Thought Residencies

Marcel Stewart is joined by Lisa Karen Cox, Tianna Edwards and Shayna Jones as they share their thoughts on life, cultural erasure, creating art, what blackness can look like in rural and urban spaces, black maternal thinking, micro rituals in the body, alignment, and MORE!  *What you won't get to experience as the listener is the amount of teeth being shown during this conversation. There was a lot of off mic laughter, smiling and love in the Zoom room.   For a transpcript of the episode, go to spiderwebshow.ca/if-you-dont-tap-in

Marcel Stewart is joined by Sébastien Heins to discuss the glorious ephemerality of theatre, his work with Outside the March, the process of developing immersive experiences, his solo play 'No Save Points', the future of performing arts, AI in theatre, Max Tegmark, theatre as an olympic event, our love for Mazin Elsadig, Michael Healey's podcast 'Just One More' and MORE! For a transcript of this episode, visit https://spiderwebshow.ca/its-a-sebaissance/ ‎

Marcel Stewart is joined by SGS and Owais Lightwala to discuss why being an artist matters, the Massey Commission, capitalism and neo-liberalism, artists as activists, innovation vs conservation, and their Manifesto for NOW. They both raise thought-provoking questions like: are money markets really at fault for artists not being able to make art? What does it mean to produce art today and how are we thinking about that as a sector? We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as Marcel did. For a transcript of the episode, visit spiderwebshow.ca/if-youre-a-dancer-dance

Marcel Stewart is joined by Dr. Pratim Sengupta to discuss thinking with our bodies, Mind Matter and Media Lab, the colonialism behind the 1980's arcade game 'Lunar Lander', pushing back against symbolic violence, dignity bombs, human beings as pain catastrophizers, anti-racist reimaging of the immigration experience and landing experience, technocentricsm, moving through the world with love, the Festival of Live Digital Art and MORE!  For a transcript of the episode, visit spiderwebshow.ca/code-has-to-be-about-love.  *There is slight background noise throughout by way of microphone feedback and an infant doing what infants do.  **Adrienne Wong and Xianzhi Jason Li facilitated the workshop 'Artificial Intelligence in Live Performance' that Dr. Sengupta references.  

New releases every Tuesday from November 14 to December 5, 2023. Join b current Artistic Director and FOLDA Co-Curator,  Marcel Stewart, as he talks theatre, creation, and community with some of Canada's top theatre artists and thinkers. The 2023 cohort of Thought Residents includes Sébastien Heins (creator/performer of No Save Points); Shayna Jones (Black + Rural Project); Lisa Karen Cox (director and educator); Tianna Edwards (Keeping Up With Kingston); Dr. Pratim Sengupta (FOLDA 2023 Thinker-In-Residence); Owais Lightwala (Assistant Professor in the Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University, co-creator of Manifesto for Now); and Thought Residency founder Sarah Garton Stanley (VP of Programming at Arts Commons, co-creator of Manifesto for Now).   

Hi, I am Tsholo Khalema,  this is my first thought.   Black Lipstick on a sunday morning Sipping on balck cherry mimosa topped with mint.    She looked beautiful. Her milinated, being sun kissed by my eyes.   You're catching me on a good day, a scab goes blacker as the healing process is maturing, regenerating perhaps. So I feel extra extra black today.   I grabbed my first thought from the ether of blackness, where black matter holds the universe. I was thinking about blackness and how significant it is to our galaxy. Our entire world floats in blackspace   ... Black matter matters and blackness make me happy. Black licorice is delicious    Bought my black beautiful cat Shaka Zulu 7 years ago, She's charcoal, now I see a few grays shimmering against her fur. Blackness!  Makes!  Light ! Visible!    invisible to visible as the world rests on a black canvas.    // Music ( Garage band) & Photo (Canada 2018) credit: Tsholovisions

