Sunday 11 October 2009

Delightful coincidence


My mum was still alive the day Dave and I went to the Action Space sports centre in London with a unicycle, 20 juggling clubs, about ten rubber dog balls, a couple of suitcases, some bowler hats, quite a lot of juggling rings, a couple of devil sticks, some diablos – humming and otherwise, a pile of cigar boxes, a snare drum, drum sticks, fire torches, a carpet, a ladder (I think) probably at least a token rubber chicken, a raincoat, a set of cow horns (percussive) an ironing board with iron, six machetes, a cucumber and Dave’s friend- the photographer.

Oh……….. and two parasols.

I’m not sure why we had the parasols since we had never used them in a show and had only half heartedly rehearsed rolling a small football around their rim.

But the aim of the day was to produce our first publicity photo and as we didn’t really have a specific idea we took everything we could find in our respective bed sits.

Since my mum was still alive I hadn’t yet faced the day that my sister and I would sift through a legacy of love letters and lives that her empty house became after she died.

Which means, that when the photographer said, at the end of our afternoon fooling around with camera, lights and ideas - “ok, time for a final shot”, none of us had any idea what my mum had been doing about 42 years earlier in front of her own camera.

I don’t know why we picked up the parasols – it was probably just a reaction of looking so much like “jugglers” in all the other shots, and I don’t know why we pointed - probably just something you do without thinking.

But it turned out to be a delightful moment of coincidence.

6 comments:

Janet Bianchini said...

It was meant to be. I agree. An incredible coincidence.

popps said...

Dave disagrees, see tomorrow, but i side with you...ps well done with your Dogme!

Janet Bianchini said...

Thank you!

As you might know by now, my blog has been temporarily "deleted" due to me not passing the anti-spam tests you have to do before publishing a post. I am out in the wilderness so to speak and am awaiting blogger robots to decide whether my blog is humanoid or not. A rather Kafkaesque situation...

popps said...

ah........i wondered what was happening - i had assumed it was a problem with my internet connection.
Get well soon

popps said...

and....if you are desperate you are welcome to use a page or two here.

Janet Bianchini said...

Thank you very much for your kind offer. I might take you up on it if things do not become clearer soon.

Thinking ahead already, I may have to start from scratch with a new blog or maybe just give up. On second thoughts, I'd just much rather have my old blog back any day soon. I was getting very attached to it and enjoying it a lot!