I currently live in a small coastal village by the name of Seabrook in Kent. It is sandwiched between Sandgate and Hythe, and if one is driving from the latter or the former to the other and happens to blink, they will never have known the village existed. This, in itself, gives you an idea of how geographically microscopic the village is.

I have a mirror in my hallway hanging on the wall adjacent to the bathroom door and one above the toilet. Unless I choose to wear clothes in bed, which I have no desire to do, when I take that hazy matutinal stroll to the toilet to empty my bladder I am faced with the body I was ‘blessed’ with, or more to the point, one that I ‘shaped’ over the years. The slightly rotund stomach, the adipose tissue clinging to the sides making ‘love handles’, the ubiquitous ‘Dad’ bod, that women apparently love. Let’s face it, I have my fair share of avoirdupois. 

From as early as I can remember I have been a creative person. This I consider a blessing, a true benediction. To be constantly bursting and overflowing with ideas across different formats and genres, adrift and absent in the moment where time is of no consequence with thoughts parading in the background unattended is a state one could only wish to attain constantly. It’s a freedom, a release, a spiritual connection unblemished or untarnished and untangled from emotional thought and subjectivity.

As I ground a canvas coupled with music or the natural soundscape, as the brush is dipped into the paint and the mind/arm/hand move swiftly and symbiotically in tune leaving indelible strokes and marks, as my fingers dance across the keyboard so freely married with the mechanisms of my mind using the alphabet to digitally scribe and bring my thoughts to life, as I strum, bend and hammer the strings of my guitar to interpret my emotion, as the minds meet when I perform in front an audience… I am truly free.