This is DM, and we're at number twelve. I used to work at a nursing home, at the reception desk.  As a result, I was often the first point of contact for families visiting residents.  This one guy would visit his mother about three times a week.  He was nice enough, but never chatty.  One night he comes in, heads my way, leans over my desk with urgency in his eyes, and says, "I can help."  I ask him, "Help with what?"  He says, "Your problem.  With your hair."  I say nothing, he goes on.  "What you need is margarine.  That'll weigh it down.  Fix your problem."  I said thank you.  Maybe this had nothing to do with the new afro pick I bought the next day.  Maybe.  Nowadays, I often have a good intention checked by hearing Yvette Nolan's voice in my head, echoing from our days together at Native Earth, "Donna, don't help."   (photo by Isidra Cruz)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my eleventh thought.   I recently got into a thing with a collaborator about whether Han shot first.  Not really about if he did or not, but about whether it matters if he did or not, and whether that is a thing worth saying.  It matters, I assure you.  If you're a nerd, ten times more.  But if you're outside the culture, you might not see why.  And if I try to explain it to you I inevitably bring more niche terms into the conversation that move you further from understanding and closer to confirming your theory that no one will know what I'm talking about.  If you are not receptive to understanding, ten times more.  More importantly, things matter even if they don't to you, even if they don't to most, even if you don't understand why they do.  Han shot first.  Because the past is what happened, not what you wish did.  He shot first, that's a fact.  I'm passionate about it.  And no amount of CGI muzzle flashes will convince me Greedo did anything more than walk into the Mos Eisley cantina.  Holler at me, nerds. (image from Rigzsoft.co.uk)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my tenth thought.   I have these red boots.  I love them.  As soon as I saw them I knew my life would change if I could only have them.  Then I got those boots.  I love them.  And I almost never wear them.  They are those things that are so special, too special, no occasion is ever special enough for me to unsheathe their majesty.  They're not gonna get muddy or wet or worn shiny on that one toe I like to rub against the back of my calf.  You can barely tell they have anything to do with me.  They just sit there, pristine and neglected.  Like the phone numbers of all my most cherished friends. And since this isn't new behaviour, I can predict that by the time I finally decide to put those boots on, they will no longer fit, and I will have wasted a very good boot.  My boots deserve better than that.

#14 NEVER NOT TRYING This is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard with my fourteenth and final thought. I am trying my best.  I have grown so much and changed not at all.  There is a small part of me that is untouched by injustice and cynicism.  A part of me still open to criticism.  There is still a portion not smudged with distortion.  A part undiscouraged by not-yet-but-nearly.  That prays just in case God hears me.  There is still some unreasonable faith that people of purpose can drive out the snakes.  That people can be their best selves if they choose it.  That there is healing in music.  That the world is sick That loneliness afflicts. That we're in the same ship. And it's a all-of-us fix That it's not on me.   That what I do matters but it's not all on me.  It never was.   We are many.  We are ready.  We are strong.  I am a part of something I could not do alone. And my whole entire job is the same as it always was: to try my best.  So I am trying my best. Bear with me.  

