i died today

Image: Glen Van Etten
Sugar skulls and marigold flowers on:
The Day of the Dead, Mexico

Actually, I was meant to have died yesterday! Or the weekend. But, nonetheless, I was - apparently - dead.

I spent the weekend away with family, catching up with friends, writing and planning.

When I got off the plane at midday I received a call from an old work colleague who had heard that I had died: that I was dead. If I was dead, why were they phoning me? I wouldn't have been able to answer! But I wasn't dead, so, perhaps this was, actually, quite a good thing: to be calling...

We caught up, and laughed a lot at the rumour that had spread that I was dead. But I wasn't! How did this happen? Who first thought that I was dead and then said that I was dead.

I received another call later in the afternoon, from another colleague, wanting to talk to the dead. But there was no dead. I wasn't dead!

I had fantasies throughout the day about being on the front cover of the paper with a 'dead' headline; and then another headline the following day with a 'live' one; it could have resulted in a national / international story!

I am posting about it because the experience throughout the day was a very curious one: as a consequence, I spent most of the day outside my body; I couldn't be in it because I - it - was supposed to be dead / in-active. It all relates very directly to our outside / inside theatre piece we have been working on.

I had a great day, really: I wasn't dead any more...

I made a great peace in the day: and am very happy at having made that peace.

But it's not so much the being dead but the dying - the process of dying - that perhaps holds fear.

I am not dead.

This blog entry would take on profound significance were I to die - and be dead - in the next couple of days.

I am not dead.

But: a starting point for a new piece of theatre on body and dead: i died today...