How Power Behaves in a Room

After her demonstration, I tried myself at a different window – a closed one, with silk curtains hanging in front. I put my hands underneath them and focused my energy, and the curtains billowed up into the air like Marilyn Monroe’s dress or a hot-air balloon inflating before flight. It was fun! I could move my hands around, making billowy cloud shapes with the silk, which danced in the breeze I’d conjured.

Then, suddenly, a shift: two familiar figures, now authoritative, told me to put some garden tools away – and to do it properly, they said. One picked up a rake and threw it into the air. It spun once, twice, and landed straight through a gap the width of a letterbox – an impossible shot. The scene had the air of a circus trick, something meant to impress a crowd.

I said,Well, if you’re so worried about where they go, why don’t you put them away yourself?They weren’t mine – I’d never used them, and it wasn’t my job to tidy away their tools. I walked away, left the room, and went outside into the fresh air. A man in a suit walked over and said:It’s almost as if they had a problem with you having that kind of power, isn’t it?And I said – Yes! It’s a bit like the witch hunt, isn’t it?

And then I was trying to get somewhere, to the airport, driving in the half–light on an empty motorway and, not concentrating, I took the wrong road… lost the road… realised I was off track, found a little lay–by or service station to do a U–turn in and was now somehow on my feet, in that weird way that the dreamworld can shift states, and stumbled into a field of creative makers. The wrong turn had actually led me into the right field. A place where everyone was creating something: with wood, their hands, words, time. A creative service–station–like centre, people making all sorts of things… like a working studio – almost like a library or a co-working space for creativity. So I sat down and made something out of freshly cut sapling wood – a sort of object, a tree person. I didn’t have time to wait for the wood itself to dry because that would’ve taken months, so I couldn’t paint it. But that was ok; because I liked the way it looked, being just its natural wood self.

Then another familiar figure, who seemed to be in charge, arrived and inspected my wooden object and said –Do you know what, we can put this one through as an academic assignment rather than an art project.Which was confusing, because my unfinished wooden figure – the unpainted sapling – didn’t need completion or to be signed off as a certain academically endorsed item; because, well, it was a creative, almost spiritual act that only needed air and time to cure. I didn’t say anything, though, because they genuinely thought they were doing me a favour.

And through it all, the thread of travel – trying to reach the airport – transition. Being mid–journey between containment and flight. Leaving the rooms where others decided how much unseen or creative power I could hold.