#13 JUST VISITING This is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard.  This is thought number thirteen. I never want to be a tourist A person who observes the external from a distance that they are at pains to retain because the view down the bridge of the nose is quite pleasing.  Everything is quaint. Your time in another person's life is like a dream if you don't look past the seams that are sewn to contain what is shown to you.  If you only get and take and enrich yourself with experience.    I prefer to be a guest, one who is invited, who sees that it is more than an offer to be accepted or declined, but a door being opened to come closer, actively0.  My time in another person's life as a sacrifice of their privacy, their patience, their hospitality, a sacrifice that I should not meet empty-handed. I'd rather be a guest than a tourist.  Though I know that, often I think that I am one, when I am in fact the other.   At the beginning of our collaboration based on his very personal story, photographer Nir Bareket Wright said to me, "I gladly invite you into my soul.  I only ask that you first take off your shoes."   I felt that.  You should see where my shoes have been.   You should consider where yours have. Tread gently with each other.  (music by Blunted Beatz.  photo by Brenda St. Bernard)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my ninth thought.   You are not stronger thanks to your trauma.  Don't fall for that.  Maybe your strength got you through it, but that was yours.  Maybe you grew through it, but that was you.  You don't need to thank your trauma, you deserved to live without it, to be strong without it, to grow without it.   I'm not trying to diminish your struggle.  I just want to give credit where it's due.   Check it out.   You survived.   You did that.  You made you. Thanks.    (Photo by Desmond Cole, music by Adot The God)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my eighth thought.  I rarely use the word "pretty" without irony.  It's like "nice."  Essentially positive but so banal as to be back-handed.   Lately I think it's curve-related: The air is so thick with hyperbole that if you're pretty, you're several levels below drop-dead gorgeous – so attractive that you could literally end someone's life, aesthetically.  And we don't even know what the top of that scale is yet, but pretty ain't it.  We've gone so high that pretty is about one up from plain.   I understand that language evolves.  I just don't like when words get taken away in bad faith.  Not over time, with usage, but in front of our eyes, with malice.  Which is happening. It's probably the thing I appreciate most about African American vernacular – a survivance tongue that can't be taken:  it's resistance to codification, it's improv-adeptness, both in creating and interpreting new configurations of old symbols, old syllables, the reuse of existing expression invested instantly with new meaning by context.  It's verdant, sprawling and variegated.  It's complex and alive, and I love it.  It's pretty.   (photo by Desmond Cole.  Sounds from zapsplat)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my seventh thought.   whenever Desmond Cole shares photos of flowers, I smile. I can't read more than a chapter of  "The Skin I'm In",  not in one sitting, without hitting a nerve  and needing a breath  before reading the next.  thinking this substantial text  holds just a fraction of the actions undertaken  to receive the story, and to convey it.   I am stilled by a portion of what he relates,  a small shard of what he has heard,  stilled, though only ever glimpsing the edge Of the people and pages  and pixels and grief that the writer receives  and distills for us,  the guts that they spill for us  and what it takes to pack them back in again,  never mind the ones that won't fit anymore,  so full of new truths, crowding out room for you  some people do that every day,  on public pages, in private homes,  alone in the long dark night of the soul.   If someone is willing to do all that, then I want them to have joy, too.   I'm so happy when they find joy. Have you seen this guy's smile? (photo credit: Desmond Cole.  music: Smile by Nat King Cole)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my sixth thought. I want to be worthy in whatever service I'm able. But worthy's a short swerve away from "of use" Opposite of refuse, perilously close to productive, which is nothing like worthy, as a word, and useless to it as a companion concept. Worth is more like work – no, that's a trap. It's more like value, or values, in my calculus.   I am neither parts nor a sum but a thrumming existence resistant to quantification, however benevolent.  I'm relevant, I'm broken, I'm dented, I'm perfect, I'm junk.  And junk is beautiful and you are, too.  I value you. (Photo Credit Keith Barker. Image is of a 6 car pileup of 1970 vintage toy cars)

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my fifth thought. It's for you. You are enough.  No bells, no whistles, just you.  It's enough.  Not because you're better than you used to be not because you're as good as someone else.   Forget that. Just be with yourself, out of context. Don't measure up. Don't measure anything. That's uncomfortable cuz if your value is not tied to your accomplishments, your intelligence, your earnings, your status, your face, your birthplace or your family name, then how can you use any of those things to judge other people's value?  something has gotta be worth something, right? else how will i know who sucks and who's the best?  i'm not trying to let go of that, i'm trying to be the best, i basically am that, but somebody else is always getting better so i need to keep ahead…  this is my fifth thought and it is for me. Me, you are enough. Calm down. (photo by Keith Barker)

When I was a young Catholic schoolgirl, I thought Jeanne d'arc was the most badass. wearing pants, hearing god, sitting up on a horse, riding into battle, on fire, for some reason.  She seemed to be on fire.  At some point it occurred to me that never in history, not once, not ever, has a horse asked to be ridden headfirst into a rain of arrows or a wall of spears.  Anyhow, today what I think is that if PETA really wants my attention, they should get to work liberating every police dog who never asked to be weaponized, and every police horse who wasn't born to tread pavement and terrorize protestors.  Get them all out of the way so we can abolish those slave catchers without collateral damage.  I'm saying.

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my third thought. Today a friend invited me to go for a walk.   That's nice.   Having a friend, them wanting to see you, wanting to see them, saying yes.  I can dig it. She says two o'clock at the entrance to the park and i say yes. I've never been to the park. I don't know where the park is.   instead of looking up where the park is, i look up who it's named after to see how i feel about being there, and  then i go.  now, had i looked at a map i would have seen that the time it took to get to the place where our walk would begin is approximately the amount of time after which i think that a walk should end.  but i am here, she is here, we are beginning. we walk, and we walk, and we walk.  til i'm like, "oh, that's a nice bench. let's go look at it." we sit.  then we walk some more.  and it's nice, because i like her and we are spending time together.  but that walk was like jumping into a collaborative project without asking any questions upfront because i like the people involved.  because they asked, and that was nice, so i got excited and committed to a thing that i thought ended where they thought it began, and i don't know my own way home from here, so here we go, i'm walking.   Today, i agreed to the walk, but if we had walked one more minute than we did, i might like my friend just a little bit less, and that would have nothing to do with anything that she did.   next time i'll ask.  but now that i know her definition of "a walk", she could probably get me to go anywhere.

