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Life in Lockdown; I Know Why My Caged Bird Sings

History and the present is full of human-beings, who instead of allowing captivity to destroy them chose to sing:- Terry Waites imprisoned in Beirut, Viktor Frankl imprisoned in Auschwitz, Etty Hillesum. I have always believed, but find it SO hard to achieve, that humans, like me, can sing in the darkest times. And this life now in lockdown is the very darkest of dark times. And yet I feel ashamed that in my middle class ease I feel sore oppressed by this existential and real toxic coronavirus malignant darkness. How can my caged bird sing in this time? What is being asked of me?

This life of lockdown, this very darkest of dark times re-opens old wounds: impotent powerlessness, inadequacies, slow pulsating pains. But I can and do choose to sing, through the choking tears that cloud my eyes and strangle my voice, sing through the castrating pain of helplessness. This strange alchemic mixture of suffering, and my so vulnerable frail humanity, creates the dynamic of my caged bird singing.

I am an artist, and the strange alchemy of this life in lockdown gives birth to vibrant images, full of singing colour and movement, that form on my emerging paintings. My caged bird may have a broken wing, but still he sings and creatively scours the surface of the paint, and the love, joyful energy and being-ness emerges. More and more prison-breaking, flying, colourful forms and shapes. My soul escapes on wings into the blue yonder. I will sing, but will also allow myself to shout, weep and rage against the darkness of this life of lockdown.

In this life of lockdown my caged bird will sing! I know why my caged bird sings!

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