Moving the country is a big step. At least that’s what we are assuming. For one thing, it’s another move. And the thought of actually physically moving flats makes us both feel a bit sick. Then factor in a move out of the city to somewhere we don’t know. At this prospect we feel faint. We need to sit down.
But it’s ok, it’ll be fine. All we need is a plan. In fact, making a plan presents us with an opportunity. Because thinking about it, if we are going to pack up everthing we own, and disrupt our lives and livelihood, I want to get more out of it than just to move. In fact, this is the perfect chance to take a long trip. Out of the germ of this idea the following plan has evolved: Instead of just moving our stuff from one house to another, we will put it all in storage, and we will decamp to North America for a few months before coming back and resuming the Move to the Country.
There are several reasons that this makes sense for us to do. We have many friends and family in Canada and the States who we miss and only see very occasionally. Also, I have a long-standing collaborative art practice with my friend Duncan, who is based in Chicago. Last year, we did a 6-week residency at the Banff Centre during which we started a new scuptural project. We also realised that working together in the same physical space is crucial to our continuing progress as an artistic endeavor. So spending a good few weeks in Chicago to finish the piece and do some general R&D. So.
None of this seemed terribly real until just last week. But that was when we decided to commit to all this, and buy our plane tickets. So we settled on dates, and we purchased TICKETS. Now there is no backing out, and we also have a set date to work around. And whenever i’ve had this sort of solid deadline in past, a deadline so big you end up subordinating all manner of lesser deadlines to it (some out of necessity, some out of expediency), I lay out my time like this:
I will post images of it periodically as the plan further concretises.
Did you spot the 2 mistakes in this blogpost?
First one pointed out by Clio via email:
“I hope you don’t correct the first line of the blog which reads: “moving the country is a big step” Oh! It can go so many ways: geographically, politically, metaphysically….”
So yes, we aren’t actually planning of moving the country anywhere – though I suppose if it was possible we might have considered bringing it a bit closer to us.
Second one is in North’s calendar. There aren’t 29 days in February this year – that would make it a leap year – and it would mean there’d be more than 4 full weeks in the month. No, looks like North got distracted at the 25th and skipped the 26th altogether.
comment by Emily Heath — March 1, 2010 @ 10:14 am