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my second thought. Last night I dreamt of my brothers, both runners.   We all were.  That was a thing to do, in my family.  A thing to be excellent at.  Running. One thing I picked up off of them was the trick of training in water.   Conditioning.  Getting into a pool knee or waist or shoulders deep,  running across its width as hard as possible, back and forth. For runners, accustomed to and striving for speed, it's frustrating.   the water pushing back against your efforts,  the dissonance between your labour and the outcome.   It's hard.    But by the time you get back to dry land,  you are an earthman landing on the moon.   Gravity is a non-factor.   After engineering all of this resistance, the race is a release,  a flight, you can achieve a seemingly superhuman speed.     Now, in this moment, there is no need to engineer resistance, it is there.   We are in it, and unless we stand still,  we are strengthening beneath the surface.   When I get back on dry land, I will be released, and I will fly.   Now, I just need to understand, in this moment,  what is the water? And what is the race? Good teaching, bro.

My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my first thought.   Ever. This is the very first thought that I have ever had. I mean, obviously I've had thoughts before but I was asked to introduce myself in that way –  this is my first thought –  and I'm not a liar  so I threw away everything that I ever knew before and I thought to myself,  "well if it was true before and I knew it before,  then it is true still and I will surely come to know it again" They say that the joy is in the learning so I will have that twice,  the learning.   I will get two times to know  the thing that I thought that I knew  before I thought that they told me to throw it away,  though now I think that maybe nobody said that  but it's too late.   It's all gone.   And this is my first thought,  and I haven't really thought anything yet  so I'd better get started thinking.   What am I good for.   That's my first thought.  What am I good for.  I didn't say it would be a complete thought. What good what that be?  // (music credit: Days by Everest Media)

First thought. Bruxism - that's the grinding of teeth to the point where we grind and clench and we end up fracturing our teeth. And we often don't even realize we're doing it. We do it in our sleep. And that's our loved ones who make us aware. And that if we go on to fix it; we have to fix it because of all the grinding and clenching. We need bridges and crowns. And I think of that grinding as the- and I know that the metaphor breaks down, but sometimes these things just hit you and so you say them- the grinding is the active aggressions that white people perpetuate and the clenching is the holding on to old ideas and thoughts and creating paralysis. And it's our loved ones who tell us; who point it out. And once we're aware, we can't be unaware. So. We need to fix it with bridges and crowns. Bridges to communicate and crowns recognizing the nobility of everyone. 

My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number twelve.    My mind is particularly busy this morning. Front of mind is those who are most vulnerable, those who are experiencing systemic inequalities, and how they are amplified and exacerbated during COVID-19. I am thinking about universal basic income. I am thinking about how to live more with less. I am thinking about sharing resources in new ways. I am thinking about Necessary Angel. And I am thinking about the need to play, whatever that means. SpiderWebShow, thank you for having me. Take care all and be well.

My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number eleven. Approbation - who receives it? From whom? For what? It is an important human experience to receive approbation. It is very healthy, arguably even necessary, especially at key moments in one's life. In terms of giving, I do think it is common or perhaps easy to give approbation to those one identifies with. Today I am thinking about the giving of approbation to those one does not identify with. Perhaps obvious, but maybe not.

My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number ten. I am thinking about the balance between stillness/silence and action. Earlier I was thinking about stillness and silence, more specifically about silence and stillness less as an escape or getaway from life, more a letting go, an opening of the gates for something to move forward- for the release of something. Now the question... what is that something? And what was getting in its way in the first place?

My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number nine The encounters I have witnessed on the street have become more casual. Children seem to be getting closer together. There is sunshine. Did I wash my hands properly when I came inside? Halifax is bubbling.

My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number eight. I am thinking about minds and hearts. In particular during this time of crisis when there is so much uncertainty and anxiety. I wonder how peoples' minds and hearts are doing. I sit on a cushion everyday, in the morning, and am still and quiet. But inside are storms. Calms. Outside the sun is shining. I cut an apple. Children are social distance playing. Two neighbours fought last night, no punches but yelling. With their children beside them. Real conflict. Different ways of seeing things, some shared and unique anxieties. I stood between them. My daughter witnessed it all and couldn't get to sleep, later waking in the night. Fireworks in the sky, fireworks in hearts and minds.

