Keira McArthur

Sing We Now of Christmas through the speakers, then by the second glass of wine a mad farce of carolling with high voices and round mouths.

It is the fourth anniversary of my arrival in Hamilton to begin my Arts Council residency here. I write this on the eve of the public opening for After Lockdown/ In the Neighborhood, a joint show with Eileen Earnshaw, most amazing theatre designer and creative wizard, at Centre3 Member’s Gallery on James Street North. We […]

mesmerized, I watch my plan dissolve again. By now though I’ve learned to move with the shifts, to let them show me where they want to go. So far it’s always been somewhere I’ve never been before.

I’m wondering why I always come to this place, helpless and dumb, to make compost of the poorly formed beliefs I bring to a piece that asks more of me than I’d thought. Here I am, staring.

After a scan of news from Palestine, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ukraine I wonder: do we learn how to better navigate our anxiety in the challenges of these times? Each in our own context, but also in solidarity, a communion of care. Does the portal of anxiety lead to courage. I wonder.

Morning coffees face the sunrise on the upper balcony of a dignified old Queen Anne house, one of two that have anchored Fifth Avenue E. this past century and a half.

Each person I’ve spoken with has had to dig deep to pivot their plans and priorities, deconstruct, then reconstruct their belief systems, even as they shift, then shift again.

We re-emerge after lockdowns, yes. But we are different from who we were in 2019. Shaken. Wiser, perhaps. More thoughtful, more conscious of what is valuable. Humbled maybe, by a new-found, still-fragile love for life and connection, for choice over the way we live our lives.

One tree drops a walnut just a breath before my head would have been there. I pick it up – green, cracked open by the hard path – and wonder at measurements of time. Permanence, confinement, illusion, the cross-currents of loss and gain, the rhythm of my breath.

During Lockdown I notice that without regular signposts like morning and evening rush hour, Friday night football games, lunch hour at the Highschool down the street, the distance between hours, say 6am and 11am become variable…

Irish Rules, hey Maggie? Okay then I think I’ll make some of my own up, since Grandma was born there.

Me and my Scots DNA in this long swelter.

I’ve taken to soaking my shirts in water then putting them in the fridge before I wear them. For this I get an initial shock, five minutes of goosebumps and a good hour of clear thinking….