprisingly on target.

All day long, ideas were gathered, tumbled, tenderly held, stuck together and soft and so, so beautiful, when you think about it. The tentative or too loud voices, the tangled thoughts, the hundreds or thousands or millions of tiny, intricate, not-here-for-long things, scooped up and spoken, courageously, into strip lit spaces on a rainy Monday.

How we bear hope in these moments. All the moments, when we gather together a once in lifetime collection of extraordinary very very small things, and offer them in once in a lifetime words and eyes, and try to shape them into a once in a lifetime form, and have faith that they might land before they disappear.

[Image description: fingertips filled with snow, against and soft snowy background.]