My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number seven. With the opening of some isolation restrictions around the world it is hard not to default to the hope of a return to the way things were. Hmmm. How have things changed? For one, our house is beginning to enter a new chapter. I can't help but think that somehow we have incorporated some more eclectic approaches to how we arrange objects and use space that reflects both more recent years, and an earlier period in our lives together. To me, it's like we are time travelling as we move forward moment by moment. Three of us now. I think this time has invited us to take stock and thread together - not too neatly, mind you- many experiences that, before lockdown seemed harder to hold, or remember as one continuum with many chapters. Now it seems less a series of books on shelf, and more a book of many stories.

My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number six.  This morning I am thinking about the joy of two way radios, or walkie talkies. My daughter asked for a pair so she can chat with one of her best friends who lives in a townhouse across from us. They have a date at 11am this morning to walkie talkie talk. This morning her friend shared her handle- Matilda. My daughter's handle is Madonna. After a short chat about airwave stranger danger, my daughter and I talked about some of the joys of two way radio life. I flashbacked to the late 70's, I was a little kid, and we were on a road trip to a wedding in North Carolina. My sister's boyfriend had a CB radio- he did some sideline truck driving. We spent hours listening to and talking with trucker drivers. I can't remember what my handle was on that trip, but today my handle would be Lockdown Busy Schedule Dad. Over.

My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number five. I am always curious about how ideas and experiences are shaped by the containers we use to contain them. Some containers are conceptual, some spatial, intellectual, metaphorical, spiritual, financial, and in our moment most certainly digital. So many of us are experiencing Zoom as a container for our professional and personal communication. Zoomunication. When it comes to containers, I am always thrilled when I experience the experimenting with the use of the container, with its opportunities and its limitations- its boundaries, and in the process stretching and developing the ideas contained by the container. I like determining whether the container and the idea or purpose are a good fit. Sometimes this work with a container results in a breakthrough in the possibilities of what the container itself could be, and/or sometimes a breakthrough in the nature of the idea contained. I love these breakthroughs. I love these transformation-moments. Small t, medium t or BIG T moments. I love them.

My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number five. I am always curious about how ideas and experiences are shaped by the containers we use to contain them. Some containers are conceptual, some spatial, intellectual, metaphorical, spiritual, financial, and in our moment most certainly digital. So many of us are experiencing Zoom as a container for our professional and personal communication. Zoomunication. When it comes to containers, I am always thrilled when I experience the experimenting with the use of the container, with its opportunities and its limitations- its boundaries, and in the process stretching and developing the ideas contained by the container. I like determining whether the container and the idea or purpose are a good fit. Sometimes this work with a container results in a breakthrough in the possibilities of what the container itself could be, and/or sometimes a breakthrough in the nature of the idea contained. I love these breakthroughs. I love these transformation-moments. Small t, medium t or BIG T moments. I love them.

My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number four. This curtain is the curtain that I sit in front of every morning. This morning it struck me how much an object, like this curtain, can sum up part of this experience of staying at home. We are spending so much time confined in our spaces. We are encountering the same objects over and over again. This morning sitting in front of the curtain, I was struck by the curtain's curtainness. It moves in a gentle, lazy way when blown by a breeze, it diffuses and softens sunlight, and the fabric is textured but soft. And for a moment I am completely insignificant to myself. What a relief! Just this curtain. Extraordinary ordinary. And then off I go.

My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number three. This is my daughter two days ago riding one of two bikes that she was regifted. This bike was given to her almost three years ago. It's too small for her, but she is riding it anyways because she is motivated to master this bike thing, and anyways the other bike was not yet in Toronto. This image is her rocking it during homeschool recess. She was buzzing up and down our street wowing me with her new going-downhill-pedal-break-technique. A middle aged man walked by us, smiled, and said. "Riding a bike... it's great... it makes the young feel old and the old feel young." Ten minutes later, a young couple driving by rolled down the window -yelled "Yay!", and applauded her fresh success. Exhilarating. Time to get out my Masi Uno and pump up the tires.

