Sieving the week is like panning for gold

A new discovery; a guilty pleasure.

How has your week been?

No, really.

Imagine you are sitting in front of you now, really asking - how was your week?

What would you answer? What has the main tone or mood of this little patch of time been? Give yourself a moment to think about it.

Now imagine it’s your mum sitting in front of you asking. Or a work colleague. Do you give them the same answers? Or would they coax out a different edit of your memories?

I’m asking fresh from watching a delicately balanced film on iPlayer – The Truth ­– designed to leave you hyper aware of how malleable memories of moments can be.

Beautifully acted by Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke, without giving too much away, it’s a gentle reframing of antagonisms to see old stories from new perspectives.

Japanese Writer and Director, Hirokazu Koreeda, makes space for multiple viewpoints not just by pitting different characters’ experiences against one another but by creating a constant subtle shifting within each individual. You can see how many movements are at play all the time, as we unwittingly adjust each other.

And I think that’s probably my tone of the week, a mood of constant adjustments.

Tovi and I were utterly overwhelmed by the damn-breaking flood of warmth that rushed at us through the cyberverse after announcing the closure of our company last Friday. Each immensely kind message gave us both a new appreciation of everything we’ve been doing and, like turning the lights up on the audience, a much clearer view of all the amazing individuals around the world who have been sharing in Tovi’s inspiration, choosing his beautiful designs to enrich their days for thirteen years. It’s made me remember that we have an impact, just by being here.

So moving swiftly from that flood of emotions, we’ve had to find our footing again in the practical landscape of intense busyness. Hundreds of orders to make and fulfil, in the midst of which you become conscious you’re doing familiar things for the last time. Thinking about where furniture will go, imagining a new desk space for me to write at home – the past and future swilling about in a very fluid now.

With no time to sink into any particular feeling, good tunes and busyness just keep blurring you forward.

Speaking of good tunes, the other mood of the week for me has been Van Morrison, who I have definitely now overdosed on. Van the Man is a Marmite apparently – you love or hate him – and I have my Dad to blame for loving him: long childhood journeys staring at countryside views from the car windows to Van’s rambly, hoarse poetry and irresistible rhythms.

I love how songs you’ve heard growing up don’t make complete sense until much, much later, when they suddenly click and the musician winks at you through time, saying yup. You got their essence when you were young, and they’ve been preparing you.

Thanks to Spotify shuffle, I’ve been laughing out loud at some of Van’s more random rants that I didn’t know before – from I’m not feeling it any more and Days Like These to the less successful but shamelessly honest, Professional Jealousy and No more lockdown…

He has that country singer’s knack of giving domestic niggles a centre stage moment and, like Hirokazu Koreeda’s beautiful French movie, deepening the now with layers you can flow in.

Songs of the Week:

I Shall Sing - Takes 8 - 12, Van Morrison

Into the Mystic, Van Morrison

Comments always welcome…