How much of our identity is who we are for other people? This question was in my head as I left the Ritzy having just watched I Am Love yesterday evening, stepping out into gauzy, near-dusk light, the sky the most startling deep blue, one shade away from nightfall. It was like a layer of the screen depiction of the ripe Italian countryside had been laid on top of Brixton’s newly gentrified streets. If that sounds sensationalist and melodramatic in this constrained little collection of pixels, arranged into patterns that attempt to convey shared meaning, I’m okay with that. It feels good to feel, even when it takes on a supposedly negative form. To wake up, to see the world from a slightly different angle, to remember there are those different angles. A million angles. A million corners to turn around and find yourself somewhere new. I am rambling. And getting corny. Again.
But back to identity. After a little reflection, I realised that that question in my head approached identity as if it were something static. I don’t really believe that. To believe that would be to give up. To accept. To stop exploring. To shut off new experiences on the basis of past ones. I refuse to climb into a box and stay there for the sake of an easy life. What’s alive about an easy life? What’s exhilarating about order? What’s joyful about being born, filing in line and replicating the same kind of life, over and over?
That kind of social tidiness is a Tory’s wet dream. And my nightmare.
“Someday” by Ce Ce Rogers just started playing on shuffle. Bloody Apple. Second guessing my emotions again. And getting them right.
Ruth Saxelby 