My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number two.  I am thinking about the rhythm and experience of change today, about being raw, the knife's edge, glowing coals stepping out from behind what is the known into the... unknown. I am thinking about uncertainty, about texts and words and ideas and experiences that rob one of the ground under one's feet. I am thinking about Erin Shields and Jose Saramago and Edward Bond and Spike Lee. I am thinking about writers and directors and choreographers and actors and designers and artistic directors. I am thinking about art. That's today. 

My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number one. I'm in the process of translating something I created called The Stillness Room to a live digital platform. The Stillness Room is the coming together in a room, most often with a group of theater-makers, to experience silence and stillness but with a simple but clear container. The Stillness Room has been about making time and space, literally and figuratively, through stillness and silence and buildings where people are making theater, with unique challenges, pressures, and rhythms that we might recognize as of the theater. Those rhythms have been disrupted. What is The Stillness Room now? As I wrestle with translation from room to digital room, I am reminded of how centrally people who work in theater have figured into the vision of the whole thing. What does it mean to be a theater worker in this moment? I'm curious about what will be lost and what will be gained in translation.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my fourteenth and final thought. Here's The Compassion Project Part 2. I've had a hard time making art without a deadline, without someone to make it for, without a gallery exhibit coming up, without an opening night looming, without a holiday to exchange gifts. But today I started my first piece of art that is only for me. New rug, new project. I want to stand on this rug and feel my own intentions through the bottoms of my flat feet. How can we use our own art in our lives? So to end my thought residency during these chaotic lockdown times, I invite you to create art, to make, but do it for you. Thank you for listening. That's the end of my final thought.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my thirteenth thought, and this is part one of The Compassion Project. I am too hard on myself. I am everyone else's hype person, and I struggle to be there for me. I work so hard on so many projects and still feel I'm never doing enough. I crash and burn often, my eye crashes every Thursday from overuse and fatigue. I'm exhausted. So I decided to start saying it out loud, the gratitude, the things I wish I could feel the truth of: Thank you for trying. Thank you for feeling your feelings. You are doing great things. And I write them down. And I'm searching for a way to feel this truth.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my twelfth thought. And I'm gonna be honest for a second about online performances and how I don't think its interesting or engaging or useful for performance creators and performers right now to be trying to recreate the experience of in-person theatre online. I think that, yes, we are given a computer screen which is a square and very proscenium but there's no way to engage with an audience in the same way, there's no way to connect as performers in the same way. And so I think we've actually been given an opportunity to find Virtual Performance. To find methods that are unpolished and sticky and fun and rely on disconnection of wifi internets and dropped words because that is what it has to be right now. And that's exciting.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my eleventh thought and I'm going to tell a story today about fear.   The last time I was in London, England, I was at a show at the National Theatre and when it finished it was so dark outside, like super dark, like too dark for a Blind person to be out alone in, and I got completely turned around. I had my cane but there was no one around me, and I found myself randomly on the south bank in some sort of parking lot and I was freaking out, I had no idea what to do, who to call, how to get home... And then I looked up and I saw the lights of Big Ben. And I saw the moon shining, and I couldn't see the buildings, and I couldn't see where I was, but I could see them reflecting in the Thames, and I knew that that was the way I needed to go, that was Westminister station, and I found my way.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my tenth thought, and I am telling you the story today of being a blind person and going for a walk during the pandemic! So I'm out with my cane because I cannot see if I'm six feet away from people. (sound of cane and wind) (Jessica sniffles) And so the cane helps folks stay away from me! (sound of cane, a car, and Jessica breathing)

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my ninth thought and this week I'm going to tell some stories. At the Republic of Inclusion in 2017, we ended the summit with a cocreation of space. We were prompted to do anything to make us feel comfortable and have ease in engaging with the music provided. Everyone around me found chairs, mats, blankets, sunglasses, stickers, fidget toys, temperature and light changes, vibrating vests. I found some sparkly stickers and asked someone to guide me to everyone I had met and cared for, gave them each a sticker, and ensured they were safe and okay. Then I curled up with a friend. I desire safety and closeness with those I care for.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my eighth thought. I'm craving nature. I'm craving putting my bare feet in the sand and dirt, water, grass. I'm really craving tulips because it's springtime. But I can't find any that are cheap enough and support a local business. So instead, I've done actually the first creative thing in a while and I've cut out small shapes of tulip bulbs, tulip heads that have sprouted and bloomed. And I'm trying to find ways to integrate them into the indoors. You're looking at a few of them now. We're finding our ways.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my seventh thought. This pandemic has brought me two insights about myself: The first is a newfound grounding in my role as a "good" facilitator. It turns out I'm trusted in the community to hold space for artists, prod, poke, and ask questions, and use the answers creatively to find solutions. This is also how I define dramaturgy, so that's good. The second thing is that I cannot make art from my own home. Or maybe I'm too quick to make that decision, or I haven't tried hard enough, or my brain is so full and tired that I can't imagine my own art right now. I have stories inside of me, but they're not coming out right now. And maybe that's okay?

