SunUp Festival Sketch Blog 2

We launched last week when the summer was younger.

As I write, we still haven’t reached the longest day. 

Funny how getting involved in Sunup has got me thinking about summer in a whole new way.  My dad worked at Bradford uni, and so academic years were what I grew up with. Summer began late July, running away from the skool gates, not looking back. It lasted exactly 6 weeks. And then it and happiness were gone, and I was back at skool for what felt like forever. Again. Was forever. Was shit. Until those 6 magic weeks came around again.

Now I am beginning to think of summer more like a long breath, inhaled, exhaled, lasting for as long as it takes until one day, it will suddenly be gone. It feels a kinder way of thinking about time.  But for me, mixed up in all of that, is a growing sense of seasonal uncertainty and unease, too.

My aunt, who has dementia, said to me recently that she missed having proper seasons. She said, ‘summer was really summer, winter was really winter then’. She said. Then. Funny to hear her talking about something with so much certainty. I don’t know when her then is. I don’t think she does, now, either. Not really. But I recognised the strong pull of that feeling she was talking about. I remember a then that was clear edged. Now colder, sharper, now, hotter, brighter. I recognise her strong pull to believe in a world where the seasons signify order and certainty. But the then time has gone. We don’t know where we are now, or quite where we’re going to, now. Do we?

But what we do have is the certainty of the light. The roll in and roll out of the light. As we get closer to the solstice, I find myself more and more grateful for these long nights. But I also notice myself becoming fearful, knowing that we must begin to say goodbye soon.  Not quite yet, but soon. When I catch myself feeling like this, I try and remind myself that time is just a wave to be ridden. And the summertime is not a promise to be stored up until next year, but a long one-breath-yell of YES, to be shouted and shared until it’s gone.

So yeah, we opened.  Casey and Lucy worked their asses off. Thank you, Casey and Lucy.  And then a whole load of us, turned up at UPCO to see our work on the walls. To look at everyone else’s stuff. To welcome in folk passing, folk interested, folk tentative. There was a real welcome in that room. For everyone. It’s rare. It doesn’t happen all the time. A real welcome. And we all stood together and noticed the power of seeing those arts of ours and of others, side by side. Our arts. Doing their thing. Doing their thing together.

Yep. We opened. On the 5th of June 2022, when this latest breath of summer was younger than it is now, but not as young as it had been, or will be again. When Lizzie took our photos and reminded us we are extraordinary, and Jane got the room to start weaving into Anne Marie’s SunUp banner. When we gathered in to look up and out together.

I was struck by that feeling of then and now being side by side. Of the breathing in and out. The feeling of being held and holding. The feeling of age taking its space, only to fold in again and lift the young. In a million ways, art up on the wall, kids, chin’s down well into their phones, waiting, watching, poems and words read out by Jo, Beth and Lucy, words gifted. About loss and taking a stand and motherhood and it felt like? Something? Like a breath building. Again. That feeling of a breath. The feeling fresh and new like a nettle sting but as old as that feeling too, all rolled up, offered up and out. The pain and pride of being the many many many impossible, beautiful ways of being a woman, and seeing ourselves in each other and seeing each other in ourselves. Just for a moment. Just for a little while. I didn’t imagine it. While dads and lovers jiggled toddlers on their knees, looking proud and a bit freaked out to be in this room. Feeling its welcome but knowing that it wasn’t quite business as usual. Hard to put your finger on it. Something to do with power held lightly, kindly but still with all its danger right out in the open, sharp, steely, daring to be seen.  I think that’s what might be known as magic. The magic of her/them when we find ourselves breathing in and out together. There was something. When we opened. Way back then. It was only a week ago. There’s still so much to come and be a part of. But all the same, we opened. We started. And something very old, very beautiful was going on, is going on, is still being felt now, here in spring, summer, autumn, winter, or is it just next week?  Are you still here or thinking back, imagining back to when we were all in that room? Together. Something very old. Very powerful. Lung’s filling. Lungs letting go. But it felt new to me. She/They, in collaboration. We are not to be underestimated. We started. We started shouting out our summer breath-of-yes.