notes

I’m sat here in the ultrasound waiting room with four other men, older than me but with a similar shaved head, bit of stubble, bit of a belly, not quite sportswear not quite casual, they're more in their 50’s, a couple with their wives or girlfriends. We've all got a similar posture steadied, looking casually into the distance, even if me and one guy are trying to look more casual with one leg crossed. I can feel the emotional energies and it's not all bad, it's musical, there is dissonance but flocks of sounds passing through each other, changing each other, I could feel it if I reached out. But here I am with these men and I dont want to wierd them out or make it all about me so I’m sitting normally, in a way that stops me being too sensitive to the situation.

I am a very sensitive person - but im aways aware of a yorkshire bloke insensitive outer, protecting, observing, suprised that I’m feeling these things so deeply.

• Dont get upset and definitely dont show that youre upset
• Dont feel too much sympathy for people
• Dont find beauty in other cultures and ways of doing things
• Dont find men beautiful

Ive internalised that un-feeling, partly from growing up a yorkshire lad, partly through getting on with it during and after cancer. Ive used that ability to put a thick skin on to deal with professional life working with teenagers and art orgs in liverpool, but to be honest I’ve never been very good at it. Ironic that in my determination to prove to my dad that I could make it as an artist I grew the thick skin that I think he’d always wanted me to have.

I was more aware of and accepting of my hyper sensitivity in my late teens, early 20's - I think I saw it as the key to my ability to be creative and make art, it could be painful and make life a struggle at times, but I was able to be more honest with myself and see it as part of the deal of who I was. Once I learned to put more of a front on and come across more confident, competent and balanced I thought I had transcended that nervousness, but I’m beginning to think that learning to do that has numbed my sensitivity or at least alienated myself from it.

Explaining something to leo in the car…The way I talk to try and speak to translate to that person, as if my voice is travelling out there, to where they are, pulling up like a diplomatic envoy to translate and convince them, not speaking from where I am and how I feel.

There is some kind of connection here, the relationship between my hypersensitive self and my thick skinned self and my speaking out there, for someone else not from how im feeling inside.