It is 5 minutes to midnight, local time. I’ve been up since 6am. Sending two kids to school, making meals, organizing birthday parties, stocking up the fridge to save my partner time as I will be off travelling for four days.
As an entrepreneur and then an athlete, travel has been integral to my life. With time and a growing family, it can seem like a trap at times. There are so many days on the road when I just long for my own bed, even if it means being slapped awake at 2am by visions of Wall-E that my babies might be having. Or the sidekick cockroach. The month after Edinburgh was extremely turbulent.
The week right after the festival, I was in a state of perfect presence. I felt I had taken the show as far as I could, dramaturgically, performance-wise and really given it my all. What I did not know was that I was only awakening to the artistic life when I finished the month. I’ve always taken objection to calendars while being indoctrinated by them. I have a problem with time. Neatly demarcated into days, weeks, months and years. The end of the something could be the beginning or the middle of something else. I’ve lived long enough to know that.
A fortnight after, I found myself facing something similar to the time I would finish long course races. A complete let-down of sorts. A constant questioning of the time and effort spent. A periscopic pessimism about my many limitations. Was I procrastinating as a filmmaker by being a comic or vice-versa? But week three, I self-regulated by disappearing into domesticity. What felt like a chore before had so many nuances I perfected. Even simple things like cooking, with which I have had a love-hate relationship (I did NOT bake during the pandemic, I ran away from the kitchen, I felt suffocated plenty by our collective incarceration), even simple things like cooking took on new meaning. I was baking at the speed of light. A month on, I booted up my computer again. Talked to a few people. Called a few lifelines.
Five weeks on, a little tour organized itself. No one knows what to do with a Fringe show. No kingdom of heaven awaits the weary. However, with any pursuit, I am a big believer in the hours. I can positively say, with every performance, my show was edited to be a little bit better. I feel there is a 10% chance of precipitation with my own material. Of the positive kind. So, in the coming months, punctuated by copious amounts of writing and Wall-E viewings, I plan to tour with BC:AD at the following places. If you are in town, please do stop by. It would be delightful to meet you (again).
Please look at linktr.ee/comedy.av for tickets (only updated two weeks prior). In other news, I’ve started writing something new. If my debut established me as a motormouth from Madras, I hope the second one will accentuate the holy pause. I’ve learned a few tricks from the greats. A great big glass of water, taking a breath, blinking. I plan to try all of the above in my international-woman-of-mystery tour… and keep you posted on the outcome.