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my sixth thought. I'm outside and it's damp and it's warm. Could that be how the whole world feels right now? I've been thinking about intuition, ritual, routine. How do we as a species find our own individual rhythms to carry out our lives? How much do we cling to these mundane rituals when the earth shakes beneath our feet? A dear colleague of mine uses terms from the weather to report on how they are feeling. Right now I feel like the calm before a storm, I've been having a month of storms and brief moments of sunshine. But every time I cling to its warmth, and that feeling tries to get me through to the next break in the clouds.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my fifth thought.  And I'm having a hard time arranging my thoughts today. So I am going to talk towards a definition of what Disability Dramaturgy is... because that's my thing. While I work with a fellow Disabled artist we focus on safety, energy, support. We normalize cancelled plans, build flexibility into our schedules, and meet virtually. We talk out our aggressions about ableism and injustice and everything else. We ensure we each have what we need. We find ways to create and exist that come from us and not from what someone else says is right. Which all have also been welcome invitations during this pandemic. And of course, we find ways to feel a little joy.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my fourth thought. It occurred to me today while practicing yoga that I am so comforted during activities that take care of watching the time for me. Where it isn't my responsibility to watch the minutes tick by but I am supposed to just... be present. This is yoga classes. This is theatre performances. This is therapy and online meetings I am not chairing. If someone else takes care of keeping time for me I am easily engaged. Time has worked so strangely for me lately, but I am finding peace in the thought that even in this chaotic global crisis we are practicing collective care, if only by keeping time for each other like a metronome holding us together.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my third thought. I made a rug last year for the first time, I hooked it, and I made it nonvisual and tactile. And I've been thinking about the future of tactile art: pieces that encourage and invite touch, post-pandemic. Will we consider each other differently? The proximity? The closeness? Or will we be finding a new way to touch, to connect in a newly normal way? I am finding a little bit of peace in that uncertainty; that there may be a new normal at all.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my second thought. I've been thinking a lot about care, and how to actually take care of one another. I think this situation with Coronavirus has made me think even more, if that is possible, about how we have built the structures around us to take care of each other. And I'm stuck on this idea of carefull- not careful as in, "ooh I've got to be careful I don't wake Dad", or tiptoeing around, or trying to make something safe- I mean carefull as in full of care (with two l's). How do we make decisions and live our lives in a way that is full of care?

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my first thought. This is a weird and hard time for artists, and everyone, but I am hearing about hope popping up around me. The sky can still be blue after it opens with rain. People have started to listen and find ways to creatively support one another from isolation. As a Disabled artist and scholar I have had to creatively find support… theatre and academia are inaccessible spaces. We have been offered an opportunity to navigate the world a little differently, and as a Blind person I can tell you that it's not so bad.

It's Eva. This is thought number [thirteen]. I read this thing on facebook today that got me a bit frustrated. It was a post saying how versatile artists are, and how they're used to having multiple jobs and hustling to make ends meet, especially in challenging times. And the thought behind this was very well-intentioned and I believe it's true as well, but what frustrates me is the romanticization of that. Because we're forced to do that hustle, because often being an artist is undervalued and not seen as a job in Canada. There will be a significant amount of people - especially emerging artists - who will come out of this and decide the arts aren't possible for them. Precarity isn't romantic.  I'm hoping that rather than being so impressed with how scrappy artists can be, we can out of this thankful that artists exist, because of the vital service they do for their communities.

It's Eva. This is thought twelve. Today I was reading a play that I've been writing for the last year or so and I found it hard to hook into because I'm so consumed with the immediate moment. And I had to clock for myself that inside of this crisis my humanity is still existent. I'm still grappling with the same problems on top of this. So for me my desire is to not let this crisis consume me, and the art that I make, but how can it explode it? How can my plays not necessarily be about COVID, but how can they be about connection, need for each other? That's my big ponder right now, and it's hard, when something's slamming in your face. Daily.